spinoff

The French have rejected the European Constitution. This means, amongst other things, that Tony Blair has got off the hook. Why? Because now it looks like he might not need to have his dreaded referendum on Europe after all.

This rejection should make us all ponder the European project – this vast enterprise that was both brought about, and has now apparently been destroyed by, the French.

And the thing that it has left this Spinoffite wondering is; “when all is said and done, who would benefit from a unified Europe anyway? Will we be better off? Will it in any way make the UK a better place?”

So far, there have been no answers to these points. Frankly, the UK’s pro camp has been appalling in making its case. So far, the strongest pro argument has been; “well we’d better get in now, otherwise they might not let us in later,” which almost perfectly encapsulates the word “limp”.

The City thinks that joining would be bad for the economy, but nobody from the pro camp has rebutted this. Democracy watchdogs have complained that joining would mean signing up to be ruled by a polity that we cannot get rid of, and nobody has rebutted this. Economics nerds have put the cost to the UK of joining at around £200 billion per year but again, nobody has rebutted this.

So what is there to gain?

In a Radio 4 interview recently, former Tory bigwig Michael Heseltine put his finger on a rather interesting point. In the midst of a dull interview came a diamond in the ash: “the problem is,” said Hezza “is that apart from a few Prime Ministers, nobody remembers politicians.”

In this simple statement, perhaps, lies the reason for the European dream.

What politician could resist the opportunity go down as the mastermind of a new Europe? What better way is there to be remembered than as part of the team that drew together the disparate elements that made up the new Federal European State?

Because apart from a vocal political class excited at the prospect of a place in the history books, nobody else in the UK seems interested in this idea. If you feel any differently, please post your comments below.

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.

Finally, the first UK Apache helicopter regiment has entered service. Only news for those who are army geeks, right? Well, probably (though the specs of the AH-64D, for those of us who are army geeks, probably features strongly amongst our bedtime reading).

But it’s more important for what it says for the UK military procurement process, for the overpowering desire to be nice to our friends at the expense of budgetary or military efficiency constraints, and for the preparedness to be overawed by potential against actual benefits to the country.

(Bear with me for this bit: it’s a bit dull, frankly). The Apache was purchased, in one of the UK’s largest defence competitions for many years, at a cost of £2.5 billion. In competition against four other machines, the South African home-developed Rooivalk, the Russian KA-50 (contrarotating blades, years ahead of its’ time); the Eurocopter, and the Cobra Venom, a development of the Bell Huey Cobra of Vietnam War fame, and after a particularly vicious competition, the AH-64 won through.

Ignoring the fact that the Rooivalk was cheaper, the KA-50 was demonstrably better, and the Cobra Venom was available immediately, and had enormous technology advantages to the UK, the UK government selected to go with the American-designed Apache helicopter. Why? One reason, and one reason only: Westland, the UK’s only helicopter manufacturer, was partnered with Lockheed Martin, the Apache’s manufacturer.

Westland is a name that sends fear through Tories (and it was under the Conservatives that this mis-thought out purchase was made). Both Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan were brought down by the ‘Westland Affair’, and no Tory cabinet minister was unaware of its importance. Unfortunately, what they ignored in this case was that Westland’s involvement in the Apache project was what is called ‘green metal’ work, effectively bolting together pre-manufactured parts from an Airfix kit sent over from the U.S.
The vital issue of technology transfer, bringing new technology skills to the UK in exchange for materiel purchase, seemed to go by the wayside – though, it has to be said, many UK firms have benefited from manufacturing sub-contracts on the Apache programme. The Cobra Venom on the other hand would have needed a whole new avionics suite from GEC-Marconi (remember them? They were a good company once, and the failure of their bid for this competition was in no small part responsible for their eventual slide into useless-dom).

The KA-50, constructed out of sheet steel in a converted shipyard in Magnitogorsk (well, almost) would have cost almost nothing, and was the helicopter designed to confront (and therefore be superior to) the Apache. It would, therefore, have been an excellent, cheap and effective purchase, if the UK could have got over the idea of a NATO country buying Russian kit. The Eurocopter, bless it, was never in with a chance – I mean, can you imagine the Brits willing fly anything the French had a hand in?

So we bought the Apache. 63 of them for the same price of – for instance – 147 Cobra Venoms, with no real technology advantages for the UK.

The problem with the Apache (in its AH-64A) variant, as proven in Gulf War I, was that they needed massive support in the field (figures of something like ten articulated trucks per machine were often mentioned), and also that their engines were hopelessly underpowered for the requirements made of them. Apache engines were frequently replaced, because they just weren’t up to the job, and also because of the absence of something really simple: air intake filters. Note to military staff: the desert is a sandy place, particularly for helicopters – but the Apache was designed for the hot Cold War that never was, facing Russian tanks charging towards the West across the North German plain. Sand, it has to be said, did not figure in their design. Neither did tailrotors, which led to a mass grounding in 2000.

Two crashed in Kosovo, and the machine was withdrawn from front line service whilst they tried to work out why it kept falling out of the sky.

More importantly, in 2001 it became apparent that the key weapon system on the Apache, the Hellfire missile, damaged the aircraft when fired: debris from the rocket damaged the machine itself, leading to at least one occasion when the helicopter was so badly damaged it almost failed to land properly.

So far, the UK has committed to buy an underpowered weapons platform which hurts itself when it fires its own missiles, whose tail rotor is prone to failure, and which every so often unexpectedly drops out of the air.

Cue Gulf War II – many years later, and by which time, it was to be hoped, some improvements had been made. Well, the machines had been ruggedised, and could withstand sand. And in the later variants, their engines could at least cope with their rotors. But they still didn’t work properly. For instance, out of the 33 of them that flew against the Iraqis on 24 March 2002, thirty were shot up, and one shot down. Not good for the ‘weapons platform of the future’.

Against the Taliban, seven were rendered ‘non-mission capable’ – by ground fire, of all things. They returned to base, which proves they have good survivability for the crew – but a weapons platform that doesn’t like being shot at is just an expensive piece of artillery – and these things cost thirty million pounds apiece.

And the two year delay in deployment in the UK? A problem of integrating the avionics, apparently (GEC-Marconi? The world’s leading avionics company? Remember them? Used to be British, right, until – oh, yes, they weren’t part of the winning team, turned to telecommunications, and collapsed in on themselves. Bugger…)

In buying the Apache (now renamed the WAH-64D, the W standing for Westland – the company which, hilariously, is now part of Agusta, one of its competitors in the original competition), the UK government bought the most untested, least reliable, most expensive machine it could have done. Granted, the Army Air Corps adored it, but the key point was, and remains, that it was an American machine, bought by its key ally for political reasons.

Whilst politics and warfighting are inextricably linked, equipment purchase should be made on military, not political grounds – until we put the politicians into the front line to pay the real price for their decisions. It’s unlikely they’d make decisions like the AH-64D purchase if it was their arses on the line.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

It’s funny to see people accusing Michael Howard of being a “lame duck” Tory leader. We all know that he’s leaving, but seeing him taunted for it is unusual. Democracy is based on the transient nature of leaders – if we don’t like them, they’re off – and to have it any other way is the route to despotism.

Howard seems to fit this bill perfectly, but is still being taunted. Today he’s come out and defended himself, which is fair enough. But having to defend yourself against the charge that you’re “leaving the job” says more about the mindset of the attackers than anything else.

These attacks are coming from both Labour and his own party – Norman Tebbit wants him to stand down to make way for a younger blade to take the Conservatives into the October conference. (The thing about Norman Tebbit of course is that nobody voted for him, so he really ought to shove off.)

But what this shows is the gap between the interests of party politicians and those of the electorate.

Tebbit was the Thatcherite par excellence. He was Maggie’s arse-kicker and right hand man throughout her apparently never-ending reign. Norman can see how a party benefits from strong, determined and extended leadership. The Blairites see the same thing too.

Hence a temporary leader – a stand-in leader who we all know is heading off, such as Michael Howard – is anathema to everyone’s political instinct.

But temporary leaders are exactly what we need. We don’t want immovable, massive majority leaders who can vomit legislation all over the place without our being able to do a thing about it. No.

We want politicians who are in hoc to the electorate, who run the risk of being ousted at any moment, who are transient, who can’t get away with arseing about with destructive policies.

Howard is getting stick for falling exactly into this mould.

But it’s not Howard who should be taking flak. I think there might be someone else much more important than Michael Howard who ought to be considering his position. Mightn’t there? And I think we all know who that is. Don’t we?

There’s no sign of that at the moment though.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

It’s looking increasingly like the French are going to vote against the EU constitution. If they do, the whole European project will probably fall flat. The anti camp in France is a strange alliance of far right (Le Pen is against), the far left (the unions are afraid of losing worker’s rights) and then, er, quite a few people in the centre too (just don’t like the idea).

So it’s everyone really. Poor Chirac has got his work cut out.

But should we care? Certainly Tony Blair’s going to end up looking like a bit of a banana if the whole project, one of his favourites, gets rubbished by the French. But what about the rest of us?

Some economics nerds are worried. They’re worried that uncertainty surrounding Europe will send the Euro through the floor leading to a big slump in Europe and hence an economic downturn in the UK. If the French vote non, we’ll get hit in the wallet.

But then again, there are other economics nerds who say that everyone knows the French are going to vote “non”, that they have known this for a long time, and the Euro has adjusted for this outcome already.

So thanks guys.

Then there’s the accountability problem. If we get a flimming great Euro-state, claims Tony Benn and his cohorts, then we’ll end up being run by a bunch of people that nobody wants, who are free to dish out highly damaging policies with complete impunity and that we can’t vote out of office even if we want to.

But then again, seeing as this seems very much the case in the UK anyway, will it make that much difference to us?

Having brooded on this for months, this Spinoffite has come to the only possible conclusion. The European question is not about freedom of movement, Gordon Brown’s five economic tests, accountability, a European Federal super state, or any of this nonsense. No.

At root, this is an emotional issue. Just as when the Finns agonised over whether or not to join the Euro zone (“do we look to the west and to Europe, or do we look to the east, to Russia the Baltic and to Asia?”) this is an emotional question. It is a issue of identity and about how people – the French included – do not want to, as they see it, compromise their national identity.

There will be some very sharp social, economic and political ideas put forward to support and defend the European project.

But the force that will rebut all of these ideas and that will quite possibly scupper the whole thing in France on the 29th May will be more potent than any idea. It will be, in fact, that type of force that is simply not subject to ideas no matter how well-conceived, or even right, they are.

And that force's name? Sheer cussedness.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

The Spinoff crew lost one of their dearest friends last year, to a particularly nasty cancer (compounded, it has to be said, by the intermittent incompetence of his doctors). We knew, as did he, well beforehand, since he took a long time going; but many days since then it has seemed as if he is only just around the corner.

Take last week. Going through old emails (well, there is nothing else to do on a rainy Wednesday apart from work and seriously, who wants to do that?), a Spinoffian found an email from our friend, written at about the time we all came together. Kind, aware, achingly funny, it was Paul’s voice, echoing through all our heads once more.

This weekend, the present writer was at work (yes, some of us work weekends), and listening to a Pete & Dud sketch, when our friend’s voice echoed round the room. A brilliant mimic, Paul’s take on Pete & Dud (as well as Derek & Clive) sketches was as good as having them there. None of us can hear the word ‘lobster’ again without a certain sense of nervousness about what’s coming next, frankly.

And today, when I was commuting into work, and my sleep-befuddled brain took me onto the wrong train, what did I hear? Paul’s voice, high and clear in the back of my head, saying “You nit, Eccles – what did you do that for?”.

Pete & Dud, the Goon Show, any Monty Python sketch you care to name, most modern novels and a good portion of plays written after Shakespeare, as well as his own writing and his own comic creations, Paul was a goldmine of words and stories. And he thought – he looked at the world around him with a surprisingly clear vision, mediated by nothing but an intuitive understanding of how people relate to each other, and how the world really is, rather than how we would wish it to be.

His own work reflected his attitude to life – generous and funny (the only time I have seen an actor corpse on stage was in one of Paul’s plays), but aware and challenging. Never prepared to let people get away with weakness, he was always prepared to let them be good – if only they’d try.

We buried him, typically, to ‘Always look on the bright side of life”. But for those of us lucky enough to work with him, there did not seem to be much of a bright side in Paul’s death. Until we discovered that he’s not gone. He’s in the back of all our heads, all the time. We use his name for any number of things. We’re still laughing at his jokes; and still using his lessons to help us live our lives, and do our jobs.

He is, in many ways, one of the founding spirits of Spinoff. He’d be writing for it now, bombarding us with copy, telephone messages in silly voices, thoughtful and considered comment and criticism. We like to think that, even without him, he’d think we’re doing alright. After all, it’s his voice that frequently gets to the page.

Today half of Britain’s pubs have banned happy hours in the hope that this will discourage “binge drinking”. “Binge drinking” is a phrase that has appeared over the last few years, and has spread across the media like a rash.

Women are increasingly “binge drinkers”, the young are “binge drinkers”, “binge drinking” leads to crime, antisocial behaviour and all sorts of ailments in later life.

“So” the thinking goes, “what we should do is keep booze that bit more expensive in the 7 - 8.30pm slot, and people wont get violently drunk all the time.” The government wants to curb the drinking culture by cutting cheap drinks out of the equation. “No happy hour, less binge drinking,” they think.

The problem with this, and what everybody who has ever been into a pub or bar will be able to tell you straight off, is of course that it is complete balls.

Spinoff (with apologies to our extended readership) is London-based. This is a city – and there are many other around the country where this is also the case – with a high concentration of young employees in the 20-25K bracket.

And what do they do at the end of the week? How do they blow off steam? They drink. Will they be affected by a 30p change to the cost of their first four pints of the evening? Will any of them even notice? Not a chance.

Before the invention of the term “binge drinking”, “binge drinking” used to be known as “getting plastered”. This is not a new phenomenon. Not new at all. But with its apparently insatiable desire to re-brand just about everything, the government invented this new phrase.

New Labour, new phrase, new issue. With its little linguistic fiddle, it has subtly created a nice little problem for itself. Trying to take on “alcoholism” or god forbid even just “drinking” would have been too hard, too unattainable in one parliament.

“Binge drinking” however is much more like it. It’s highly visible, media friendly and what’s more, “binge” is just such a horrid word that anything associated with it just must be evil.

So the government is clamping down on the bingers, and step one is to axe happy hours. No doubt in several months there will be a report claiming that “binge drinking” has decreased accordingly.

It’s all very clever stuff. Labour invented a tricky problem - or rather, it re-cast an old one - specifically so it could provide a clever solution for it. Which is clever. Very, very clever indeed.

Clever, but also pointless, cynical and utterly unhelpful in combating the real problems that alcohol causes.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Late last year, this Spinoffite was sitting on the top deck of a bus going down the Camberwell Road in south London. The bus stopped at a light in front of a large group of bored-looking kids. Some of them were probably wearing hoodies. A man with a bike walked past them – one of the kids tripped him over. The others laughed.

The man got up and started shouting at the kids. He picked up his bike and started walking away, all the while shouting at them over his shoulder. All fairly harmless, you might say. Up until this point, everything had been reasonably harmless. Up until this point – fine.

And it continued to be harmless right up until the point that one of the kids reached up his sleeve and pulled out a hammer.

He ran up behind the man, who by now was just peddling off on his bike, and hit him over the head three times. It made a horrific noise. I gawped. The kid hit him very hard. Without doubt if he hadn’t been wearing his cycling helmet – and thank god he was – he would have had three neat little holes in his skull.

The bus moved on. I remember sitting there thinking, “if that man hadn’t had a helmet on, he’d be dead now.” And then I thought, “that kid with the hammer wanted to kill that man for no apparent reason.”

Is this the banality of evil reinterpreted for the 21st century – that some people have to spend all day hanging out doing nothing because there’s nothing for them to do, and as a result get so bored that it reduces them to attempting murder just to inject some interest into the day? Are people literally being bored to death on our streets?

If so, then let's target this boredom. It needs to be adressed by the government.

But boredom is tricky for politicians. Why? Because they don’t experience it.

The top government policy makers live in the media spotlight. They meet important people, are involved in fast-moving events, are on the world stage and live an exciting, busy and full life. Boredom just doesn't feature.

Which means that we have a problem rooted in boredom that is being dealt with by a bunch of people who have no idea what real boredom is.

So they scramble about in the face of an idea that they can’t grasp – how to stop kids getting bored and doing stupid things – and end up suggesting this latest, stupid solution. In fact it’s not even a solution. I suppose demonising hooded tops (they cause crime, you know) is more of a “measure” than a solution.

Either way, it’s laughably pointless. Kids want stuff to do, not fashion advice from Charles Clarke, who frankly even at the best of times looks like a well-kicked tramp.

Boredom is the enemy, but it is the nature of the politician not to be able to grasp fully what this statement really means.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

People who bought houses in the ‘80s and early ‘90s made a fortune. These whopping-great property values underpinned the nation’s personal wealth. That boom is over and now all that remain are its attendant problems.

The biggest problem is that, nowadays, buyers have to saddle themselves with massive debt – sometimes as much as ten times their annual salary – just to buy a flat. In the early ‘80s, that debt multiple was closer to three.

This situation is simply not reasonable. Currently, we serve the housing market whereas of course it should serve us.

So what exactly is going on? Here is Spinoff’s take on the situation.

A. the housing boom is well over, and value is dipping,
B. this means that people feel less well off,
C. which means they spend less money on the high street, (Boots, M&S, B&Q, Woolworths, Somerfield all report falling sales)
D. this means the economy slows down.

Suspicion is growing amongst economics nerds that point D. will lead to a drop in house prices. If so, property owners will suffer. But if house prices do fall back to earth, in the long term this will be a good thing.

People need to be able to afford a home. At the moment prices are astronomical. Buying a home should not mean having to ruin yourself. That's simply not reasonable.

So we at Spinoff, in the firm belief that the reasonable should always be championed, declare, in a proud voice,

"bring on the housing collapse!"

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Can you own your own image? If someone takes photos of you, do you automatically have a right to dictate how those photos are used? Today’s ruling by the court of appeal reaffirms that you do not.

Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas sold the rights to their wedding photos to OK! Magazine. However, Hello! sneaked some photos of the ceremony, published them and spoiled OK!’s scoop. The initial ruling – that Hello! owed OK! £1 million for damage to business – has now been overturned.

And thank god for that. The thought of the powerful being able to slap down magazine coverage is worrying. The last thing we want is an uber-class shielded from the media by the threat of law suits.

At root, this judgement is about *draws deep breath, produces NUJ card* freedom of the press *cue stirring music*. The media must be allowed to say, “here is what happened and, what’s more, here are some photos of it,” without fear of getting sued. So long as the facts are indeed facts and the photos not fakes [listening Piers?] then there is nothing that anyone ought to be able to do about it.

Yes, an individual has the right to reasonable privacy. But if you’ve already agreed to flog your wedding photos to international celeb rag A, then you can’t start bleating about your privacy when they are published in international celeb rag B. I mean really.

The media is increasingly regarded as a tool for the powerful. Celebrities, businesses, governments, they all use the media, and many of them, Ms. Zeta Jones included, have benefited from its kindly attentions.

But when that attention isn’t of the right kind, when it doesn’t fit with the current PR drive, when it’s off message, when it’s not dizzyingly positive, those who are used to a pliant media can hit out (classic example: Alistair Campbell versus the BBC over the 45 minutes claim).

What people like this have to understand is that, despite appearances, the media is not a tool. It’s there to report what happened; which is exactly what Hello! did when it published photos of the Zeta Jones / Douglas wedding.

The good news? You cannot stand in the spotlight and operate it at the same time. And it should stay that way, even if it means that louche magazines get gazumped on the odd scoop. Long may there be an independent press, free from the influence of the rich and powerful!

Except of course in Italy.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Say what you like about George – and people certainly have – he’s a damn good performer. Yesterday afternoon’s transfer of the moustachioed Scotsman’s vituperative political style from the East End to the genteel setting of the US senate did not disappoint.

Americans like their politics sedate, polite and scripted. They are not used to furious Scotsmen appearing on their TV screens accusing top members of their government of being liars in a voice so furious that it could unblock a drain at fifty paces and, what’s more, doing the whole thing without any notes.

But that’s what George did yesterday, rebutting convincingly each accusation thrown at him by the Senate Committee that claims he was a clandestine beneficiary of the Iraq oil for food programme. George’s opening ten minute salvo contained a withering series of ripostes to these charges, the choicest being to point out that, yes indeed, he met Saddam Hussein, but only twice – the same amount of times in fact as Donald Rumsfeld.

“The difference is,” George pointed out to a gawping Senate Committee, “Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and maps - the better to target those guns. I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war."

George's assault was so unrelenting that what started out as an examination of his business dealings soon turned into Galloway beasting his accusers.

He laid into the committee's head Norm Coleman, the quality of the evidence against him (full of "schoolboy errors"), the US's foreign policy, the US government, the true beneficiaries of the oil for food programme (US businesses allegedly owned by Republican interests) and the paucity of post-war planning in Iraq.
He called the American Government liars, and pointed out that over 100,000 Iraqis and 1,600 US troops had lost their lives as a result of these lies.

And thanks to the committee’s accusations and generous invitation to appear before it, George has now made these rather sticky points on every 24-hour cable news service in the US. The White House will no doubt be overjoyed.

Expect frantic PR manoeuvrings in response.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.