Thinking About Europe....

I’m just a musician.

I’ve never really tried to understand politics as, to be frank, I think the world goes on just the same no matter what they do (more or less). I have rarely asked for any help from the State but when I have it has helped me just fine. I believe that we should look after the poor not only here but everywhere if we can, and I think most politicians are pretty fair minded and have broader perspectives on things than I do.

In the same vein, I rarely take notice of what ‘ordinary’ people think about the songs I write (I do value the opinions of other musicians however) and don’t get involved in the politics of music. I write songs, judging by the success I’ve had I must be ok at it – so I just carry on.

For the same reason I leave those with a taste for it to get on with politics.

But my industry has changed. X-Factor has made folk without any training and, in most cases ability, believe they can be pop stars (almost universally they can’t) so it occurred to me that the reason I find politics more compelling than I once did must be because that’s become a broader church too.

In older times politicians were drawn from the working classes and the professions; now it seems to be a career (not one of our main party leaders has ever had a proper job) which must mean that the old standard that said you need to have lived a little before you open your mouth and talk about politics has gone out of the window.

So if that’s the case I decided that maybe I needed to do a bit of reading and understand stuff a bit better. So I did……..

And the first big thing I decided I needed to understand was the EU in or out debate.

I am a Europhile. I’ve lived in France, Spain and Italy in my time and loved them all. I’ve also spent a lot of my career living and working in the USA and I love that too. But there is a stark difference between the two.

Europe is ostensibly a socialist group of nations; they believe in equality and use statute to create it. The USA sticks to its maxim of being the land of the free, fears socialism as “back door communism” and tries to stay out of people’s lives as much as it can.

As somebody who tried (and failed) to start businesses in France and Spain and tried (and succeeded) to start a business in the USA, I can tell you that the way the state deals with entrepreneurs on either side of the pond is very different.

It seems to me that the UK sits somewhere in the middle. We like some of the ideals of socialism (the NHS is the shining example) but loath the bureaucracy.  And then there’s our history to contend with……

Before the Normans arrived Briton was an exceptionally well respected trading nation, known for its artisan goods and its rare metals. Then William arrived and for the next 400 years we stopped looking anywhere except across the channel at Big Brother. The Hundred Years War stopped all that and for a period of 500 years we stood on our own two feet and, for large parts of that, dominated the world; at the very least we punched above our weight.

When we joined the Common Market things began to change on the ground and, after Maastricht it would completely swing away from us towards the federal Europe model that the member states seem to want.

Margaret Thatcher seemed to know Maastricht was a bad omen for Britain, nearly walked away and later wrote that signing the treaty was her biggest regret. She worked hard to foster the ‘special relationship’ with the USA even as it fell away. No longer could Britain negotiate trade agreements of any kind, that was a job for Brussels and they weren’t interested.

In England particularly (I can’t speak for the Welsh, Scots or Irish as I have no idea what their views are) we see the legislation coming out of Brussels as invasive, somehow against the British spirit of free trade and tough competition. Secretly I think we also look at countries that we’ve spent most of our history at war with (either fighting them or saving them from each other), and resent the fact that they can now pass laws that effect us, even if our own MEP’s oppose them.

Most of the concessions won by Thatcher were given away, first by Blair and then, at increasing pace by Gordon Brown. Almost everything in EU Law is now decided by majority voting and we are not able to sway those votes like we once could – too many poor, hardline socialist nations have now joined and they see the world very differently.

Now all of that stuff is pretty obvious and well known. But I had decided I wanted to ‘do the detail’ and that is far from easy.

All three major parties are run by people who want us to stay in Europe. Sure the Conservatives have a lot of MP’s who want out, but the party line is still ‘better in than out’. That means that the debate and the facts surrounding the debate are weighted that way. UKIP are a lone voice and whilst Nigel Farage is a sound bite driven sort of fella he simply doesn’t have the taste for the detail and, even if he did, he doesn’t get the platform to spout it.

We know that Nick Clegg would take us into the Euro and is a supported of the United States of Europe concept. David Cameron seems to want to negotiate a trade biased deal and keep out of the EU political mire. I have absolutely no idea what Ed Milliband wants and I can’t find anything he has said that indicates where the Labour Party stands.

We can dismiss Clegg. He will never get what he wants as he’ll never win an outright majority. We can also dismiss Cameron’s position as the other EU member states will never agree to it. Sure we could move from UE membership to be members of EFTA (European Free Trade Association) like Norway and Iceland but that’s really a place for those queueing to get in and has draconian conditions regarding acceptance of EU laws (without representation) which would be totally unacceptable to the British public – hence why I say Cameron is dreaming.

The Labour Party has a history of ceding power to Europe. Tony Blair (an EU fan) gave away our opt outs so that majority voting became the norm on almost everything. He also surrendered almost all of the rebate Thatcher had fought for. So, in the absence of any words from the current leadership (I think it’s too much of a hot potato) I’ll assume they think much as Blair did.

To my mind this leaves us in no mans land – to be honest I think we are there right now. The Eurozone is marching towards federalism with enthusiasm and those outside the Euro all seem to be planning to join. Except us of course.

Over here the vast majority of people (surveys suggest) have had enough and want out. The politicians, in their quiet corners, secretly say we are simply uninformed and need protecting from ourselves. But here’s the thing…

What if it’s THEY who are uninformed? What if THEY are guilty of looking through blinkers and only seeing a future in Europe? What if they are missing the point of being British, with all the baggage that involves?

So I sunk myself into statistics, forecasts, books that were pro-EU and ones that were against. I read it all and my conclusion?

I believe we are being conned by our politicians (no surprise there) but I cannot for the life of me work out why!

In all the reading I have done I could not find one solid good reason why we are in the EU. It doesn’t fit us, the rest would prefer us not to be in it (whilst they fear the consequences) and it currently makes financial and economic nonsense for the UK (or should I say England given my earlier caveat).

I know that you lot have the attention span of a gnat so I’m not going to bang on and run you through the statistics I found right now. I will do it later but for now I just wanted to say that after my research I’ll be voting in whatever fashion I have to, to get us out. After that I can return to my true voting preferences but this is way too serious a mess to be diverted by mere politics.

We need a referendum, we all know what the result of that will be, and we need it soonest, not pushed into the distance.

If the Conservatives had won the last General Election we would have had that referendum and would now be in exit mode, unraveling the legals and negotiating other trade agreements, I also think we would be out of recession as a result (the EU is contracting as a trading group and has been for the last 5 years – our required reliance on it as our partner of choice is keeping us in recession)

Did you know the office of statistics answered a question last year that was forced upon them and admitted the cost of merely managing the constantly changing EU rules and regulations costs the British tax payer £1.2billion a year – that’s just the management, it takes no account of the effects on business. Bet you didn’t know that; and there’s a whole load more numbers where that one came from.

I now know where I’ll be voting, for the rest of you……. think on.

More ramblings from this idiot

Can’t say that I know much about international politics (just like most of you I would suspect) but I do wonder about our preoccupation with the way other folk live.

Two nights ago I listened to a programme on Radio 4 that was reviewing how things are these days in Basra. Almost everybody they talked to said things were better under Saddam. These were not politico’s or the like, just ordinary folk like you and me who try to get on with their lives in whatever setting they are given. Whilst William Hague and Barak Obama shout about how wonderful the freeing of the people of Iraq from the yolk of totalitarian government is, those same people see it differently.

One woman said that the after effect of the toppling of Saddam was a rise in Islamic extremist thinking, she said she could no longer go out on her own and, given that she doesn’t chose to wear the garb of the extremists which is designed to make women second class citizens, she wasn’t even safe during the day.

When George Bush invented the Iraq threat and suckered the United Nations and Tony Blair into believing him, he didn’t give any thought for the people who lived there. Neither did his tiny mind compute the wider effects of what he did. We know the Yanks wanted the oil (ironically they don’t need it anymore because of embracing fracking across the States) and getting that flowing was about all they bothered to do. Then we imposed Western Style democracy onto the country.

The ‘liberation’ of the Iraqi people caused a stir across the Middle East and we’ve now seen the fall of Mubarak, Gaddafi and, anytime soon, Assad. Our leaders shout loudly applauding the ‘rebels’ and ‘freedom fighters’ who fight to overthrow these dictators, but what is actually happening?

In Libya, Islamic militants are now setting their positions, Christians are being killed and the laws are being changed to make anything other than Islam illegal. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood take power and within three months the people are back on the streets as a form of military dictatorship re-emerges. In Syria, Islamic fundamentalists seem to be winning their war against another dictator but they have no interest in democracy and are imposing Sharia Law in the outlying areas of the country causing people to flee the ‘liberated’ areas in greater numbers than they flee from Assad.

I wonder if it ever occurs to the clowns who advise US Presidents and British Prime Ministers that maybe, just maybe, the Muslim faith cannot handle our particular sort of democracy.

It seems that Islamic states need strong, dare we say despotic, leaders who will crush the discontent that exists in Islam between everyday people and the sectarian leaders. All of these countries: Libya, Iraq, Egypt and Syria were safe places for everyday people to live under the old regimes. Sure there were secret police (we have those here remember – hello SOCA) and if you put your head above the parapet it would more than likely get cut off, BUT you could walk the streets, have a coffee with your friends, go to work everyday and buy stuff. That’s no longer true in any of these countries it would appear.

In the past we imposed our laws and values on other nations. Here in Britain we do seem to love to meddle in other people’s business, and history always shows it ends in tears. Sure you’ll always find somebody who will tell you Rhodesia was a wonderful place and look at it now, but the fact is it was a fantastic place for the colonial rulers not the every day folk. Now, with its Western Democratic model it’s not a good place for anybody it seems.

It’s true that we value democracy, although there’s a big debate to be had about just how much ordinary people actually influence anything in the UK anymore, but why should we assume it’s a one size fits all model.

Would the Chinese be better off with democracy? No doubt Mr. Cameron would think they probably would and I’m sure the socialists would insist it would be better – but would it? They do say the Chinese have a personality which instinctively mistrusts democracy, who knows.

We have meddled in the affairs of other countries, in the case of the Middle East, countries where their daily lives bear hardly any similarity to our own, and we do so in the name of ‘progress’. And because we don’t understand that daily life is about ordinary people doing ordinary things, we fail.

In a few years Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Syria may well all have political systems similar to Iran’s. Will WE feel safer then? Of course we won’t and our politicians will bleat on about the ‘threat’ these countries pose to us.

Why don’t we just stop meddling in things that don’t concern us?

We no longer have an Empire and I doubt Great Britain figures large in the everyday conversations of Libyans or Iraqis.

Maybe it’s time to accept that military and diplomatic intervention in the affairs of others is no longer our job. Maybe we should stop judging others and get on with becoming a world trading giant (which we won’t while we openly criticise China and India).

Personally I’d rather hear what our politicians intend to do for us rather than what they think about some other place.

We have rising Islamic militancy in this country. Reports of Muslims trying to impose Sharia Law over here, Pakistanis still forcing their daughters to marry men they don’t know and mutilating them for some obscure ‘religious’ reason. Can we put our own house in order? Can we start to address the problems that mulit-faith is bringing to these shores. And can we try to be honest about it?

Perhaps the leafy suburbs of the stockbroker belt ,where all our politicians seem to come from these days, don’t have those problems – but they will, and sooner than they think.

My point?

Well I don’t think democracy and Islam go together. In the Middle East it will dislocate and fall again. Here our lack of willingness to address it will crumble our own society of we’re not careful.

It isn’t racist to say not everything fits together as we’d like it to. Is it?

Politics from this dummy

Mr Cameron - you sure you want a French Alliance?

David Cameron has decided that Britain should combine its armed forces with the most unsuccessful military nation on the planet. Whilst the French incompetence is well known and their lack of courage is legendary perhaps he should read these stories of their arrogance and rethink what will turn out to be a disastrous error...........

JFK's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.  Rusk responded: "Does that include those who are buried here?"

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?' A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply: - Emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, They can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'

A Royal Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, the English learn only English. He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?' Without hesitating, the British Admiral replied, 'Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's, Kiwi's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready." The Englishman said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."   "Impossible. You English always have to show your passports on arrival in France !" The English senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained: ''Well, when I came ashore at Gold Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."

Can we check reality some other time?

My mum was , as far as I can tell, born about 20 minutes after Corrado Segre died. Given that he is credited with much of the work on modern day algebra many might think it was a poor swap – I, of course am a little biased.

She wasn’t the brightest kid on the block and wouldn’t mind that being said. Starting work as a warper at the age of 14 she made parachutes during the Second World War whilst my dad trekked across the Sahara chasing Rommel and landed on Anzio beach as part of his return home to his fathers’ native Italy.

They met in 1947. My dad was an outgoing flamboyant and confident man, my mum a bit of a wallflower, but her sister was very outgoing and always wanted to go dancing. Mum’s parents wouldn’t let my Auntie Nell go on her own so mum had to tag along. Dad worked nights as an MC at the dance hall they went to and one night he announced a foxtrot and then went looking for the girl to open the dance with... he picked mum who wouldn’t get up at first. His very first words to her were “are you always this happy”.

Twelve months later they were married and my mum learned about the outgoing, hectic world my dad inhabited, he was an engineer so had money and they partied for 7 years before my mum got pregnant with me. She always suffered from high blood pressure so it was a fraught pregnancy and there was doubt I would survive – but I did although they told her not to have any more children; she was old for childbearing in those days (she was 32).

So I was an only child. Probably to my rip roaring dad I was a disappointment, well no probably about it really. He was a fighter, a rough and tough Yorkshireman. I was artistic and mild. We didn’t get on. But me and mum did.

My dad died 30 years ago from hard work, smoke and beer. A very good way to go if you ask me. I mourned him a little but I can’t say I was devastated – as I said we didn’t get on.

For a very long time it’s been mum and me. I have married, had two kids, divorced, been engaged again, thought better of it and bought a Jack Russell in that time. I’ve discussed every move with mum, some she approved of, others she didn’t but we discussed it anyway. And I always listened to her. When doubt got the better of me (as it does on a fairly regular basis) I would travel to see her and ask her what I should do. She never told me of course. She would just say “well what do you think”, then listen while I worked it out for myself. Guess that’s what mums do.

Three months ago she had a fall. She’s 88, these things happen. Of course it was very worrying, devastating in some ways, but she’s tough and she fights. I knew she would be ok. She broke her hip.

Of course, I didn’t know she would be ok, but I had to believe that. We are way too close for anything to take her from me. Maybe for the first time in my life I realised how much I relied on her.

She’s had a rough time this last three months. Three operations, three sets of anaesthetic , three sets of recovery days with tubes everywhere. She’s been in and out of hospital twice and into the rehabilitation centre twice. I’ve travelled to visit her every week, sat at bedsides while she’s slept, cried to myself that I am losing my best friend, felt scared for myself then chastised myself for being selfish. It’s been a bit of a journey for both of us.

Then last week they told me she was ready to go home. I don’t know if I agreed with them but what do they care about what I think – they have financial pressures. So I drove up and collected her and took her back to her flat. My plan had been to take her to my home but she told me she was homesick and wanted to go back to hers if that was alright. Of course it was alright.

When we arrived back at the block where she lives, the other residents were in the lounge waiting for her. It was lovely. It was also telling. Their faces showed that her return (she is older than all of them) said that you could go through this and come home. It seems to me old age brings a kind of realism to the business of living that isn’t very nice, something that is unspoken but scary all the same.

I stayed for three days, she admitted to me that when she was in the ambulance on her way to hospital she had believed she would never go home. She also admitted she had cried that first night back, with pleasure she said – with a bit of fear mixed in I felt.

We are both fearful I think. The violently independent mum who I could chat to, who would listen and be wise, the determined lady I loved, seems to have gone. In her place is a frail old lady who is confused a lot, very tired and looks for help from me and others for everything. I’m told that’s about being Institutionalised and she will come out of it in time. How do “they” know that?

Whether she can live in her flat I just don’t know yet. Time will tell. And I believe she will be able to do it; it’s important to her. But the friend I had, the person who guided me, loved me unquestioningly no matter how much mess I created, that person seems to have gone. Perhaps in time she will return but I doubt it. Too much has happened to somebody of her age. Getting through it, walking again, getting home, exchanging banter with her friends – those are all fantastic achievements. But getting her mind to work like it used to, maybe that’s one leap too far.

And so I fear being alone. I get angry with myself for being so selfish. I should be thinking solely about her and instead I’m feeling sorry for myself. How utterly pathetic am I! But that is how I feel, I can’t be in denial with myself. Hell, my bipolar means my head is pretty screwed up most of the time anyway, this is just another step into oblivion.

And it’s making me see the downsides in everything. Driving me into the ground. Making me think everything is unravelling.

I have no clue where this will end. All I know is there is a lot of pain ahead and it simply will not end well. There is no way that will happen. I’m no fool, neither am I a coward. I need to look after myself now and accept that I’ve probably been doing that for years. It just didn’t feel that way. Somehow it felt much nicer than that.

Don't lie to your mother

Mrs Jenkins comes to visit her son Anthony for dinner, who lives with a female roommate Vikki. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn’t help but notice how pretty Anthony’s roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between the two, and this had only made her more curious. 

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between them than met the eye. Reading his mom’s thoughts, Anthony volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Vikki and I are just roommates." 

About a week later, Vikki came to Anthony saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don’t suppose she took it, do you?" 

"Well, I doubt it, but I’ll email her, just to be sure." So he sat down and wrote:

Dear Mom, I’m not saying that you 'did' take the sugar bowl from my apartment, I’m not saying that you 'did not' take it. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. 
Love, Anthony

Several days later, Anthony received a response email from his mother, which read:

Dear Son, I’m not saying that you 'do' sleep with Vikki, and I’m not saying that you 'do not' sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she were sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now.
Love, Mom

Lesson of the day: Don’t lie to your mother!!!

Friends aren't all they're cracked up to be

I sometimes wonder how I managed to make such a success of my early life. Everything seemed to fall into place and despite the fact that my depression left me feeling empty and socially distant most of the time, the songs and the work kept coming. It didn’t seem to matter that an empty, pointless feeling was ever present in the pit of my stomach or that, when I did have bouts of euphoria they didn’t last very long and usually embodied horrendous drinking sessions that would almost kill me.

With youth came energy and with energy came success. Now I’m older I can see that. Most people living the life I had would have been on a permanent ego trip what with all the famous folk I have around me and the places I got invited to. But I never really understood that. That emotional ride was one I never managed to get on. Shame really.

I have spent most of the last six years thinking about my bipolar, about how it has ruined what could have been a pretty charmed life, how things have passed me by, and how now things don’t work out like they used to. Nowadays just living is pretty hard; coping with the way life kicks me (constantly) and trying to understand what I’ve done to deserve this type of lousy luck consumes my days. I sit and think, think and sit. It’s pretty crap to be honest.

But I think I understand everything better these days.

I don’t understand what love is – I know that for sure. Emotions have never featured much in my tool box but love just isn’t there. Oh I see other people who are in love, I can understand what they feel for each other and why they feel that way – I just don’t ever feel it myself. I was married for 19 years and before that I lived with two other people for 5 and 6 years. But it wasn’t love. It was contentment, getting used to things, not rocking the boat. And I didn’t rock the boat – they did – but I can see why they did. I left my wife but it was all over and done with long before I decided to walk. The others saved me the problem and left me, and I can’t blame them.

You see whilst I am successful and I do know lots of ‘famous’ folk as a result, I am a cold fish because of my depression. I don’t get phased, I don’t get star struck and I don’t really ever get excited or angry. Middling sort of guy I guess you’d say.

Now as I was saying, when I was young things just rolled along. I found writing songs really easy, got accepted for being good at it and also got some kind of buzz out of performing which I did around the globe. But you get older, the performing gets tedious and the catchphrases that are the catalyst to every pop song dry up. Suddenly you’re retired and you never realised that was going to happen. And of course the music industry is very cruel where retirement is concerned. You retire, the calls stop, the invitations dry up, you cease to exist.

I have two Ivor Novello Awards and a share in a Brit and an Oscar. Songs I’ve written have sold in excess of 100 million copies and if I wanted I could cover the walls of my flat with Gold and Platinum Discs – but I don’t of course; that just wouldn’t be me. But I had believed that I had made friends in the music bizz along the way; some of whom were in that famous category.

Now I think I was wrong. I didn’t make any friends only acquaintances and pretty edgy ones at that. One wrong word and the relationships are over, they move on, like it never really mattered. But it did matter to me.

Most people in my industry are very ‘surface’, everybody knows that so I’m not saying anything significant, but we all need proper friends don’t we? Well I have discovered that the ones I picked seem to have thought it was a surface thing, one cross word, one little ripple in the sand and they’re gone.

So I have realised I have only two real friends, and one of those is my ex-wife! I’m a bit down about this at the moment but I’ll figure it out don’t worry.  First thing I need to do is head for the other real friend I have and tell him I an grateful. Then I’ll plan from then.

Life can be cheap and mine seems utterly cheap at the moment.