Cicero's Songs

In the 2011 Holyrood election, the SNP won 69 seats on 45% of the vote, and were able to establish the first majority government under a system that was designed to make that difficult. In the 2014 independence referendum the SNP-led "YES" campaign won 44.7% of the total vote. At the 2015 General Election the Scottish National Party gained just under 50% of the vote and won all but three of the 59 Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament. There is little doubt that the Nationalist tide has been riding high in Scotland for several years now. The party maintains impressive, some might say oppressive, discipline, and in all things- personal and well as policy- the SNP never loses sight of their goal of a separate Scotland. The Nats see the failure of the first referendum as merely a way-station on the road to ultimate independence. Yet the Nationalist voters are a lot more heterogeneous than the party, and detailed analysis suggests that quite a few voters support the SNP,...

In 26 European Union countries, (and one acceding country, Croatia) today is something of a celebration, albeit a muted one, given the circumstances of continued economic hardship- the European Union will formally receive recognition as the winner of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize . In one other European Union member state it is the occasion of ridicule and disbelief. Admittedly the contemptible British press prefers to hypocritically attack an Australian radio programme for an unfortunate prank that went badly wrong, so probably remarkably few people in the UK may be aware of the special recognition that the EU is getting, unless they encounter some sneering comment on page 17. Across the British political spectrum, the European Union has become a bogeyman for all of the ills that afflict the dis-United Kingdom. "Brussels bureaucrats"- although there are actually fairly few of them- are the first in line in the British political blame game. Britain is allowed to opt out of ...

The Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski usually gets a good press in the UK. His fluent English and his academic intelligence help him stand out as an individual, while Poland is one of the few countries of Central/Eastern Europe where the British have a clear and generally positive view of what kind of country it is. It also helps a lot that Mr. Sikorski, as a graduate of Oxford University, has a big network of friends in Britain- including his former Bullingdon Club confrere , Boris Johnson. Mr. Sikorski's wife is the American historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her magisterial book Gulag , Anne Applebaum, and she is also a regular visitor to Britain. Yet despite his close connections with the UK, and his former British citizenship, which he only renounced on becoming Polish Defence Minister in 2006, it is clear that Sikorski is hardly an uncritical friend of the UK. Indeed the Anti-EU faction in the UK would argue that he was hardly a friend at all, as he seeks...

Brits are told every year- especially by the anti-EU press- that the EU fails to pass its own audit test. It turns out that this is not strictly true. Each year mistakes and errors are found, but, it turns out that these are most often in the 80% of the EU budget that is administered by the national governments. I n fact, the EU budget turns out to be in a far more orderly position than the "failure of the EU court of auditors to approve the budget" implies .  David Cameron intends to reduce- if possible- the total EU budget, and this, in the context of the large austerity that national governments are being forced to impose sounds wholly reasonable. However, Mr. Cameron, together with the other EU leaders, has been asking EU agencies to do a lot more in connection with the crisis that the EU faces. Several of the Eurozone governments are also asking the EU to do more- and it can not do this without increases in the budget. Thus, the challenge to reduce or even simply freez...

As the economic crisis of the West grinds on, I find myself noting that the mistakes of policy are more and more political mistakes, and that the failures of leadership are more and more failures of political leadership.  Attempting to create a safer banking system by forcing increases in reserves, through Basel III or restrictions in concentration, is in fact having almost the precisely opposite effect to that intended. The increase in reserves has not made banks safer, but it has forced a dramatic shrinking in bank balance sheets. The result is a crash dive in lending- especially to the critical small and medium enterprises sector. This is now getting to the stage where, in the words of a senior banker operating across the Baltic and Nordic markets who I was speaking to over the weekend: "within five years, no bank will be able to afford to take on SME lending". This continued credit crunch carries not only short term implications, but also long term implications, since the...

Living in the latest country to adopt the Euro, it is clear that, to say the least, the British media has a "different" perspective on the single currency. If you believe the British press, the Euro not only will collapse, but it should collapse. The propaganda spread by such "newspapers" as the Daily Mail and the Express, is unrelentingly hostile, not merely to the Euro, but even to continuing British membership of the European Union itself. Continuing campaigns against the Union, which is consistently portrayed in the most negative light possible, have undoubtedly contributed to a sharp decline in British popular support for the EU. The polls now show a majority backing British withdrawal from the European Union. However, the departure of the UK is not the same as the end of the European Union, or even the Euro itself. In Estonia, as in many other Eurozone countries, the idea of restoring national currencies is not merely not on the national agenda, it is ...

Spring has come to Estonia, and it is like the lights have been switched on after the long (overlong) winter. As always, your heart leaps as the huge chains of migrating geese take to the skies, and here and there a newly arrived solitary stork wanders along the field gullies looking for frogs. The grass visibly greens from day to day, and the floors of the budding forest are bright with snow drops and the primrose-like blue flowers, known rather prosaically in Estonian as "blue flowers". Soon the swallows too will be here and the white nights of June will echo to the Estonians enjoying the brief pleasures of the glorious northern summer. Yet work must continue, and I head to Parnu, the summer capital of Estonia, amidst April showers, to take part in a conference to discuss the future options in Estonian finance. For me, Estonian finance, as so much of Estonian society, stands at something of a cross roads. In many ways the last twenty years have been a series of exams for ...

The Euro debate in Britain takes place in a vacuum. The Euro-sceptics are not challenged, even when they start to resort to absurd national stereotypes and mentioning the war ("I think I mentioned it 73 times, but may have got away with it") in the most inappropriate contexts. The fact is that the image of Britain is so rooted in the Second World War, that we have become imprisoned in a national myth which insists on our unique righteousness and moral certainty. No one is allowed to mention the equivocation that created a culture of appeasement, the rise of the Blackshirts, or the real possibility that instead of "fighting alone" in 1940, a Britain under Halifax would have probably come to terms.  The problem is that the generation that actually took part in the war has more or less passed, and it is the post-war generation that mostly were not even alive at the end of the war that has created this pristine national myth. In the face of inexorable national decli...

In the 1970s came a school of economic thought popularized by the German-born British economist, E.F. Schumacher  called  "Small is Beautiful" .  This itself was the product of much work done by Leopold Koh r, Schumacher's teacher, and the author of the seminal work "The Breakdown of Nations".  The simplest level of the ideas of the small is beautiful movement is that "when something is wrong, something is too big". The implications of this are profound. Innovation, for example, usually flows from small companies, not from large ones. Mergers of large companies almost never deliver the returns that they promise, In the realm of ideology, the creation of massed -isms is a reflection of a social unit that is unable to create bridges across different aspects of the human condition. In short, the alleged benefits of economies of scale are largely fictitious. The current debate about the future is being made in increasingly apocalyptic terms. The crisi...

In the face of the growing crisis in Athens, it would be as well to remember that this is as much a crisis of Germany as it is of Greece. If Greece is to be rescued, the German taxpayer will be forced to find the money. Yet if Greece is not rescued, it is the German banks that are first in line to take the losses, and again it will be the German taxpayer that will have to pick up the bill. Meanwhile, if Greece is left to its fate, then Germany will have to carry the opprobrium for breaking down European solidarity: it will show once and for all that Germany will indeed put its perceived national interest above that of the wider European Union, which pretty much ends the idea of Germany signing up to ever closer union. In other words it would be a major change in German policy towards the EU- and if it were to be changed, there could be some widespread and unexpected changes in other countries policies towards Germany. There are some potential significant foreign policy risks for Berlin...

A day trip across the Gulf of Finland leads me to Helsinki for the first time in many years. Well, not strictly speaking true, because I am a constant transit passenger at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, but it is about ten years since I last visited the centre of the Finnish capital. Helsinki in the cold sunshine of early spring is quite a contrast to Tallinn, As the ferry nosed out of the Bay of Tallinn, it was breaking trough the blocks and slush of sea ice and moving slowly through an early fog. yet by mid crossing, the fog (and the ice) had gone and the view of Helsinki's smoking chimney stacks showed the Finnish economy, at least, is growing its production. Once ashore, the straight boulevards of the 19th century Tsarist city leave an impression that is far more Russian than the delicate Gothic filigree of Tallinn's old city. Here and there the massive granite rustication of the 19th century Finnish nationalist architects makes some buildings look more like the home of the mythi...

"Gentlemen, you are trying to negotiate something you will never be able to negotiate. If negotiated, it will not be ratified. and if ratified, it will not work" Thus spoke the British civil servant, Russell Bretherton, who had been sent to represent Britain at the Messina conference in 1955. The other six countries represented at that conference: Belgium, France, (West) Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had sent their foreign ministers. The UK sent this relatively minor civil servant who essentially boycotted the discussions. It was the beginning of a continuously fraught relationship between Britain and the rest of the European Union. In the same way that the UK tried to ignore the reality of the early moves for European co-operation, so it has tried to ignore the reality of the treaty of Lisbon. At the signing ceremony, 26 European leaders celebrated with a formal signing ceremony followed by a formal dinner. One- Gordon Brown- arrived deliberately late and di...

The result of the Irish referendum has been long expected, and as a result I think that most commentators had discounted its significance. In fact, I already detect some significant political shifts that are taking place. Firstly there is no doubt that the "antis" are beginning to accept defeat. Even the bumptious and increasingly erratic Dan Hannan points out that a referendum on Lisbon alone makes very little sense. He argues that the referendum should be an in-or-out question and he will be campaigning to leave. So perhaps the first result of the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon will be greater clarity in the argument: the debate moves on from the abstruse language of treaties to a straight yes or no question. The problem for the "Better off out" supporters is that they have no realistic answer for the question of how Britain can benefit from going it alone in a world where being America's most loyal ally only elicits indifference- even from the US itse...

The release of the Conservative Home poll on the eve of their party conference creates a real headache for David Cameron. Even as it was, the Irish Yes vote on the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon would have put Europe higher up the agenda for the conference that the leadership would have probably preferred. The problem is that in the details of the poll: only 16% suggesting that the treaty of Lisbon should be accepted and nearly three quarters want a complete renegotiation of British membership. Perhaps even more extraordinary, about 40% of Conservative activists actually want to withdraw from the European Union completely. The scale of Europhobia amongst the Conservatives is pretty dramatic and leaves the young Conservative leader with very little room for manoeuvre. The plain fact is that even with a filibuster by the right-wing President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, all of the members of the EU- including the UK- are likely to have ratified the treaty by the end of 200...

In the face of the ongoing attempt by the Daily Telegraph to portray MPs in the worst light possible no matter what their actual sins, it has been easy to forget that there is an important election campaign now taking place. I have had the option of voting in the European elections here in Estonia or where I am still registered to vote, in the UK. I have had to think hard about where I should vote. I am friendly with several of the leading political figures in this country and know several of the candidates for the European Parliament personally. In many ways I am closer to the Estonian version of Liberalism than the version of the party of which I am a member- the British Liberal Democrats. By voting in the UK, I could also be undermining my claim of Estonian residence in the eyes of the British tax authorities- and in the face of the Blitzkrieg unleashed by Alastair Darling in the last budget, that is not an insignificant consideration. Furthermore, the European elections usually ge...

The institutional inertia of the EU is strong, but there is no doubt that there are better solutions to the Irish NO vote to the Lisbon treaty than hoping it will go away or trying to ignore it. If there had been a referendum in every member state and only Ireland had rejected the treaty, then there might be some ground to suggest that some way round the situation might be sought. In fact, of course Ireland was the only state to submit the treaty to a vote. It is pretty clear that several other states, if a vote had been called, might well have rejected the treaty too. Some reforms are needed: democratic oversight in the EU needs to be increased, and more powers returned to the national Parliaments. The internal voting system should be made fairer and the confusion over the legal personality of the Union and the way it handles its external relations needs to be improved. However it does not automatically need the Lisbon treaty to undertake these reforms. For the time being the systems ...

Europe is a poisonous issue in British politics. The debate touches some of the most visceral points in the British body politic. In the end the debate about British membership of the European Union is, at its most basic level, a debate about identity. Those who are most opposed to the EU regard it as a threat to the very idea of Britain and to British identity. Those most in favour sometimes support the EU for precisely the same reasons. The debate is conducted through megaphones, with both sides predicting apocalypse should the other side prevail. The debate has been growing more urgent since the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany. Up until that time, the key relationship was between West Germany and France. After the reunification of Germany the balance of power changed substantially. Haunted by the fear that a united Germany would be more assertive, France hoped to create a European Union that would align the interests of the members more closely. The result was...