The guilty men's misplaced loyalties

barnacle bill

As for Lambert playing the Nazi card, I think Osborne could have easily trumped it by calling Lambert a Quisling!

paulo anonymous

My politics is to the right of the Conservative Party. I voted UKIP - mainly on the EUSSR issue.

But any reasonable intelligent person must agree that Peter Oborne disgraced himself last night. And Paxman let him.

But his greater crime was to have missed such an open opportunity to lay out the case for leaving the EU in an orderly fashion instead of trying to promote his rather thin looking book.

I need incisive, clear-thinking debaters to press the case, not aggressive, childish loud mouths.

He has damaged the anti-EU cause IMHO.

Sir Everard Digby

But the Euro was announced as a political not an economic solution. Strange that we now appear to require an economic solution to it? Surely the EU elite could not have been misleading us? If they were,how can we believe what they now tell us? Faced witha complete meltdown of their socialist republic project,they do not accept it and desparately look for any way of sustaining it. No price will be too high -especially as the average citizen will be paying it.

As for sustaining European peace, I suggest that losing sovereignty and a national currency as well as having to fund the exercise are not materially different outcomes to those arising from a war.

History shows that enforced federations (The Roman Empire and the Soviet Union for example) don't survive because they consist of individual populations with different identities. The EU has tried to stamp out other cultures.

Gawain

Oborne was well and truly stitched up last night. He was outnumbered 3 v 1 by Euro apologists. Added to that Paxman is hardly an even handed chairman. I suspect it was another example of the BBC manoeuvring a Eurosceptic into a situation where they come across as foaming mouthed loonies. Considering this I thought he was quite restrained.

Cripes

I suspect I'm not the only one of his admirers who feels that Peter was up beyond his bedtime last night. If he doesn't have a sore head this morning, it will be a pity for a variety of reasons.

RKing

I think Oborne missed his opportunity to disseminate the EU guy who didn't appear to have a clue on reality, with his continued personal abuse. I'd have preferred to have seen him nail the guy with facts.

Is all the poverty and squalor the euro is now causing really worth it? Is this the kind of peace that the union was supposed to bring? i.e. turmoil in the streets.

Wars are brought about by the sheer arrogance and vanity of politicians as we have now witnessed by Blair, Bush and now Cameron.

Dennis Churchill

The existence of the EU, in all its manifestations and names, had nothing to do with securing peace in Europe since World War 2.
NATO, more accurately the USA ,secured the post war borders against the Soviet Union, demographic and cultural changes resulted in it being inconceivable that the major continental European nations could sustain much more than an inconclusive skirmish .
Feminisation and an ageing and declining population has pacified Europe not Euro Federalism.

RCE

Utter derangement. As everyone who doesn't rely on the Guardian and BBC for information knows, the United States of America has guaranteed European peace and prosperity since WWII, just as it has for Japan.

The US taxpayer has stumped up for tanks, ships, missiles and jet planes while the Europeans (UK included) built unsustainable and decadent welfare Ponzi schemes. Well, here's something: The US taxpayer ain't gonna do that no-more.

Which leaves Europe bankrupt, with an institutionalized belief that peace no longer needs to be fought for, and woeful security apparatus to defend against the millions of newly-arrived citizens who have every intention of destroying, by various means, the social and political landscape of the continent.

But hey - we've got Cast Iron Dave; I'm sure he'll prove up to the job.

David L

Rudeness seldom pays - unless it's also very witty. But Oborne's argument is correct, and I did enjoy seeing the FT man get a well-earned kebabbing.

Dan Grover

Gawain, no one by Oborne made Oborne come across as a foaming mouth nutter there. He didn't have to repeatedly call someone an idiot.

Rhoda Klapp

So often TV discussions maintain a politeness that restrains the possibility of anything useful coming out. Not the case last night. The unpronounceable euro idiot did indeed come out with a load of tosh, a 'line to take' which would not stand any critical analysis. Oborne was right to call him on it in such terms, the position was an insult to the audience. And Lambert? Why should he be taken seriously when his judgment on the Euro and UK entry has been proved to be wrong, and he tried to excuse himself with 'the facts changed' when every problem was known at the time? He deserved to be taken to task, and he was. The man gives every indication of being a weasel. I always think there are two faces of Oborne, and this is the one I like.

Nicholas

"But any reasonable intelligent person must agree that Peter Oborne disgraced himself last night. And Paxman let him."

I disagree. It was Lambert who disgraced himself, trying to play the Nazi card and then bleating for Paxman to rescue him like the snivelling Gramsci-plant coward that he is.

Who was that non-entity from Brussels, that idiot? Did you or I elect him to speak on behalf of us? No. It's time for robust and honest words. The Euro-fascist bureaucrats depend upon our politeness and restraint in order to enslave us.

rojo

I hope the BBC has offered Mr Tardio a sincere apology for allowing him to be subjected to such childish, moronic abuse by the so called journalist from the Telegraph. It was pretty clear who the idiot on that panel was, irrespective of which side of the argument you stand. That pompous fool should be banned from the BBC. Also, Paxman was far too slow in bringing him to heel.

Archibald

A fine example of BBC balance, they even lined up in teams. It was unfortunate Peter called the man an idiot as the man was able to run away without having to explain himself, much like an incompetent complaints department might hang up on you if there seemingly deliberate incompetence gets you a tad angry and causes you to raise your voice. The get-out clause of the hopeless with weak arguments.

FvH

Hmmmm unfortunately would have to agree with @Paulo and @Cripes - Oborne made a fool of himself and his strong argument was lost
He seemed a little tired and emotional and behaved like a fool
It allowed the pro-Europeans to look sensible, mature and intelligent!!
Shame - opportunity wasted

EC

Nicholas @10:18am,

Exactly!

Tardio didn't merit further airtime as he had said all he needed to say by claiming that the Euro (and Europe) was a political project and all that was needed to fix it was a strong political will and a strong political response from "the leaders." Pure delusional and clunking communistic rhetoric.

Basically, Oborne was flogging his book.

Noa.

Good knockabout stuff undermined by the book plug and a failure to address the obvious absurdities in the EU position. A shame the link didn't continue into the more forensic discussion which followed; and which added rationality to Oborne's passion.

Andy H

I disagreed that Oborne made a mistake. For years the Euro appeasers have been allow to get away with talking rubbish. Oborne was right to call them on it.

If the European guy believed the rubbish he was spouting then he is an idiot, and if he didn't and was spinning a line, then he is an idiot for thinking we will buy this rubbish anymore.

It is time for some robustness about this debate, as Oborne is correct in his assertions that this is not a theoretical debate about economics, but the real livelihoods of millions - of which the European political elite remain very detached from..

Archibald

I meant "their", not "there", must try harder. I was obviously having a flashback to some idiot hanging up on me having been re-directed to him via half the rest of the company and lost my cool.

paulo

Nicholas
September 29th, 2011 10:18am

You ALSO make a fair point in your comments about the others.

I agree.

But notwithstanding, Oborne could have done so much better AND kept the high ground.

Baron

The point here isn’t whether Oborne should have or shouldn’t have, the point is that calling them names is all he, we can do.

What those of you being critical of Oborne don’t get is ‘the idiots’ are impervious to anything that contradicts their view of the world, they detest reality in pursuit of their dream of united Europe the same way the pockmarked Georgian dictator in the Kremlin not that long ago detested reality, chased after the dream of communism, no rational argument could have ever helped, can help now, RKing’s preference of ‘nailing the guy with facts’ would have done FA to the outcome of the Newsnight’s few minute chat, in no way could it have persuaded the undemocratic construct from carrying on as before, nothing will ever persuade them, you just be glad they allow us to call them idiots, it helps release some of the tension, there may come a time we’ll get punished saying it.

denis cooper

I doubt that the man in Brussels is in fact an idiot.

Too many Britons still base their thinking about the EU on the presumption that we're dealing with misguided fools, a popular misconception which is deliberately sustained by some of our own politicians through the media.

On the contrary, we're up against people who may be deeply misguided in their devotion to euro-federalism but who are very clever, extremely devious, unhesitatingly deceitful and totally unscrupulous.

And the eurocrats can afford to be deceitful and unscrupulous, because they know it's unlikely that they'll be pulled up and held to account, let alone ever be forced to reverse something they've done.

As for Lambert - his defence that "the facts changed" might be acceptable if what he'd previously advocated would have been largely reversible if it didn't work out, but it doesn't wash when he pushed for something which was, and still is, held to be completely irreversible.

Which is another EU treaty change that Cameron should be demanding - there must be an EU treaty mechanism for a country which has joined the euro to later make an orderly withdrawal, perhaps because "the facts changed", and without necessarily having to also leave the EU altogether through the procedure now laid down in Article 50 TEU.

pharbitis

FvH: I see your point about Peter Oborne's outburst but it won't be sensible mature and intelligent rioters on the streets when more economies go the way of Greece.
Peter Oborne spoke for me and many others who do not have protected gold-plated incomes or pensions with passion and informed hatred of the arrogant and costly political project dreamed up by undemocratic, out of touch and overpaid politicos. Given the mess we are all in and how much it has and will drain our faltering economy, I thought he was very restrained. Maybe he could have varied his use of the word 'idiot' - there are plenty of others to describe the narcissistic greedy imbeciles in Brussels but for me he was bang on the money.
These people ARE Guilty Men and will be guilty of more before the Euro charade is sorted.
And I would suggest Peter Oborne has been proved right about a great deal more over the years than Richard Lambert.

Simon Stephenson.

My pitch is that Oborne did the cause of realism no good last night. He displayed an exasperation which, however strongly provoked, always results in a public perception of inferiority.

The question I would like to consider though is just how much driving ones opponents to exasperation has become a modern political tactic. It does seem to me that there has been in some quarters a definite shift away from open discussion - a shift where one side sets the parameters in such a way that it's impossible for them to be forced, in discussion, to have to concede ground.

In the case of the Euro, it's the taking of the belief that all roads must be designed so as to take the shortest path to integration, and that nothing that happens on the way of any of them will ever be enough to invalidate the correctness of this belief. You can see how this belief position is totally self-shielding, because no one can deny that in an ideal world political integration would be what happened - and no one can establish decisively that the world can never be ideal. Just like, for some, following the will of God can never be wrong, and if people disagree it can't be that they have a valid point - it must just be because they weren't issued at birth with enough of what it takes to be God-subordinate.

It's very human, of course, this seeing of an opportunity to escape from accusations of fallibility by delegating ones decision-making to an unchallegeable being. But the tragedy of what it does is that in denying critics or sceptics the right to an intellectual competition, it leaves them only physicality through which to channel their disagreement.

Oborne's exasperation is the halfway house between the denial of intellectual competition and the taking up of arms. Be warned, those who think that something so simple as holding faith is the key to prevailing over other people.

Simon Stephenson.

denis cooper : 11.21am

"Too many Britons still base their thinking about the EU on the presumption that we're dealing with misguided fools, a popular misconception which is deliberately sustained by some of our own politicians through the media.

On the contrary, we're up against people who may be deeply misguided in their devotion to euro-federalism but who are very clever, extremely devious, unhesitatingly deceitful and totally unscrupulous."

Too bloody right.

Mind you, people also make this mistake about the Labour Party, mistaking poor outcomes for blundering incompetence rather than as the inevitable results of allowing ideology to overrule practicality.

Simon Stephenson.

EC : 10.53am

"Basically, Oborne was flogging his book."

I really don't think so, EC. OK, mankind has some pretty base attributes, but I don't think Oborne wrote his book principally to make money. He's a writer, he makes his living from penning words, and, sure, he'll make a bit of money from sales of Guilty Men, but my guess is that he sees the book far more as a contribution to the people, to help them with considerations about Europe and the Euro, than he's ever seen it as a money-maker.

edith crowther

It is pity that Newsnight does not have a wider audience, because I am sure the vast majority of people in this country would have been cheering and clapping as Peter Oborne made mincemeat - by calm logic with a sprinking of salt - of everybody except Paxo. Sometimes people do need to be told they are idiots, because when they carry on in their bland, smug and superior way making the most horrible mistakes after mistakes and mistakes and refusing to change tack, you have to really shake them out of their addiction.

Go Peter! And you have indeed gone right round the world as delighted viewers pass on the prize fight to friends via Youtube etc. And yes, you got the prize, invisible and intangible though it may be.

Biggestaspidistra

Trashy behaviour from Mr Obourne who was out of his depth in civilised society. Yesterday he seemed like he'd made his point well, today he just seems like a yob.

Paul

Glad to see others have commented on the contemptible attempt from Lambert to smear Oborne as saying Merkel and Sarkozy are Nazis because of the "Guilty Men" title background.

oldtimer

Denis Cooper at 11:21am is right. The EU is staffed with many very committed people. They are well funded (by us) and push the EU cause as inevitable - no alternative is possible. The propagenda is relentless. The same approach can be observed in the green movement, which in the UK has been extraordinarily successful in getting its legislation through parliament - and with disastrous consequences for the UK.

Having watched the recording, not the live event, I think Oborne would have been more effective if he had adopted a different tone and choice of words. He has an argument to put forward. It needs to crisp, clear and easily understood. Simplifying the argument to calling the man from the EU an "idiot" does not do the job required.

TrevorsDen

Oborne was rude but it was about time someone was rude.

And for an EU apologist to claim the EU kept the peace when it was in fact NATO backed by US power truly shows him to be an idiot. (I seem to recall left wing German protests during the cruise missile/SS20 deployment saga)
The facts should nor be shovelled under the carpet.

And regular viewers will no I am not a mad anti EU dipstick (I may be many other kinds).
The FTs behaviour on this issue has always been disgraceful.

TrevorsDen

rojo - so Paxman should stop people being rude? Thats a bit rich - it's his own stock in trade - to assume any answer is a load of self serving dissembling rubbish. If Paxman had been doing his own job properly he himself would have eviscerated the EU apologist's answers on the spot.

Michael Sweeney

I was rather more outraged by Lambert's Nazi smear than Oborne. Pity that Peter was a bit squiffy.

Understand why the Eurocrat walked, but they do talk a lot of drivel.

TrevorsDen

Mr Stephenson - Oborne did make the entirely valid point that the Euro mess is in fact ruining the lives of real people in a very painful way. As such his anger was entirely right and not self righteous.

I cannot say i am a big fan of Mr Oborne - but lest be clear things need to be said and as in the case of AGW we should not be browbeaten into not saying them.
The dumb idiot from the EU certainly deserves no apology.

Austin Barry

I fear Oborne may have been possessed by the spirit and spirits of the late and famously patriotic Mr. Oliver Reed.

It was though vastly entertaining for those viewers anticipating a prosaic stream of the usual Beeb Eurine.

Heartless Hard Perry

Call a spade a spade! - not an EUSSR conforming instrument for digging, turning, moving or removing earth.

Similarly, call an idiot what he is, - rather than a dullard or one acting in a significantly counter-productive way.

(Sorry – haven’t got time to check the OED)

Percy

Obourne should have smacked on of them if he really wants respect.

Augustus

Whatever one thinks of Peter Oborne's comments, the conclusion is clear enough:
Continue with trying to hold the euro together coute que coute (come what may) can only lead to structual poverty. And when
that bill is finally presented to the underclasses history teaches us that it will
only be paid one way: In blood, because the
price is always too high.

Rhoda Klapp

Oborne was right to upset the applecart. Polite behaviour does not work on the BBC, when three ero-enthusiasts are lined up against one sceptic. Had he patiently explained the truth, the treaties, the cheats, he would have been smothered with interruptions, lies, smears and all the tools of the sneerocracy. He trumped them, and he bacame the object of next-day discussion as he never would had he behaved. If he sells a book or two, good luck.

Dimoto

Oborne was clearly compensating (over-compensating ?) for being comprehensively stitched up by the (bought and sold) Today crew, earlier this week.
Who watches Newsnight these days ?

Simon Stephenson.

TrevorsDen : 12.52pm

You've misinterpreted my comment entirely if you think I consider Oborne to have been self-righteous. No, this accolade goes entirely to the Euro-supporters, like Lambert and the guy from Brussels, who appear to be so all-consumed by their ideology that they believe its correctness should never be put the test, in case someone reaches what must be the false conclusion that it is wrong.

What Oborne displayed was exasperation at having to deal with people who choose this way of interacting with others, and my point was that the public perhaps don't feel this exasperation, not being quite so closely involved as Oborne is - that they'll mistake it for petulence, which will diminish in their minds the case Oborne is trying to make.

Biggestaspidistra

If Tardio can explain himself in complex and perfect English, Oborne should be able to get past name calling. Oborne needed to show intelligence and he did his cause no favours by appearing to be a pompous Brit. And the middle classes should avoid 'mate'. Paxman was no better, sniggering whilst Tardio spoke. Of course it was a set up but, after Starkey, Oborne should have known that. No wonder the left have taken over. And don't they have barbers in Hammersmith, spend a tenner on a haircut for God's sake.

mac

Fiscal deficit in UK as share of GDP 2011 - 9%
Fiscal deficit in Eurozone as share of GDP in 2011 - 4%

Unaffordable welfare state and addiction to cheap debt is a problem a bit closer to home than the Eurozone......

HampsteadOwl

Note to Nicholas: no one elected Peter Oborne to speak on our behalf either. He's a hack, spinning out a line in which he no doubt passionately believes, like the man from Brussels. And both of them rely on so doing for their livelihood.

timinsingapore

Oborne came across as a complete prat, with zero manners to boot.

Unfortunately, he seems to be fairly representative of those who cannot conduct a rational debate about Europe issues without being anti-European. While Europhile by inclination, I would accept that the the EU has many shortcomings, and the euro even more shortcomings. I was in favour of joining at the time, and was proved wrong. But our national interests are not best promoted by the gratuitous offensiveness displayed by Oborne, and by many of the eurosceptics who claim (without much foundation) to represent our concerns in Brussels and Strasbourg. It seems not to occur to the foaming-at-the-mouth, revolving-eyed little Englanders that it might- JUST - be in our interests to have a few friends and allies on the continent. And they might also remember that the allies they have wet dreams about - the former colonies basically - lost interest in pandering to our imperial pretensions several generations ago.

Let Farage, Oborne and their fellow travellers get under the blankets together with a torch and a copy of 'Our Empire Story'. The rest of us have to earn a living in the world as it is.

Baron

Biggestaspidistra, if Oborne were polite, serious, to the point, would we be talking about, would the u-tube clip get as many hits, would anyone bother to do a u-tube cut from the Newsnight slot, ha.

Rhoda, as is always the case, encapsulates the sparring spot on.

and another thing;

mac, you don’t get it, it ain’t the deficit, it’s the political currency we’re mulling over, a currency that wasn’t needed, serves only one purpose, the advancement of an idea the time of which hasn’t come yet.

Baron

Biggestaspidistra, if Oborne were polite, serious, to the point, would we be talking about, would the u-tube clip get as many hits, would anyone bother to do a u-tube cut from the Newsnight slot, ha.

Rhoda, as is always the case, encapsulates the incident spot on.

and another thing;

mac, you don’t get it, it ain’t the deficit, it’s a political currency we’re mulling over, a currency that wasn’t needed, serves only one purpose, the advancement of an idea the time of which hasn’t come yet.

M. Rowley

Nice one Peter Oborne. Keep on sticking it to the bastards.

Occasional Ostrich

@Rhoda Klapp 10:14am

Disinclined as I am to take anything the Beeb broadcasts at face value, I find myself asking, "Why, from the moment the segment started, was Oborne boiling with fury? What went on in the green room before they were shepherded into the studio? Who, among those he spoke to, wound him up and primed him ready to explode? Lambert? Or the I from B?" I think he was stitched up, to allow Paxo to present opponents of the Euro and the bail-out as swivel-eyed lunatics?

Old Fox

At last a bit of plain speech on this tortured issue and at last a tribune of the people hurling a well deserved rotten cabbage in the face of the Euro elite - that lantern jawed reptile formerly of the FT and that smooth, robotic, careerist pillock from Brussels. Moreover, the Beeb is in no position to call a man "offensive" for calling his opponent an idiot when it has done its best over the years to call eurodoubters any number of names or at leat to create the impression that they deserve them. I must say, I almost hope this latest bail out flops more mightily than the last and that the whole crummy left dominated consensus collapses. Then we will rub their noses so hard in the rubble of their delusions they will end up looking like Voldemort.

Simon Stephenson.

timinsingapore : 3.48pm

To put it mildly, you've got a bloody nerve. You openly admit to having made a false judgement about the Euro, and then go on to denigrate all those who actually got it right about the Euro, all the way through, as merely being foaming-at-the-mouth little englanders who got lucky.

The people who are behaving less than adequately here are those whose pride and hubris seems to be so acute as to prevent them from acknowledging that, aside from the little-englanders, there were serious, talented political and economic thinkers who prophesied to a T what would happen to a single currency area which didn't have integrated fiscal/political control. There needs to be an admission from those who forced through the adoption of Euro that the tactics with which they quelled their critics were wrong - they were messianic, anti-intellectual and undemocratic and thus bore the hallmarks of many of the abuses of political power which led to the human catastrophes with which history is littered.

I S

Oborne should be venerated for his works on the political class and the art of lying.
The Euro rep was talking complete bollox - there is no 'political solution' to this economic crisis. The pygmies in charge are paralysed by indecision and embarrassment. As a result, good money is still being poured after bad and Greece will still default.
I thought Lambert came across as a snivelling little greaser.

paulg

Why would a conservative not call someone an idiot when they talk like an idiot.

For too long we have listened to their nonsense and given credence to it, its not a strategy for harmony its a suicide note.

Noa.

Here is a link John Redwood's insightful take on the debate.

*ttp://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2011/09/29/peter-oborne-speaks-up-for-the-silenced-majority/

Biggestaspidistra

Baron, if he'd had a talking parrot on his shoulder he'd have got 40 million hits on youtube by now. I still don't see your point.

Osming

The vilification the guilty men like Richard Lambert have heaped on Euroskeptics over the past 20 years has been disgraceful, disgusting and despicable. Show them no mercy; they showed none to the Euroskeptics and they should be shown none now.

DancingMonkey

As a thinking eurosceptic I feel Peter really let us down. He had the intellectual and - by highlighting the obscenity of sacraficing the Greeks on the altar of Euro egotism - the moral high ground. Yet through his frothy mouth routine he completely devalued his arguments and made himself look like a deranged ideologue. To win the argument we need to bring people who are undecided over to our side. Peter's antics on Newsnight really do not help. Until we realise this we can still lose this argument.