Behind the closed doors of Brussels

Holly ......

...and?

strapworld

It has been said by so many people but if iii) proves to be the case then this will be conclusive proof that Brown puts self and party before Country.

If he cannot win the general election he will do everything he can to ensure that Cameron fails.

I think the referendum IN or OUT will have to be brought forawrd by Cameron if he wants the City to continue as the power house it is and has been for hundreds of years. The City will be putting, quite rightly, enormous pressure on Cameron (one hopes!) that he has to frighten the EU by promising to hold this referendum. We cannot allow the French to strip this country of its most important business.

Brown "Putting the Country first...is patent nonsense...he should be facing charges of Treason!

Bill Seacole Corr

Baroness Ashton is nobody's fool.

Of course, we'd all have preferred to see Marianne Faithfull or Amy Winehouse get the job, but let's give the Baroness the benefit of the doubt of this stage.

James

If the EU ever expects the public to take these new roles seriously, then you suspect the selection procedure will have to become a whole lot more democratic.

As the EU does not care what the public thinks, or about democracy, this paragraph seems a little pointless.

Publius

"If the EU ever expects the public to take these new roles seriously"

-- I think we know by now that they don't give a rat's arse what we think.

Cuffleyburgers

Peter - just read that article before I cam to CH.

Staggering really, Brown seems deliberately to have sabotaged the City - it is obvious that the French will use their stewardship to nobble it in a vain attempt to get some to Paris, a bit more to Frankfurt but who cares anyway as long as London loses it.

Blair was a disastrously bad EU negotiator, Brown is worse.

It's just F'Kin' DESPERATE!! I'm with Moraymint, bring on open insurrection.

Aux armes! Oh I forgot, we're not allowed to have them either, unless we're drug dealers.

Christ, where will it end, and I don't have that much faith in Cameron either after heis recent bleatings.

Obama is turning out almost as bad as verity predicted, and for me to admit verity was right about anything, as regular readers will realise, is quite something.

John Wilkes

I would be intrigued to know what Baroness Ashton's current views on nuclear disarmament are. Given that one of the major international issues is the worldwide control of nuclear weapons, particularly as it relates to Iran, her previous employment (not merely support of) CND is of considerable concern. If, as many people believed at the time, CND were little more than stooges for the Soviet Union (and MI5 seem to have believed as far as she was concerned) then it is deeply worrying that the foreign affairs of Europe should be in her hands. Has she changed her opinion or does she still believe that the best response to threats from other countries is unilateral disarmament? History, I hope, confirms that it was the the resolution of Britain and the United States (particularly in the siting of its nuclear arsenal in the teeth of Europe wide hostility on the left) that exposed the political and economic bankruptcy of the Soviet Union. This led, amongst other things, to their failure in Afghanistan. That we may be about to entrust our stance in regard to the problem that fundamental Islam and the instability it engenders to someone so apparently lacking in a fundamental understanding of the realities of world power is worrying indeed.

Nicholas

So much for democracy. Truly we are governed by a political elite resonant of Byzantium - or in this case two tiers of political elite.

The image of these modern day feudal robber barons jockeying and intriguing for lucrative non-jobs whilst the majority of us struggle day to day with annual salaries less than their expense accounts and grope our way through the regulatory red tape they impose upon is disgusting. And if that isn't enough they constantly hector us about what we should think, say and do, how we should lead our lives and what tax burden we should endure.

TrevorsDen

And in one of the comments to the article?
A Frenchman says we should not worry about the way the EU 'elect' our representatives. In effect, what does it matter - they are all 'european'.

This really sums up the corrupt nature of the EU and its brain dead supporters.

But yet again Brown is called upon to make a decision and hey presto - its crap for Britain.

Mike Brighton

In the Times it's clear that Baroness Ashton of Crony was 4th or 5th choice and Brown chose the good Baroness to spite the Tories.
Meanwhile over on the ever-so-politically-balanced BBC it leads with "I am best for new EU job - Ashton".
My elderly mum has more foreign policy experience than Ashton. Why couldn't Brown pick say Paddy Ashdown or Chris Patten. It goes without saying that they are not Labour cronies.....

strapworld

Yet another victory for the French!

This really has all the ingredients for another 100 years war. The French will always try to be the top dogs.

As my friend Martin Cole points out:-"Only one name among the powerful and shady conspirators who have so successfully and skilfully brought Europe to this non-democratic pass has so far emerged.

Details, naturally enough, are few and largely unnoticed by the mainstream media who have been the willing pawns in this destruction of decent values and openness.

The man concerned, new Council Secretary-General to the EU, is naturally enough a French career 'fonctionaire' Pierre de Boissieu. This man will control the huge and greedy bureaucracy of the EU and himself be controlled by shady and anonymous figures who still remain carefully hidden behind the scenes"

Will we be told these names. Will Brown reveal to Parliament whom he has supported? We no longer live in a democracy.

DEMOCRACY IS DEAD.

RoG

Isn't the charade that precedes these sorts of inconsequential appointments usually described in the media as a 'beauty contest'? Wonder why not this time..?

biggestaspidistra

"a whole lot more democratic."

Is this in any way shape or form democratic?

anne allan

Come on, folks, just look at the list of preferred candidates; then we'll have a mass wrist slashing session. I mean, look at them; crooks, dogsbodies, Soviet doormats..... Mrs. Kellner's appointment really drives home the fact that in the democracy stakes, Brussels is right up there with the Duma. At least none of these apparatchiks was elected, so us plebs cannot be blamed when thing go wrong.
Oh, and don't the pikkies confirm that politics is show business for ugly people?

Watt Tyler

"If the EU ever expects the public to take these new roles seriously, then you suspect the selection procedure will have to become a whole lot more democratic."

A WHOLE LOT MORE DEMOCRATIC?

Nothing about the EU is slightly democratic to begin with. And the journalists who write this crap are either catastrophically stupid, or they are in cahoots.

I opt for the latter.

But I will say this to them: no one in government, or paid to prop it up with their devious articles and biased news reporting, knows what is best for any other single person. The individiual will make up his or her own mind, and they will, like birds of the same feather, band to make a majority, and a minority (or a group of minorities). The majority will decide how everyone should be goverened. The minority will not, but the their liberties will be protected. This is the way of democracy. Democracy 101.

What we have in this country and in Europe at the moment is a gross inversion of that. We have a minority of people who think that they know best for the majority.

Now I know where these journos and politicos are coming from. They think that a majority, and especially a conservative British one, will persecute the minority, and this is why they lie so vehemently, and they battle so hard, if not subtly, to try and maintain the grip of the minority over the majority. I have to tell them that they are wrong, as I said before, the British way, at least as I understand it through my conservative values, is to protect the minority.

Labour, on the other hand, with laws like the Fox Hunting Ban, have actually trampled on the rights of minorities.

So we have had a government that, in my view, first tricked the majority of the people of this country, and have increasingly come to represent a minority view, who have also been violating the rights of minorities that they basically don't like.

This is the sort of bad government we have had, and the press - which is meant to be symbollic of freedom of speech - has been complicit in it. Now they are complicit in the governence of the majority of Britons being handed over to an even smaller, more remote minority.

People, if the Conservative government does not act in the first few months of its coming to power, we MUST take it upon ourselves, the good majority, act to restore good government for our best interest. We are the majority, the government should be ours.

Snowman

why be surprised, annoyed, angry and all that when an undemocratic institution functions in an undemocratic way? It's logical, perfectly sensible and within the Lisbon induced law for the EU to keep on doing what they've done in this instance.

Ken

@John Wilkes
Ashton apparently has no foreign affairs beliefs so that would make her a blank canvass on which EU others can paint; possibly, or not, a good thing.

denis cooper

"If the EU ever expects the public to take these new roles seriously, then you suspect the selection procedure will have to become a whole lot more democratic."

No, no, no.

Let's start again from the beginning.

The EU is not yet a sovereign nation state; it's still an international organisation established by treaties between its sovereign member states.

A sovereign nation state can be successfully governed by "democracy", assuming that the population is sufficiently unified that it can be considered a "demos", and that members of that "demos" are willing to submit to some kind of "democratic" rule at the hands of their fellow countrymen.

In contrast, lacking a "demos" an international organisation like the EU can never aspire to any genuine form of "democracy"; so it should be governed by international "diplomacy", accepting that in legal terms all of its member states are sovereign equals irrespective of their populations.

So when you call for a selection procedure which is "a whole lot more democratic", you are in fact calling for the EU to behave more like a sovereign nation state, with for example the large German population always being able to easily outvote smaller populations like the Irish.

You have to make up your mind on this.

If you believe in the national sovereignty of each of the EU member states, you cannot also believe in allowing that sovereignty to be vitiated by any process of majority voting in the EU institutions; and if you believe in national democracy, then you cannot allow that to be superseded by a transnational pseudo-democracy.

JohnPage

It was always obvious that the foreign affairs post would be a non-job.

The only way Brown's choice makes sense is as part of a scorched earth policy to leave the Tories as difficult a legacy as possible.

John Wilkes

@ Ken - How can a former employee of CND possibly say they have no foreign policy beliefs. What she means is that she doesn't want them exposed to the public gaze - let alone anyone have the opportunity to vote on whether they share them with her.

Chuck Unsworth

"More" democratic? What, like in Afghanistan, but not as in Glasgow North East?

The EU has shown itself repeatedly to be completely undemocratic. This is but another example.

Dennis Churchill

Maybe it is time the City saw where its interests lay and started to finance parties that would serve those interests.
Other interest groups do.

Moraymint

Cuffleyburgers

"... I'm with Moraymint, bring on open insurrection ..."

It's a little difficult to see how there won't be civil unrest in the UK in the coming years ... but only if the next government decides to unwind Gordon Brown's gargantuan state machine.

The Brits generally don't do revolution, of course. However, can you pinpoint a time in our recent history when the economy has been so shattered at the foundations and, moreover, with the country so hopelessly placed to trade its way out of the mess? Historians step forward please.

It seems to me that the only way forward, if we are indeed to survive as a free market democracy (so despised and feared by the Marxist nutters that have been in office this past decade or so), then the next government has to engineer a truly massive transfer of resources (people and capital) from the state to the wealth-creating side of the economy. This should be the government's Number One Priority, or "The Main Effort" as we (ex) military types call it.

If we don't do this, then it's difficult to see how we're going to avoid becoming a 21st Century version of the old East Germany (that country and socio-political system so beloved of the Labour Party).

The problem is, of course, the bit in between. Will the next government have the cojones to do what it takes to turn around the fortunes of this country? Or will they bottle it and leave Gordon's ever-burgeoning state to sink the good ship Great Britain?

Damned if they do (unwind the state), damned if they don't (and we evolve into East Germany): all part of the Marxists' gramd plan.

Sadly, on current form, the Conservative Party has neither the intention nor the capability of tackling this country's desperate socio-economic crisis; they don't understand the scale of it; they don't have the skills and knowledge to fix it; they don't have the mettle and the passion to reverse 12 years of unreconstructed and totally pernicious socialism. Perhaps it's the prospect of civil unrest that scares them the most?

So, will the Tories unravel Gordon Brown's mighty state machine? I don't think so; unwinding the state machine probably represents a greater threat to social order than Al-Qaeda.

You've got to hand it to the Labour Party: they've come an awful long way in a very short time to create the dystopia of their dreams.

George Curtis

The EU's accounting system is designed to enable kleptocratic activity to prosper and remain unaccounted. It is accordingly appropriate that the EU emulate their fellow kleptocrats, the Mafia, in the manner of electing their "leader".

anne allan

So, if the EU is like the Mafia, given time Rumpy Pumpy and Miss England 1947 will be fed to the fishes? Bring it on!

TGF UKIP

Brown's complicity in the French drive to shaft the City is just part of his overall ploy to leave for the Tories the most noxious brew he can, should they win.

If, as is still most likely, there is either a small Labour victory or a hung parliament, there is no political problem for him given how the screwing of the City will most likely draw applause rather than brickbats from Joe Bloggs in the street so successfully have the City and the banks been demonised.

So far as popular insurrection is concerned, I'm afraid it's dream on chaps. 95% of the population are completely ignorant and apathetic about matters political and Labour with its mastery of propaganda still has far more clue on how to reach them than anyone else.

As is pointed out above, though, the most likely source of street violence is from the public sector unions in conjunction with the SWP etc in the unlikely event that the Cameron Tories have the balls to impose the required surgery on Brown's client state. What will make it more bloody and more difficult will be that a Tory government will not be able to rely on Labour's stasi to keep order. Troops on the streets and in the police stations is a very real possibility.

John Wilkes also raises a point about Ashton of which there has been absolutely no mention in the pliant Press. I see from Wiki that as well as being a very senior member of CND she was also in that other nest of lefty vipers The National Council For One Parent Families.

I really am beginning to feel sorry for the old Soviet leaders that many of them aren't still around to see their dreams come true. First of all Obama in the White House and now this.

Augustus

In Belgium, Herman van Rompuy is supposed to have restored calm after the longest political crisis in its history. But this achievement was not really why he was chosen. The presidency went to the candidate who met with the least resistance.
He hadn't been around long enough as a European head of government to quarrel with his colleagues. And they happened to be the very ones who chose him for the job. the other candidates had marks against them: Tony Blair was considered too high profile and headstrong, Luxembourg prime minister
Jean-Claude Juncker had got into a tiff with Sarkozy over EU budget rules, and Jan Peter Balkenende came from a country which had voted against the constitution. Ashton's appointment has mostly to do with appointing more female commissioners, and since she will also be vice-president of the
Commission, that's one that the Commission President, Manuel Barroso can tick off his list. There is a cardinal rule in European politics: Never be too overly ambitious to get in the way of heads of government. Obscurity with determination is all that's required.

Moraymint

TGF UKIP

I think we're on the same page. I agree that 95% of the British electorate is ignorant and/or politically disinterested. I don't say that in a patronising or snobbish way, or with any relish. Our citizens have been successfully dumbed down, boxed in and fed propaganda that keeps them focused on a few, easy to follow themes.

Simple themes like: naff consumerism as the route to happiness (keep the shops full of cheap stuff from China and all's well); cheap food on the supermarket shelves (BOGOF is the new religion); plenty of mindless crap on the TV; soak up the otherwise unemployed in state non-jobs; fund the feckless at all costs (literally now of course); keep the BBC spewing out inane news dross; stuff society with high-paid henchmen in public appointments, quangos and other establishment outfits; just tell barefaced lies to the public - they'll never get under the skin of it ... I could go on; you get the idea.

The masses are, by and large, disinterested and/or compliant for as long as the themes are sustained.

I also agree that the Tories have neither the political philosophy nor the b***s to reverse the march of Marxism in which we are now joined - perhaps irreversibly. The Labour Party has outwitted, outmanoeuvred and outgunned the forces of conservatism and liberty.

So, we're now party to the final stages of the UK's decline towards becoming a post-developed nation. Marxism in action. The Labour Party can indeed be proud of its achievements. The Conservative Party, however, has betrayed the likes of you and me.

Sir Graphus

It really is the icing on the cake, isn't it?

First he wrecks our pensions (against advice). Then he wrecks the public finances. Then a lot of things. Then he signs the Lisbon treaty in a separate room like the wincing coward he is. Then he welshes on his manifesto pledge on a referendum.

Then, icing on the cake, given the choice of appointing someone who might safeguard the national interest in the business world, he instead chooses this useless aparachik to a supposedly more prestigious position.

We don't bloody care whether 1 of his cronies has been secured a nice job. I'm more bothered whether mine is secure. None of recognise the authority of the EU foreign ministry, anyway.

John Wilkes makes a fine point; we've got an ex leader of CND formulating foreign policy. Who voted for that? Nobody, ever. Nobody ever voted for her, and electorates consistently rejected unilateral disarmament. But here we are; here she is. I could write another page and a half of this without drawing breath and without coming close to lancing the boil of my rage over this whole thing.

Hysteria

TGF/Moraymint (and Verity if you are still up this wet afternoon)

I agree your points above - I guess all societies will eventually push back, it's just that the current state of affairs described by Mr. Mint means that the tipping point is still a long way off.

Another thought though - let's not assume this is some recent problem - I believe this whole state of affairs was part of the Gramsci school of thought - "the long march through the institutions" - when the expected proletariat revolution across the world did not happen post-Russia in 1917, the Marxist theoreticians tried to explain this. They postulated that the workers had effectively been duped to believe their interests were the same as the bosses (I guess this is a little along Mr. Mint's thesis).

So what we are seeing now is the result of a steady assault on our institutions that goes back a LONG way before New Labour.

But as you say - the analysis is pretty clear - the worry is that there appear to be no solutions.

egh

"So what we are seeing now is the result of a steady assault on our institutions that goes back a LONG way before New Labour." Oh yes, Hysteria. Novelists don't get struck by lightning when they write: so Orwell, Huxley, or even Margery Allingham (Gyrth Chalice) and Conrad (Secret Agent) had all heard or participated in discussions about it and about.

Trouble is, why has it taken us so long to see it? And seeing it, what's stopping us from finding solutions? Perhaps we could begin to synthesise ways of pulling away from marxism if we asked - and answered - questions like that?

mac

"Geoff Hoon was Brown's first choice . . ."

Whaaaaat?

JohnAnt

So basically, Brown has allowed and even encouraged the appointment of a French protectionist and enemy of the City to the job of Trade Commissioner. In return we have Baroness Placeperson as the Toy Foreign Secretary of the EU.
He's bonkers.