Archive for the ‘ World Politics ’ Category

A society of elite control

Finally, it’s the build-up to election time – the calm before the storm, the Moment of Truth before the Day of Judgment, where not even the best-spun party policy can be hidden from the eagle-eyes of the voting public. And despite hugely conflicting analyses of what turnout will look like in this ‘milestone’ election, I [ READ MORE ]

The wasteland of modern society

It’s not often that I see two news stories in succession that make me want to tear out my hair, but today was just one such rare occasion: Story #1: Mylene Klass was cautioned by police following an incident at her home in which some youths tried to break into her house until she scared [ READ MORE ]

Too much tax?

Well at least count yourself lucky that you’re not French. The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy are apparently mulling a ‘Google tax’, according to an article in the Telegraph (and here on the BBC too). Yes, that’s right, a tax that is levied on Google “every time a French internet user clicks on an advertising [ READ MORE ]

The race to succeed Berlusconi

The Telegraph has an interesting opinion piece on what I will call the imminent ‘succession crisis’ on the right of Italian politics. Up until the point at which Silvio Berlusconi was hit in the face with a replica of the Duomo in Milan on 13.xii., I would have predicted the slow and unpleasant demise of [ READ MORE ]

Noël, Noël…

Where I come from, Christmas is traditionally celebrated on 24.xii., Christmas Eve, rather than 25.xii., Christmas Day – and not really with the sort of gigantic meal that’s traditional here in the UK. While I’m personally rather partial to turkey, spuds, chipolatas and especially cranberry sauce, there’s a lot to be said for the continental [ READ MORE ]

Doesn’t work like that…

Courtesy of James Delingpole, it appears that the next battle in the war between those who lend credence to the climate change hypothesis and those who do not has just begun. The Russians have produced a paper (linked document is in Russian, for those of a pan-European persuasion) that essentially quantifies the way in which [ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

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&#[ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

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 [ READ MORE ]

Good on Obama

Much has been made of late of the motivation of the growing and eclectic number of critics of US President Obama’s high-spending policies – Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouting “you lie”, the old lady holding the “lyin’ African” poster – to the extent where criticism of the Obama administration has blurred into [ READ MORE ]

Glasshouses and stones

Brief post for the moment: an article in the Times about the merits and demerits of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. I can’t entirely decide where exactly the tone is on the scale running between scathing and fawning – Melanie McDonagh appears to think Dr Merkel is simultaneously dull, competent, accomplished, uncharismatic, pragmatic and unemotional. Brilliant [ READ MORE ]

At the crossroads

Every time I sit down to watch the news these days I get an ever stronger impression that we’re about to hit a crossroads in terms of the direction the UK can go, politically and (by implication) economically. Just today we have the news that Japan, the ‘sick man of the world’ of the last [ READ MORE ]

RIP Walter Cronkite

The sad news this morning is that the ‘most trusted man in America’, who reported the news of Kennedy’s assassination and the Apollo moon landings, and whose candid criticism of the Vietnam War led President Lyndon Johnson to decide not to seek re-election, has died at his New York home at the age of 92. [ READ MORE ]

Top posts for June

By way of something to keep my readership satisfied, here are my half-dozen personal favourite stories out of all the ones I covered in the last month: He’s still here (the political reappearance of Arthur Scargill) How to deal with the BNP (in the wake of the radio interview between Simon Darby and Iain Dale) Electoral reform [ READ MORE ]

The Conservatives’ new best friends

The Conservatives appear to have completed the switch from the EPP-ED faction within the European Parliament, and created a new bloc called the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, with a total of 55 MEPs from 8 member states (26 of them the Conservative MEPs elected in the UK earlier on this month). Much has been [ READ MORE ]

Goodbye cruel world?

Oh well done Iran – you’ve just reelected one of the most dangerous men in the Middle East and given him another 4 years in which to try and bring the region to the cusp of all-out war. 62.6pc of the vote, with or without electoral fraud, is just obscene for a man who has [ READ MORE ]

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