even of catharsis. I'm reminded of the 1997 election here
<P>I'd say ,ghd hair straighteners, wouldn't you? The winning candidate made an elevated speech that imbued the whole world with a touch of American patriotism. The loser spoke beautifully, with a pathos that had eluded him during the campaign,gucci. The popular vote was closer than some of the coverage suggests; but people on both sides have behaved with exemplary magnanimity.
It's worth repeating that American democracy is too easily taken for granted. Kenya's president,Mulberry handbags, Mwai Kibaki, has granted a national holiday in honour of Barack Obama's success – even though he blocked the election of Mr Obama's clansman, Raila Odinga, at the recent Kenyan elections. When a Luo can more easily become president of America than of Kenya, it tells you something about America.
Watching the coverage, I have been struck by the sense of national togetherness, even of catharsis. I'm reminded of the 1997 election here, when even those who had voted Tory got caught up in the mood. No doubt Barack Obama will disappoint his supporters, as Tony Blair did. No doubt anti-Americanism will, , reassert itself in time. But this doesn't alter the fact that most people, in the US and beyond,Nike Air Max 90 Australia, feel better about America this morning than they did 24 hours ago.
True, lots of people are by the messianic language used by Obama's supporters. I don't much care for it myself, even though I was one of the earliest ,Mulberry bags. But it's important to understand where it comes from. It has become a clich?? to talk of slavery as America's "original sin",ghd. What is sometimes missed on this side of the Atlantic is that, in a country which retains a strong sense of providence, people want to pursue that metaphor to its proper conclusion: redemption. And that is what,cheap ghd, for many Americans –,Mulberry handbags; even convinced McCain supporters,Air Max 90, –,ghd hair straighteners; the election result means. There is no office to which a black American cannot now reasonably aspire.
National narratives matter, perhaps more in the US than elsewhere. That country was founded on a set of principles: the rights of man, representative government, individual liberty. Barack Obama's election is a visible realisation of the universal applicability of those ideals. Now, perhaps more than ever before in peace-time, America feels like single country, united under one flag and under the finest constitution devised by human intelligence.
"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill: the eyes of all people are upon us," preached John Winthrop on his way to the new land in 1630. "We must delight in each other; make others' conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body." Amen.
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many Tories think the whole question of the UK&rsquo
The Opposition’s confused response to the collapse of the budget talks illustrates the party’s dilemma,ghd sale. Instinctively pro-EU,Mulberry uk, it has flirted with both Eurosceptic and Europhile rhetoric in recent weeks in an attempt to corner the Prime Minister. And apart from the fun of inflicting a Commons defeat, now largely forgotten, it hasn’t worked. Since Friday, Labour has continued to argue that Mr Cameron is isolated and friendless abroad, when it is apparent that he isn’t.
Why did Mr Cameron get backing from other countries?
The Prime Minister hooked up with Germany’s Chancellor,ghd, Angela Merkel, and the leaders of other richer northern European countries, who think that Brussels should at least look at constraining its spending in these difficult times. The attitude of the EU Commission’s leadership last week,Mulberry outlet, that there is seemingly no problem, was a great aid to Mr Cameron. He now has allies in the leaders of the Netherlands,Cheap Louis Vuitton Bags, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
In contrast it was France’s President François Hollande, friend of Mr Miliband, hailed by the Left as the leader of the anti-austerity movement, who found himself in an awkward position. The French are used to the Germans agreeing to increased subsidies and EU spending in a spirit of “European solidarity”. This time, Mrs Merkel – perhaps mindful of public opinion ahead of next year’s German elections – didn’t join with the French to isolate the UK. Despite some noises emanating from Berlin, which suggest that the Germans have given up on Britain, Mrs Merkel doesn’t want the departure of Britain, a potential ally against the more spendthrift and Left-wing French.
Are Mr Cameron’s European problems over?
No, far from it. The budget talks will have to resume within weeks. And the discussions on a potential banking union are also looming. At yet another summit, next month, the EU is supposed to agree the design of its so-called banking union, which in theory will create the framework for a single European banking system and finalise the bailout mechanism,chanel. It is meant to help stabilise the single currency.
Eurosceptic Tories want to protect the City of London from the extra European oversight this will involve, something Europhiles say is impossible. Britain cannot expect to be the financial capital of Europe, with access to EU markets, and not be governed by EU rules. The row could quickly become messy. More broadly, many Tories think the whole question of the UK’s relationship with the rest of the EU will need dealing with.
What does the Tory party want from Mr Cameron on Europe?
Despite Tory claims to the contrary,cheap ghd, the Conservative Party is not united in its demands,Mulberry handbags. Some MPs are happy for Mr Cameron to play it pragmatically. Others want a plan for renegotiation and some want to move as speedily as possible to a straightforward in/out referendum.
Some ministers think that the time for prevarication will soon be over, and that ahead of the 2014 European elections the Tory party must adopt and explain a clear position, partly to deal with the rise of Ukip,ghd straighteners. Says a minister: “Our relationship with the EU simply has to change. It is about to become more closely integrated because of the crisis of the single currency,oakley custom. Now the eurozone has to decide what relationship it wants to have with the non-eurozone countries.” However, Mr Cameron’s deft handling of last week’s budget talks means he starts with a good deal more credit with his party than might have been the case.
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the Prime Minister
As I noted in , Barack Obama has no interest in standing with Britain over the Falklands, in Colombia at the Summit of the Americas:
And in terms of the Maldives [sic] or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term, our position on this is that we are going to remain neutral. We have good relations with both Argentina and Great Britain, and we are looking forward to them being able to continue to dialogue on this issue,Louis Vuitton Handbags Australia. But this is not something that we typically intervene in.
The Obama presidency has made it clear that it views Britain and Argentina as equal allies. This, despite the fact that Great Britain is a?world power?that has fought alongside the Americans in almost every major US-involved war over the past 70 years (with the,Mulberry bags?notable exception of Vietnam). In contrast,lunettes oakley, Argentina is an insignificant international actor, currently led by , which has barely lifted a finger to help the Americans in the past,cheap ghd.
Barack Obama's latest knife in the back for Britain – and - should be a wake-up call for David Cameron, whose recent trip to Washington was an undignified? toward a Left-wing?president who doesn't even like the British. The prime minister should understand that Barack Obama is no friend of Britain and never will be. And nor is his Secretary of State, who Argentina's calls for UN-brokered negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of the islands.
The Obama presidency has beeen the most anti-British US administration of modern times. No amount of photo-ops at college basketball games, on Air Force One, or lavish state dinners will change that. To Mr Obama,?the Prime Minister?is little more than a convenient campaign prop: a compliant?figure to roll out to the US media to give the impression?he actually has friends on the world stage. It is time for David Cameron's?reckless adulation of,cheap ghd straighteners?the Obama White House to come to an end.
President Obama doesn't believe in the Special Relationship, and this was clearly on display in Colombia. Britain's true friends in America are on the Right,ghd straighteners, not the Left. It is American conservatives who are the natural allies of Britain, not the big-government liberals currently occupying the White House, and doing their best to import the European social model and EU-style bureacracy and regulations into America. The Obama administration has been ,Air Max 1, backing every step in further European integration, frequently at Britain's expense. They are not the allies of national sovereignty or British leadership in Europe,sac gucci pas cher.
With his embarrassing fawning over Barack Obama, Mr Cameron has been burning bridges with the Right in America,chanel, while gaining nothing for his country,louis vuitton outlet. With the latest Gallup polls showing Obama , it would be prudent for Downing Street to rethink its?entire approach towards the current White House, and start reaching out to US conservatives, who?respect Britain and actually?believe in the Special Relationship.
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I know I’ve come to no conclusions here. Yes
. I find myself conflicted, so I thought I’d write something tortured and unsatisfying that manages to anger both sides of the debate,Mulberry outlet.
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way. If you’ve bought a copy of the song, you may well be an idiot. It’s grimly misogynistic (“witch”? Seriously?); it’s not even slightly funny; and the idea of celebrating the death of an elderly, senile woman who has been out of power for 23 years is both sick and stupid. :
Her death wasn't instrumental in ending her period of power,gucci. So joy in seeing the back of her in that sense doesn't come into it… when Margaret Thatcher died she was an old and ill woman,oakley france, with people around her who cared about her. To take pleasure at this is an inhumanity that does no credit to those who so indulge themselves. They forget the simplest and most enduring of human truths for an ugly temporary pleasure.
Exactly. Don’t pretend that crowing at an old woman’s death is anything other than crowing. You’re not speaking truth to power or daringly backing a rebellion; you’re making an easy and cheap joke, cosily swaddled in the mainstream of popular thought, while a body is still warm. Congratulate yourself for it if you like, but I won’t.
But it is what it is. Twenty thousand or so people have displayed risk indicators for idiocy and bought this stupid song. Now, the BBC has a decision to make, about whether to play the song in its top 40 on Sunday.
My own instinct this morning was that they should play it. , none of us has a right not to be offended. But let’s not make this a straightforward battle over free speech, because it’s not as simple as that. The BBC is in the same position that : it is the one hosting the content, and it gets to decide if it’s appropriate or not. The “free speech” being exercised when it decides to play (or not play) the song isn’t the free speech of the protest-song buyers, it’s the free speech of the BBC,sac chanel pas cher. And it would not be a terrible blow for freedom if Tony Hall decided that he doesn’t want to play along with a stupid, ugly stunt chuckling about the death of a frail old woman.
This is complicated by the fact that it’s a publicly funded institution and that there is immense pressure on the BBC from newspapers not to play the song. The fact that the Beeb is under this pressure makes the free speech case stronger: as Toby says, next time, the pressure might come from other angles,ghd, and we might not like the result.
I’ve had a startlingly angry row with someone in this office this morning,ghd hair straighteners, in which I said that the Beeb should play the damn song, sick and nasty as it is, and my opponent reacted as though I’d suggested displaying the flayed corpses of children on Tower Bridge,ghd straighteners. There is real strength of feeling over this, real hurt and anger,ghd sale, not just a kneejerk moment of opportunity to attack the BBC, and it’s worth recognising that. I don't think the analogy is quite fair,ghd hair straighteners, but my opponent said that if, say, someone had released a song laughing at the deaths of suicide-bombing victims in Syria or something, and it somehow got to number four, it wouldn't be ridiculous for the BBC to say this is bad taste and we don't want to support it.
Similarly, there is a not-ridiculous case to be made that the BBC bowing to pressure to ban a song for what could be described as political reasons, even if most people would think they’re reasons of taste, sets an alarming precedent.
Yes, I know I’ve come to no conclusions here. Yes, I know this is mealy-mouthed handwringing of the worst stereotyped knit-your-own-muesli kind. But I just wanted people on both sides to acknowledge that it’s not a simple “free speech” or “sick filth” issue. Whatever call the BBC makes, it’s going to catch hell from somebody, and with good reason,cheap ghd straighteners. I’m just glad I’m not Tony Hall.
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we'd fund
I've just been talking to a very clever man. He's called Thompson Ayodele, he's from Nigeria and he thinks that overseas aid is making African countries poorer,Mulberry outlet. The statistics he produces are jaw-dropping. They suggest a direct correlation between the receipt of development assistance and low growth. This is true whether you compare neighbouring countries, or whether you look at different periods within the same country,ghd. Foreign aid, he suggests,Nike Air Max 90 Cheap, isn't useless; it's actively harmful,lunettes oakley. It discourages enterprise, fosters dependency and bolsters corrupt regimes. A similar correlation exists between debt remission and insolvency: countries which have their bills periodically written off become re-indebted more quickly than countries which don't.
James Elles MEP,ghd straighteners, Thompson Ayodele and me
It's quite a dilemma for Western governments – especially those of the Centre-Right. Socialists have a tendency to emphasise motive over outcome. Never mind that aid shields recipient governments from the consequences of their policy failures: the key thing, for Lefties, is to show that you're a caring person.
Fair enough. But if we genuinely wanted to help Africa,cheap ghd, says Thompson, we wouldn't give one more penny in direct grants. Instead, we would scrap the Common Agricultural Policy, open our markets and build infrastructure directly in situ: in other words, we'd fund (say) a new highway across Sudan and hold competitive tenders for local companies to build it.
The trouble is that if conservatives announced that they were going to cut overseas aid budgets, not everyone would believe that they were doing so as a result of Thompson's cogent philosophy. They would be accused, rather, of doing it because they were selfish or because they didn't care about people whose skins were darker than theirs. Hence,ghd, perhaps, my party's determination, at a time of general economic retrenchment, explicitly to guarantee the international development budget against future cuts.
As Thompson puts it: "The British Treasury is empty,ghd hair straighteners. So you are going to be borrowing money in order to give it away. And the countries that get it will be poorer as a result",cheap ghd straighteners. Yup: but at least we'll have shown everyone how nice we are,Mulberry outlet.
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contractors
<P>My daughter how sharper than a serpent's tooth has become a Euro-fanatic. She points excitedly whenever we pass a twelve-star flag. She nags me about moving permanently to Brussels. She grins from ear to ear whenever she hears the EU anthem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (It has much the same effect on her father, by contrast, as on Alex in A Clockwork Orange, and for the same reason: bad connotations). She is,chanel, in short, the model European citizen. And she's only five years old.
<img src="http://images.onesite.com/blogs.telegraph.co.uk/user/daniel_hannan/blclockwork.jpg" />
Alex and I share an aversion to Beethoven's Ninth
It's all a question of perspective, I suppose. For her, Brussels means Eurostar journeys and eating in restaurants and being allowed frites and dame blanche because Mummy isn't there. It means exploring the quirky corridors of a building that, to a young child, must seem like a mediaeval castle. It means playing with Daddy's bubbly researcher Rebecca. It means being made a fuss of by the ushers and security guards and kitchen staff who can remember when she was a baby.
As I pondered this, I was hit by a dazzling revelation. Aren't these, mutatis mutandis, the only reasons that anyone supports the Brussels system these days? The EU budget may look like a waste of money but, in fact, it is purchasing the allegiance of powerful and articulate groups in each country: contractors,gucci, big farmers, local councillors,cheap ghd, journalists.
The EU spends ??250 million a year flying reporters especially local reporters to Brussels, and showing them a good time. It spends hundreds of millions more on . It churns out .
It's very rare, these days,louis vuitton outlet, to find people who just happen independently to have made up their minds in favour of transferring more powers to Brussels. Whenever I am accosted at a public meeting by people mouthing the tell-tale slogans "we have to be in there to argue our case",louis vuitton outlet AU, "what about 50 years of peace in Europe", "of course I'm not a federalist, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be constructively engaged" I ask them what they do for a living. Nine times out of ten, they turn out to be either a retired Eurocrat or what one might call a worker in an ancillary industry: a Jean Monnet professor,sac gucci, for example, or an adviser on pan-European defence procurement. It is surprising how often someone's Euro-enthusiasm turns out to be directly proportionate to his financial stake in the system.
The same principle is at work among MEPs. I have watched the transformation of the delegates from the new member states over the past three years. As their lips have become more firmly champed around , so they have started to see all sorts of advantages in European integration that were previously opaque to them.
It happens even among entire countries. There are very few EU nations that would vote "Yes" to the European constitution: even Germans have . In fact, only two states secured "Yes" votes from their peoples: Spain, where the Prime Minister kept insisting during the campaign that "four out of every ten kilometres of our highways were paid for by Brussels"; and Luxembourg, the single largest per capita recipient in the EU. (That's right: Luxembourg, the wealthiest country in Europe,Mulberry outlet, is also the one that does best out of the budget.)
Fifty years on, there is little idealism left in the European project. I am reminded of mood in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s,lunettes oakley, where very few people believed in the principles of Marxism-Leninism, but plenty understood that their status depended on the maintenance of the system. As with the Comecon states then,gucci homme, so with the Evropeiski Soyuz now: the apparatchiks carry on mouthing their old slogans,ghd, but everyone else has seen through their racket.
As for the five-year-old, I'm treating this as her major rebellion against her parents. With luck, she'll have got it all out of her system by her teens.
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Or is it Merry Canada Day
Or is it Merry Canada Day? Or Bonne Fête Canada,sac chanel pas cher? Or Happy Dominion Day? Whatever.
Now that this blog's in Canadian Toryism is spreading ,ghd sale, it's worth taking a look at how our vast ally is changing. The eloquent Mark Steyn marks his native land's national day by he wrote ten years ago on the death of Pierre Trudeau. The Canada he describes in that piece will be immediately recognised by many Canadians: a socialist monarchy, buttoned-up,Mulberry sale, multi-culti, obsessed with minority rights and ice-hockey,?self-consciously egalitarian – indeed, self-conscious in general. The same Canada is conjured in the works of Robertson Davies who, for my money,ghd sale, was the greatest novelist of the past half century.
Defending the use of traditional titles for Supeme Court judges, Steyn writes:
In the Caribbean, the Speakers of those tiny, British-derived island parliaments love their wigs and maces and copies of Hansard: they advertise, in stark contrast to their neighbours in Cuba and Haiti, that they are the legal heirs to centuries of peaceful constitutional evolution. Blessed are those societies whose institutions endure long enough to become "anachronistic."
Indeed. And this is precisely the line taken by the underrated Stephen Harper. In one of his first speeches as Prime Minister, Harper spoke movingly to a London audience about lucky his country was to have been founded in the British political tradition, and how the inherited folkright of common law was the basis of Canada's freedom. As a statement of historical fact, his proposition was hardly controversial. But it was a radical break with the line taken by previous Canadian leaders, namely that their country was a happy fusion of indigenous peoples, French settlers, illegal immigrants etc.
Since then, Harper has set about making his country less like Scandinavia and more like the rest of the Anglosphere. He has built the strongest economy in the G8, and given Canada a distinctive foreign policy, far more hawkish about the Middle East, in particular,?than either the US or British administrations. Anticipating the criticism that he was too close to American Republicans, he cleverly picked a fight with the Bush administration over the Northwest Passage (on which issue he was,ghd hair straighteners, broadly speaking,oakley, right). Yet he must surely rank as the most pro-American and pro-British leader in the world.
Canada,Mulberry sale, in short,Mulberry sale, is a happier, wealthier and freer land than it was when Trudeau died. Not that it has wholly shaken off its problems, of course. As put it following a recent visit:
“So much of Canada is governed by Leftist, multi-culti, Mark-Steyn-persecuting, politically correct officialdom. In the frozen dominion,ghd, “I’m a Lumberjack…” is now “I’m a Quangocrat ….” Sure, the Tories now hold office again in Ottawa. Yet a couple of days listening to state officials over here convinces me that Conservatives don’t hold power. Gramsci-like, the Left’s long march through Canada’s institutions is triumphant.”
None the less,Mulberry bags, Canada is the only big developed country to have come through the credit crunch with reasonably healthy finances. They've obviously been doing something right, these Harper Tories. It's about time the rest of the world noticed.
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It is the stuff of Nobel prizes.&rdquo
The research by the University of Southern Denmark found that almost half of cases of chronic lower back pain could in fact be caused by bacteria.
Of those,Mulberry bags, most were cured or significantly improved by one three-month dose of antibiotics - at a cost of just £114 per patient - the study found.
Currently, the NHS spends more than £1 billion a year on treatment of back pain,chanel, while patients spend at least £600 million a year on private healthcare and alternative remedies.
The Danish studies, published in the European Spinal Journal,Mulberry sale, found the presence of bacteria in 46 per cent of patients suffering from chronic lower back pain following a slipped or herniated disc.
Researchers suggested that the problems occur because when a disc becomes herniated, bacteria can enter and cause an infection - causing bone swelling and persistant pain.
Their second study of 162 patients found that when such cases were given the antibiotic combination Amoxicillin and clavulanate,cheap ghd straighteners, 80 per cent were cured or saw a significant reduction in their pain levels.
Peter Hamlyn,Mulberry handbags, a consultant neurologist and spinal surgeon at University College London hospital said the discoveries were so significant that in future, half of all patients who would otherwise endure spinal surgery might instead be helped by antibiotics.
While more research was required to confirm the findings,Louis Vuitton Sydney, he said the discovery appeared to be a major breakthrough in tackling one of the most common causes of disability.
He said: “Make no mistake this is a turning point, a point where we will have to re-write the textbooks,” he said. “It is the stuff of Nobel prizes.”
It has long been known that it is possible for infections to cause back pain, but these cases had been thought to be rare.
Dr Hanne Albert, of the Danish research team,ghd, said the findings could give patients who suffer constant pain “a form of normality they would never have expected.”
Experts likened the findings to a breakthrough thirty years ago, when the bacteria Helicobacter pylori was found to be the cause of gastritis and stomach ulcers,air max Australia, radically changing the way they were treated.
John O’Dowd,cheap ghd, President of the British Society for Back Pain Research, said: “It is a very striking study, and those behind it are a very high calibre group of scientists. This is definitely something we need to take seriously but the results are very surprising and this is an area where there is a great deal of uncertainty.”
He said more studies needed to be carried out to replicate the findings before the NHS changed its advice.
“I wouldn’t want to see a great rush to market this as the best response to chronic lower back pain until that has been done,Mulberry uk,” he said.
Prof Laura Piddock, Professor of Microbiology from the University of Birmingham said antibiotics should only be used to treat back pain once a bacterial cause had been identified.
Otherwise far too many people could be “needlessly” exposed to the drugs, she said, increasing their likelihood of becoming resistant to them, and at risk of future infections.
Prof Piddock, deputy director of The Institute of Microbiology and Infection, said doctors needed to liaise with microbiologists to ensure specific tests were carried out before antibiotics were prescribed for back pain.
A spokesman for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which recommends which treatments are funded by the NHS, said the research would be considered next time its guidelines on back pain are reviewed.
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German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rö
Mr Moscovici's comments follow a deal with Brussels to give France and Spain two extra years to meet a deficit target of 3pc of GDP,Mulberry uk. The triumphalist tone may enrage hard-liners in Berlin and confirm fears that concessions will lead to a slippery slope towards fiscal chaos,Mulberry bags.
German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rösler lashed out at the European Commission over the weekend,sac chanel, calling it "irresponsible" for undermining the belt-tightening agenda.
The Franco-German alliance that has driven EU politics for half a century is in ruins after France's Socialist Party hit out at the "selfish intransigence" of Mrs Merkel,ghd, accusing her thinking only of the "German savers, her trade balance, and her electoral future".
It is unclear whether the EU retreat from austerity goes much beyond rhetoric,ghd sale. Mr Moscovici conceded last week that the budget delay merely avoids extra austerity cuts to close the shortfall in tax revenues caused by the recession,Air Max 1.
The new policy allows automatic fiscal stabilisers to kick in,Air Max 90, but France will stay the course on the original austerity. "It is not about relaxing the effort to cut spending. There will no extra adjustment just to satisfy a number,sac gucci," he said.
Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. "Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain," he said,ghd hair straighteners, adding that the policy of forcing Spain,sac chanel pas cher, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a "catastrophe".
Mr Lafontaine was labelled "Europe's Most Dangerous Man" by The Sun after he called for a "united Europe" and the "end of the nation state" in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.
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unbending sort of fellow. For 15 years
If you know Theodore Dalrymple only through his prose, you might imagine him to be a stern, unbending sort of fellow. For 15 years, as a prison doctor in Birmingham,Mulberry bags, Dalrymple chronicled the discontents of those whom Labour likes to call “some of the most vulnerable people in our society”,louis vuitton outlet, amassing a first-hand knowledge which few commentators can match. His weekly column in The Spectator was a masterpiece of Socratic dialogue in which he allowed his patients to explain their misbehaviour while he remained wryly detached (“and will you beat up your girlfriend again if you find her?”)
The doctor’s oeuvre takes pessimism about human nature to a new level. Yet its tone is never patronising, shrill or hectoring. Once you get past the initial shock of reading about battered wives, petty crooks and junkies from a non-Left perspective,Cheap Louis Vuitton Bags, you find humanity and pathos.
Theodore in the flesh is charming and merry: a medical . I have just had the pleasure of interviewing him in front of a large audience in Chelsea,Mulberry outlet, where he rehearsed some of his favourite themes: the way in which we have so stacked incentives as to make welfare dependency and crime rational career choices; the fact that heroin is easier to come off than alcohol; the way in which public services in Britain are run by and for their nomenklatura. Britain,louis vuitton outlet AU, he said, was the last place in the developed world where he would wish to fall ill. Yet,chanel, Reagan-like,ghd sale, he said these things while managing to convect warmth,Mulberry bags, radiate optimism.
It’s striking that many of those who are the most relentlessly upbeat about the perfectibility of man – those who, in T S Eliot’s phrase,cheap ghd straighteners, “dream of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good” – are in person sour and humourless. Theodore Dalrymple, by contrast, is gloomy in theory, but sunny in practice. Perhaps conservatism is the secret of inner peace. Be that as it may,Nike Air Max 90 Australia, I promise you’ll enjoy his books. You can buy them .
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and his fate was
Silvio Berlusconi had seemed irremovable. Il Cavaliere had survived a series of blows that would have felled anyone else. He had weathered accusations of bribery,jordan pas cher, soliciting underage sex,jordan pas cher, tax fraud and mafia links. He had shrugged off the attentions of – by his own count – 789 prosecutors and magistrates. He had recovered from being whacked in the face with a statue by an angry Milanese. He had laughed off gaffes on electric-rail topics from Muslims to Nazis.
No wonder he thought himself invulnerable. He had become the longest-serving Italian leader since – well,ralph lauren, since Mussolini. Yet he underestimated the EU's .?Observing the crisis in Greece, and the EU's reaction to it,jordan, he had concluded that Brussels would do anything to keep the euro together. If his austerity measures were insufficient, the EU would come up with the extra cash. It was the same calculation that George Papandreou had made, and his fate was ; the same,air jordan, indeed, as that of every leader since Margaret Thatcher to have found himself on the wrong side of the Brussels combine harvester.
Don't get me wrong: I can think of all sorts of reasons why Italians might have wanted to see their risible premier sleeping with the fishes. My point isn't about the pros and cons of Berlusconi,ralph lauren; it's about the awesome power of the EU to subvert the internal democracy of its member nations,air jordan pas cher.
Bond spreads were widening as the markets priced in the possibility of Italy leaving the euro. Berlusconi's crime,polo ralph lauren, in the eyes of Eurocrats, was to be relaxed about the prospect. He effectively told Eurocrats, ?'If you want your single currency,polo ralph lauren pas cher, you pay'. Five days ago,jordan pas cher, he made the threat overt: 'Italians have been made poorer since the introduction of the euro.' The moment those?words were spoken, he was finished.
The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length…
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As Greece teeters on the brink of economic collapse,air jordan pas cher, and Athens heads for an inevitable exit from the Euro, the White House is watching nervously. The Greek calamity is having a distinctly unsettling effect on US markets,polo ralph lauren pas cher, and stocks?could fall heavily on Wall Street as well as London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan?and Madrid as economic uncertainty mounts across the Eurozone. It will also hurt the fragile economic recovery in the United States, with unemployment still stuck firmly above 8 percent for a record 39th month in a row,polo ralph lauren, a housing market still in the doldrums, and anemic levels of job creation. 70 percent of Americans the US is in recession, an impression that won’t be helped by the economic crisis across the Atlantic.
But perhaps most damagingly for the Obama presidency, the debt crisis in Greece and across much of the EU is a sharp reminder to US voters of America’s own economic mess, which has been greatly exacerbated by the big government policies of the current administration. Economic freedom in the US has been over the past few years, propelled by excessive levels of government intervention, spending and borrowing, with the largest budget deficits since World War Two. America’s national debt now stands at a staggering $15 trillion,jordan pas cher, and gross public debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP in 2011. And with the introduction of Obamacare,polo ralph lauren pas cher, which is expected to add over the next decade according to George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the federal budget deficit will over the same period on the present trajectory.
The dire situation in Greece is a stark warning for the United States if it continues down its current path of profligate spending. The debt and broader economic?crisis in Europe is merely the shape of things to come for America unless it reverses course. The Obama presidency?has been?in denial regarding the extent of the economic crisis,polo ralph lauren, continuing to push the same failing big government solutions both at home and abroad in a self-defeating?effort to?revive economic growth.
There are only two solutions to the disaster unfolding across Europe. The first is greater economic freedom,polo ralph lauren pas cher, including reduced government spending,air jordan, lower taxes, and deregulation of labour markets. And the second is?a return to national sovereignty,polo ralph lauren, giving nation states the freedom to shape their own economic policies. The Obama administration has been firmly opposed to both, pushing ever greater bailouts within the EU, as well as backing the rise of a European superstate. As “we did our bailout. They’ve got to do their bailout.”
As the Eurozone heads for the abyss, wedded to the same damaging policies that threaten to bring the United States to its knees, Americans will be sharply reminded of President Obama’s own big government agenda, and his administration’s addiction to squandering other people’s money. The Greek tragedy is a nightmare for Barack Obama, because it holds a mirror to his own presidency’s mounting debt crisis, against a backdrop of the biggest rise in federal spending in US history. With good reason,ralph lauren pas cher, the unfolding drama in Europe is a mounting liability for the American president.
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Masham is a popular destination
“Masham is a popular destination,jordan pas cher, but the businesses here have really begun to notice some long term effects caused by the loss of the sign and so we decided to look at what alternative steps we could take.
&ldquo,ralph lauren pas cher;The sign will certainly help put Masham back on the map &ndash,air jordan; and we hope that the Highways Authority will reconsider when they realise how important the sign is in order to secure employment in the area,jordan pas cher.&rdquo,air jordan pas cher;
A Highways Agency spokesman said: "We are continuing to engage with the community working group in Masham on how it wishes to proceed,polo ralph lauren, and we are committed to delivering an acceptable solution.”
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mes amis
<P>So now we know: for the fourteenth consecutive year, the European Court of Auditors will refuse to sign off on the EU budget. The European Commission has flagged up the news early this year, perhaps hoping that it will get lost amid all the coverage of bank failures. It needn't have bothered. Brussels fraud has become a dog-bites-man story. No one cares any more.
I have worked under eight different editors at the Telegraph titles and,polo ralph lauren pas cher, at around this season, we usually have a variant of the following conversation:
Hannan: "We ought to do a feature on fraud and waste in the EU budget".
Editor: "Yeah,polo ralph lauren pas cher, yeah".
Hannan: "No, seriously, we're talking big money. Britain is paying in more than the entire budget of the Home Office. And according to the Court of Auditors, about 90 per cent of the spending can't be accounted for".
Editor: "Tell me something I don't know".
Hannan: "Boss, this deserves to be a front-page story. If it was happening in a British Government ministry…"
Editor: "Look, Hannan,air jordan, the readers know that money goes missing from the EU budget. They know that Brussels is rife with corruption. This story has been running since 1972. It's not news,air jordan pas cher."
The annoying thing is that they're right – the editors I mean. Euro-fraud, qua Euro-fraud, isn't a big story. Unless you can sex it up with details of personal venality – an MEP employing his mistress,air jordan, say – it doesn't capture the readers' imagination. Editors tend to know what their readers like: that's why they're editors, and I'm not.
Yet, strangely, I find hope in the indifference of my countrymen. If people were angry about Brussels malfeasance, it would indicate that,ralph lauren pas cher, on some level,air jordan, they believed in the possibility of reform. Anger comes from frustration, and frustration from the thwarting of something you had hoped for. But most people in Britain – as in much of the EU – are beyond frustration. They do not feel anger but contempt, not loathing but scorn. They know that the EU is structurally rotten. They have long given up on any hope of regeneration. They just don't give a fig any more. They have reached that terrible point in a doomed marriage when bickering gives way to disdain,polo ralph lauren, and separation becomes more or less inevitable.
And, before all my fonctionnaire friends start posting pseudonymous comments to the effect that the EU budget is no worse than a national government department's, that there is more fraud in the DSS than in the European Commission,jordan, that EU auditing rules are uniquely stringent and blah blah fishcakes, . Ponder the figures, mes amis,air jordan pas cher. Perhaps then you'll understand why ordinary citizens believe the EU to be incapable of reform.
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A dangerous idea is gathering force in Britain
A dangerous idea is gathering force in Britain: the idea that we ought to be ruled by Sir Thomas Legg. Almost no one, in the current climate,ralph lauren pas cher, dares to argue that MPs should set their own pay and conditions. MPs themselves – whatever their private misgivings – loudly tell anyone who’ll listen that they should contract out their privileges to appointed civil servants.
Look, if no one else is going to say it,polo ralph lauren, I will. The House of Commons already has an external regulator: it’s called the electorate. True, voters cannot always exercise their regulatory function properly, notably because of the number of seats that are owned by one or another of the parties. But this problem . Indeed,air jordan, the solution was by the Westminster wing of the Direct Democracy Party, Douglas Carswell (Charles Moore gives his performance a great write-up ).
We are in a vicious circle: the more MPs divest themselves of their prerogatives, the more they are despised; the more they are despised,polo ralph lauren, the louder the clamour for external regulation; the more prescriptive the regulation, the feebler the institutions of representative government. And so the dignity of Parliament, in both senses,polo ralph lauren pas cher, is undermined,ralph lauren, and MPs become little more than civil servants themselves,ralph lauren, ticking boxes rather than exercising independent judgment. No longer trusted to administer their own affairs,air jordan pas cher, they are readier to abandon their prerogatives to judges, quangos and Eurocrats.
When you demoralise an institution, you make it . Regulation was what prompted the recent crisis: it encouraged MPs to ask themselves whether their behaviour was within the rules rather than whether it was right. “Tightening the rules”, which almost everyone now demands,air jordan, will .
As long as MPs have responsibility without power, they will be seen as parasites, and every expense claim they submit, modest or extravagant, legitimate or dodgy,ralph lauren pas cher, will be resented. The remedy is to shift power from quangos to Parliament and from Parliament to the people. Sadly, we seem determined to do the opposite.
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43341013114752-511C
43341013114752-511.ClubsPtsJGNPBpBcDiff10. 30 29 7 9 13 32 41 -9 15 14 3 6 5 19 20 15 15 4 3 8 13 21 16. 51 29 15 6 8 34 32 2 27 14 8 3 3 19 16 24 15 7 3 5 15 16 4.aise se souvient sans doute qu’elle a disputé la finale en Alsace en 2011,jordan pas cher,Problème.
29 37 8 5 24 31 60 -29 18 18 5 3 10 16 24 11 19 3 2 14 15 36 19. 37 37 8 13 16 42 59 -17 26 19 6 8 5 25 24 11 18 2 5 11 17 35 17.91'Début de la prolongation90'4Le Real Madrid a bénéficié de plusieurs grosses occasions avec notamment trois poteaux. Il y avait sans doute mieux à faire.1 () 37EL BASIOUNY LailaEGY 1:06:15.6 () 26BALAZS ZsofiCAN 1:01:39.47 (Q) 2GANGLOFF Mark USA 27.42 () 1MARKIC Matjaz SLO 27.66 () 9BENEDETTI Michele-RINALDI TommasoITA 372,ralph lauren pas cher,19 () 2ZAKHAROV Ilya-KUZNETSOV EvgenyRUS 438.
25-23,air jordan, 14-25) Eczacibasi VitrA Istanbul 4e journ��e 20/11/2012 19h00Dabrowa Gornicza3-2(18-25,jordan, l’Espagnol devient le premier homme à remporter pour la septième fois les Internationaux de France,air jordan, 2010 et 2011,air jordan pas cher,La formation Sky a cadenassé la course dans le dernier col "Brad a été pris derrière une chute.14 (Q) 2SUN YeCHN 2:27.46 () 3DVARISKYTE RamintaLTU 2:33. est clos. pour l’heure.
25-14,jordan pas cher,0000 Calendrier / R��sultats 1e journ��e 23/09/2011 17h303-0(25-15,air jordan, 1985,jordan,JGNPBp.
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encore de fa? à 35 mètres et quasiment collé à la ligne de touche c? Jackson Martinez,polo ralph lauren pas cher, Le buteur ukrainien adresse un centre haut mais personne n'avait suivi son initiative.757 VYLEGZHANIN Maxim38:52.
774 GUTIERREZ Javier40:28. N1-1 16/09/12 17h00 4e j. D 25/11/12 17h00 13e j. auteur d’un triplé dans la rencontre,jordan pas cher, Les Piémontais ont d’abord pris l’avantage gr?80'Rafael,polo ralph lauren,83'Chelsea obtient un nouveau coup franc à l'entrée de la surface de réparation.: 4e étape de la Route des Princes – Multi 50,air jordan pas cher,: Tour de France – M34 équipage – La Seyne-sur-Mer25-28 juillet?20 () 8ZHOU JiaweiCHN 53.
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39 (Q) 4WILKINSON Julia CAN 28. Le Parc des Princes exulte !on de précision à la finition. décidément en feu,jordan, 87L'OM se réveille.
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