GM? We just don't trust them.

I've no idea what Monsanto has done specifically to annoy so many Austrians, but the very word was a curse amongst almost everyone I met there recently; the agrigiant was held liable for everything from bee-deaths, declining wildlife, nitrate contamination and aphid infestation to the poor weather. Needless to say they're firmly against GM foods - but not for the reasons that Boy Dave and his trusty sidekick Owen Paterson are campaigning against. 

Cameron has gone on the offensive in defence of GM foods. Emulating the great Gummer, who force-fed his daughter Cordelia with minced horsemeat to prove that beef was safe to eat, Dave has invited the world's press to his table to witness him feeding his family with a plethora of GM foodstuffs. He's addressing the food safety aspect  as though this is where the public objection lies. Which is utterly pointless.

The reason most people oppose GM is that they simply don't trust Monsanto. Their grain is sterile by design in the F1 generation, meaning farmers can't simply retain 1/10th of each crop to sow for the following year, they have to buy each year's seed from Monsanto. Any firm whose business model is based on establishing a monopoly supply position can't be trusted. And until the US has been growing the stuff for 50 years and all the negative environmental effects become apparent there why should we pollute our own farmland?

Sorry, we simply prefer the alternative that has already improved crop yields a hundred times more than Monsanto could ever achieve. By selective breeding. 

The idiot boy clearly has a political death-wish in lining himself up with yet another issue utterly antipathetic to the public view. What on earth will he support next? Free broadband for kiddy-fiddlers? Early release for Ian Brady? Banning the flag of St George from churches?

On the side of the Angels

Simon Jenkins has a decent dig at the crooks, shills, shysters and frauds who run FIFA and the IOC this morning; after conning the UK out of £9bn for their beanfest of Lithuanian tarts, blacked out limos and goody bags packed with Columbian marching powder, they imagined that squeezing £12bn out of the favelas of Rio would give them another go, this time with sunshine and bronzed bottoms. Back here in 2012 we cynics predicted a popular uprising against the Zil lanes, with IOC functionaries being pelted in their limos with ordure mid-pipe. It never happened - they just added half a billion to the security measures and another £250m to the publicity budget. But I'm not so sure it couldn't happen in Rio in 2016; it's therefore imperative that we do all we can to encourage the most lavish, extravagant and wasteful games ever.

After all, it may be our last chance to see crawling on hands and knees an IOC member stripped naked by an angry Brazilian crowd, his Lithuanian tart dismissed and his IOC limo jacked up on bricks while youths high on his IOC drugs-packet nick the wheels. It would be worth every penny of 2012.

Meanwhile our own crooks, shills, shysters and frauds who ran the CQC find themselves unexpectedly exposed; Cynthia Bower, Jill Finney and Anna Jefferson have been named as the scum who tried to cover up a negative report. Despite the redacted report trying to hide them by naming them as 'Mr' alphabet letters. I think it's also time that all UK public sector senior managers who are members of Common Purpose to have to declare it - as Masons do. What's the betting that at least two out of these three are CP shills?

NHS loses its Halo

Just two or three years ago even implied criticism of the NHS was unthinkable. It was the nation's sacred cow, free to wander unhindered and unquestioned; it defined 'Britishness' and even to hint that it was less than perfect was alike to declaring one's support for kiddy-fiddling. 

How things have changed. The accepted view is now that the NHS is an out-of-control behemoth, unmanageable, our hospitals death-factories, contaminated with deadly bacteria and viruses, uncleaned and unhealthy, staffed with uncaring incompetents, our GPs overpaid fat-cats who golf at weekends while patients die. Above all, we have accepted that NHS management is not only wholly disfunctional, but criminal in its negligence and grossly culpable for its cover-ups.

And now, to little surprise, the Care Quality Commission, the body that itself should have policed standards, has been caught in a massive cover up. This time it's new born babies that have been dying in Herodian proportions. And all the while the top guns, like senior bankers, escape jail. 

The reality is that there are many more good, professional, dedicated, caring and committed professionals in the NHS than there are incompetent fraudsters, shysters and other senior managers. A large part of the problem has been a culture of Managerialism that has robbed the professions and the Royal colleges of their authority to secure professional standards. 

But not until we have strangled the last NHS bureaucrat with the small intestines of the last NHS board member will we be able to reclaim a useful health service.

A bit of a Brazilian

The event that must be sending little frissons of unease amongst the besuited oligarchs at the G8 is the spontaneous demonstration by about a million Brazilians last night. The Guardian reckons it was prompted by another rise in bus fares, but El Pais has the better story; it was unplanned, entirely unexpected, not organised, without leaders and with a simple and universal message "We want to change Brazil". Young and old, from all classes, they just appeared, committed and angry. El Pais quotes Brazilian historian Francisco Carlos Teixeira as explaining that people felt that politicians "no longer represent them". 

It really does seem that this is more than just a temporary though global crisis of confidence in our political systems. It's really no good telling people they're being silly, it will all come to nothing and they're best off putting their trust in their local Tory MP and carrying on. That response misses the mood by a country mile and marks the responder as remote, out of touch and actually part of the problem. 

Of course (whilst avoiding potentially racist national stereotypes etc) it's possible that Brazilians are a tad more spontaneous than the inhabitants of Esher, or that Brazilian Monday night TV is even more banal than our own or that the Brazilian streets are actually not a bad place to be on a weekday evening, but it's the sheer unexpectedness of the thing rather than its size or actions that is the key point. And that's why there will be a few anxious phone calls home today from Loch Erne

Broken China

Ambrose turns his basilisk gaze to China in his latest Telegraph column, and what wondrous gloomy reading it makes. Not all his readers are happy that his focus has shifted from Europe, though;

China China China... I am sick of these doom and gloom stories about China. I want to hear some good news... like that Deutsche Bank is not broke, or that Credit Agricole is not a zombie that needs a bailout, or that there aren't 470 billion euros of construction loans sitting on the books of the Spanish banks... enough bad debt to sink the entire euro zone, and all from one misguided property boom.

 Meanwhile Boy George thinks that property booms are quite useful tools for bribing the electorate and his doing his best to stoke the UK furnace

Another commentator notes that since Chinese lenders and borrowers both are the same State there is no crisis; it's taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other. Whereas (after bailouts and nationalisations) British lenders and borrowers are ...oh, I see what they've done there

'Someone's got to win the next election'

'Someone's got to win the next election' runs the headline for a Speccie piece by James Forsyth, making the point that even though the electoral prospects of Conservative, Labour and LibDems are equally dire, the 2015 intake of MPs will come from their ranks and a government must be formed.

And this will be the case even if turnout falls to 20%, if only one in five of us bother to vote. Unlike true democracies, our corrupt third world standard electoral quotas (maintained by Labour and the LibDems), widespread and acknowledged electoral fraud and electoral malpractice, which places the UK beyond all European standards of electoral probity, will put an MP into Parliament if two bribed electors and a dog called Bert submit ballots. 

The 2015 ballot is shaping up to be a contest between the UK Political Class and the people of Britain. That neither will score an outright victory is perhaps less important than the watershed that may occur; either the Political Class realises it faces a deep crisis of democratic legitimacy and sacrifices Party for democracy (yes, unlikely isn't it?) or it is effectively abandoned by a population no longer constrained to accede to obedience.

Syria - a game of two halves

Bluntly, there's no mileage for the UK in any active involvement in or support for either side in what is squaring up to be a very bloody sectarian war. The choice is between supporting Hezbollah and the mad Mullahs of Iran, or Al Quada and the insane Imams of Pakistan. This is a Shi'ite / Sunni war, not a proxy for East vs. West or communism vs. capitalism. This is Islam eating itself, and the harsh reality is that every Jihadist from either side who succeeds in killing themselves in Syria is one less that we have to worry about. 

The press may be concerned about the several hundred Pakistani youths reported to have left the UK to fight for the rebels. They shouldn't be. Those few that aren't killed by Assad's forces should be arrested, convicted and imprisoned if they try to return to the UK - either way, they're out of action. 

As in the Iran / Iraq war, the two sides will only have the will to stop fighting once a certain level of blood has been spilled; we're nowhere near that point yet in Syria. Both sides still believe victory is possible and are negotiating for weapons, not peace. The best thing we can do is stand back and let them get on with it until they're both exhausted, then step in with the reconstruction contracts.

EDL? UAF? Not PLU.

Simon Jenkins has penned a fine piece for the Guardian on the impact of real rather than virtual demonstrations, and the role of the city square in rocking the foundations of government. All quite true. No amount of interweb polemic can equal the image on the evening news of a copper's cudgel rising and falling on the person of some patchouli-scented crustie. However, it's probably harder than you think to get folk out on the streets and squares if I'm any example to go by.

I've been on exactly two 'demonstrations' in my life; the first was the Countryside Alliance march against the Hunting Ban, the second the anti Blair-War march in February 2003. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. And on that limited experience, here's my checklist for bringing Britain's silent majority out on the streets:-

1. The ostensible reason has to be intellectually defensible with a degree of moral respectability 
2. Fellow protesters and march organisers must be law-abiding and committed to peaceful protest
3. Demonstrable shared values help; I remember how all we men doffed our caps as we passed the Cenotaph on the CA march
4. The likelihood of bumping into people you will like and may nip-off for a pint with should be high
5. The march route should pass a few decent restaurants for lunch (a Westminster to Mayfair leg at about one-ish is ideal)
6. Above all, fellow marchers must be PLU. There is nothing more guaranteed to prevent a Brit marching than the possibility of being accidentally photographed with someone whose acquaintance they would normally avoid. 

Oh, and until Waitrose start selling Throwing Vegetables in 450g blister packs ("perfectly decayed, piquant with sulphur and squishiness, firm enough for a decent lob but deliciously rotten") these things must be entirely non-physical. 

The Limits of the State

You may never have noticed, but Switzerland doesn't have a President. Or a Chancellor. In fact, the Swiss Head of State is, collectively, the seven-person Federal Council. It's worked this way since 1848, and the seven between them run just about everything a central State should run. The Swiss people make sure the central State doesn't get too ambitious by limiting the amount of tax-take they can spend - about 30%. The other 70% is determined and managed locally.

You see, there's no causative link between a nation's level of taxation and the size and power of the central State, a fact that bypasses Polly Toynbee completely. Shocked by the damage that Snowden's revelations may do to the image of the benign and all-powerful central State, Lady Toynbee leaps to the defence of the Megastate. "Labour needs to hymn the good the state does and the civilising value of what taxes buy – health, education, safety, proud public spaces. All the things that people value most." Toynbee pompously proclaims, blind to the reality that the Swiss enjoy better health, education, safety and higher quality public spaces than we do, with a much much smaller central State and highly constrained taxation.

People have a perfect right to grant their governments the power to snoop on their emails, browsers and tweets - but this must be a choice openly made, with the power always to withdraw or reverse the consent. Such consent has been noticeably absent in this case.

Cameron's Hedgehog Party

Austria, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, was always destined to carry some dodgy traffic once Schengen kicked in. Most passes through on the superb A roads, through tunnels or over high Alpine passes without incident, but just occasionally a truck comes to grief revealing an illegal cargo. So it was last week, when a vehicle carrying some 2,000 small animals overturned. Most of the cargo obediently permitted themselves to be recaptured by the Animal Welfare (well, this was Austria). The owner optimistically sent a replacement vehicle. The Authorities of course declined; the cargo would be detained whilst procedural irregularities were investigated. At the owners' expense. The irony in all this is that some 80% of the cargo was live-food for pet snakes and the like - small rodents, which the owners were now having to pay to be fed and cared for. The other 20% of the cargo was the exotic pets themselves; snakes, Armadillos and, um, Egyptian Hedgehogs. 

Hedgehogs? Since when did hedgehogs become pets? What was the attraction? I sought out an online guide to hedgehog-keeping. It consisted of page after page of advice aimed at preventing the creatures from killing or seriously injuring themselves. First, they need lots of room. "Without room, a hedgehog will show signs of depression, such as excessive sleeping, refusal to eat, repetitious behaviour, and self-mutilation. Due to their small size obesity is a very dangerous problem and hedgehogs require a fair amount of exercise to avoid liver problems due to excess weight." Uh OK a big wire cage then "Cages with wired floors are dangerous for hedgehogs because they can easily slip and get a limb caught in the wire. Multi-level ferret or rabbit cages can allow a hedgehog more room to explore without taking up extra floorspace, but when using multiple levels, keep in mind that a hedgehog has poor eyesight, can climb easily, but has difficulty descending and often does not seem to understand heights" Hmm a big cage with a safety rubber floor, then. "A wheel is necessary to provide hedgehogs with exercise. When choosing a wheel, it must have a solid floor. If an open-wire wheel is used, the hedgehog will continually fall between the bars and possibly break a leg. Wheels with crossbars can also cause facial injuries as hedgehogs have been known to look sideways out of the wheel while running." The list goes on. They are liable to amputate their own limbs with their bedding, their genitalia may get blocked with cage-dust, they are (unsurprisingly) prone to many diseases, including Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome and commonly react to stress with vomiting and green faeces.

And then the simile struck me. Hedgehogs are the Tory Party of the pet world - intent on self-destruction, blind, incapable, liable to unintentional self-injury and deliberate self-mutilation. When threatened all they can do is roll up in a prickly ball. Suddenly gay weddings, bloody windmills, state snooping, Europhilia and all the other rubbish came into perspective; it was all Hedgehog behaviour. The party has grown into an endangered creature incapable of flourishing, subject to Wobbly Tory Syndrome and liable to react to stress with vomiting and green faeces.    

Hutton, like Dworkin, is deeply Illiberal.

There's another characteristic whine from Hutton in the Guardian this morning. The recently dead Dworkin, Hutton writes, "argued that to live well and with dignity was every human being's aim – one that law and government should support" and that this was true liberalism. Poppycock. 

Let's just Fisk that quote above. By 'support' Hutton actually means 'enable' - he sees an all-powerful State regulating individual lives and rationing-out rewards equally to all, using law to prevent the emergence of a meritocracy in a system in which all are beholden to State Welfarism and to the State alone for the fulfilment of their own lives. What a dreary, squalid Soviet Hell.

In proclaiming the virtues of a Statist, repressive and coercive vesion of what he terms 'liberalism' in the Guardian, Will Hutton demonstrates nothing but his own essential illiberality. Hutton simply can't stand the simple realisation that even the Economist has reached that many more British people, and particularly the young, are rediscovering true Liberalism. Tolerant of people's differences, but with a deep distrust of the State, the Political Class and Welfarism; we should rejoice that the new generation of Brits growing into power are likely to follow Burke rather than Engels. Hutton despairs.

Let's turn that quote around and say "Neither law nor government should obstruct, hinder or restrict every human being's aim to live well and with dignity". That'll do.

Luciana Berger - the nauseating face of the political class

Labour blow-in Luciana Berger has been in a spat with one of the local councillors in her Liverpool constituency ("They've found me a safe seat in Liverpool? Where's that? Wasn't that where the Beatles came from?") before she's even been able to remember the major street-names.

Berger of course is the poster-girl for the new breed of political class who are driving voters away from the Labour and Tory parties in droves. Like most of her contemporaries, she was privately educated (Haberdasher Aske's) and from a Labour political dynasty. And no, she's never had a proper job or done a single day's proper work in her life. It was student politics, then a bit of expenses-experience with a health quango before Parliament.

She was screwed into one of  Labour's safe Liverpool seats for the 2010 election by the party's London HQ against local opposition. As Wiki records "In the run-up to the General Election, the Liverpool Echo tested Berger with a four-question quiz on Liverpool life and history. She scored two out of four, not knowing who performed Ferry Cross the Mersey and not recognising the name of former Liverpool F.C. manager, Bill Shankly."

It's Berger and her like that that are worth 10,000 votes each to UKIP and the alternative parties; the sickening and nauseating 'jobs for the boys and girls' nepotism by the dying private clubs of the main parties being truly out of favour with voters.

PRISM story tops the day

The story shared by the Washington Post and the Guardian of how the US security services enjoy unhindered access to the internet activity of the customers of the world's largest internet corporations should surprise no one. If you weren't already aware that every single word you type on that keyboard is known to some security official somewhere you should be. US security officials have responded by calling the reports 'irresponsible' - not untrue, note - and claiming that the US's security has been damaged by disclosure that the government is snooping on everyone's email. 

It's not just the septics, of course. Our own MPs, both Tory and Labour, are pushing for even greater access to our private information under a new 'snooper's charter' but at the same time seeking to restrict radically our access to information on their own pay and expenses, and our ability (through Leveson) to share information on their badger-watching activities or to share photographs they have posted of themselves in their underwear or dressed in rubber or leather harness.

And at a time when we've lost not only Tom Sharpe but Oliver Bernard, the last and most human of the three brothers. I remember too fondly an afternoon session in the French back in the 90s with Dan Farson, Sandy Fawkes and both Bruce and Oliver - in reality the invective was poison - all of whom are now dead. I mention this only because they shared a common loathing and mistrust for anyone who presumed to know better than they what was good for them - including the presumptive and impertinent interference by the government in our private affairs. Still, the revelation that it is the US that is the world's first Police State fills me with hope; if there's a people anywhere in the world who will not stand for this, it's the Americans.  

Osborne a Moron - official

Whilst I'm waiting for the boy's latest genius wheeze to add a further 20% to the value of my home here in London, there's equal satisfaction to be had from the comments of Soc Gen's Albert Edwards;

"I don’t think Andrew Bridgen at Fathom Consulting was strong enough when he described George Osborne’s scheme as “reckless”. I believe it truly is a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business. It ranks above some of Alan Greenspan’s very worst blunders. And when so many highly regarded commentators speak out against it, only to be totally ignored by George ‘I know better’ Osborne, he may really deserve to be called a moron."

So what do they think the EU is?

It's always good to see the beaker people over at the Grauniad running about like puppies every time they discover fire. Today it's Seumas Milne who is granted the rare flashes of insight;

But the real corruption that has eaten into the heart of British public life is the tightening corporate grip on government and public institutions – not just by lobbyists, but by the politicians, civil servants, bankers and corporate advisers who increasingly swap jobs, favours and insider information, and inevitably come to see their interests as mutual and interchangeable. The doors are no longer just revolving but spinning, and the people charged with protecting the public interest are bought and sold with barely a fig leaf of regulation.

 It defies rationality to believe that the prospect of far better paid jobs in the private sector doesn't influence the decisions of ministers and officials – or isn't used by corporations to shape policy. Who can seriously doubt that politicians were encouraged to champion light touch regulation before the crash by the lure and lobbying of the banks, as well as by an overweening ideology?

Britain is now an increasingly corrupt country at its highest levels – not in the sense of directly bribing officials, of course, and it's almost entirely legal. But our public life and democracy is now profoundly compromised by its colonisation. Corporate and financial power have merged into the state.

And what of the European Commission and the European Parliament, where the merger has not only gone further but is increasingly more explicit? A Europe run for the huge corporations by the huge corporations, with national governments bought and sold and free market competition crushed?

Hey ho. Maybe they'll discover a use for the wheel next week.

Just more bent politicians

Did anyone really imagine that after the mass-culling of bent MPs from the Rotten Parliament that Westminster would transform into an exemplar of probity? No, of course not. The game has changed - and not getting caught is now the name of the game. To make things fair, and to balance the list of Lobbyists, Levenson will no doubt now back an official register of undercover journalists, fake sheiks and investigative reporters and make it an offence to gull an MP. 

And no one really imagines that if UKIP were at Westminster things would be much different. Already somewhere I'm sure a newly-elected UKIP Councillor is pocketing a fat brown envelope in return for believing that what his ward really needs are a few more bloody windmills built by Romanians. 

And still there are out there strident voices urging us all to support them all the same; a bit like salesmen convincing us that blue asbestos is just the stuff from which to make children's play equipment. Oh yes, they aver, Labour and Tory sleaze, corruption and fraud is completely different. Labour mostly go for money, while for the Tories it's deviant sex. Or maybe LibDems. Just shuffle back into line you lot and support detached millionaire confection Dave for top fruitcake. 

It's gone way past that of course. We'll all vote UKIP in 2014 to deliver such a kicking to Dave's curly icing that will be felt right through to his Angelica bits. And that's about as adult and responsible as it gets.

Blair MUST stand trial over Iraq

A year before the invasion of Iraq, long before the UN had completed its programme of weapons inspections, long before the Parliament of the United Kingdom had considered the matter, long before even the publication of Alastair Campbell's fraudulent and false 'dossier' and long before the exhaustion of diplomatic means, Blair wrote letters like an infatuated schoolboy to the American President assuring him that the the UK was committed to support an invasion of Iraq for the purpose of regime change. 

Fine. Except such actions are more than embarrassing - they're almost certainly illegal, contrary to international law. 

The Mail reports Cameron's refusal to release the Blair letters and attributes it to a deal for electoral support. Rubbish. Cameron and Blair are from the same mould - and Cameron is as committed to all members of the political class being immune for their actions as is Blair. Cameron is with-holding the evidence because he doesn't want to set the precedent of a politician being held accountable for his actions.   

Blair, whose 'peacemaker' role as ME envoy has become a risible parody of all the past failures there, must stand trial before the International Court to achieve what the Septics call 'closure' on Iraq. Or he will go to his grave with the 'war criminal' tag firmly attached.

A Zero-growth future?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's grasp of the dire state of the global economy never fails to make a dismal and depressing read to cheer me up, and his current column in the Telegraph is a corker. All that Osborne's tsunami of QE has achieved, it seems, is to have made the obscenely wealthy even richer and sent the Gini coefficient soaring. Everyone else is struggling with static incomes but increasing outgoings - a condition that suits the political-corporate class very nicely, as a population concentrating on keeping its head above water doesn't have much time for riotous behaviour. Until things reach a tipping point. 

Post-war politicians have had it easy, with continuous economic growth modulated only by the business cycle, and since the business cycle and electoral cycles are at differing frequencies each party has had a Buggin's turn of good and bad. But what if zero to low economic growth is the norm? What if, like in the century before the Black Death, wages remain at the same levels for 150 years? Where are the technological changes that drive economic growth? (no, a new model of iPad really doesn't count unless it flies alongside you and you can have an intelligent conversation with it).

Our grandchildren may have to learn to live in a very different economic world.

"UK will debate proposals, then obey them"

When the war correspondent Alan Moorehead reached Brussels shortly after liberation, he found the city's zoo being used to hold alleged Nazi collaborators. "What will happen to them?" he asked. "They will be given a fair trial, then they will be shot" came the answer. 

It seems the character of the Bruxellois hasn't changed a great deal in sixty years. The Speccie publishes the EU's programme for the latest stage in its takeover of national governments; "National ministers study the AGS and adopt conclusions" is this Winter's task for Cameron's government, and in June of next year Cameron is instructed that "national ministers discuss the Commission's budget recommendations and adopt conclusions"

Osborne is nothing but a foolish and incompetent dilettante who shouldn't be let near running a tuck shop, but at least he's our idiot. I've no confidence that the foolish and incompetent zealots from Brussels will be any better at running the UK economy than 'Boy' Osborne but why on Earth should we give them the chance? Why are all 27 EU nations included in surrendering their budgets to Brussels, not just the Eurozone masochists?

Bring on the referendum.

Real European values

This is an edited version of posts I tried making last week

The landscape here in this part what the EU is terming the 'Alpe-Adria' or Alpine Adriatic region is dramatic. Steep-sided valley sides with crystal clear rivers rushing between them, with tractor-activity on the flat valley floors but otherwise 45° farming the old way - livestock - with woodland coming in when this is impractical, up to the tree-line. Just a brief word about the tree-line: if there has been an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, these high trees will benefit. At 2,500m trees grow very slowly due to low CO2 concentrations, and woodland is consequently extremely cheap. More CO2 means quicker growth and, er, more CO2 'locked in'. And an economic benefit in terms of increased timber production. 

Environmental quality is really important here. The mountain water is pure enough to drink, and they aim to keep it that way right down to the lakes and reservoirs, so only saily boats or electric-engined craft are generally allowed here. This extends to restricting Nitrate fertilizer use to prevent the run-off that has polluted so much UK water. And if you want instant popularity here, say 'Monsanto' and spit (hygienically, into a container, for safe disposal). They don't like GM, hate the big farming-pharma companies, loathe corporate farmers and love their bees. They could almost be Greens except that you won't find one single bloody windmill anywhere. Not one. Despite all those high mountains and strong winds, the entire skyline remains undespoiled by those useless, absurd, alien objects. 

If Hungary is securing 'Home, Work, Family, Health and Order' with the cudgel then Austria uses 'nudge' to promote much the same values. With the memory of Vichy France replacing 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' with 'Work, Family, Fatherland' as a national slogan perhaps in mind, there remains a certain sensitivity here towards anything too prescriptive. It's an odd contrast. As is the almost universal regard for the memory of Jörg Haider I encountered. Five years ago in Lambichl near Klagenfurt he piled and rolled his government-issued car. His death had a sort of JFK impact - of great potential cut short, and like JFK he was swiftly popularly canonised. This video is typical. Quietly, and after half a bottle of Schnapps, even an eminently sensible Ing.Dr. Frau will whisper to you that he was killed. 

There is no question about the Roma and the Sinti. They are not wanted here under any circumstances, and all means of keeping them out are regarded as fair. Generally they are picked up on the way in at the borders by the traffic cops, who rarely fail to find fault with their vehicles or documents. Those that get through are watched and caught. Handgun ownership for household protection is common here (each person is allowed one full-calibre pistol or revolver plus another up to .22 calibre) and with the Glock factory nearby, you can pick up a 3rd-generation 9mm Glock G17 for about €300. This may also be a deterrent for any ill-minded Roma.

The attitude to the EU is as ambivalent as everywhere. The strongest 'for' reasons, in order, are Security, Trade and Economy, International influence and the strongest 'anti' reasons in order are Interference in domestic matters, Corruption and pro-Corporatism. The CAP, under which (it is quoted here) France, with 15% of the EU's farmers, gets 70% of the budget, is seen as in need of urgent reform. Small, mixed, traditional farms are the norm here - not by themselves productive enough to sustain a family, but hugely valuable both for cultural and environmental reasons. A secondary income stream from employment, tourism or niche marketing of specialist products is needed to make these small farms sustainable - and if we can do it, they say here, why can't the bloody Kermits?

Oh, and finally smoking. Yes, the Austrians say, it is a bad thing and people should stop. But they must also be free to smoke if they want to. So smoking is banned in public (government) buildings only - but not in bars, hotels or restaurants. If you want a smoke-free coffee, go to the Bahnhof cafe or the Rathauskellar. This is eminently sensible and actually works very well. 

It all makes one really wonder why our politicians and civil servants are so bloody stupid. 

"Um, those are what we call clouds, sir"