Magdalen goes Harry Potter

+++ Apologies for the lack of blogging this month: there are busy times, there are less busy times, and I’ve had the former for the last few weeks +++

Yes, that’s right, my Oxford college’s JCR has finished off the 2009 committee session with a set of light-hearted motions in the final General Meeting of the term, faithfully minuted by me in my function as outgoing JCR Secretary, one of which involved the renaming of the JCR to ‘Gryffindor’ from the Harry Potter books and films, as well as the equivalent renaming of Christchurch College to ‘Slytherin’, Merton to ‘Ravenclaw’ and St Hugh’s to ‘Hufflepuff’.

The Cherwell (Oxford’s independent student newspaper) broke the news first, followed by the Telegraph and now the BBC. It really is going national! I wonder how long it is until (a) it gets brought up in PMQs or (b) someone from Warner Brothers complains that we’re in breach of copyright…

Just to clarify: the motion is only, and can only ever have been, a bit of humour to lighten up the end of a JCR session in which a lot of serious and unwieldy constitutional reforms were pushed through. To actually rename the JCR we would have to rename Magdalen College itself – and the fellows almost certainly wouldn’t allow that, however amusing it would be. The copyright issues would only be the first of a whole host of obstacles that would prevent this gentle whimsy from becoming legal, binding reality.

Grumpiness is good

Apparently, being a grumpy git could help you make better long-term decisions where you, your life, your friends and whatever else you might care about are concerned – so at least claims Prof Joe Forgas, a researcher from the University of New South Wales. Seemingly, a “mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style”. Grumpiness for the win!

1902 slaps

Though the site has now been taken down, slapnickgriffin.co.uk, as featured on Guido Fawkes, provided an amazing amount of procrastination potential yesterday. I myself managed a modest 1902 slaps, one for each of the Polish servicemen killed fighting for the UK in WW2 – who under BNP specifications would have been roundly expelled from the UK and left to the mercy of continental fascism… It would appear that 22 million slaps’ worth of people agreed with me…

Charity vs masochism

I’m all in favour of altruistic acts of charitable donation, but it appears that some wealthy Germans have gone a step further and requested that the German government impose a 5pc wealth tax on them for two years in order to raise revenue to bring the country out of recession. I am pretty much at a loss to understand why these individuals, if they have oodles of money lying around that they have no need for, do not raise their charitable giving to social or religious foundations (of which Germany has a fair few), but instead assume that the government has a better idea than they themelves do of where the money should be spent.

To be fair, the idea smacks slightly of a publicity stunt, or at best a symbolic vote of confidence in the new centre-right coalition government – but even so, I am incredulous at how readily these wealthy Germans are prepared to give up elements of their economic liberty. That they expect the revenue raised by the notional 5pc tax to pay for anything other than politicians’ expenses and bureaucratic salaries is frankly laughable. And in economic terms, they have some seriously weird preferences if a smaller endowment is on a superior indifference curve to a larger one… but then, this is presumably the sort of case that the phrase ‘more money than sense’ was invented for…

A spot of libertarianism

Devil’s Kitchen has just concocted a post, referencing others posted by his other half Bella Gerens, and by the left-libertarian Unity, which altogether pretty much sum up what I like about libertarianism. The realisation that the only sphere over which anyone has, or should have, influence is the self; the belief that everyone has the same basic rights unless they forfeit them by attempting to transgress beyond their legitimate sphere of influence; and the acceptance that needs, desires and wants (broadly speaking, conceptions of the good) are unique to each individual and should be left to individuals to realise through own effort and negotiation, with the implication that there is no such thing as objective societal good, merely a whole lot of individual views that may or may not agree with each other.

All in all, very entertaining reading.

In focus: the power of social media

You will probably have become aware of the recent incident on the Tube at Holborn station, where a London Underground worker wholly overreacted to a customer’s complaint at having gotten his arm trapped in a closing train door. The entrepreneur and blogger Jonathan Macdonald, who managed to catch the latter part of the exchange on his cameraphone, was instantly catapulted to social media fame in the wake of the MSM’s latching onto his story, and has posted a very thoughtful follow-up piece about whether social media is altering the balance (arguably a democratic deficit) between journalists and ordinary people in terms of making, reporting and interpreting the news.

Leaving aside the rampaging elephant in the room – namely the fact that TfL find it logically consistent and somehow justified to ratchet up fare prices at the same time as tolerating behaviour as foul as that of this employee – the speed with which the story went from anecdotal afternoon incident to all over the evening news shows just how ferociously fast information travels nowadays. As Mr Macdonald points out, the multiple prongs of Facebook, Twitter and direct contact with the MSM meant that researchers were scouring Google and the blogosphere within less than an hour of the blogpost going up – perhaps most pleasingly, this means that the MSM themselves have realised that it is not Reuters or Bloomberg who produce news, nor even the pretty pictures to go with it, but usually ordinary people operating entirely on their own.

So in celebration of the growing democratisation and, I suppose, privatisation (as opposed to corporatisation) of current affairs, here’s the YouTube video of the incident for you to savour:

Statwatch #25

I am no longer ill with swine flu. So I thought I’d celebrate by doing a Statwatch. Commodities have had a clean sweep of doing well, as have equities, with the Dow briefly nipping above 10000 points during the last week. The recovery in the interbank lending rates has been supported by some surges in IRS rates, while euro has sustained its strength of recent weeks, reaching 94p against sterling on Monday after news of Gordon Brown’s plans to sell off £16bn of government assets in a bid to pay off the considerable budget deficit, before dropping back to 91p by the end of the week. All in all an exciting week…

Markets summary:

£/€ XR: 0.9108 (-0.0033 from last fortnight)

$/£ XR: 1.6355 (+0.0359)

€/$ XR: 0.6709 (-0.0130)

FTSE 100: 5190.24 (+196.86)

Dax: 5743.39 (+271.05)

Nikkei 225: 10257.56 (+583.07)

Dow Jones: 9995.91 (+508.24)

S&P 500: 1087.68 (+62.47)

SONIA: 0.45pc (+0.01)

EONIA: 0.34pc (0.00)

Fed Funds: 0.13pc (+0.02)

£ Libor 3m: 0.57250pc (+0.03125)

€ Euribor 3m: 0.74pc (-0.01)

US$ Libor 3m: 0.28406pc (0.00000)

Interest-rate swaps:

€ 2yr: 1.84pc (+0.15)

€ 5yr: 2.79pc (+0.11)

€ 10yr: 3.53pc (+0.09)

£ 2yr: 1.87pc (+0.09)

£ 5yr: 3.25pc (+0.08)

£ 10yr: 3.92pc (+0.11)

$ 2yr: 1.32pc (+0.08)

$ 5yr: 2.73pc (+0.17)

$ 10yr: 3.61pc (+0.24)

Commodities:

Brent crude oil: $77.14 (+$9.39)

Heating oil: $2.03 (+$0.25)

Natural gas: $4.79 (+$0.11)

Ethanol: $1.79 (+$0.04)

Gold: $1054.00 (+$47.00)

Silver: 1749 (+116)

Copper: 283.80 (+13.80)

Platinum: $1354.00 (+$66.00)

Palladium: $332.90 (+$32.15)

Cocoa: £2119.00 (+£134.00)

Coffee (Robusta): $1460.00 (+$68.00)

Coffee (Arabica): $142.85 (+$11.45)

Corn: 372.00 (+38.50)

No Statwatch this week

Because I unfortunately seem to have acquired piggy flu. Normal service will resume when I’ve nursed myself back to health.

Are the MSM caving in?

Well well! An article on the BBC that doesn’t wibble on about how we’re all going to die of nonexistent anthropogenic global warming. Turns out that solar energy may be responsible for everything in the atmosphere after all. But then the people who actually research the data behind the AGW scare rather than just parroting it or (worse) using it as bases for their own models knew that all along. Maybe the BBC are getting scared that the population will want the license fee cut if they keep up the eco-propaganda? Who knows…

In focus: the Eigenharp

In lieu of proper political blogging, since I have university exams crowding out my life till tomorrow afternoon, here is an article I found in what should be called the ‘Weird and Wonderful‘ section of the BBC website: it concerns a recently-invented instrument, the Eigenharp, which looks like a cross between a space-age guitar-synthesiser and a bassoon. Basically it can turn any relatively competent musician into a one-man orchestra. Kitschy? Perhaps, but I think not after seeing how sophisticatedly it works. Will it replace conventional instruments? At £4000 a pop I suspect not, particularly as it is still only a cool-looking digital instrument with only imitation timbres. Will someone write a concerto for Eigenharp, recorded by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle, which will be played at a Proms concert between Martinu’s 3rd symphony and Nancarrow’s Contraption #1 for computer-driven player-piano? Almost certainly.

In any case, here’s a video demonstrating the uses of the Eigenharp:

more about “BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Do you dru…“, posted with vodpod

Statwatch #24

MASSIVE NEWS: 3-month Euribor and dollar Libor ROSE this week after over 3 months of consecutive week-on-week falls, possibly indicating that banks are starting to take to heart warnings by governmental bodies that not enough credit is being made available, probably as a result of the gradual return of aggressive bargaining to the markets for the first time since 2007. IRS yield curves flattened slightly, as downbeat economic figures depressed long-term growth prospects, and a mix of worse-than-expected reports all over the world dragged down indices, with FTSE and Nikkei dipping below 5000 and 10000 respectively for the first time in weeks. Gold and crude tracked a mixed week for commodities, with the milestone of $70/barrel slightly out of reach, though gold reasserted itself above $1000.

Markets summary:

£/€ XR: 0.9141 (-0.0061 from last week)

$/£ XR: 1.5996 (+0.0057)

€/$ XR: 0.6839 (+0.0032)

FTSE 100: 4993.38 (-88.82)

Dax: 5472.34 (-109.07)

Nikkei 225: 9674.49 (-591.49)

Dow Jones: 9487.67 (-177.52)

S&P 500: 1025.21 (-19.17)

SONIA: 0.44pc (+0.01)

EONIA: 0.34pc (-0.01)

Fed Funds: 0.11pc (-0.03)

£ Libor 3m: 0.54125pc (-0.01000)

€ Euribor 3m: 0.75pc (+0.01)

US$ Libor 3m: 0.28406pc (+0.00156)

Interest-rate swaps:

€ 2yr: 1.69pc (+0.03)

€ 5yr: 2.68pc (-0.07)

€ 10yr: 3.44pc (-0.09)

£ 2yr: 1.78pc (-0.06)

£ 5yr: 3.17pc (-0.17)

£ 10yr: 3.81pc (-0.18)

$ 2yr: 1.24pc (0.00)

$ 5yr: 2.56pc (-0.14)

$ 10yr: 3.37pc (-0.20)

Commodities:

Brent crude oil: $67.75 (+$2.60)

Heating oil: $1.78 (+$0.07)

Natural gas: $4.68 (+$0.72)

Ethanol: $1.75 (+$0.12)

Gold: $1007.00 (+$15.40)

Silver: 1634 (+27)

Copper: 270.00 (-3.45)

Platinum: $1288.00 (-$6.00)

Palladium: $300.75 (+$3.35)

Cocoa: £1985.00 (-£50.00)

Coffee (Robusta): $1392.00 (-$8.00)

Coffee (Arabica): $131.40 (+$3.70)

Corn: 333.50 (-0.50)

The Berlin-Paris Axis

It seems that Chancellor Merkel is moving fast after being given a definite right-wing mandate last Sunday. Details have emerged that she and President Sarkozy are planning a whole smorgasbord of Franco-German joint institutions, schemes and policies designed to kick-start the stalling ‘European project’. Whatever the result of the Irish vote yesterday, it looks like the French and Germans are going to grab the ideal of European Unification by the scruff of the neck – they are prepared to go it alone, even if (or perhaps specifically because) it means leaving other ‘major’ EU players like Spain, Poland, the UK and Italy to fall by the wayside.

This is certainly a way of reasserting the geopolitical dominance of the ‘original and best’ EU member states – not without reason are the EUcentric hubs of Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Frankfurt on/near the new axis. Spain is, as a French diplomat (in name if not in demeanour) points out in the article, still wallowing in recession, the UK is doing its level best to put the brakes on every aspect of EU homogenisation (at the same time as demanding the Presidency for Tony Blair), Poland is still hugely economically underdeveloped, and Italy is currently being shaken by Berlusconi scandal after political impasse after natural disaster after Mafia gang war.

Essentially what Sarkozy and Merkel are doing is pressuring the other countries to make their minds up whether they want in or out where the EU is concerned. Not just the Irish, the UK, the Poles and the Czechs – all European citizens. Half-hearted membership (i.e. raking in EU subsidies then flicking the V at Brussels along Irish lines) is no longer an option, according to this new narrative. ‘If you don’t like it, you can leave’, &c &c. Presumably what this should entail is some greater level of differentiation between the EEA (which some countries, like the UK, would dearly love to join instead of the EU) and the EU itself other than just the single currency, ECB and nominal supranational authority in Brussels. An interesting experiment, certainly, but I’m not sure quite how radical any of these proposals will end up actually being in practice…

A word of advice

From Ben Macintyre at the Times, rather than from me. It concerns the recent trend (imported from the USA) of celebritising not merely elected politicians, but also their partners and spouses. Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and now Sarah Brown, whose ‘heartfelt’ introduction of the Prime Minister oozed more cheese and schmaltz than the whole West End put together. For the second Labour conference running. The recent episode with Andrew Marr and the anti-depressants that the Prime Minister may or may not be taking brought up the whole issue of privacy in politics, and MPs (unsurprisingly) have been falling over each other in demanding that they, too, be granted a sphere of privacy into which no-one should be allowed to pry.

But on the other hand, if politicians then choose to display themselves, their families and their private lives to the media and public with the same sense of decorum as Hello! magazine, then this starts blurring the line of privacy, and only encourages those outside the Westminster Village to pose increasingly close-to-the-mark questions of those inside it. Moreover, politicians’ demands for privacy ring ever more hollow with the slow expansion of centralised state involvement in citizens’ lives – ever stronger legal powers for the security services that gradually eat away at habeas corpus, the still-looming spectre of ID cards, and the highest number of CCTV cameras in the developed world. In other words, politicians are going to have to make their minds up – either they, like the rest of us, are permitted a private sphere which is each citizen’s castle, or they, like us, have to accept that modern society demands greater insight into their lives than they feel comfortable with.

Liberal lateral thinking

In view of the FDP’s success in the recent German elections, I thought it might be worth flagging up some articles that have appeared in the UK liberal corner of late – one on the Times from Rachel Sylvester, and one on Liberal Vision. The gist of them is that the Lib Dems in the UK drastically need to rethink their approach to UK electoral strategy – specifically that, in order to have a meaningful political party, Lib Dems must be prepared to consider more than just ideological alliance on individual issues with one or other of the main two parties. As Ms Sylvester says, the ‘c-word’ that Nick Clegg must start thinking about is not ‘cuts’ or even ‘charisma’, but ‘coalition’. In view of Mr Clegg’s recent comments, which implied that Lib Dem aggression will be aimed at the Conservatives more than Labour, the ‘obvious’ route would be a Lib-Lab pact along the lines of the one supposedly discussed by Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair pre-1997.

But in the current political climate, would the Lib Dems really be prepared to prop up a moribund Labour government in the case of a hung parliament? Doing so would not only betray all the voters who had switched to yellow through disappointment with red and aversion to blue, but also associate the Lib Dems with more of the sort of wasteful un-joined-up policy short-termism that Labour has embodied since 2007, if not since well before that. The alternative is obviously an alliance with the Tories – but Mr Clegg’s constant attempts to differentiate himself and his party from Mr Cameron and his Conservatives (despite an increasingly similar social-democratic flavour to their respective agendas) seems to rule that out as well.

In other words, the Lib Dems are resolute in wanting to stand alone as a third party, preferring the independence that opposition to the main parties gives them to the slight policy enslavement that could result from adopting a ‘kingmaker’ coalition partner status. Perhaps this is a valid choice as things stand, since the prospects of a major political upheaval at the next election are very real. But if Labour fail to disintegrate as much as the polls currently suggest they will, and the Lib Dems remain the third party, their frontbench leadership should bear in mind the following exchange when Herr Westerwelle visited them in 2006:

[A] LibDem frontbencher ask[ed] Westerwelle whether he wanted the Free Democrats to remain in opposition to the grand coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, or whether he sought to return to government. The German liberal leader was pretty incredulous. With a friendly frown he said that he wanted to return to government as soon as possible, what was the point of being in permanent opposition? A heavily pregnant pause followed.

Quite.

McAmerica

Amusing piece on Comment Central – a gentleman named Stephen Von Worley has plotted the location of each of the 13 000 McDonald’s restaurants in the USA. Apparently the McSparsest area is a gruelling 145-mile distance between burger joints in South Dakota. Might be interesting to see a similar map for other countries in the world – I’m prepared to bet Europe doesn’t come out of too health-consciously either…

Sprechen Sie Deutsch, bitte

Brief piece on Tiscali (of all places) about soon-to-be German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. Apparently a BBC reporter tried to ask him a question in English – only to be told that, since the news conference was in German, he should pose his question in German. A very valid case of ‘when in Rome’, methinks…

The price of intervention

Apparently the Pakistani authorities have unearthed a militant-controlled village in Waziristan containing a high number of European citizens (mostly German and Swedish), either of North African origins or Muslim converts, who have travelled to the Middle East to learn how to become jihadis. It is perhaps less worrying that there exist European Muslims sufficiently desperate to want to become religious insurgents, than that several areas across the continent have already become unambiguous ‘recruiting grounds’ to make the incidence of such individuals so much more likely.

The article mentions places in Germany specifically that perform such a function, but I am sure there are other countries (UK, France, Italy…) with similar problems. How very grim that a whole pile of Europeans and Middle Easterners killing each other in the Middle East threatens to make the same happen in Europe as well unless the security services stay on their toes. As if we didn’t already have enough on our plates already, what with trying to escape the economic crisis and protecting the cause of free enterprise against state encroachment in the name of ecology and national security… Citizens’ respect for each others’ individual liberty really is heading for an all-time low…

Frau Merkel, ich gratuliere

So that’s settled then. After eleven long painful left-wing years, Germany is finally back under the control of the “lucky” centre-right CDU/CSU-FDP coalition. Chancellor Merkel promised in 2005 that she would radically reform the size and nature of the German state, echoing hopes across Europe that ‘Germany needs a Thatcher’, but up till now she has had her wings clipped by a weak Grand Coalition with her stubborn centre-left rivals, the SPD. Since 2005, however, Merkel has laid the foundations for just such a result as materialised yesterday evening – slowly but steadily, she has taken over the social-democratic centre-ground from the increasingly directionless SPD, leaving the FDP to hoover up voters at the more free-market small-state libertarian end of the spectrum. In many ways, the FDP’s major success (increasing its vote-share by half) has been the making of the new coalition, since the CDU (and especially its Bavarian sister-party the CSU) posted some of its worse results since 1949.

Germany’s voters on the whole have widely been considered to have moved slightly leftwards over the past four years, due in part to indignation at  the spread of ‘casino capitalism’ from the UK and USA to continental Europe. But the SPD was not a beneficiary, losing a third of its 2005 vote-share to 23.0pc, a full 8pc lower than the previous low of 31.0pc in 1953. Instead, it was the Greens and the Left that benefited, pushing their national vote-share into double-figures, though the Greens’ anti-nuclear message and the Left’s punitive anti-business strategy mitigated the anti-Afghanistan-War position that strengthened their appeal to voters. More comfortingly, perhaps, the fascist fringe parties – NPD, DVU and (disarmingly misnomered) Republikaner – lost ground since their high-point in 2004-5, dropping out of the Brandenburg Landtag and losing a third of their seats on the Saxon Landtag as well.

The results were a model of speed, efficiency and precision – the first exit polls and television predictions, renowned for their enviably minute margin of error (+/-0.25pc), came out at 18:00′01″ once the polls closed – and within the next two hours, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Chancellor-candidate for the SPD) had conceded defeat. Now the only question remaining is which cabinet posts Merkel will give to her new coalition partners. The FDP’s leader Guido Westerwelle is set to be made Foreign Minister (apparently leaving many foreign journalists and diplomats entirely non-plussed as to who he even is), but on the whole I expect Merkel to give some fairly tasty political portfolios to the party that essentially gave her the outcome she was hoping for.

Statwatch #23

The markets took an all-round downturn over the last week, largely due to caution in the financial markets regarding the interventionist plans of world leaders announced at the G20 conference in Pittsburgh. Disappointing news on the UK and US housing markets, a slight exodus from banking stocks and downbeat results from major companies like Research In Motion (makers of BlackBerry) dragged down the indeces, as equities as a whole took a breather from the sustained rises they have seen in recent weeks. Gold dipped below $1000 again, and crude fell significantly after worries about Iranian nuclear belligerence, tracking a weak overall commodities market, while lending rates continued their decline and IRS rates wiped out last week’s rises, though yield curves are continuing to steepen. Most worrying news for the UK, however, is that euro is continuing its strong push past 90p to reach 5-months highs (and rising) against sterling.

Markets summary:

£/€ XR: 0.9202 (+0.0140 from last week)

$/£ XR: 1.5939 (-0.0314)

€/$ XR: 0.6807 (+0.0010)

FTSE 100: 5082.20 (-90.69)

Dax: 5581.41 (-122.42)

Nikkei 225: 10265.98 (-104.56)

Dow Jones: 9665.19 (-155.01)

S&P 500: 1044.38 (-23.92)

SONIA: 0.43pc (0.01)

EONIA: 0.35pc (-0.01)

Fed Funds: 0.14pc (-0.02)

£ Libor 3m: 0.55125pc (-0.03000)

€ Euribor 3m: 0.74pc (-0.02)

US$ Libor 3m: 0.28250pc (-0.00688)

Interest-rate swaps:

€ 2yr: 1.66pc (-0.08)

€ 5yr: 2.75pc (-0.06)

€ 10yr: 3.53pc (-0.04)

£ 2yr: 1.84pc (-0.05)

£ 5yr: 3.34pc (-0.01)

£ 10yr: 3.99pc (-0.01)

$ 2yr: 1.24pc (-0.10)

$ 5yr: 2.70pc (-0.09)

$ 10yr: 3.57pc (-0.07)

Commodities:

Brent crude oil: $65.15 (-$5.95)

Heating oil: $1.71 (-$0.11)

Natural gas: $3.96 (+$0.22)

Ethanol: $1.63 (+$0.01)

Gold: $991.60 (-$18.40)

Silver: 1607 (-100)

Aluminium: $0.8325 (-$0.0350)

Copper: 273.45 (-3.65)

Platinum: $1294.00 (-$55.00)

Palladium: $297.40 (-$8.05)

Cocoa: £2035.00 (+£17.00)

Coffee (Robusta): $1400.00 (-$113.00)

Coffee (Arabica): $127.70 (-$8.35)

Corn: 334.00 (+16.00)

Merkel for the win

Today the German population goes to the polls in something of a landmark election, fought partly on the subject of regulation of the financial sector. There are many reasons why Angela Merkel is by far the best leader Germany could wish for right now, and why Europe would do well to look to her transformation of her party, the centre-right CDU, as a model of consensus politics for the modern age. This article by the Globe and Mail (while unfortunately-titled) pretty much nails it. France and Germany have shown that it is entirely possible to survive a recession without Anglo-Saxon knee-jerk public spending splurges, and in this Sarkozy has undoubtedly taken his lead from Merkel.  The future of Europe does not lie with a technocratic Brussels elite but in federal devolution to competitive liberal regimes in EEC member states – and federalism, devolution, competition and liberalism are second nature to Merkel more than they have been to any German leader since Adenauer. If the CDU-FDP coalition wins today, Europe wins with it.