How many A4 Union Flags will I get for Sue Morris?

Sue Morris, in case you hadn't heard, is the numpty junior mandarin who tapped out a nasty little memo complaining about Whitehall staff hanging bunting in their offices; not only had they printed it themselves on colour copiers, but they'd stood on their desks to hang it up. 

Sue is clearly in need of a recuperative transfer to the Berlaymont where she will be less out of place. In the meanwhile, can anyone guess how many A4 colour laser copies of a Union Flag can one get for Sue's annual employment cost?

Obama - nearly as dumb as Cameron

Cameron is not the only world leader with no knowledge whatsoever of history. Cameron famously claimed that the UK was the 'junior partner' to the US when we both fought the Nazis together in 1940, completely ignorant of the fact that the US was to remain at peace with the Nazis for a further two years from the dawn of 1940, when we stood alone against Hitler. 

And now Obama has outraged Poland with a reference to 'the Polish death camps'. The gaffe came in the citation for a US Medal of Freedom award to Jan Karski. President Komorowski immediately wrote to Obama, and received a written and grovelling response yesterday in which Obama says he should have referred to the Nazi death camps in German occupied Poland. 

The story plastered the front page of the Gazeta here and has left many Poles dismayed that the US leader should have been so ignorant of something that remains of great importance to the Poles.

Encouraging

The market stalls in the Plac Nowy groaned under the weight of fresh produce from the smallholdings around Krakow; the first delicious tender yellow beans, a few strawberries, fresh salads, firm red tomatoes and great heaps of early asparagus. All grown locally, all just harvested - a foodie's paradise. Not for those who like their veg flown halfway round the world, held in a refrigerated warehouse for a week and trimmed to consistent sizes and proportion, all traces of soil and mis-shapes weeded out in a sort of veggie Eugenics, but paradise for the taste buds. With this sort of fresh ingredient, the confident little restaurants that have sprung up all around this Boho little Kazimierz market can hardly go wrong, I thought, but I reckoned without the Polish character. 

Polish restaurant food is generally both homogenous and tedious. Three types of Zupy; beetroot, sour rye and goulash. Five main courses; Pierogi dumplings, roast pork knuckle, Kotlet, Schnitzel, baked Cod. But the interior designers and gutters have moved into this scruffy and fashionable area, and fashionably-named chic little places now overspill the pavements, complete with lithe leggy waitresses in simple little black dresses cut so short in the thigh that bending at the waist would be indecent, so they drop vertically in little Polish curtsies as they serve. They offer the promise of a new Polish cuisine with great confidence, but alas with limited success.

The finest new asparagus spears are best enjoyed steamed with butter alone, eaten in the fingers from a plate tilted on a fork to form a pool of molten butter for dipping. If you must adulterate your asparagus, or if it's past its best, a little parma ham, or a little parmesan cheese is about as far as I'd go. What arrived on my plate as the chef's asparagus dish was .... astonishing. He'd made a thick cheese sauce to which he'd added pine nuts and dill, covering a bed of bitter endive, on which the mushy over-boiled spears were laid like the dead. He then hid them beneath wispy shrouds of Parma ham. Not satisfied, he then covered the whole with shavings of parmesan and quartered strawberries. It looked as if he's barely been able to resist wrapping the lot in pierogi-paste and deep frying it. It was every cliche of Western cuisine of the 80s and 90s combined with a Polish inability to conceive of any dish without dill. 

Elsewhere when I'd been in the mood for sour and tart I thought I couldn't go wrong with picked herring. All they had to do was take it out of it's vinegar preserve and put it on a plate with a piece of lemon. Oh no. It arrived drowned in a puddle of olive oil and sprinkled with chopped dill. I wanted to say "you're trying too hard!", wanted to explain that I know they're trying hard to be sophisticated but they need to trust their taste buds, that less is more, that they'd got it right with the elegant simplicity of the LBDs (though they could let the hems down 4" without loss) and just needed to transfer that approach to the restaurant plate. 

Enjoying a beer with a young musician I mentioned how much I liked the Krakow International Airport rail interchange (pictured below), one of the few at which you can watch the antics of a flock of hens in an adjoining field whilst waiting for the city-centre shuttle. I really do like it; it's a thing of joy that makes my heart smile every time I see it. It does the job perfectly, just five minutes walk down a dirt track from the airport, with a little two-coach formation that shuttles the single track with great efficiency. She was unimpressed - she thought I was making fun of them. With EU money, she said, they'd make it 'modern' - I think she meant lots of glass, steel and greatly enhanced inconvenience - and (worrying, this) the chickens and the peasants would be removed. I really couldn't convince her that it was perfect as it was, that simple was good. I thought better of asking her if she liked to cook. 

Things I haven't got time to do ...

Europe is the only news story. We're entering a momentous period in which everything's to play for - our nation, our sovereignty, our freedom. If I could I would give every waking minute of every waking day to the fight, and if it comes to require it I will do. There is never a shortage of topics for blog posts, but research takes time to do justice to those of you I ask to read it. The next few days are particularly hectic, but here's what I'd blog if I had the time;

1. UK net payments to Commonwealth nations vs. UK payments to the EU. £1bn vs £15bn? Likely returns from developing Commonwealth markets vs returns from EU markets?

2. To list out (with notes) all the EU 'competencies' that either explicitly or effectively gives the EU legislative power over our people - every policy / legislative area they've already given away. And what's left?

3. Euro legislation on personal electronic signatures and compulsory ID

4. LOTR simile; the UK as old King Rohan, under the spell of Wormtongue (who looks remarkably like Cameron) ...

"Bashar needs to call Tony"

"It looks bad this morning, Nigel. Bashar's getting a bad press over the co-laterals, and apart from Putin he's lacking media-friendly support"

"We need to call Tony's people. It will cost Assad a few bob, but Blair's his only real hope now"

"Will he do it?"

"If the price is right. It cost whassisname in Kazakhstan about $13m to get Tony's team onside ..."

"Nazarbayev. And doesn't he boil people alive in butter? The cruellest despot north of the Equator? Liberals shot in the streets and dissidents tortured and mutilated in squalid prisons?"

"That's the fella. Charning chap, actually, and knows his claret; Tony and Alastair hosted him last week. Yes, Bashar needs to call Tony, get Tim Allen on board from Portland. Tony can get Adonis and Purnell to visit Damascus for some 'fact finding' to add a bit of parliamentary weight and Campbell and Peter M can do the media round"

"OK. Let's get Tony and Cherry's whack sorted then. Shall we say $20m for starters?" 

Commission vs State: the Empty Chair Crisis

I'm pleased I'm not alone in looking backwards - in this mini 'history corner' series - to try to understand the tectonic shifts now taking place in Europe. Bruce Anderson in the Telegraph today refers to 'a French jockey on a German horse' as previously described but more importantly describes a development from the 1960s, the subject of today's post. I'm also duly grateful for Dr Richard North's useful footnotes in the comments - and his forbearance - for whilst I'm plodding through these illustrative nuggets, Richard got to the conclusion many years ago. So far I've described the interactions between nation-states, France and Germany, in terms of 'France wanted ...' or 'Germany thought ...' and for these early years I think this is legitimate enough, to the extent that any broad national political consensus reflects the popular will. But from the 1960s something else was happening, as Anderson describes;

Throughout the continent, a cadre of Euro-intellectuals had come into being. For them, Europe was not about pragmatism and prosperity. It was a new religion. These people were not interested in learning from history. They wanted to re-make history. Like the French revolutionaries and the Marxists before them, they intended to transform human nature in order to reshape the human condition. Thus tragedy was incubated.¹

This new breed of federalists believed in a Europe of weak nation states and strong supranational institutions. The 1960s brought them smack into conflict with De Gaulle, whose 11 year Presidency from 1959 has now assumed consensus admiration today from both left and right in France, as Mrs Thatcher's in the UK is now doing. De Gaulle had a mystical belief in a France not as she was constituted in 1960 but as an entity 2000 years old and pivotal to both European and world development. As Warlouzet comments;

This deep conviction triggered a European policy based on the promotion of the nation-state. The strengthening of the cooperation between Europeans should be based on an intergovernmental approach and every federalist ambition would have to be thwarted. Although de Gaulle never expressed this clearly, it is obvious that in order to satisfy his goal of French grandeur, the European organisations should be under French leadership. This purpose was expressed clearly in his willingness to free Europe from any American influence.

And also, of course, to keep Britain away. 

De Gaulle's efforts at securing political integration in Europe started in 1960 with 'A note on the subject of the Organisation of Europe', a 9-point plan that sidelined the US, NATO and Britain, and promoted an intergovernmental Europe with nearly all the power remaining with member states and not with supranational institutions. This was in direct conflict with the aims of the Federalists, and the crisis simmered away before it came to a head in the Summer of 1965. The Federalists proposed combining the CAP, the Commission and the European Parliament in a massively powerful triumverate. De Gaulle reacted by walking out of the Council. France's empty chairs were to remain until January 1966.

The resulting Luxembourg Compromise that brought France back to the Council table was not a resolution of the schism but an agreement to disagree. It governed Europe's development through the 60s and 70s, and during this period bureaucracy thrived and decision making slowed to the pace of cold treacle. The Federalists, Anderson's new Euro Zealots, in the meanwhile grew, multiplied and inculcated themselves like cockroaches into every cranny of public life, dominating the political class. I'll leave the final word to the man who, though a prickly little haemorrhoid to the British, was the greatest threat the Federalists faced;

Now, we know - heaven knows that we know! - that there was a different concept of a European federation in which, according to the dreams of those who conceived it, the countries would lose their national personalities, and in which, furthermore, for want of a federator - such as, in the West, Caesar and his successors, Charlemagne, Otto I, Charles V, Napoleon and Hitler tried to be, each in his fashion, and such as in the East, Stalin tried to be - would be ruled by technocratic, a stateless and irresponsible Areopagus. We know also that France is opposing this project, which contradicts all reality, with a plan for organized co-operation among the States, evolving, doubtlessly, toward a confederation.

 (De Gaulle 1965, quoted in Warlouzet)

The denouement would come in the 1980s.

^{1 Elsewhere Anderson's absurd suggestion on ConservativeHome that Britain is no longer threatened by the Federalists is shredded - notably in the comments. EUReferendum also trashes his belief that the Conservative Party was immune from the Federast infection; indeed, many of us believe the very Zealots that Anderson accurately describes are actually running the Tory party, and have been since the 1970s.} 

Will the Kermits be left at the altar again?

In 1956 French Prime Minister Guy Mollet met with his British counterpart Anthony Eden, with Norman Brooke note-taking. The French proposal was astonishing; full union between France and Britain, with Elizabeth II as Head of State. Alternatively, Mollet asked, could France become a Commonwealth member, with joint citizenship rights on the Irish-UK model?

The Quai d'Orsay moved rapidly to deny the existence of its own records when the marriage proposal became public in 2007. No suitor with France's hubris likes to be known to have been spurned. After Eden's rejection, France turned its love-interest elsewhere - across her Eastern border - and the Treaty of Rome was born.

After living together for fifty years, France is once again looking for a ring on her finger. She's not as young as she was, and the liabilities and fears of old age are upon her. She wants a trip to the altar whilst she's still got some style and chic, before her looks go completely. The problem is her partner; while she's grown old, he's matured into a stable and powerful prospect, wealthy, outgrowing his borders and entranced by younger, fresher nations to the East; a lithe-limbed Poland in micro-skirt and heels, the cute cheeky-girl Balt twins, the sultry Balkans girls. None with the class and style of his partner, of course, but maybe more fun, though he'd have to watch his wallet. Now Steven Erlanger of the NYT, writing last year, speculated that France may be left at the altar a second time;

FRANCE AND GERMANY, with their shared bloody past, are unlikely allies, and they have radically different notions of how Europe should work. France wants a state-dominated, centralized, bureaucratic Europe in its own image. France also maintains a Mediterranean attitude toward budget deficits, having last balanced a budget 35 years ago. Germany, a federal state with powerful regions, coalition governments and an influential constitutional court, wants a Europe of laws, discipline and fiscal probity, with a strong currency and real penalties for the spendthrift

Long the financier of the European Union, Germany has made it clear that it will no longer pay for the mistakes and frauds of others. While Germany has always acted in its own interests, the Kohl generation interpreted those interests as being embedded in institutions like NATO and the European Union, which protected the new democratic Germany and kept its ambitions in check. But Germany, reunited, sees NATO as less necessary, even hollow. It needs the European Union less. And it is turning more toward the east — the old Soviet bloc and Russia — for energy and markets.

As the euro crisis grinds on and the German economy continues to outpace the others, Sarkozy is paying more attention to the German model and giving in more to German demands. He is extremely anxious, aides say, that France is losing its prominence in the new Europe, slipping behind Germany to second-class status. Inside the French cabinet, Germany’s economic model, labor relations and capacity for technical innovation are prominent topics, with German standards — and the fear of losing Paris’s AAA bond rating — driving French reforms and budget cuts.

The cliché used to be that nothing happened in the European Union without French and German agreement. Today France and Germany are regarded as necessary but no longer sufficient. Sarkozy fears, with some justification in a bigger European Union of 27 nations and a euro zone of 17, that French agreement may soon not be needed at all. The new E.U. members to the east are more German in their aspirations than French. The Czechs and Slovaks, as well as the Balts, are all fiscally conservative. Even Poland, which has such an emotional tie to France, sees its economic future with Germany.

“The Germans have discovered that they are the only serious global economy in Europe, capable of competing with the United States and China,” says John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany. “But they’re afraid their world is coming apart around them, and what they thought would support them, the European Union, is dragging them down. They realized that the stability pact isn’t working, that the Greeks were lying and maybe others, too, that their banks and French banks were deep in the muck, and they understood this is going to cost a lot of money. So they are behaving in a very demanding way, which smells to some like nationalism. But it really is fear.”

With Germany ascendant and looking both inward and eastward, Britain staying out of the euro zone and France carrying less weight, the question of German leadership is now at the fore. Germany has traditionally avoided trying to lead Europe from the front; memories from World War II, though faded, have not yet gone away in the rest of the continent. Even now, anti-German feeling is rising among Greeks, Portuguese and Spaniards, who feel abandoned, even betrayed, by Berlin.

Sun and Moon

Like Simon Jenkins in the Guardian today, I am utterly confused by the direction of UK energy policy; wind is risible nonsense, so fatuous an answer as a credible energy source that the only rational explanation for those that support it is bribery and corruption on a widespread scale. Tree-hugging lunatics distort the science, powerful industry lobbies such as that for the hugely ineffective Solar PV distort the subsidies. And Westminster and Whitehall just spin about in dizzy confusion not knowing what day of the week it is. Anyhow, here's my take on the options for the UK (experts please pile in ...):

Nuclear - the risk is worth the gain. Serial construction of a standard design would lower costs and there are plenty of places in the world to dump the waste (Mariana Trench looks good to me)

Gas - Methane from the ground is good and there seems to be lots of it, even in the UK

Coal - Coal's greatest potential is through pyrolysis to make Hydrogen and Methane in quantity, and we've got huge reserves

Then the best of the renewables

Solar - through the heating effect of the Sun of the Earth's surface. A couple of metres down in the UK the temp is a constant 14deg - masses of heat that can be extracted via GSHP. I've done this on a commercial scale - it works very well. Solar Thermal and Solar PV are no good - too variable, yields too low and costs too high.

Lunar - The power of the tides is immense, and a diurnal range of up to 7m in the SE as billions of tonnes of  water pushes up the Western Approaches twice a day means it's not just the Severn that could provide feasible installations. Good for the UK, France, Ireland etc but no good for inland States.

Then the worst

Biomass - there's simply not enough of it, but burning wood is good for the environment. 

Wind - a risible and nonsensical solution that suggests massive corruption somewhere - follow the money

Biofuels - Corn to Ethanol is a stupid idea unless you intend to drink it. Bacteria that convert household wastes to diesel have some promise, but too small scale to have an impact

Fairy-power, ley-lines, henges - I suppose sixty dancing fairies doing the Rumba can provide enough power for an average new-age Yurt but the trouble is keeping the little buggers at it. Etc.