The sensitivities of German officials with respect to the alleged British obsession with the Nazi era have surprisingly often seen the public limelight in recent years, the most recent example being the British tabloids’ reaction to the election of Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.
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Tag Archives: britain
EU Budget: The Plot Thickens
Perhaps better said, the crisis deepens. Jaques Chirac started things off:
“The time has come for our British friends to understand that they must now make a gesture of solidarity”
and Tony Blair, of course, rose to the bait:
“Britain has been making a gesture, because over the past 10 years, even with the British rebate, we have been making a contribution into Europe two and half times that of France.”
“Without the rebate, it would have been 15 times as much as France. That is our gesture,”
It doesn’t look like there’s too much understanding going on here. Then there’s the nub of the matter.
According to Blair, the reason the rebate exists is because otherwise there would be a ‘quite unfair’ proportion of British contribution and:
“The reason for the unfairness is because the spending of Europe is so geared to the Common Agricultural Policy. My view is that if we want a debate on future financing, one part of that has got to be what Europe needs to spend its money on to prepare Europe for the 21st Century, which is not the same as Europe 30 or 40 years ago.”
I think at this stage it is really hard to say how this will work out at the summit. At this moment in time there seems to be little love lost between the French President and his ‘British friends’. Of course a lot of this could change when they get down to the negotiating table, but at this moment in time it isn’t easy to see how.
German President Criticises UK ‘Stereotypes’
After the sorry incident of the Independent ‘racism scare’ yesterday, I really have to say I can sympathise with Germans who are getting tired of being treated as if they were all ‘Hitlers Children’.
“Germany’s federal president Horst K?hler called on the British people on Thursday to drop their “stereotypical” and “negative” views of Germany, in comments that look likely to revive debate on problems in British/German relations”….”Germans have a bigger affinity to Britain than the other way round,” he said. In unusually outspoken comments, he added: “I fear that German stereotypes in Britain are largely negative. Britain should take a more open view of Germany.” He criticised British schools for focusing only on the Nazi period when they taught German history..
Sometime I would write a longer post on all this. I am not sure that all German stereotypes in the UK are as negative as K?hler fears. Unless things have changed a lot recently there was always a tremendous regard for German craftsmanship, and efficiency. In the 70’s and 80’s the German model of social compact was extensively admired: Ralph Dahrendorf was brought in to head the LSE, for example.
This is why I was so jumpy about one commentator confusing the Telegraph with the Independent yesterday. I think maybe there were two schools of attitudes: those more on the right – like the Spectator and the Telegraph, who keep harping on about the nazi past, and those like the guardian, independent, economist, who have certainly all at one time or another been admirers of the ‘social economy’. That was why I was so shocked by the Independent yesterday. But then again there is the anglo-phobia to be found in continental Europe (although this is more likely to be found in France than in Germany). As I said, maybe one day a longer post…
Just In Time?
Tony Blair inched home to a historic Labour third term in the UK last week. But looking at the changing tempo of the British economy over the last couple of months, you could be tempted to ask: was this a case of ‘just in time’ electioneering?
At the present time there seems to be a general consensus that Blair will back down during this parliament, and that the natural heir apparent is Economics Minister Gordon Brown. However if Blair won the election despite the Iraq war, and thanks mainly to economic prosperity, we could ask ourselves whether changing winds of fortune might not make the heir rather less apparent when the time for handing over actually comes.
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Gerry Adams’s Gambit (or “I’m Just Asking”)
They say the Troubles are unlikely to return to Northern Ireland. They say the Irish Republican Army doesn?t have the option of returning to war. The IRA has the guns, the IRA has the men, the IRA has the capacity ? but they Just Won?t Do It.
In a post-Sept. 11 world, so the thinking goes, no Western paramilitary organization wants to be lumped in with Osama bin Laden. Especially not the IRA, which after years of struggle has gained (one hesitates to say ?earned?) a certain badge of respectability ? a seat at the negotiating table alongside major powers. So don?t count on a ?spectacular.?
At the risk of sounding overly contrarian (not to mention alarmist) I wonder if circumstances might prove the conventional wisdom wrong here.
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The Greens and Die Gr?nen
Via Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber, an interesting article by Matthew Tempest in Spiegel Online (in English) comparing the rather contrasting fortunes of the German and British Green Parties. Both were founded at around the same time (the article does make an error in saying the Ecology Party renamed itself as the Green Party in the 70s – the change didn’t take place until the 80s, partly to link in with the increased use of the name Green across Europe and the rest of the world) but while the German party is now part of the Government with a number of representatives in the Bundestag, the British Party (or parties, given that the Scottish and Northern Ireland Green Parties now organise separately from the England and Wales Party) still seems some way from a breakthrough into Parliament, let alone government.
The article highlights two main reasons for the different levels of success achieved by the two parties – firstly, and most obviously, the different electoral systems in Britain and Germany and secondly, the way internal divisions were resolved in the two parties. Where the realists (‘realos’) won the internal party debates in Germany, the fundamentalists (‘fundis’) won in Britain, preventing the move towards mainstream politics that benefited the German party.
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Sheffield a la mar
I have to confess to having had a fairly sucky 2004. Most of the causes are personal, and frankly not very interesting. But, as an example, my plan to spend the holiday season in Tunisia was abruptly cancelled because my wife got chicken pox. So, needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to 2005.
The wife got over her pox just a few days before Christmas, leaving us scrambling to find a vacation that both fit our respective work calendars, didn’t cost too much, and wasn’t booked solid. Consequently, I found myself at Zaventem airport at four in the morning on Christmas day fighting a miserable crowd so I could spend a week at Benidorm, Valencia, Spain.
I can’t claim I wasn’t warned. I did know that Benidorm – and the rest of the Costa Blanca – is something of a joke in the Dutch speaking part of Europe. After a week there, I still haven’t been in Spain. As far as I can tell, thanks to daily discount charter service between Sheffield and Alicante, the Costa Blanca is simply a warm, low-tax part of Yorkshire.
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45% of Britons unaware of the Holocaust?
In light of the British obsession with all things related to the second world war and, especially, Nazism – the British history curriculum focusing on the NS period of German history has repeatedly been named a prime cause for “Kraut bashing” in the British tabloids – today’s Independent features an interesting article about an opinion poll conducted by the BBC which states that –
[s]ix out of ten people under the age of 35 have never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp that was the scene of the biggest mass murder ever recorded[, and] 45 per cent of British adults did not recognise a name that others might have assumed was synonymous with evil.
Interesting, indeed.
Cap & Capper. The End.
Oh my, they actually did it.
Last Night, the Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, invoked the (1949) Continue reading
Irresistible.
Her Majesty’s government?Some light Saturday reading…
I think Tony Blair will from now on try to leave press conferences before someone gets a chance to ask the last question.
Back in September 2003 in Berlin, a British journalist asked Blair about being embarrassed about being a spokesperson for the American President when talking to Chancellor Schr?der and French President Chirac (afoe post). Blair was visibly surprised by the question, and certainly a little embarrassed that Chirac and Schr?der replied on his behalf.
Yesterday, Mr Blair must thus have sensed some kind of “d?j? vu” when the London Times correspondent asked Mr Bush if he indeed, as suggested by so many British, regarded Tony Blair as his “poodle”, or if he did not think that the US owed something to the UK for Mr Blair’s support. Mr Blair then sort-of-jokingly asked the President not to say “yes”, for that would be, well, difficult, before Mr Bush went on to praise Mr Blair’s leadership and wondered what he should owe a leader “[p]lenty capable of making his own mind.”
Since you’re going to read about this everywhere, you might as well read the original. So in the extended part of this post you can find the (slightly edited by the White House) transcript of that part of the press conference as well as the video footage. For the interesting bits, forward to the last minute or so. Enjoy.
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