Only thing that really matters in 2013: is eurozone crisis over?

 On the morning of May 7^th 2012, Greek voters woke up to discover that they had effectively voted to leave the EU. A majority of the new  members of parliament were in parties that rejected the crippling terms of the latest EU £110bn bailout package. It looked like the beginning of the end for the 11 year old European single currency. The cracks in the European Union began to look unbridgeable

Bond investors across the world reached for their phones. Many financiers decided that the euro was finished, and they placed their massive bets accordingly. It was reported that Lord Rothshild of the banking dynasty, had personally taken out a £130m“short” position against the battered single currency. Surely, the EU could not recover from this! If Greece fell, then so would Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy which were all in the same deflationary boat – saddled with over-valued currencies, forced to cut spending in a recession, crippled by unsustainable interest rates on their massive debts. A new word was coined to describe the countries on their way out: “Grexit”

Europe's political leaders seemed caught in the headlights; unable to reconcile the need for fiscal discipline with the imperative of restoring economic growth. In Greece, where the economy had shrunk by 20%, violent social unrest had become an almost weekly occurrence as EU-imposed cuts made the recession even deeper. In Spain, unemployment among under 24 year olds rose to over 50%.. And the contagion began to infect the entire eurozone as France lost its triple A credit rating and Germany, the most powerful economy in the EU, plunged toward recession.

In Britain, the political classes awaited the inevitable. Most of the British media had decided long since that the euro was a dead duck and that it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. You cannot have a single currency without a central government and a central treasury, with the power to intervene in national budgets and the power to issue bonds for every member state. Surely, Greece and Spain would see sense and leave the euro, devalue their currencies, default on their debts like Argentina in 2001, and seek to recover on the basis of low wages and cheaper exports. What alternative did they have? Sticking with austerity was leading to economic depression and social unrest.

But somehow, the inevitable didn't happen. The Greek political parties couldn't agree on a government and decided to hold another election on 17^th June. This left the pro-austerity New Democracy, led by conservative Antonis Samaras,  with a reasonably firm mandate to stick with the euro, bailout and all. Greece would not default. Then, Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, announced that he would do “whatever it takes” to stop the single currency collapsing. Many believed this was just another empty promise from a bankrupt eurocrat, but Draghi proved true to his word. In September the ECB committed itself to unlimited purchasing of european government bonds, and the sovereign debt crisis began almost immediately to subside. The rate of interest on Greek, Spanish and Italian debt returned to pre-crisis levels.

BBC's Year of Shame. See pages 2,3,4..94.

Herald 27/12/13

Whatever happened to Auntie? One of the prime casualties of 2012 was the BBC's reputation as a solid and dependable institution devoted to nature documentaries and unbiassed news. It was revealed as an demented bureaucracy, run by a management of grasping kleptocrats, harbouring sex criminals and using public money to defame innocent pensioners by calling them paedophiles.

OK. I exaggerate. The BBC is still a great institution...public service ethos...cultural guardian...David Attenborough etc. But if nothing else, the corporation has shown itself to be hopeless at broadcasting its strengths as well as its weaknesses. At one stage it seemed as if every BBC news programme was investigating other BBC news programmes. Shoals of BBC reporters were standing outside BBC premises waiting to doorstep BBC employees about the BBC. We lost track of the number of investigations that were launched over Newsnight, Lord McAlpine, Jimmy Savile. A new word entered the dictionary of infamy, when we learned that lots of senior BBC executives were being “recused” from their jobs. Which seems to mean suspended without prejudice so that they can be given large sums of money.

We now learn from the National Audit Office that 200 managers have received pay offs of more than £100,000 in the past three years. The public spending watchdog has described the BBCs severance packages of up to £900,000, as “excessively generous”. This news made me particularly annoyed because when I left the BBC some years ago I didn't get a brass farthing, or even a bronze bawbee. This was presumably because I hadn't been guilty of gross incompetence, defamation, sexual malpractice or sloppy journalism. I'll know better next time.

The remuneration practices of BBC senior management – most of whom seem to earn more than the Prime Minister - has been a bitter insult to the thousands of BBC employees who do not get large salaries for sitting on committees droning on about imagineering the blue sky challenges going forward. The BBC is not a highly paid organisation, compared with other professions. Most BBC producers – especially in Scotland - accept relatively modest pay as the price of doing a job they love. The BBC also produces an astonishing number of programmes – look at iPlayer – most of which are of very high quality, and makes them very cheaply. But somehow the BBC appears to be completely incapable of getting this message across.

Better Together's secret weapon: Tony Blair.

Herald  18/12/12

First it was David Cameron, now Tony Blair has entered the fray. He told journalists at a press gallery lunch this week that he stood ready and willing to come to the aid of  Better Together's fight to keep Scotland in the UK. All we need is for Margaret Thatcher to come out of retirement to help save Britain and we'd have the set. The Scottish Nationalists are jubilant. 'Christmas has come early'', said Kenneth Gibson MSP. In Nationalist demonology, there are no blacker figures than these with which to scare the Scottish voters.

But I'm not sure. David Cameron is regarded as a benign irrelevance, Thatcher is ancient history to Scots under forty, and even Tony Blair is not the hate figure he was. In fact, he was never quite the hate figure he was said to be. There's little polling evidence that Scots had any particular loathing for the former Labour prime minister, who of course delivered the Scottish parliament after the 1997 referendum. One episode in particular testifies to the contrary.

It was at the height of the Keep the Clause row in 2000. Cardinal Winning and Brian Souter had staged their private referendum to show that Scots didn't want to lose Section 2a, which outlawed the teaching of homosexuality in schools. The late Donald Dewar was at sixes and sevens; the cabinet was split; the press were in revolt. Church figures were warning about homosexual role-playing being introduced to Scottish classrooms. UK commentators suggested that devolution had unleashed a latent homophobia in Scottish society.

Then, Tony Blair made a speech at the Scottish Labour Conference in Edinburgh in March 2000 in which he ridiculed the alarmism of the Keep the Clausers. “Kids are going to be force-fed gay sex education?”, he said referring to the adverts being posted across Scotland. “And it's Donald who's doing it? What utter nonsense”. And with that the panic subsided. I can't recall any single speech which has had such a direct impact on public debate as that one. Blair clearly carried conviction and people trusted him - rather more than his Scottish Labour counterparts. The Scottish Executive – as it then was - made some noises about supporting the family in the bill, the clause was dropped, and the issue duly died.

Of course, this was before the Iraq war, which destroyed Tony Blair's credibility. For many Scottish intellectuals Blair remains the Unforgiven, though memory of the war is rapidly fading into history for most Scots. Blair is probably more widely remembered here for the struggle with Gordon Brown, his embittered rival for the Labour leadership. In the years before Blair's resignation in June 2007, there was a widespread feeling in Scotland that, in some way, the then Labour Chancellor was more in tune with Scottish sensibilities. It was assumed, without a great deal of evidence, that he was less “New Labour” than Tony Blair, and that his attitudes to issues like the market reforms in the National Health Service was more true to Labour values. This was largely wishful thinking.

Forget Barroso, what if the David Cameron takes Scotland out of Europe.

 Sunday Herald 16/12/12

I don't know about Tantric sex, but the Prime Minister is certainly a teaser. Last week he informed hungry hacks at a Westminster press lunch that he had delayed yet again his long forecast speech on a referendum on European membership. He said that like Tantric sex, it would be worth the wait, though I'm not quite sure for whom. Perhaps he is suggesting that the opposition, or the EU, will be shafted. Or could it be Scotland?

Scottish debate on Europe has been depressingly parochial. For weeks, commentators and unionist politicians have been blasting the SNP for not being able to guarantee that Scotland would gain automatic entry to the European Union after independence. What the myopic chatterati have failed to grasp is that the UK is moving rapidly away from the EU and, under the present constitutional arrangements, is likely to take Scotland with it – at least if the majority of Tory MPs in Westminster get their way.

Conservative opinion on Europe has changed out of all recognition in the past 20 years, since the Tory Prime Minister, John Major, faced down his rebels and ratified the Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union. That was when it was still possible for a Tory PM to say that they wanted Britain to be “at the heart of Europe”. Not any more they don't. They are all eurosceptics now. It is extremely rare to hear anyone in the Conservative Party having a good word for Brussels, which is now universally condemned as a parasitical bureaucracy presiding over a basket case currency that will shortly collapse.

David Cameron is a pragmatist, and doesn't want to cut economic ties with Europe, but he is under increasing pressure and not just from his parliamentary party. The UK Independence Party is snapping at Tory heels in southern constituencies, and the UK press, led by the Daily Mail and the Sun, with their five million readers, are increasingly europhobic. According to YouGov, a clear majority of English voters say they either want to leave the EU or renegotiate the terms of British entry. The Labour leader Ed Miliband has turned trappist on Europe, because he doesn't want to be on the wrong side of public opinion, and is likely to back a referendum on Europe after the next general election. The Liberal Democrats have also called for a referendum on British membership.

Cameron, when he finally gets over his coitus interruptus, is expected to say this: Britain will make a series of proposals for renegotiation to Brussels along the lines of “back to the Common Market”. In other words, Britain would explicitly be opting out of the European Union, and rejecting its right to legislate on UK internal affairs. This will be a momentous step. It will almost certainly be rejected by the European Union because there is actually no Common Market left to join. Britain would have to opt out of the EU altogether and seek status such as Norway, which is part of he European Economic Area.

Independence in Europe. Jose he say "no".

It recalled the BBC Director General, John Entwhistle, being jeered by MPs over the Newsnight/Savile affair.   John Swinney, the Scottish finance secretary, was ridiculed by the House of Lords economic committee on Tuesday for trying to argue that an independent Scotland would be able to remain in the EU because it would still be part of the UK when the negotiations took place. The “last refuge of the scoundrel” sneered one Peer. “Doesn't know what he's talking about” said another

Their Lordships eyes rolled to the ceiling in mock amazement as a diffident Swinney tried to argue that the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, had not said what he clearly had said in a letter to the committee. Namely, that after independence Scotland would become “a third country with respect to the EU” and that the various treaties “would no longer apply on its territory” and that the new entity would have to apply for membership “like any other state”. The chairman, Lord McGregor, treated Swinney as if he were a rather dim sixth former at a minor public school.

It wasn't really John Swinney's fault – the constitution and Europe isn't his brief after all, it is Nicola Sturgeon's. And the patronising Peers, like Lord Forsyth and Lord Lipsey, are of course political appointees and hardly independent authorities. He had been left dangerously exposed by his own party, who've tried to ignore this issue for far to long expecting that it will go away. This won't do. You can't be the party of 'independence in Europe' when the top guy in Europe is suggesting that Scotland would be ejected from it.

Nicola Sturgeon has been dragged kicking and screaming to give a statement on EU membership to Holyrood on Thursday, just as Alex Salmond was dragged to the chamber to explain the non-existent legal advice in October. This is undignified.  Barroso has chosen to get involved in this issue for his own political motives. Bureaucrats, like cushions, ten to show the imprint of the last people who sat on them. Barroso is under pressure from other member states, like Spain, who have their own separatist movements, not to say anything that might encourage secession.

Autumn Statement: The End of the World As We Know IT . (That's if you're on benefits)

 Sunday Herald 9/12/12

   According to the Mayan calendar, the world will end on the 21^st of December, but reading the commentary on the Chancellor's autumn financial statement last week, you could be forgiven for thinking that apocalypse had come early this year. George Osborne's admission that his austerity policies will last at least until 2018 has led to much anguish and soul-searching as the Great Recession, as it has been called, slides into a Great Depression.

It's bad. No point denying it. Britain's slump has already lasted longer than in the 1930s,though the impact has been disguised by falling unemployment figures. However, this is largely because millions of people are now working part time in dead end jobs with no security and no future. The problem of public and private debt remains as serious as ever. British households owe more than annual GDP and government borrowing has actually been increasing – though this was disguised by Treasury jiggery pokery in the autumn statement, adding one-offs like the sale of 4G mobile phone licences. The Bank of England has been printing money like there's no tomorrow and British exports have been falling despite the low pound.

All we hear is doom and gloom, as Sir Mick Jagger puts it (though at £400 a ticket he's never had it so good). Some are saying that this is a structural change in post-industrial economies and that we can no longer rely on growth naturally returning after recessions; that we are turning Japanese and face a lost decade or two. But we should beware economic defeatism, however seductive. Doing nothing is not an option, and the government's refusal to act is not entirely because it has run out of things to do. There are other agendas at work here – like cutting welfare and the public sector. The Tories don't want to let a good crisis go to waste. 

George's Christmas message to the poor: abandon hope.

From Herald 5/12/12

  

   In 1931, when the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald cut unemployment benefit in an economic depression, the Labour party split and was almost destroyed as a political force for the next decade. But the cuts in welfare made in the Chancellor, George Osborne's autumn statement have not only failed to cause a split the Liberal-Tory coalition, they've won the support of the Labour opposition. In his bumbling Commons response yesterday, the one thing that the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls had no difficulty saying clearly was that “Labour supports the cap on benefits”.

Except, of course that it isn't a cap, but a cut in real terms, since benefits like Job Seekers Allowance will rise at only 1% per year while inflation has been running at 2.5-5%. This represents a significant slice of a very meagre income. The current maximum rate for Job Seekers Allowance is £71 per week. I had to double-check that figure because at first I didn't believe anyone could possibly be live on it.   Of course, those receiving JSA will also be entitled to housing benefit and council tax relief, but that still leaves them with very little for the bare necessities of food, clothing, heat. Living on that kind of level for any length of time would not just be soul-destroying, for many of us it would be life-destroying.

The Chancellor justified the cut, which will take nearly £4bn out of the pockets of welfare claimants over three years, on the grounds that he was taking an equivalent amount from the rich by capping tax free pension pots, ending Swiss tax havens and altering changes to tax thresholds. But this is hardly comparing like with like. Losing tax relief on the top quarter million of a £1.5 million pound pension fund is hardly going to hit as hard as losing £5 out of a £71 allowance, and that is what the poor sod on JSA is looking at over the next three years. And since there is all party support for this squeeze, there isn't much hope of a reversal.

One of the remarkable achievements of this Coalition has been to fundamentally change the terms of the debate over welfare during this recession. There seems to very little public sympathy now for those on benefits. I hesitated before writing this column about welfare because I'm aware that, for many people, the issue is simply a turn off: heard it all before, country's run out of money, we've all had to tighten our belts. Labour focusses relentlessly on “hard working” middle income families – who, it is claimed, lost £1,000 a year through yesterday's jiggling with tax thresholds and entitlements. The Liberal Democrats used to be the party of conscience, but they are now signed up to the austerity programme and seem to have lost their voice.

Leveson Press Law. Don't worry, it'll never happen.

    The debate over Lord Justice Leveson's call for statutory regulation of the press has unfortunately turned into a political bun-fight. Labour are so eager to court popularity by hammering the gutter press that they've embraced the Leveson Laws with hardly a moment's pause. Meanwhile, from the opposing camp comes the din of grinding axes as special interests led by the Murdoch press line up behind David Cameron against Leveson's “statutory underpinning”. Many believe the PM is only opposing regulation because he wants to keep the press barons on side for the next election.

But while politicians are always guilty of courting the press – even our own First Minister , Alex Salmond, couldn't resist offering to bat for Rupert as Leveson pointed out acidly – we should give the Prime Minister some credit for having genuine reservations about the rush to reintroduce regulation after three hundred years. And yes, I know regulation doesn't mean “political control” - but you have to look at how this new “independent” regulator would work.

Let's imagine that the Leveson proposals are adopted into law. What happens then? Well, the new Press Standards Commission is appointed by a panel overseen by the regulator, Ofcom. Since Ofcom is appointed by government, a line of influence is already open. The PSC drafts a code of conduct requiring journalists to behave properly, not hack phones, not harass famous novelists, not tell lies about people who've lost children, not blag medical records of politicians' children from the NHS -  In other words: obey the law. But since it is the courts that enforce the law, what else would the commission do? How would the Commission enforce good behaviour? Well, it would license the press – decide who is a legitimate accredited journalistic operation.

Lord Leveson doesn't use the word, “license” but he does propose a “kite-mark” for reputable organs. In exchange for being licensed, the newspaper would have certain legal protections in defamation and other cases. Lord Leveson says that those who don't play along would have to pay full court costs in defamation actions even if they WIN the case. So, if Lord X sues for defamation, and the Sunday Herald win on the grounds that what they have said about him is true, it might still have to pay the costs of the litigation, which could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

  Licensing raises the whole issue of compliance. Editors would have to show, even before they embark on a story, that they have fully discussed the implications, not just all the possible legal consequences, but whether they are within the Commission's code. If they are not, and the story leads to court action, they could effectively lose the protection even if story is true. So we can already begin to see some of the difficulties this might cause in a fast-moving news environment. 

Who will be first to be locked up by the Leveson Laws?

 Form an orderly queue there, please. Editors are jostling to be the first in the clink if the government moves to introduce press regulation. Already, the editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson, has said he will not comply with any such statutory body, and is prepared to suffer the consequences – which could mean spending a few months at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Other hacks are promising to desert print for the internet where it is thought the Leveson Laws will not apply.

They're all assuming that Lord Justice Leveson will today end Britain's tradition of press freedom, which dates from 1695 when state licensing of newspapers was abolished. And they are almost certainly right. Lord Leveson is not bonkers. His report, published today, will be cogent and reasonable and will almost certainly call for a new independent system of press regulation, backed up by new laws, which the Prime Minister will find very difficult to reject.

During his lengthy inquiry, the Law Lord made it clear that the present system of self-regulation through the industry body, the Press Complaints Commission, is broken and that public confidence can only be restored by independent regulation of the press. All of the press. Opinion polls show overwhelming public support for regulation. This time it really is closing time in the last chance saloon – and PC plod is about come and chuck out the barflies.

Now as working hack, I find talk of statutory controls deeply troubling. Not least because it seems to be Labour and Liberal spokespeople who are mustard-keen on press regulation, while it is the Tory ministers like Michael Gove and press barons like Rupert Murdoch who are standing for the principle of a free press. With friends like these... It is disturbing to see the Guardian newspaper, which broke the Milly Dowling story, and the National Union of Journalists arguing for a form of state regulation of newspapers.

Regulation can only mean, surely, that a new body - admittedly at arms length - will be empowered, effectively, to license publications, and possibly even license journalists. Certainly the new regulatory body would be in a position to levy fines and enforce the right of reply, and it will be a court of final appeal for people who feel they have been hard done by in the press. Perhaps, indeed, the regulator will have to be consulted when a newspaper proposes to break the law, or bend the law, in the public interest. I'm thinking about use of covert recordings or phone hacking to expose fraud, wrong doing and illegality. To catch a thief you set a thief.

Nadine Dorries: A Nightmare in Westminster.

 Daytime nightmares are the worst kind because you can't wake up from them. All week, I've been haunted by an image that lodged in my brain on the day the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries, was evicted from I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here. It is of a parliament entirely composed of neurotic self-publicists.

Nadine Dorries would lead the front bench of course, where she thinks she ought to be. The Leader of the Opposition would be George Galloway, the member for Big Brother. Louise Mensch, the Corby Tory, whose sudden departure to America plunged her party to by-election defeat, would be foreign secretary. Lembit Opik – of Cheeky Girls – would be there for the Libdems, and Sally Bercow, the Speaker's wife, would of course sit on the cross benches as the member for Twitter and Libel.

Scotland would be represented by Mssrs Pot and Kettle: the education secretary Mike Russell and his accuser, the Labour MSP Michael McMahon, who was suspended from Holyrood last week for telling the Presiding Officer that she was “out of order”. They'd be having a square go on the backbenches, over lies, lies, lies. Meanwhile, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks would be guffawing from the press gallery while paying private detectives to gather news by hacking into members' phones.

Don't laugh. The way things are going, this could be what parliament will look like in future, once Twitter takes over from the stuffy “old” media and our parliamentary coverage comes to us by virtue of YouTube. Politicians are able to justify almost any bad behaviour on the grounds that it gets them noticed. As she emerged from the jungle, Mad Nad was not only unrepentant, but bitching about the Prime Minister for suggesting that MPs ought to be doing their job in parliament rather than peddling their dismal egos and baring their boobs on reality TV. “But I was doing it for ordinary people - to connect with them”, insisted Dorries on breakfast TV after being evicted from the show so fast she hardly had time to digest her ostrich anus.

The Conservative MP claimed that becoming a celebrity “known to millions” would make it easier for her to promote her cherished causes, like reducing the time limit for abortions. What a sad delusion. Doesn't she realise that she can only damage any cause stupid enough to let her represent it -  though I suppose it couldn't happen to a better cause. Dorries has earned the contempt of her leader and her party, but far worse she has treated her voters with contempt. She is a ludicrous figure and the sooner she is out of politics the better.

Norway, Scotland, and why I was wrong about the arc of insolvency

   I have often regretted coining the phrase “the arc of insolvency” in this column in 2008 to describe the financial crisis as it afflicted Iceland and Ireland. It was only ever one side of the story. While some neoliberal small nations exploded because of their irresponsible banks, the rest of the Nordic arc - Denmark, Sweden, Finland - passed through the eye of the storm largely unscathed. Certainly, in Norway, where I have been hanging out this week, there is no sign of any financial hangover from the great crash.

Oslo is, as usual, a building site. There can be few cities outside South East Asia that are so obviously booming. Unemployment here is very low, salaries are very high, beer is ruinously expensive at eight pounds a pint – though that doesn't seem to stop people going to the pub. Even the banks are doing well in Norway, largely because they didn't get caught up in the property madness that exploded Iceland and Ireland.

Deficit? Non existent – Norway has the largest budget surplus of any AAA rated nation in the world. Growth is “only'”3.7% ; inflation is 1.4% ; unemployment at 3.3% is the lowest in Europe and poverty is almost too low to measure. This is a country which regularly tops the global quality-of-life indexes. So what is the secret? Why have economies like Norway been largely immune to economic crisis that left countries like Britain as debt zombies, kept going only by zero interest rates and money printing?

Price fixing energy monopolies are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

  Whistle-blower says energy companies fix the price of gas.  And the Pope is Catholic.  Did anyone seriously think that the price of gas, electricituy or petrol is determined by a free market?   As the AA  has pointed out that petrol prices "go up like a rocket and down like a feather". Since he beginning of October, wholesale prices have fallen by ten pence, but pump prices by 4p. SSE has just announced a 9% increase in domestic energy tariffs this winter - three times the rate of inflation - and surprise surprise, the rest of the industry is following suit.

   There is no longer any recognisable market in energy.  It is an industry run by a cartel of mostly foreign-owned companies who treat the domestic consumer with contempt.  It is a deeply corrupt system in which the government connives with price fixing.  But though they don't realise it yet, the energy companies are planting the seeds of their own destruction. Once the public finally realise that they are being conned, there will be demands to take these private monopolies back into effective public ownership through regulation and taxation as is happening to the UK railways.   The present situation is unsustainable.

Europe's trades unionists have won the argument even if they haven't won the streets

 Last week' pan-european strike was the biggest show of trade union solidarity since the creation of the European Union. 40 trades unions in 23 countries took to the streets in protest at the austerity policies being pursued by European countries under the direction of the IMF and the European Central Bank. The organisers should be very pleased with the response, even though it largely passed Britain by.

The turnout demonstrates that, even though the vast majority of workers in countries like in Spain are not members of trades unions, it is possible to mount an effective protest against austerity across southern Europe at least. However, protest is all it was. This was not a general strike or anything like it, and we shouldn't exaggerate its impact. The EU bureaucrats are not exactly shaken to the core. Nor is Angela Merkel likely to open the coffers of the Bundesbank because of a few clashes with police. The demonstrations will make very little difference to the fate that awaits a generation of young people as Europe languishes in economic depression.

This is despite the fact that in many ways the unions have won the argument. The intellectual case for continuing with the austerity measures in the eurozone has been seriously undermined by the deepest economic contraction in  since the Second World War. Greece's economy has shrunk by 25% since 2009, and the contraction is accelerating: Greece shrank by 7.2% in the Third Quarter of 2012, which is unprecedented in any European country in peacetime. Countries like Spain, where unemployment is now running at 25%, are caught in a ruinous fiscal trap: cuts lead to economic contraction, which leads to more unemployment, which leads to collapse of tax revenues, which leads to more debt and more cuts. It is a vicious spiral the significance of which the northern eurozone countries seem unable to grasp - even though Germany is now beginning to feel the consequences as its exports to the rest of Europe dwindle.

We know who you are, says Lord McAlpine. But do they? The BNP bloggers who duped the BBC.

Lord McAlpine appears to have come to a deal with BBC over the false child abuse allegations made against him by Newsnight.  His lawyer has warned those who outed him on the internet to come forward on the grounds that they "we know who you are".  But do they.  I don't think anyone has investigated the full ramifications of the paedo Twitter storm.

 The better known journalists and celebs who defamed Lord McAlpine have already come forward and made abject apologies, like the Guardian journalist, George Monbiot and the loudmouth wife of the Speaker,  Sally Bercow.  But this is only the beginning.  Numerous websites like  alternative.co.uk and Men Will Pause, a blog written by a woman called Caroline Wilde, had not only published Lord McAlpine's name, but a raft of  names of prominent Tories from the past and present.  It is difficult to track this without appearing to contribute to the libel, but if anyone wants to find out just how how lurid the paranoia about paedos in power had become on the web, they should look up a blog published by a former British National Party councillor from Wales,  Kevin Edwards.

Now, some might be puzzled by my use of the word “published” in connection with Twitter. Most people don't think of the micro-blogging site as a publication with any editorial responsibility for what is posted there. I keep hearing references to “rumours on the internet” as if these were private conversations between individuals. Many appear to believe that, as Lord Leveson put it, Twitter is “just like people talking in a pub”. If so, it is a very big pub which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis – far more than read any newspaper.  The truth is that Twitter, like this blog, is a medium of publication just like any newspaper. They are all in the public domain; they are mediums for the dissemination of information and views to the general public.  And the law should not treat them differently.

The worst case of irresponsible and defamatory journalism in broadcasting history. From ITV, not the BBC.

    “Paedo Tories Outed on Live TV” was how the Daily Star newspaper reported the ambush of David Cameron by Phillip Schofield on ITV's This Morning programme last Thursday. The presenter thrust into the Prime Minister's lap a list of the names of alleged paedophiles which had been plucked from the internet before going on air.  

     With all the attention focussed on the BBC's self-flagellation over the defaming of Lord McAlpine, who is of course totally innocent of all accusations, the rest of the media seems to be getting a free pass.  Exposing a list of names of alleged Tory paedophiles on live television is about as defamatory as it gets. The fact that it was thrust under the nose of the Prime Minister makes it, arguably, one of the worst cases of irresponsible journalism in the history of broadcasting. 

    Yet, no heads appear to be rolling in ITV. No inquiries have been set up to investigate how this could have happened.  Schofield and co are not being hauled before the media and culture select committee.   The press is having a great time attacking the BBC, but has allowed an equally serious breach of journalistic standards to go largely unremarked. 

   It was a disgraceful stunt and Cameron handled it rather well by not losing his temper and by warning that there was a risk of a witch-hunt of gay politicians.   It says a lot about Cameron as a politician that he didn't explode.  But because of his moderate response, this appalling incident got lost in the furore over Newsnight's implosion

     But the damage had already done, as made clear by the Daily Star headline. A raft of prominent public figures who are probably innocent are now ineluctably connected with child abuse because their names are all over the internet.  Anyone with a search engine can find them. 

  This story is far from over.

Newsnight is toast.

And so farewell then, George Entwhistle. The Head of Vision who didn't see his own programmes, Twitter or, apparently, the Guardian newspaper, which on Friday revealed that Newsnight had falsely alleged that a senior Conservative politician from the Thatcher era had been a paedophile. Mr Entwhistle had only been Director General of the BBC for 54 days, but the corporation will never be the same again.

 The BBC's journalism may be discredited, but it remains a past master at publicising its own misfortune. Friday's Newsnight, when the BBC's flagship current affairs programme lashed itself to exhaustion over a programme on child sex abuse that should never have been broadcast, was one of the most compelling television events since – well - since the Panorama two weeks ago that lambasted Newsnight for its failure to transmit a programme on child sex abuse that should have been broadcast. I don't think the programme can survive this – after 32 years it is time to lay Newsnight to rest. 

Are the Liberal Democrats more nationalist than Alex Salmond? Discuss.

   First there was one option, now there is a whole raft of them. No sooner had Alex Salmond and David Cameron struck the Edinburgh Agreement, and opened the way for a single question referendum on independence for Scotland, when along come the Liberal Democrats with plans for a full-scale federal restructuring of Britain. The Scottish Labour Party has also finally convened its Devolution Commission. And of course David Cameron has suggested that Scotland can expect enhanced devolution if they are good boys and girls and reject independence.  Suddenly you can't move for devolution commissions. What will Scots make of it all?

Well, the Liberal Democrats first. Their Home Rule Commission under the former leader, Sir Menzies Campbell which reported this week, has essentially restated their long-standing policy of federalism. The LibDems want a formal separation of powers between a federal UK level of government and subordinate state governments in the component parts of the UK. Much like the United States of America - though littler. The Scottish parliament would gain full powers over income tax and domestic policy, while leaving defence, foreign affairs and overall currency to  a new level of government. It's a system that works very well in countries like Australia and Germany where federal systems were introduced by British colonial and wartime administration

Obama goes to war. It's only a matter of time.

He wasn't as good as he should have been; he won't be as good as he could be; but I still can't help feeling a sense of mild relief that Barack Obama is back in the Oval Office. When he takes that three a.m call, a man whose rhyming nickname is “no drama” seems our best bet not to do something stupid in an emergency. Like invade a Muslim country in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Mind you, I don't think this confidence in Obama's pacific tendencies is entirely rational. Mitt Romney was not a neanderthal Republican – he even said that America “can't kill its way out of the middle east”. And, historically, it tends to be political leaders of the left who get caught in unwinnable wars - Kennedy, Johnson, Tony Blair . Republicans don't feel quite the same need to prove their military machismo. Ronald Reagan shocked his Republican Party in 1986 when he agreed with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjaviik to eliminate nuclear weapons within ten years. It didn't happen, but that's another story.

Why talk of war? Because Obama is almost certainly going to be involved in one, whether he likes it or not. The Syrian civil war is unlikely to be contained; Iran is being targeted by Israel; Japan and China are rattling sabres over disputed islands in the South China Sea. Nor has al Qaeda departed the historical stage following the assassination of its nominal leader, Osama bin Laden. His revenge-seeking followers only need to get lucky once against the Great Satan and we would be back to 9/11.   And of course there are all the unknown unknowns – the unexpected conflicts that could arise almost anywhere as the world economy continues to falter. We cannot rule out trouble on the fringes of Europe - in Turkey, perhaps, or between one of the former communist regimes of eastern Europe and an increasingly authoritarian Russia.

Salmond gets the numbers wrong. But it's all Mike Russell's fault.

  “Facts are chiels that winna ding” is one of Alex Salmond's favourite Burns quotes, so it was with particular relish that Labour's education spokesman, Hugh Henry, flung the words in the FMs face on Thursday when it became clear that Salmond had got his facts wrong on college funding. At First Minister's Questions Salmond had said repeatedly that further education spending had increased when it had actually fallen. A humbled First Minister returned to the debating chamber later that afternoon to apologise for misleading parliament. “Ding, dong!” said Henry.Now, the education secretary, Mike Russell, has agreed to come to parliament today to set the record straight. 

It seems the Scottish government's omnibourach moment is not over. This is the third time in a month that leading figures in the government have found it necessary to make an emergency statement before the close of play in parliament. In October Alex Salmond was forced to answer accusations from opposition leaders that he'd been “lying” over claimed legal advice on European Union membership. He apologised last week for inadvertently misleading parliament on college spending.  This could be habit forming.

   What with "Plan McB" wilting under the impact of recession, unemployment rising and support for independence waning,  things seem to have stopped going Salmond's way recently. Following the climb-down on the second referendum question, and the unexpected resignation of senior nationalists after the conference debate on Nato, Labour sense that Salmond may finally be outstaying his welcome, both in the SNP and in the country. Mind you, they've said that often enough before and the FM's popularity has remained stubbornly high.

The Bastards Are Back. How the Tories are all eurosceptic now.

It was just like old times. Wednesday's Tory back-bench rebellion over Britain's contribution to the European budget took me back twenty years to Maastricht, John Major and the eurosceptic tormentors that the former Tory PM called “the b****rds”. One of them, Teresa Gorman, the Conservative MP for Billericay, even wrote a book entitled “Bastards” about her contribution to the great Maastricht war. But it seems the b****rds are back.

Last week, as Tory MPs inflicted a humiliating defeat over their own prime minister, there was that same sense of excitement in the airless corridors of the Palace of Westminster. Tory MPs with glistening foreheads rushing around collecting names for mischievous motions, intoxicated by rebellion. There's nothing like it. Backbench MPs live pretty dull lives: being told how to vote by the whips; keeping their thoughts to themselves in case they damage their careers; filing obediently through the lobbies. When a rebellion happens it is as if they wake up – they remember why they came to politics in the first place. To change things; to call spades spades;to make passionate declarations.

Mind you, to outsiders these declarations may seem to come from another planet expressed in an alien tongue. Tories fulminate about obscure issues like the “Lisbon passerelle” which sounds like an opening gambit in grandmaster chess, but is actually a clause in the EU treaties that allows the European Council of Ministers to decide when to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting. Tory MPs call it the “gangplank clause” because it means the other states could force Britain to walk.