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Menedemus

Listed below are comments made by Menedemus between Saturday, 17th October 2009 and Wednesday, 18th November 2009.

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Britain: Putting the bite on the States 9:22pm on 18 Nov 2009 Mark, this is probably too cerebral for some people! ;)
Which names in the EU hat? 6:34pm on 14 Nov 2009 To be clear, it is my opinion not that the UK Government, Civil Servants, Local Authorities or the Judiciary are any worse (or better) than their equivalent within the other nations of the EU for generating national laws to implement EU directives and rules but, where the British are stupid, is that British officialdom will implement these laws in such a way that the laws become draconian or downright ass-like.

Jukka is quite right, laws whether they pertain to pan-European matters or are local should be adhered to dilegently but the actually implementation and enforcement of EU Directives is left to national or state entities to enforce. The British state echelons are the bodies that most religiously (and certainly with fervour!) initiate enforcement of EU rules but I bet my aviordupois Pound weight to a European Kilogram that the Anglo-Saxons enforce and implement EU-derived state laws through State officials and their national organisations far more diligently than anywhere else in the EU ....

For example, if France wants to protect French jobs in Renault despite EU Laws preventing this they will simply go ahead and close Renault factories anywhere else other than France and do so despite rather than because of the EU rules. I would bet that the UK government would follow the letter and spirit of the EU rules, close the UK factory and just pay out yet-more-State-welfare and soft-soap the Unions and UK-based ex-employees with platitudes ......

That is not the fault of the EU but it is the fault of the UK bureaucrats who have no concept of "laissez-faire".
Which names in the EU hat? 00:22am on 14 Nov 2009 threnodio @132 (with credit to democracythreat!)

Therein lies the fundamental flaw in the view that the the UK should (a) have an "in the EU or out of the EU" Referendum and (b) that all the ills of the United Kingdom can be lain at the doorstep of membership of the EU.

The reality is that, fundamentally, the UK Government, Civil Servants and Judiciary have actually been far too (and for far too long) dogmatic in their approach to actually doing and governing according to the edicts of the EU whereas other (possibly all other) EU Nations have a very much more pragmatic and laissez-faire attitude to implementation of the rules that are there to bind the EU nations together and that are generated by the EU.

The UK citizens cannot breathe for edict laws that are enacted by the UK government or enforced by the UK judiciary or Bureaucrats which impose human rights, health and safety, food hygene agricultural, fishing, trade and other EU inspired rules that many other EU nations have a very dilletante approach to adopting or not adopting wholeheartedly as they see fit.

The British citizen then, naturally, feels the blame for these rules should be pinned on the EU and hate the idea of the EU membership whereas, in fact, much of the EU Rules are designed to bring countries together and align them together in federalist but accomodating style but it is the successive British Governments and Establishment - of both Tory and Labour persuasion - who actually impose these rules (with a vengeance) on their own citizens and so make for a very jaundiced view of the EU because the UK citizens are led to believe that membership of the EU as requiring absolute obedience to all EU Directives.

Where are the EU Fish limits on the French and Spanish Fleets compared to the UK fleets which have been decimated by UK Deep Sea Fishing Quota Legislation.

How hygenic are French, Italian or Greek restaurants compared to UK restaurants or other eateries acting in compliance with UK generated hygene rules in accordance with EU food safey directives.

Is it really as safe to work on a British Construction Site as it is in say Poland, Spain or Greece or are the British Workers stifled by layers of Health and Safety legislated cotton wool compared to those countries.

And so it goes. Successive UK governments have actually been the creators of more legislation than the EU and it is that British legislation that is the bane of British citizen's lives and the cause of misplaced hatred of the EU by some British citizens.

Perhaps a British referendum should called on how the British should be governed nationally in the 21st Century rather than whether we should be part of the EU or not.
Which names in the EU hat? 4:48pm on 12 Nov 2009 Iantownhill @41

Not that I necessarily disagree or think otherwise to your summation of the role of President in your comment at #41 but quite how you know"...The Council president is really just a chairman. He/she would have the accept the decisions of the Council members, i.e. the Member States who would need to answer to their Parliaments or electorates. ..., I would love to understand?

I get the impression that the role specification has not yet been written and that the Council of Ministers are defining who should have the role and will then determine how the role should be fulfilled.

As I understand it, the role is to be THE person who either Putin or Obama can have at the end of the telephone to speak for and on behalf of the EU .... something/someone that President Bush and his administration were keen to have and do. I cannot imagine that this person is going to convene a special, hastily called, meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss the EU support (or disagreement with) either Putin or Obama but rather he is going to have to act swiftly and independently as a key executive should do - there is no point being the recipient of THE phone call from the President of the USA and not be able to make a decision there and then - that would defeat the purpose of the President of the USA having someone to call who could represent the EU.

A point in example would be the need for speed when it comes to unilateral action such as the Russian intervention in South Ossetia last year - I cannot imagine anyone who can "tick both boxes" being able to ring up Medvedev or, indeed, Putin and say"if you do this, we will do that when speaking on behalf of the EU without being (a)an executive of the Council of Ministers with plenipotentiary powers and (b) being able to make such executive decisions without the need to convene a meeting of the Council of Ministers. The selected candidate surely needs to be independently minded but also in accord with the majority view of the member Premiers of the Council of Ministers.

As the President of the Commission might actually influence world changing decisions made in Capital Cities outside of the EU one can hardly imagine that he/she will be a blushing violet - and if he/she is so lame then we've probably been vexed by the problem of the role EU President far more than we need have done and perhaps should look elsewhere within the changes guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty than that of such a subservient roles as President of the Council or EU Foreign Representative.
Which names in the EU hat? 10:58am on 12 Nov 2009 It is naive to suggest that voters in the United Kingdom do not choose their Prime Minister as, at every General Election, voters know exactly who the Leader of each party is.

I believe that the personality of each Leader (and thus potential Prime Minister) is a major contributing factor for which a political party gets votes and ultimately wins power.

In the UK, one only has to see the particular scrutiny to which Gordon Brown, David Milliband and Alistair Darling are exposed (as are David Cameron and George Osborne, et al.) to realise that their personalities and behaviours are the key to winning votes.

The fly in British politics is where the incumbent Prime Minister reshuffles the pack of his/her Cabinet or, worse still, the current Prime Minister leaves office without calling a General Election and the adminstration continues without the absolute consent of a new General Election.

One only has to see how that was a cause of electorate consternation with the rise of John Major to become Prime Minister and, more recently, Gordon Brown as Prime Minister - by default rather than popular vote.

Because elected politicians DO select people or cronies to what amounts to political posts in Europe or in the United Kingdom this does not mean that this IS a democratic process or that it IS the right way to manage political appointments.

Accountability to Parliament of the UK may be the protection offered as a figleaf for the executive powers of the Prime Minister and his/her executive choices but who exactly is the President of the Commission or Foreign Minister for the EU going to be responsible to ...... not the EU Parliament and not the electorate through that elected body but he/she/they will be solely responsible to 27 european Premiers sitting - sometimes openly, sometimes behind closed doors - always without accountability to their domestic Parliaments or Electorate. That IS not democracy in action.
Which names in the EU hat? 8:32pm on 11 Nov 2009 The whole process of selecting an unelected President and Foreign Minister just seems to me to highlight further the non-democratic deficiencies of the European Union and the rotten politics of the Council of Ministers.

The current United Kingdom Labour government has one vote in 27 for each role but this Labour government only has power through 37% of the popular votes cast at the last General Election and has less than 7 months left in office should there be, as Nick Robinson suggests in his Blog, a May 2010 UK General Election.

That means that the socialists, who currently predominate the Council of Ministers, are going to foist upon the EU THEIR popular (or best-of-the-bunch) choice, most likely a former socialist Premier, when the forthcoming elections in the UK and other countries in Europe will most likely be returning centrist-right governments who will then have to work with an unelected potentate who was not of their choosing.

It all seems rather unsatisfactory.

I support the idea of there being a European Union but this continued non-elective, undemocratic process of governing European-wide matters does seem to leave a foul stench about the rotteness of how the EU has developed and continues to develop.

The sooner we have an elected President, Foreign Minister and electorally accountable Government of Europe as a whole, the better off we will all be as this undemocratic stench is getting up my nose and makes me feel that the excercise of creating and developing the EU is more for the benefit of political elite than it is for the citizens of Europe who currently have no vote nor choice about their future.
The hard fact of healthcare costs 4:45pm on 09 Nov 2009 I should have said in my earlier comment that only 40 percent of the United Kingdom population pay Income Tax which is still the main revenue of the National Government.

My error in that regard has vexed a few people who then promptly went on to suggest that everyone in the UK pays tax because of Value Added Tax.

The problem with assuming that VAT has anything to do with the funding of the NHS is that VAT is fool's gold as all income from VAT and Customs Duties has to be paid to the EU to fund that other glorious socialist venture to which the United Kingdom is now tied irrevocably.

Thus, my original point was that 40 percent of the population of the UK who pay Income Tax and, therefore, in employment and who contribute National Insurance levy for social benefits and the NHS are THE people I was talking about who find that it is their taxes and their contributions that subsidise an ever-increasing-in-costs but ever-decreasing-in-quality NHS.

As regards the 600billion GBP - my error was adding one too many zeroes and, therein, I admit mea culpa but then my critics were then kind enough to point out the cost of the NHS has, as I maintain is due to ever-increasing-costs of the NHS, now risen to over 100Billion GBP from the figures to which I had head knowledge.

The main thrust of my argument is that the NHS is a government sponsored quango that drains money from the national exchequor and will continue to do so until such time as the amount spent on the NHS cannot be afforded by the Income Tax payers of the UK. At that point in time healthcare will return to basics for the poor and privately-funded healthcare for the more wealthy. Similar in many ways to the way that final salary pension schemes have had their day as they are no longer capable of being funded by those in employment and contributing into such schemes.

The furore over my earlier comment passed over the main point I was making which was that the USA is embarking on a fool's errand seeking universal healthcare as the same ever-increasing costs of universal healthcare that besets the UK's NHS will, inevitably, beset the USA model of universal government subsidised healthcare regardless of the good intentions of President Obama and his supporters.
The hard fact of healthcare costs 2:20pm on 09 Nov 2009 Mark, you say it so well, to quote you, "In Britain one of the main things the government does, one of the main reason people pay taxes, is for health care, so naturally the revulsion at it in the States seems a little strange".

That is the fundamental problem with the UK National Health Service. In the United Kingdom, only 40 percent of the population of the UK pay taxes and the NHS, year-on-year, gets more and more expensive to run - currently costing the Government of the UK 600billion GDP across all health service delivery.

On the face of it, universal subsidised healthcare is a wonderful aspiration but the problem is that, as with all government funded projects/organisations, the people in these projects/organisation start to believe that money grows on trees, costs for the government-funded project/organisation spiral ever upwards and the 40 percent of the population end up seeing their taxes paid out more and more on these idyllic programs without actually seeing vast improvement in civic health or well-being.

Sooner or later, the NHS in the UK will be declared bust and healthcare rationing will start (in fact it already has regardinglimitation of certain prescription drugs and certain treatments, e.g. people over the age of 80 will only get 1 hip operation per hip but if the hip wears out then tough!.

Hence, in the UK, those who can, pay for additional healthcare privately and get better service, better treatment and better quality of life than they might do with the NHS perennial problems of treatment waiting lists, MRSA and people abusing the free health services available to them even though they have not contributed to the NHS.

In the USA, the US National Healthcare service will eventually go the same way (if it comes into being) - the idealism is to be applauded but the reality, when it comes home to roost, will be a healthcare service that is universal but of less good quality than the insurance-inspired healthcare that people pay for now - thus the US tax-payers will end up subsidising universal healthcare at the expense of their own healthcare as well as seeing their tax dollars spent less efficiently.
The hard fact of healthcare costs 1:58pm on 09 Nov 2009
Why Gordon thinks he is on a promise 09:54am on 17 Oct 2009 They are waiting for a clear result to emerge from August's presidential poll and for President Karzai, assuming he is confirmed in power, to put in place an effective anti-corruption programme.

And the politicians and our dogged Prime Minister in prticular are pinning their hopes on this last paragraph.

No wonder Gordon is clinging on to power, he just sees the world through rose-tinted spectacles hoping the Recession will be over by January 2010 so the British voters can see that he is the "right man" for the job of leading this nation come the General Election, the troops will get the "right" equipment throught MOD by the time they are deployed (some hope!)and that 500 British troops will make a jot of difference.

Its almost like one banana republic trying to save another banana republic and hoping that bananas will save the world!

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