Toby on Tuesday

'Strange Unexpected Limits'

Probably the most poignant of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories is “His Last Bow:  The War Service of Sherlock Holmes.”   Set on the evening of 2nd August, 1914, with all Europe collapsing into the abyss of the Great War, two German agents, Von Bork and Von Herling, meet on the coast of Kent to discuss their years in England.   Von Bork declares, “They are not very hard to deceive, these Englanders...A more docile, simple folk could not be imagined.”   To which Von Herling replies, “I don’t know about that...They have strange unexpected limits, and one must learn to allow for them.   It is that surface simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the stranger.   One’s first impression is that they are entirely soft.   Then you suddenly come upon something very hard, and you know that you have reached the limit and must adapt yourself to the fact.”   The truth is that the limit of Britain’s patience with its EU membership has now been reached.   No political sophistry and no bullying by the “Remain” campaign can work now, as our country prepares to face down the bullies once more, as we have done so often in the past.

Those bullies can really be divided into two camps, those within the EU and those outside.   For the EU countries, and especially those within the Eurozone and the Schengen Area, which by a miracle Britain has never joined, the bullying will come from those pushing for a United States of Europe, with its own Euro-armed forces, Euro-treasury and aggressive EU foreign policy.   Last week, their apologists in Britain tacitly agreed to collude with them in return for some cosmetic changes to social security benefits.   But given that both the Eurozone and Schengen Area have already proved themselves to be unsustainable, it is from the second group, those outside the EU, Turkey, the U.S., and their allies in Saudi Arabia that the most unpredictable bullying will come.   The war of words between Turkey and Russia is escalating into something far more dangerous.   Turkey, a NATO member and candidate for early EU membership, is coalescing with Ukraine against Russia, which it accuses of acting as “a terrorist organisation”.   We may dislike Mr. Putin’s way of doing business, but there is no appetite in Britain for a war with Russia.   Yet if we are not careful, we are at risk of being bullied by Turkey and Ukraine and their sponsors in Washington and Riyadh into an accidental and unpredictable war.

The same poor judgment and impetuousness which coloured David Cameron’s EU “renegotiation” also marked his failed attempt to seek Parliament’s support for a bombing campaign against the Assad regime in Syria in 2013, when we would have found ourselves allied to a host of terrorist groups, including ISIS.   Yet again, Britain’s luck held and the House of Commons restrained the folly of our rulers.   Now there is a chance to face down the bullies once more and make Britain a safe haven in a troubled world, something which our people want above all else.    Soon we shall all have one last chance to remind the bullies, wherever they are, that in the words of Conan Doyle’s Von Herling on the British people, “One’s first impression is that they are entirely soft.   Then you suddenly come across something very hard, and you know that you have reached the limit.”   And we must never forget that bullies are cowards and, not for the first time in our history, must be faced down!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Ponzi Schemes and Political Scams'

 

Last week I wrote about the Italian author Carlo Collodi and his “Adventures of Pinocchio”, the little wooden puppet who told dreadful lies just for the fun of it.   Today I want to write about another creative Italian, but a far more sinister and malign one, Carlo Ponzi, creator of the Ponzi Scheme, the financial scam that bears his name.   Now Carlo Ponzi was born in Lugo, Italy in 1882.   At the age of 21 he left for Boston with less than 3 Dollars in his pocket but a wealth of money-making plans.   America was full of Italian immigrants then including his mobster friend Ignazio “The Wolf” Lupo.   Dealing first in postal coupons, Ponzi promised investors that he would double their money in 90 days.   The cash poured into his Securities Exchange Company and, sure enough, the first investors certainly doubled their money, paid from the funds that continued to come in from greedy speculators.   Of course his venture, the original Ponzi Scheme, crashed but there will always be gullible investors and the financial world is still awash with fraudulent projects – the equivalent of “best of both worlds” political offerings.

 

Now on Thursday the European Council will meet to approve our very own David Cameron’s personal Ponzi Scheme.   Like the clients of Carlo Ponzi, or more recently of Bernie Madoff or of China’s Ding Ning, we are being asked to take on trust a financial package that is unverified, unaudited and unstable.   For David Cameron is trying to bounce us into a referendum on 23rd June on an improbable deal the terms of which can be altered in the European Parliament during July.   In the words of Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium until 2008 and founder of the Spinelli Group in the European Parliament, in speaking of Cameron’s agreement, the European Parliament will then be able “to accept it, to change it, to modify it.”   And Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, has added that any decision taken at this week’s meeting of the European Council can be reversed, “Nothing in our lives is irreversible.   Therefore legally binding decisions are also reversible.”   In addition countries in Eastern Europe have been assured that there will be time “to modify” the proposals as they pass through the Brussels system.

 

We all know why David Cameron is so anxious to push us all into a referendum in June before his agreement comes before the European Parliament in July, the month when both the Eurozone and migrant crises are likely to explode again.   Carlo Ponzi would certainly have been proud of David Cameron’s gifts of persuasion but in the world of politics, just as in the world of high finance, scams are eventually found out and those who commit them receive their just reward!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'I'm a real boy!'

Today, just for the benefit of our beloved Prime Minister “Call-me-Dave” Cameron, I’d like to retell the story of Pinocchio.    He was the little wooden puppet whose nose grew longer every time he told a lie.   And now that our Dave is back from his tour of EU capitals, holding that piece of paper drafted for him by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, we get a fair idea of his capacity for truth.   Of course Dave spent the whole of his tour reassuring EU leaders that his purpose was to “lock Britain into the EU once and for all” and they took him at his word.   In fact his proposals are far, far worse than anything that Britain has faced before, as they represent formal acknowledgement that nothing at all can change here without the consent of Brussels and Berlin.   In truth, Mr. Tusk has run rings around silly Dave and achieved a negotiating triumph at our expense.

It was an Italian writer, Carlo Collodi, who first wrote his “Adventures of Pinocchio” in 1881.   His creation was a little wooden puppet, carved by a woodcarver called Geppetto, who longed to become a little boy.   But he told the most terrible lies and every time he lied his nose grew longer.   And he mocks and insults the good woodcarver who first gave him life.   Geppetto calls him a “wretched boy”, yet for a long time he gets away with all his mischief and deceit.   And what is extraordinary is that, in the illustrations to Collodi’s original masterpiece by the Italian artist Enrico Mazzanti, Pinocchio looks astonishingly like our Dave Cameron.   But in the end, Pinocchio’s enemies, the Fox and the Cat, just like Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, decide that they have had enough of the little puppet.   They put a noose around his neck and hang him from the branch of an oak tree, “...a tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing violently, like the clatter of a bell ringing for a wedding.   And the swinging gave him atrocious spasms.   His breath failed him and he could say no more.   He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder and hung, stiff and insensible.”

Pinocchio is a cautionary tale, which our Prime Minister should really take to heart.    He has allowed himself to be the EU’s puppet, he has told the most brazen lies to anyone who would listen and his nose has no doubt been growing longer all the time.   But in the end the Fox and the Cat, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, will decide that they too have had enough of him and to do away with him.   His great blunder of course has been to trust them while mocking and insulting the honest woodcarver, in this case the British people, who first gave him life.   So the story of Pinocchio should serve as a warning to our Prime Minister of what happens when you lie.  The British people are patient and forbearing but they are not to be mocked and, when their patience runs out, justice follows as day follows night!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Maximus Decimus Meridius'

Russell Crowe is a part of the great wave of new talent that has poured out of New Zealand and Australia over the past 30 years.   Although a New Zealand citizen, he has lived most of his life in Australia and identifies himself as Australian.   He first won international acclaim for his role as the Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius in Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic “Gladiator”.   A stream of heroic parts followed, including his role as Captain Jack Aubrey in “Master and Commander:  The Far Side of the World”.   And last year he directed and starred as Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer, in “The Water Diviner”, one of a host of commemorative films released in Australia to mark the centenary of the doomed Gallipoli campaign.

 

Of course the Allies’ great failure at Gallipoli was to underestimate the resilience and determination of the Turkish army.   The Turks are a people of ruthless courage, aware that their country is the meeting point between Europe and Asia and wholly justified in exploiting this geopolitical strength to the limit.   And at Gallipoli they had the added advantage of battle-hardened German officers and the finest artillery pieces and naval guns from the Krupp works at Essen.   The outcome could have been easily predicted, as could the resulting and enduring friendship between Germany and Turkey.   Indeed, there are now well over 3 million German citizens of Turkish origin, while the soaring population of Turkey, now over 80 million, has overtaken Germany’s own declining population.   And of course Turkey is the springboard for the relentless tide of migrants coming to Europe from its war-torn neighbours of Syria and Iraq.

 

Now as part of a long-term agreement with Turkey, the EU has recently agreed to “re-energise” Turkey’s application for EU membership, including visa-free travel from Turkey to the Schengen zone from October of this year and the payment of a further 3 billion Euros in return for Turkey doing more to “prevent irregular migration”.  This is in addition to Turkey’s 5 billion Euros of “pre-accession funding.”   Yet the other day the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, declared that still more EU funding would be needed as, “the 3 billion Euros is just to show political will to share the burden.”   And our own government continues to press for Turkey’s accession to the EU, despite its population being forecast to reach 100 million by the middle of the century and a GDP per capita of only a quarter of our own.   To think that in 1972 we turned our backs on Australia and New Zealand, and all those astonishing talents like Russell Crowe, to be part of this.   As Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius might almost have said, “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make mad”!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby