We Brits are not confining ourselves to exporting our traditional behavuour to Portugal. Baghdad, too, is benefitting it seems:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)
...In a city where few people drink, Baghdad's sealed-off green zone counts at least seven bars, including a Thursday night disco, a sports bar, a British pub, a rooftop bar run by General Electric, and a bare-bones trailer-tavern operated by the contractor Bechtel.

...An American government worker said the British residents are especially keen to drink. A joke running through the green zone says that British officials overseeing construction of their new embassy are giving highest priority to opening the embassy pub.

Since the most important element of a night out in Britiain - an overwhelming sense of impending violence - is already present, all that is needed is the stench of urine and vomit in the street and it'll feel just like Blighty.

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Words cannot begin to describe the sense of awe I feel when confronted with the words and deeds of Rupert Read, the newly elected Green councillor in Norwich.

Not only is he a man of coruscating political cleverness, and a man ready to stand out from his Green colleagues in defending the reputation of the IDF; he is also blessed with the ability to construct some of the most extraordinary prose ever written.

I can but stand in profound silence when confronted with the inspiration that is ANTI--BEECHING, an "erotic-political 'short story' on trains":

he still

as if’s yesterday today now.

it was in the countryside, far from almost anywhere. straight roads. road besides open fields. roads meeting mostly at right angles, if they met at all.

she had said, “i feel ... fine. want me to ... drive?”

yes.

so they drove. driving home. half an hour, to their home, their ‘country idyll’. their bungalow, their West Country hideaway, where the little dog waited so eagerly, and their lovely sleek cat awaited its food and...

so, they were driving home. this was the last part of the journey. the final left right-angle turn. night driving -- it must have been about ten o’clock, maybe later. after. dark.

so

straight. one more mile, straight. just one bridge to cross it would be, then fast down the other side, then turn left into the driveway, to home.

the bridge was a little exciting. for the ground sloped up to it on either side, and the road narrowed, narrowed. the bridge was only wide enough for one car.

what she did when she approached the ever-narrowing bridge was this she started flashing the main beam of the headlights, on, off, on, off, faster and faster. they always did. so that anyone coming up the other side would see them approaching, would see their headlights against the sky would see the greater and greater speed of the change in them,

would know that they were coming,

would know that they were approaching the top of the bridge.

then suddenly the road flattened as you hit the actual bridge, and you were going level before you came down, down came down the other side real fast

it was exciting, you seemed to be going at an incredible pace, as the main beams went on and off faster and faster til they were almost just a blur and now the car was going very fast -- it wasn’t really but it seemed like it was it really did -- and you seemed to shoot over the bridge and almost fly off -- down, I guess -- the other side.

so there they were

shooting up to the top of the bridge

suddenly emerging onto its flatness with ourhead-lightsgoinglikewe’reunderneaththestrobelight--

and then--

forgotten what it was a bridge over.

there was, in fact, a railway line underneath. it only had trains going on it about twice a day. huge long (slow?) freight trains, usually, blasting with an enormous whistle, sometimes in the middle of the night.

Do read the rest. You will experience it.

To steal a line from Dame Edna: is there no beginning to this man's talents?

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Sory for the absence of posts. Too much real work...

I'll be posting again imminently.

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My own entirely unscientific poll on the mayoral election yesterday: I asked 17 people for whom they had voted. Every one of them said they had made their decision entirely on the basis of one issue: the congestion charge.

6 said they had voted for Norris to get rid of it, and the rest - like me - voted through gritted teeth for Livingstone to make sure the charge remained.

As I say, entirely unscientific. But that's been my experience throughout the campaign.

Now, perhaps, the Tories will do what they should have done a year ago and drop their opposition to a throroughly sensible, Friedmanite market mechanism. Then they can get on with winning the support of those of us who would oppose Livingstone tooth and nail on almost every other issue. But then again, expecting the Conservatives to learn from their election defeats flies in the face of the past seven years' experience.

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Another chicken crossed the road, this time in Iraq:

Why Did the Chicken cross the Road?

Coalition Provisional Authority:

The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton:

We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost the US government $326,004.

Muqtada al-Sadr:

The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

US Army Military Police:

We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken rights violations.

Peshmerga:

The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill.

1st Cav:

The chicken was not authorized to cross the road without displaying two forms of picture identification. Thus, the chicken was appropriately
detained and searched in accordance with current SOP's. We apologize for any embarrassment to the chicken. As a result of this unfortunate incident, the command has instituted a gender sensitivity training program and all future chicken searches will be conducted by female soldiers.

Al Jazeera:

The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to eye-witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens.

Blackwater:

We cannot confirm any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident.

Translators:

Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.

U.S. Marine Corps:

The chicken is dead.

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I have been Kammed.

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I suggested below that angst-ridden columns on what can be done about the shamefully low turnout in tomorrow's elections would start to appear a few days after the results are known.

I was quite mistaken. Simon Jenkins in today's Times manages to get in before polling day:

Turnouts in British local elections are shocking...I cannot see the case against going another step and making voting in local elections compulsory.

It's such a comfort to be able to rely on Mr Jenkins always to be wrong.

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Just to point out that - as I should have made clear - in the post below, all the E
U figures refer only to the 15 Member States up until May. They do not include the 10 new members.

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You might not have realised it, but Thursday’s elections to the European Parliament are in theory about the direction of the EU. The debate, if that word can be applied to a campaign which has centred on the remarks of various F-list celebrities, has barely even scratched the subject.

But there is a pressing issue which goes to the very heart of the European Union: economically, it is failing. Not just in the odd sector or country but across the EU as a whole.

The drive behind the single market was sensible: to create a market so vast that it would dwarf even the United States. Putting that into practice has, however, been a perfect illustration of how the EU is failing. Instead of concentrating on what matters — ensuring that member states’ economies are as competitive as possible — EU leaders have insisted on constitutional reforms dressed up as economic reforms, such as the euro.

A report published last week by the Swedish think-tank, Timbro, shows that if the EU was an American state, it would be poorer than almost all its 50 neighbours. Not only is the EU’s GDP per capita lower than in most of the poorest US states, but even the most prosperous EU countries (France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany) have lower GDP per capita than all but four US states. Luxembourg is the only EU country with a higher per capita GDP than the average US state. When America’s annual growth fell to 1-2 per cent during the recession, it was still higher than the average growth rate in most EU countries over recent decades.

None of this should surprise anyone. As the European Council of Ministers itself put it at the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, when EU leaders agreed on the “Lisbon strategy” to introduce structural reforms: “More than 15 million Europeans are still out of work . . . Long-term structural unemployment and marked regional unemployment imbalances remain endemic in parts of the Union. The services sector is underdeveloped . . . There is a widening skills gap.”

There was thus to be “a ten-year strategy to make the EU the world’s most dynamic and competitive economy”. Four years later, the results are almost non-existent. Instead, we have seen more of the same high-tax, over regulatory policies. But muddling through is not an option. Leave aside the economic impact of an ageing population which will impose increasing strains on existing tax-funded welfare and public service arrangements. There is a more fundamental problem.

If economies are not efficient, then resources are not properly deployed and do not expand as they could. Companies operate with one hand tied behind their back, lose business, cannot afford to operate and close. Workers lose their jobs, reducing the tax base and thus the revenue with which to pay for public services — and denying the unemployed the income with which to purchase goods and services.

Today, the average American spends 77 per cent more on consumption than the average EU citizen — not only because US GDP is higher but also because taxes are about 12 per cent lower. The larger the public sector, the smaller the role of private decision-making and the entrepreneurial spirit which create growth, and the smaller the share of the economy open to competition. With trade across national borders growing all the time, those countries with economies not primed for competition will suffer.

Instead of focusing on the popularity or not of Robert Kilroy-Silk and Joan Collins, we should have had a sensible debate about how we are going to deal with this mess.

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The Reagan Foundation has opened a condolence book - here.

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Excellent article by Ferdinand Mount on schools. As he concludes:

The financial difference between the costs of the two sectors is narrowing. The average cost per pupil at a state secondary school is more than £5,000 a year. The cost at a private day school averages something over £7,000. If we gave every pupil a ticket or voucher of, say, £5,000 a year, parents could choose between schools of whatever type they fancied.

But I fear the time is not ripe for such daring. A scheme of precisely this type was included in Forster’s Education Act of 1870. So you cannot really expect us to have got around to implementing it yet.

I think he's being too pessimistic. I've been banging on about vouchers for a decade. When I started, arguing from the left perspective that nothing could be more 'empowering' than giving those parents who cannot afford to choose where and how their children are educated the means to do so, I was dismissed as a lunatic. Now the accusation is that I am wrong, or that the figures don't add up.

That is a fundamental change in the political terms of trade. When the argument noves to one of number crunching and mechanics, it's a clear indication that the ground has shfted. Vouchers are coming.

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It seems somehow appropriate that news of the death of President Reagan should have come on this of all weekends. The ceremonies in Normandy commemorate the sacrifice and bravery of allied soldiers in freeing Europe from an evil regime. Reagan did more than any other politician in the post-war world to do the same thing.

This weekend's papers are unique in my recollection. I haven't spotted a single cynical comment about the D-Day commemorations. I can't remember another event which has not prompted at least one commentator to take a contrarian view. Yesterday and today - nada.

But you can bet that by tomorrow some of the press will be full of sarcastic comments about Reagan. I don't compare for a second the sacrifices made. The D-day veterans risked their lives, each of them genuinely deserving of that over-used word, brave. Reagan was a politician who, although he was the victim of an attempted assassination, in theory risked no more than electoral defeat.

Those, however, who will soon be sneering about him - just as they did when he was in power - might care to think about the good that he did. Just as no one soldier was responsible for the Allied powers' victory in 1945, so no one politician brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in the reckoning of those who helped freedom to prevail, Reagan stands at the very top. Truly, a great man.

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I'm back. The book's done, I've had a week (almost) off, and I'm now ready and willing to start proper posting again.

So, to begin with some links...

This is an excellent piece by the learned Victor Davis Hanson:

We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.

(via Melanie Philips)

Meanwhile this piece by David Aaronovitch is a lovely piss-take of a 'Respect' meeting.

(BTW, isn't Respect the single most innapropriate name they could have chosen, given the lack of respect their world view implies for the people of Iraq, given their wish that Saddam was still in power and free to murder Iraqis?)

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I suffer from a disease. Every four or five years it spreads throughout the population; the last time that it was researched about three in five people were seen to be affected by it. Even at its least virulent, about one in four of the country has it. On Thursday new figures will show the extent of its current grip. The one thing we know with certainty already is that it is steadily in decline.

My disease is voting - a belief that, however unimportant or impossible the decision might seem, I have to exercise my vote. On Thursday I will be one of at most a quarter of the population who will bother. There is no one I want to vote for in either the Euro elections or the contest for Mayor of London, but because of a non-sequitur, I will none the less pick a party and vote for it. The non-sequitur is that I consider the right to vote to be a precious thing. But having that right and feeling the obligation to exercise it are two very different things. I have the right to stand for the council. I cannot, however, imagine ever submitting myself to such a thing. I am happy to leave it to others.

A mere 24 per cent of the electorate voted in the 1999 Euro elections. This year it may well be an even smaller proportion. You can already forecast the angst-ridden opinion pieces that will come next: what can we do to increase turnout; why are voters so disengaged; are the media to blame?

The truth, however, is taboo: that the lower the turnout, the better democracy is working. I have yet to read a convincing explanation as to why we should be worried about the poor turnout expected next week. If there is a reason to vote, people do. If there isn't, they don't.

In 1979, at a time when the future of the country really was in peril, 76 per cent voted. In 1997, when there was a genuine appetite to kick out the Conservatives, the figure was 71 per cent. In the two elections in 1974, the turnout was 79 per cent and 73 per cent. All four elections mattered, with fundamental issues at stake. Only 59 per cent voted in 2001 because Labour hadn't messed up and the Tories were still unelectable. People were essentially content. On Thursday, once again, they won't see the point of voting, so vote they won't.

In an age when opinion polls record the electorate's views on everything from the putative EU constitution to the winner of Big Brother, there is rarely even the need to use Micky Mouse elections such as this Thursday's for a protest vote. We know full well that this Government, of all governments, pays obsessive attention to daily opinion polls and responds obediently, if belatedly, to them.

Ignore the drivel that will follow polling day about "the political system" being at fault and single-issue politics replacing broad-church parties. There are any number of groups that are fielding candidates, whether they be shaded green, blue or red. The voting figures speak volumes about the allure of such single-issue politicians: pretty much zilch.

Take the Iraq war; Thursday's results will, according to George Galloway's rabble, reveal how the public are driven by contempt for Tony Blair's involvement. The polls suggest that Mr Galloway's party will be lucky to hit 1 per cent of the vote. So much for that theory.

If you want to vote on Thursday, fine. But if you can't see the point, you can be proud to have joined the majority.

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I have this morning had to delete a series of comments. I will not allow racist comments on this site. I will block (or manually delete) any commenter who posts racist comments. And I am not interested in debates as to what is or isn't racist. I will certainly not respond to emails from those commenters whom I have banned. This is my site and I have total editorial control. If you don't like that, tough. Go read someone else's blog and post your vile views there.

Like many other bloggers I am continually having to wonder if it's worth the hassle of allowing comments. At the moment I incline to believing it is. But I will have no hesitation in shutting down all comments if racists continue to post.

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Philip Hensher in today's Independent (no link I'm afraid as it's sub only):

In general terms, Big Brother, like a neo-coloial invading power, has assumed and asserted power wihtout inviting explicit consent. Sme consent has been granted by the initial lacl of resistance; they have agreed to enter the house, just as many Iraqis clearly thought this this was at any rate a means by which a hated regime could be deposed.

Consent, however, has not proved unlimited. By continuing to assert an arbitrary, unnegotiated control over the lives of subjects, the ruling power has rapidly eroded its plausibility....When Big Brother commands Kitten to come to the diary room immediately, or demands the immediate return of the empty suitcases, the refusal immediately reveals the fragility on which arbitrary, assertive power rests.

I suppose you could call this an ingeneous comparison. Or you could say that by writing such hilarious gibberish, Philip Hensher immediately reveals the fragility of his faculties.

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This is what's known as a dilemma.

Can't say I'm jumping for joy at the appointment of Jacques Santini as manager of the greatest team the world has ever known, but he does seem like a good coach. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear the current phase of hiring only managers with a foreign name is based more on trendiness than sense. The Gooners aren't - grrrrr - as successful as they are because they're managed by a Frenchman, but because they're managed by one of the greatest managers in history.

Anyway, the dilemma: Do I hope that the French win the European Championships and that Spurs thus have a manager who has won an international championship?

Or do I hope for what, until yesterday, I was - like all Englishmen - firmly wishing: that they collapse in the first round because they are, well, French, and with the lovely side effect of ruining the morale of some of Arsenal's best players?

As if it's not a torment enought supporting the Lillywhites, now they give us something else to stress over.

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Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

New York
You're competitive, you like to take it straight to the fight. You gotta have it all or die trying.

You bet.

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Brilliant speech by Alan Dershowitz on Israel and anti-Semitism. Read the whole thing.

(via Melanie Phillips.)

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To those of you who have come here via The Guardian, I would just like to point out that my last horse, Spring Dawn, has been sold to go hunting. That's fox hunting.

Oh well, it was fun having you visit. Cheerio, Guardian readers.

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