AIRSTRIP ONE

JULY NEWS SURF:

• EU ACCUSES USA & UK OF SPYING
• US SAYS RIP WILL TURN BRITAIN INTO POLICE STATE
• FBI WANTS TO TAP EMAILS
• UK DRIFTING TOWARDS EUROPE
• SHORTER HOURS FOR DEMOCRACY
• LOADSA MONEY FOR EU PROPAGANDA
• MEDIA THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

Hi, I'm Jim...
Know me as Gemineye Jim or Jim Gemineye. Anything, as long as it's not Jim Gemineye chéri !

On the other hand, Eric is a nice name..

BLAIR'S MILLENNIUM

Eric Blair wrote the book 1984 using the pen name GEORGE ORWELL. Like all good science fiction 1984 dealt not so much with fanciful illusions about the future, but about his own perceptions of his time (1948). Writers sometimes have to use outlandish contexts in order to break the barriers of preconceptions that readers put up. However, in creating this new context, he explored several ideas that we could apply to other eras and also see come to fruition in this new millennium.

• Telescreen - we thought this was his view of the new medium of TV being used to brainwash the masses. That was before digital TV came along. Digital TV will evolve - it will be on all the time, it will be two way - the TV in the bedroom will have to go. But for some, the future may already be here. Are they softening us up for something?
• Newspeak - Didn't quiet get this right. The idea was destroy the ability to express unorthodox ideas by destroying the language required to communicate them. This was done by simplification. Well, if anything, language has become even more complex. But some might argue that corruption of words like cool and wicked accomplish the same thing as Newspeak. On the other hand with the creation of a ‘drug culture' do you need Newspeak? If you're on the right drugs you can drivel on for hours without saying anything meaningful - let alone radical.
• Chocolate rations - Not quite sure why chocolate rations figured so much in Orwell's vision. It was used as a kind of reward or punishment. If news was bad, chocolate rations were reduced - if news was good, chocolate rations were increased. It was as if the people were held to blame for events in Airstrip One, We don't have chocolate rations now - but we do have interest rates.

Airstrip One was the new name for England or Britain under the regime of Big Brother.

Welcome to a different kind of spin... it's less gassy and leaves no bitter after-taste.

You are listening to
Brazil Samba

IS IT SAFE?

It really has been an oppressive month.

There's the hooligan bill that allows anybody to be arrested that might be going to football match - whether they have done anything or not.

There's the anti-terrorism bill, which allows them to throw the key away if said hooligan kicks a tin can.

There's the RIP bill that allows them to see who they emailed before unwittingly setting foot outside their door.

And if they fear to step outside their door, then they must surely have some kind of serious personality disorder. Ah! We've got a bill for that too (better watch your back Gordon).

The yanks, quite rightly, say the RIP bill (only the RIP?) could lead to Britain becoming a police state. Even more amusing, the FBI want to be able to do the same thing as MI5. The irony seems to be lost on them. It's also lost on the Blair Government, who one minute are trying to encourage e-commerce and the next trying to drive it away from these shores.

Take a look at the three bulleted articles in the July news surf, then ask yourself... Is it safe?

Why does EUROPHILE keep coming up on my spellchecker as EARFULL?

I ask questions like that when it's one of those Kafkaesque months.

FREE TRADE or SLAVE TRADE?

PRETENDING TO BE DENNIS?

William Hague seems to be on a roll. Saying all the right things, kicking down doors, ridiculing Blair and nailing the Euro balloon firmly to the ground.

Only the balloon hasn't gone pop! That worries me. The reason it hasn't gone pop is because the Tories have only promised not to join the Euro for the duration of the next Parliament.

FREE FIVE YEAR GUARANTEE

The longest that can be is five years. Not bad, if we were talking about a guarantee on a washing machine. But, we're talking about a guarantee on democracy here.

What Hague seems to be saying is, we'll fight the next election on the issues of democracy and sovereignty, then four years later - we'll fight for the same issues all over again. What's he trying to do to us?

Could this be the strategy of a closet europhile - is he secretly thinking: "we'll jus wear the buggas down". Or perhaps he will do a U-turn and quip "I was never against joining, I was simply using post-modernist irony".

After all, the Conservatives don't have a very good track record on EU matters:

1973 - Edward Heath (Con.) Takes us into the European Economic Community (the Common Market).

1993 - John Major (Con.) Takes us from the EEC into the European Union (Treaty of Maastricht).

In between those years we had Margaret Thatcher. She pursued an economic policy that gave away Britain's industrial heritage to the rest of Europe. We have her to thank that:

• Europe is a major coal producer and Britain is not
• Europe is a major steel producer and Britain is not
• Europe is a major manufacturing 'nation', full stop - and Britain is not

And the policy continues - setting an agenda to become part of a Federal Europe requires our economic policies to be set to accommodate that goal.

And if the Conservatives win the next election - our economic policies will be designed to accommodate what? They will be designed to lead us exactly where they led us before...

2013 - Michael Portillo (Con) signs treaty to form the Federal Republic of Europe. Welcome to UK State.

WHAT CRISIS?

Everyone, europhiles and eurosceptics alike, seems pleased with the 244 billion pounds of inward investment made last year.

There are real benefits for us in terms of jobs and company taxation, but companies that invest 244 billion in something also expect to benefit. They're not doing it for fun, they're not doing it for charity. They expect to profit - they expect a return of 244 billion... and then some.

Inward investment is a loan. We are congratulating ourselves on being the proud recipients of £244 billion debt.

I suppose those from some Commonwealth countries might see it as poetic justice. The British Empire spent the best part of the last couple of hundred years offering "inward investment" to poor nations. Creating highly productive plantation, mining and manufacturing operations - and today they are as poor as ever - how puzzling!

We have always had inward investment of some sort in Britain, but of late, we seem to have come to rely on it - somehow it's supposed to make up for the decimation of British industry by the Thatcher Government. A process that has obviously not helped our balance of payments.

The balance of payments for last year recorded a deficit of £11 billion - around 1.2% of GDP. To put this in perspective, balance of payments deficit in 1976 was nearly a third less at 0.8% of GDP.

This was the time of the Harold Wilson government. If you're too young to remember that, here are a few keywords:
Balance of Payments Crisis
International Oil Crisis
Collapse of sterling

And what crisis do we have today with even worse
balance of payments figures? They are of a size that the media dare not mention it as a yearly figure - it has to be monthly or quarterly. The annual TRADE DEFICIT has reached over £30 billion - but, it seems, there is no crisis.

I tell a lie. There is the crisis of the strong pound. At least that's what it say's in the newspapers. With balance of payments in mind, I would have thought that a strong pound was something to be thankful for.

How can we survive this imbalance without either getting poorer or being forced into political union with Europe? For that appears to me to be the game plan of the europhiles. To drive the economy to the point where we must join a Federal Europe to offset the deficit against the surplus of other states - or face ruin.

Inward investment will drive us towards the Euro and towards a Federal Europe, not away from it.

What we need is the political will to invest in ourselves! But both politicians and the "ruling elite" have been reluctant to follow this path - why?

More rants on inward investment in March section of Jims Attic.

LABOUR'S EUROSCEPTIC

Something you don't hear a lot of are the views of Labour's eurosceptics - wonder why?

In Blair's Labour, an MP is eurosceptic even if they support caution over timing of joining the Euro - like MP Gordon Brown.

So Labour MPs that favour withdrawal just don't exist do they?. One of these 'non-persons' is M.P. Austin Mitchell. He has his own web site - it's called www.austinmitchell.co.uk - catchy, eh?

He has a section on it called Austin's Daily Dollop, where he gives us his daily thoughts - it was last updated in March... But he has been busy. He gave a brilliant speech in the House of Commons on 15th June this year - as you might have guessed - it wasn't widely reported. It's not on his website, but the full text is available at Hansard. Go there NOW.

Then there are his regular letters to the Governor of the Bank of England. Sadly, none have been leaked to the press.

OVERHEARD...

Tony, this Personality Disorder Bill, is it true they will be able to lock up people who haven't done anything?

Yes Alice, but only if they might do something terrible... like vote against the Euro in the referendum.

Does that mean all those poor care in the community patients will have to go back in to secure units?

Don't be worry my dear child, we're not barbarians. Of course we will continue to release deranged offenders back into society.

But Tony, that doesn't make sense - releasing people who have done something and putting away people who have done nothing!

Oh Alice, you silly girl. The sense is in the detail.

It's true, I tell you!