Saddam

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was hanged at dawn. The former Iraqi dictator had seemed destined for such a fate ever since his capture in December 2003, but his execution, mandated early last month by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the killing of 148 people in the town of Dujail in 1982, is nonetheless deplorable. As many commentators have been keen to argue, keeping him alive would perhaps have allowed Iraq the cathartic process of bringing him to judicial account for the innumerable other crimes of which he is accused, while killing him carries the very real risk of exacerbating further the sectarian horrors which ravage Iraq. Yet such claims are far from certain. It would be optimistic to credit the trials as they stood, widely perceived as a sham in the Sunni community, as reconciling Iraqis with a communal heritage. The American and Iraqi governments are not wholly naive in hoping that the passing of the old dictator may do a little to actually contain factional violence by quashing the hopes, and indeed fears, of those for whom a return to the old order was still conceivable. A neutral position on the relationship between Saddam's death and Iraq's stability is also possible. As Adnan Pachachi, a former President of the post-invasion Iraqi Governing Council, argues, "I don't think it will make much difference, frankly". The ultimate effects of Saddam's death are simply too ambiguous a foundation on which to condemn it.

Yet the execution of Saddam Hussein is nonetheless a deplorable act - not because of any mooted impact on contemporary Iraq, but because it is simply never justified for the state to claim the right to take another's life. Amnesty International counted 2,148 executions and 5,186 sentences of death in 2005. When the figures for 2006 are released, Saddam will simply be one among many. Each deserves censure. But Iraq is and was, as Saddam's foreshortened trials showed, a land cursed with abominable acts. To abhor the hanging of a human being, even one guilty of crimes against humanity, may be an appropriate response, but it should pale beside the revulsion we feel for the sectarian atrocities which are occurring on a daily basis. External pundits and politicians have briefly concerned themselves with the fate of Saddam, but the real debate remains how best to contain and curtail this violence. Coalition troops, who captured Saddam just over three years ago, remain the only bulwark against full-blown civil war. Whatever the impact of the former dictator's execution, no-one should be simply giving up on Iraq. The case that withdrawal is the least-worst option - abandoning Iraqis to a slaughter with the potential to far surpass those of Saddam - is one which is yet to be convincingly made.

Somalian strife

Ethiopian-backed troops loyal to Somalia's interim government are reported to be within 30km of the capital Mogadishu, with plans to besiege it and force the capitulation of the hitherto ascendent Union of Islamic Courts. Events have moved so rapidly in the last week - until Christmas Eve government forces were still ostensibly holed up in the provincial town of Baidoa as they had been for months - that even if the UN joins the African Union in condemning the decisive Ethiopian military presence they will be forced to deal with a fait accompli. The successes of the UIC, an Islamist alliance of sharia courts and their militias who swept across most the country after securing Mogadishu in June, had raised Western and regional concerns that Somalia would propagate destabilising jihad, but in the short term the UIC united much of what was for 15 years a failed and atomised state. This fragile stability, needed now more than ever in the aftermath of heavy rains and catastrophic flooding in November, has, however, almost certainly collapsed with loathed and largely Christian neighbour Ethiopia the real power in the land.

Addis Ababa is risking an oppotunistic Eritrean incursion into Ethiopia itself if its already demoralised army finds controlling Somalia a tougher task than conquering it. The rosiest senario sees the interim government accomodating some of the structures and members of the UIC, avoiding an Islamist insurgency and a return to chaos, and allowing the resumption of suspended airborne aid operations to the shattered south. The mounting humanitarian disaster, affecting 1.8 million people across the region, may yet force the warring parties into talks, as it perhaps did when they met in Djibouti on 3 December. But the very real danger of a devastating regional conflagration is closer than ever.

Two turbid doves

Jordan's King Abdullah has invited the president of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, and his prime minister, Ismail Haniya, to the Hashemite Kingdom to discuss the escalating violence of the Palestinian territories. With Haniya's Hamas and Abbas' Fatah sliding into fratricidal conflict, the need for co-operation between the two main Palestinian factions has arguably never been greater, but, sadly, Western donor governments show no signs of encouraging such a move. Recent calls by Abbas for fresh parliamentary and presidential elections may have cajoled Hamas back to talks, but an actual poll is liable merely to exacerbate tensions. A quasi-constitutional move to dissolve parliament less than a year after Hamas took power looks like a naked Fatah power-grab. After fresh elections, either Hamas will retain a stake in power (and perhaps take the presidency too), or will lose it but still represent a swathe of Palestinian opinion, remaining an organisation without the involvement of whom a lasting settlement in the Middle East cannot be achieved.

Better, therefore, to entice Hamas into a unity government now, than deal with them embittered and either still ascendant or excluded from power. With Abbas and Haniya possibly meeting within the week, a positive step would be for donor governments to soften their stance on the three conditions currently attached to ending their boycott of the Palestinian Authority. For Hamas to renounce violence, recognise Israel and sign up to previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements is vital to medium term progress in the peace process, but it is naive to expect an organisation established to violently oppose Israel to simply capitualate in the face of international pressure. The enforced isolation of the PA has done little to weaken support for Hamas, and has rather driven Haniya, once considered something of a moderate, firmly into the hands of Iran. The integration of Hamas into a coalition which may not explicitly accept the three conditions, but at least does not explicitly oppose them, would be an achievement worth the loosening of (probably European) donor purse strings. Abbas and Haniya have the oppotunity to prevent a Palestinian bloodbath. But Western governments can help too.

Merry Christmas

Ah, 'tis the season of PC-scare stories. Nevertheless, leafing through the cards I was receiving (and indeed absent mindedly sending), I did notice an abundance of morbidy neutral 'Season's Greetings', rather than some message which actually linked this rampant card-sending with any particular time of year. I for one think it would be a good thing if many more of us DID send correspondance to mark a plethora of seasons, but thats another story...

As a secular humanist, a corner of my soul thinks I should lament the wishing of a 'Merry Christmas'. But I don't, and in case this seems a latent tradition of my Christian upbringing, I'd welcome the wishing of the joys of any religions' festivals. What I am hardly alone in lamenting instead is the continuing collapse of our sense of 'community', an enervation I am perhaps feeling more than ever having just moved out of the familial home. The more collective joy-spreading we can engage in, the more living local communities can be sustained (hence 'merry', rather than 'happy', as much jollier word). Beliefs, moreover, whether secular or nae, are fragile indeed if they cannot call a celebration by its commonly held name, especially since the modern festival of Christmas has for many as much to do with the origin myths of a 1st century Levantine holy man as Thursday does to Thor.

So, on this day of Mona, a Merry Christmas to you all!

Speaking in tongues

As the number of British 14-year-olds taking a foreign language plummets, the Economist has spent the last few weeks fearing a loss of competitive advantage for monoglot native English speakers against the 400 million other folk who converse fluently in the language of Marlowe as a second tongue. It hails moves by some universities, led by University College London, to make a modern foreign language GCSE a mandatory requirement for taking a degree. Yet even if such developments would have the positive effect of forcing foreign languages back into the curriculum after the government made them optional at GCSE in 2004, they would have the corollary of excluding from top universities those children who at 14 indeed opted out of an MFL. 14 is hardly an age at which to irredeemably hinder ones future prospects, especially in an environment often hostile to MFLs when language departments are facing cuts as courses become optional and French, German and Spanish are pitted against apparently more appealing subjects. Instead of focusing on the university-end of education, what needs to be addressed is this basic lack of appeal, and this in turn has to be rooted in the irrelevance of basic vocabularies to high school students. The way to reinvigorate the learning of language in Britain is to create a linguistically stimulating environment at a much younger age.

I, at the ripe old age of 22, am currently attempting to learn another language myself - French - to join a GCSE in German and a basic grasp of colloquial English. Theoretically, at least, I have had two opportunities within formal education to learn it in the past. In my final year of primary school we were taught to sing some of the song Sur le pont d'Avignon , but, alas, not actually what any of the lyrics meant. So when I came across French again at 13, as a second MFL after German, I was left learning how to describe the contents of my pencil case at a time when in other subjects I was being encouraged to think on a whole new conceptual plane. The lack of any sophisticated vocabulary thus left my experience of French at school as little more than meaningless, and I had no desire to continue it beyond 14.

In October the education secretary Alan Johnson commissioned Lord Dearing to report on languages in schools and his interim report is due today. Dearing is sadly expected to back the continued optionality of languages at GCSE, but he at least looks set to recommend compulsory schooling within primary schools. Grounding learners in languages at the youngest age possible is surely a more effective way of creating a nation of linguists than curtailing opportunities at 14 then punishing non-linguists four years later. For me, learning French is currently proving a highly enjoyable experience. But had I been taught more than a meaningless song, it could have been so a decade ago.

French choices

Opinion polls continue to show Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal all but neck and neck heading into next April/May's French Presidential election. But in order for such head-to-head polling to be meaningful, both first have to make it into the second round, which, in 2002, the Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin famously failed to do, when the National Front's Jen-Marie le Pen piped him by 200000 votes. This time around, should Sarkozy, as expected, defeat his only declared challenger for the UMP ticket, Michèle Alliot-Marie, both the main two candidates look set to sail handily into the runoff. But the spectre of a candidate who has no hope of securing the backing of half the French electorate in a second round nevertheless making it into such a situation is far from buried. IFOP-Le Monde's polling of 17th-18th November asked respondents their support for both Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, the current President who has not yet ruled out running for a third term. In the latter case, respondents gave Le Pen, Chirac and François Bayrou, the candidate of the Union of French Democracy who has promised a 'Third Way' in French politics, 15% of first round votes apiece. Bayrou's chances in a runoff with Royal are moot, but Le Pen would be almost certain to face a similar fate to his eventual humiliation in 2002, when he increased his share of the vote by less than 1% as 82.21% voters backed Chirac.

Chirac, however, aged and unpopular after a decade in power, is unlikely to stand again, so for now at least this issue perhaps seems academic. But a system which fails to deliver voters a real choice in the final round of an election is clearly flawed. What is needed is an 'instant runoff' regime - effectively when single transferable voting is applied to a single-winner election - which sees voters rank the candidates by preference, with the more successful accumulating votes as those with less support are weeded out. In France, votes initially given to alternative left or right-of-centre parties would tend to migrate towards the Socialists and UMP, thus excluding extremist candidates who have no hope of securing a mainstream majority. Instant-runoff would also have the beneficial effect of strengthening support for moderate third party candidates such as Bayrou, a vote for whom is currently effectively wasted, thus weakening the unhealthy duopoly the Socialists and UMP currently hold. Nevertheless, it would be best if instant-runoff was only used to whittle the field down to two, for maintaining an second round serves a useful function by emphasising the ultimate choice faced by the electorate. What is vital is ensuring that this choice is meaningful. In a year in which the power of the street trumped that of parliament in the furore generated by the doomed-CPE, there has been talk of a coming crisis in French politics and the potential end of the 5th Republic. If and when a new one is born, let us hope it delivers a healthier democracy than the current one.

Food for thought

The Economist leads this week with claims that "ethical shopping harms the world" - "people who want to make the world a better place cannot do so by shifting their shopping habits: transforming the planet requires duller disciplines, like politics." It trains its sights on three targets: the organic, Fairtrade and local-produce movements. Organic farming is far less intensive than chemical methods and thus requires much more land under cultivation, threatening wilderness. Fairtrade encourages overproduction by providing a disincentive to diversify, with the corollary that commodity prices are depressed for the majority of farmers not fortunate enough to fall within a Fairtrade scheme. Local food with supposedly fewer "food miles" is often much more energy intensive to produce, and smacks of protectionism reinvented as environmental-awareness. The only way to make a real difference, claims the Economist, is through the ballot-box, influencing governments to introduce a global carbon tax, reform the world trade system and abolish agricultural tariffs and subsidies such as the notorious CAP. Ethical-food movements, while offering the hope that governments will recognise the potential support for an ethical agenda, may nevertheless "leave the world in a worse state and its poor farmers poorer than they otherwise would be".

All of which is short-term and naive. As the Economist admits, buying ethical food "sends a signal that there is an enormous appetite for change and widespread frustration that governments are not doing enough to preserve the environment, reform world trade or encourage development" - but it tucks this concession at the very end of it's article and chooses instead to stress the manifold ways in which ethical food is self-defeating. There are very few ethical organisations that believe governments are not at the heart of any realistic solutions. But to lecture consumers that real change only comes through the ballot box ignores the lack of choice voters are faced with unless ethical movements pursue parties and governments to co-opt part of their agenda. The intentions of organic and local food pressure groups are admirable, but for me they are not priorities. Fairtrade, however, is, and I will continue to support it despite the qualms I have over its actual impact. I will also indeed continue to vote, but my power at the ballot box can only be enhanced by a movement which seeks to influence what the parties have to offer.

Pax Europa

As the Finnish EU presidency struggles to thrash out a compromise between Turkey's refusal to open trade with Cyprus and the EU's embargo on the Turkish-occupied north of the island, the lastest to emerge is a Turkish offer of a tit-for-tat deal. Ercan airport and the port of Famagusta would open to EU trade as simultaneously Turkey would open a sea and airport of its own to Greek-Cypriot trade. Cyprus is likely to veto the deal, as its people vetoed the flawed reunification Annan Plan in a 2004 referendum. But larger EU powers should put pressure on Cyprus to accept and sign up themselves. The continued economic isolation of the north will only make eventual reunification that much more difficult as attitudes harden and wealth disparities widen even further, and the opening of trade with a large and increasingly rich neighbour can only be in the Greek-cypriot community's long-term interest. It is impossible to envisage a unilateral capitulation by either side; only negotiated concessions and compromise of the like proposed yesterday will ever solve this intractable dispute, and it is better for all parties to start on the path to a solution now, rather than wait first for the messy derailment of Turkey's EU bid.

Should compromise be reached and ultimately lead to reconciliation over the Turkish north, it would only be the most recent of manifold EU successes in employing the lube of its lucre to smooth intractable political conflict. The EU's trade and aid can prove to be a guarantor of stability in the western Meditteranean just as it is proving in the Balkans, and as it has long-since proved in western Europe. It is arguably the Communities' greatest achievement that one has to look back to the Romans to find a similarly prolonged period of peace in what is the most violent corner of the world in recorded human history. Turkey and Cyprus are unlikely to slip back into war, but without a little Cypriot reciprocation of Turkey's limited flexibilty relations are not going to normalise any time soon either. Cyprus' status as both party and judge in the dispute complicates the issue, but the money has to be on an eventual resolution to the cypriot question that is both inspired and underwritten by the EU.

Contesting the 'centre ground'

David Cameron celebrates the first anniversary of his election as Conservative leader today, having spent the past week warning of the 'huge mountain' the Tories still have to climb if they are to win back power, but promising 'real grit' to get them there. Yet there is something of a contradiction in his professed strategy of both seeking to appeal to an electorate "crying out for change" and trying to reclaim from Labour the 'centre ground' of British politics. From the perspectivce of traditional Tory voters, changing the Conservatives into Labour-lite offers no real choice of change at all, and Lord Saatchi last month implicitly criticised Cameron's first year in charge by warning of the electorate's potential alienation. "One direct result of this convergence on the centre ground is a super-cynical British electorate and low turnouts at election time", said he. "In Britain, the centre ground has ground the ideology out of politics", and "without ideology, political discourse is reduced to claim and counter claim about actual 'delivery'".

Unsuprisingly for a man of Saatchi's analytical intellect his diagnosis is acurate. Unlike him, however, I do not bemoan the passing of a calcific ideological divide in British politics; that all parties recognise the realities of relative poverty and climate change and are seeking proposals to tackle them is no bad thing. But I do worry that marginalising views beyond the centre is weakening British democracy. The Big Three British parties are obliged to contest the centre ground by a first-past-the-post electoral system which forces them to appeal only to the same 'swing-voters' in key marginal seats; according to the Electoral Reform Society 70% of cast ballots in the 2005 General Election were essentially irrelevant. Only with an element of proportionality in British elections will political parties gain from forging a distinctive position for themselves and giving a voice to voters whose sentiments lie outside the mainstream. Pursuing 'big-tent' politics will always be a sensible electoral strategy, and that the Big Three are fighting and debating over the same ground is not in itself a bad thing. What is lamentable is that it is not the electorate as a whole which gets to define where the political 'centre' truely lies.

Iraqi frying pans and internecine fires

The Iraq Study Group report, due to be published on Wednesday, looks set to recommend talks with Iran and Syria aimed at fostering stability in their troubled neighbour, alongside a drawing down of American combat troops to be fully sidelined to a supporting role by the Iraqi army by early 2008. The aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has proved disastrous, for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (and the thousands of Iraqi and coalition troops) who have perished, for wider regional stability, and for the image of the West in the world. But that is no reason to withdraw now. If the current situation is a disaster, it is only the continued presence of coalition troops which stand between disaster and catastrophe.

Bar the violence which flared in August 2005 during sensitive discussions over the future constitution, the last five months have been the bloodiest since April 2003, but it was nevertheless misleading for Kofi Annan to describe the situation as 'worse that civil war' earlier this month. A full withdrawal of coalition troops would give free reign to the low level ethnic cleansing already in operation and draw in the major powers from across the region. Recent Iranian and Syrian interest in Iraqi talks, on which parts of the ISG report seem to be predicated, is if anything an indication that such countries are fully aware of the destabilising potential of Iraqi chaos for their own populations. Turn the clock back 30 years and regional powers armed militias and bloodily intervened in Lebanon to fuel a civil war which still fizzes today. Transpose such a situation to Iraq, and we face the prospect of a nuclear Iran invading in support of the Shia-dominated government, a Jordanian, Saudi or Syrian response in support of the Sunni insurgents, and violent Turkish efforts to stamp out an efflorescence of Kurdish separatism. The situation in Iraq might be beyond repair, but until that is certain, the coalition should not seriously be countenancing a phased withdrawal. The elected Iraqi government should be given yet more rather than less time and material support to impose its authority over its territories and peoples. The American government bears the brunt of responsibility for the chaos in Iraq, but George Bush would bring yet more misery to region if he goes against his word and decided to 'cut and run'.

Constitutional thaw?

Nicolas Sarkozy this week confirmed his widely anticipated bid for the French presidency. He is campaigning in part on a commitment to a European 'mini-treaty' - an attempt to salvage the practical parts of the ill-fated European constitution. If he wins, as opinion polls continue to suggest he will, he would thus have a mandate to put France's name to such a document without the need to risk another 'non' in a second referendum. But what hope of a 'mini-treaty' across Europe as a whole?

If commitment to the European project is a prerequisite to reviving any element of the constitution, the signs from member states are not encouraging. Public support for the bloc is brittle and waning even in the newly acceded east, after Labour markets in the west failed to liberalise beyond Britain, Ireland and Sweden and nationalists and populists took power in Poland to Slovakia while Hungary and the Czech Republic succumbed to governmental paralysis. Unless these trends are reversed such states will join traditionally more eurosceptic older members like Britain in being unlikely to endorse a treaty promising yet deeper integration. Britain itself, despite never actually rejecting the original, looks ever less likely to accept a simple constitution-redux, as Gordon Brown replaces a greater Europhile in Tony Blair as Prime Minister, while David Cameron, a Conservative leader who still needs to burnish his Eurosceptic credentials after failing to fulfil a pledge to pull the party out of the European parliament's pro-integration EPP-ED bloc, waits in the wings.

All of which is a great shame, for the constitution contained much of necessity if the EU is to function coherently as a 25-and-counting member bloc in the 21st century. A 'mini-treaty' could create the post of a European foreign minister, and reform the ludicrous situation whereby every member state is guaranteed a commissioner in Brussels, which is set to subdivide the bureaucratic pie into 27 once Bulgaria and Romania join the club next year. If Europe is to regain the momentum needed to forge such a rationalising document, a catalytic first step would be to regain a sense of mission, and a mission, moreover, with which Britain and the recent arrivals could sympathise. One appropriate agenda has already supposedly been agreed upon, at Lisbon in 2000, when member states committed themselves to transforming the EU into "the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by 2010. Yet little has been done to nurture the knowledge-based economy Lisbon promised, and the key Eurozone countries with their bloated public sectors continue to stagnate. With fragile coalition governments in Germany and Italy, however, it asks a lot of Angela Merkel or Romano Prodi to lead the way. Thus, if he serious about moving forward in Europe, not to mention getting to grips with long term unemployment in France itself, it falls to Nicolas Sarkozy to go further in his presidential platform than a promise of support for a new 'mini-treaty'. By putting his name to serious structural reform of the French economy now, he could claim a mandate to overrule the street protests which stymied Dominique de Villepin's sadly tepid CPE, re-establish the economic dynamism of his country, and pull Europe along with it.

The idea of 'Europe'

Turkish attempts to join the EU stumbled this week as first on Wednesday the European Commission recommended freezing aspects of its accession talks and then on Thursday Cyprus threatened to veto them altogether. The dispute stems from 1974, when a Greek-coup on Cyprus precipitated a Turkish invasion of the island which ultimately split it into an internationally-recognised Greek south and a Turkish north which only Ankara continued to back. 32 years later neither Turkey, nor the EU to which Cyprus (technically the whole island) acceded in 2004, is backing down, and the impasse remains the single biggest threat to Turkey's EU ambitions.

It is the not the only one, however. Issues of free speech (the case against Turkish author and recent Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk for declaring "30000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it" was only dropped in January on a technicality) would be resolved as Turkey accepted and absorbed European norms and the acquis communautaire. Of greater import are the noises which periodically emanate from European capitals expressing doubt over Turkey's suitability as a member of the EU, and the souring of public opinion (both in the EU and Turkey itself) against any eventual accession. To have doubts over specific issues of compatibility is of course legitimate, responsible and healthy. But to declare, as the Bavarian minister-president Edmund Stoiber did last week, that "Turkey is not a European state", and to thus dismiss its bid for full membership on the grounds of its supposed 'extra-European' culture or geography, is both vacuous and naive.

What is Europe? It is an idea with competing and contested definitions. The European football’s governing body UEFA's competence has extended to Israel since 1994 and Kazakhstan since 2002. Morocco, as a member of the European Broadcasting Union, was able to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest as long ago as 1980, while Armenia first took part only this year. One oft-cited geographic definition bounds Europe by the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, the Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Seas, and the Ural and Caucasian Mountains. But to define the 'European' in the 'European Union' in terms of such raw geography would be to ignore French, Spanish and Portuguese territories across the globe as well as those countries within 'Europe' which wish to remain beyond the EU, and grant undue weight to the historical but false ascription of 'continent' to what is merely a peninsula of a greater and much more clearly defined Eurasian or even Africa-Eurasian land mass. Cultural definitions are even more diffuse. One cannot delineate a 'European' culture that does not transude into other continents and countries: the UK has much more in common with liberal America than, say, Bulgaria. One could talk of a 'common heritage', but European history has been played out on a global stage since the renaissance, and the Mediterranean has been more often a naval highway of integration than a barrier - the writ of Rome ran to North Africa in the 2nd century BC as in the 20th AD. Of course, North Africa has, since the fall of Byzantine Carthage in 698, been a land of Islam, and the former president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, famously once described the EU as a "Christian club". Yet to exclude the non-Christian world would omit Bosnia and Albania, mainly Muslim countries at the heart of the Balkans, and ignore the 15 million Muslims who already reside within the EU.

Article O of the Treaty on European Union (or Maastricht Treaty) stipulates that "Any European State may apply to become a member of the Union", without giving any clearer indication of how to define the key term 'European'. In practice, however, this has been worked out on a case by case basis by the European Council. In 1987 Morocco applied to join the then Communities, but was rejected on the grounds that it was not a European State. It has also been suggested that Israel too is not 'European' enough for full membership. Turkey, by contrast, has been promised the prospect of eventual accession since the Association Agreement it signed with the Communities in 1963, and has since had its eligibility confirmed by the European Parliament, Council and Commission. Yet 97% of Turkey lies beyond the Bosporus in Asia; the term 'European State' is above all a criterion based upon political assessment.

It is thus obtuse to cling to a geographical definition of 'Europe' when discussing the EU. If we turn to the 'Copenhagen criteria' drawn up a year after Maastricht, we find no mention of geography or culture. The key section of the Copenhagen Presidency's conclusions reads:

"Membership requires that candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and, protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union."

This, along with the acceptance of the acquis communautaire, is the only meaningful definition of 'European' the EU needs. If Turkey, or Morocco, or indeed any other state beyond the EU wishes to embrace 'Europe' - i.e. democratic institutions, the rule of law, human rights and a robust market economy - there is no reason why the EU should not embrace such states in turn. It was after all the prospect of eventual EU membership that led the 8 former Communist countries which joined the bloc in 2004 to pursue the reforms and 'Europeanise' as they have. Why should geographical chauvinism deny others, from North Africa to Central Asia and beyond, the carrot of EU membership to encourage the adoption of 'European' rights and political and economic norms?

The issues currently holding up Turkish negotiations are not, at least officially, rooted in any supposed extra-European character - they result instead from the intractable fallout of the partition of Cyprus. It is to be hoped, nevertheless, that European capitals do not seek to exploit the hiatus to dash Turkey's hopes of accession, in order to protect spurious notions of the idea of Europe.

The potpourri of the DRC

The wars and strife which beset Congo in the decade up to the fragile peace of 2003 was the world's bloodiest period of conflict since 1945, which makes it all the more remarkable that this years elections, if far from peaceful, were nevertheless successful in producing a clear cut winner. That man was transitional president Joseph Kabila, who defeated his rival former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba in the run-off of 29th October 52%-42%. It is the latter who now deserves praise for giving Congo's embryonic democracy a real chance of life, however, by swallowing his doubts over the conduct of the election and accepting the Kabila victory, vowing to forge a "strong republican opposition in the interests of the nation". It is vital that Kabila, flush with his successes and dominating Congo's National Assembly with around 300 of its 500 representatives (against Bemba's 100), allows him to do so by granting positions on parliamentary committees and effective government oversight. Congo remains a divided nation, with factions routed in once held territory as most Congolese voted against their former masters, and little evidence of the 'state' away from Kinshasa and the major cities. A return to the one party system of Mobutu Sese Seko would do nothing to mend a broken country. Political pluralism is vital if Africa's heart is to beat to a lighter tune.

Scotland's gain, Gordon's bain

This month saw an explosion of interest in Scotland's constitutional position within the union, sparked by an ICM-Scotsman poll of 27th-30th October which showed that 51% of Scots favoured independence and that the Scottish National Party was leading Labour in the race to become the biggest party in Holyrood in May's Scottish Assembly elections, a lead which had grown to 5% by the more recent ICM-Scotsman poll of 22nd-23rd November. Cue the emanation of increasingly shrill noises from senior Labour figures seriously concerned about a rout north of the border. In speeches over the past week, Gordon Brown has warned of the economic and cultural damage - and even the passports - that independence would supposedly entail, John Reid has sought to paint the SNP as helpless "in the face of the environment, international crime and terrorism, and mass migration", while Tony Blair has urged Labour activists to redouble their efforts to avoid the "constitutional nightmare" of "narrow" Scottish nationalism in power. All of which suggests that Labour itself believes it is set for a mauling in May, and that Westminster's highest echelons are terrified of what an SNP-dominated Holyrood might mean.

Whatever happens in the coming months, full Scottish independence is still a long way off. Anything shy of what remains an unlikely majority would force SNP leader Alex Salmond into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a condition of which looks certain to be the stymieing of the proposed independence-referendum. Even if the SNP were to secure such a plebiscite and then go on to win it, it would take years to renegotiate and untangle 300 years of union. Nevertheless, a good result puts question marks over the medium term future of a united Britain, and this in turn inevitably puts question marks over the British premiership of a Scottish politician. Just as Gordon Brown ascends to the long-coveted post of Prime Minister - which few now doubt he will - he would indeed be faced with a nightmare, not so much over the constitution, but over his own credibility in power.

As Scotland decides it would really rather not send MPs to London, does the most powerful of those it currently does send seek to re-convince the Scottish electorate of the merits of union and risk alienating so-called 'middle' England? Does he appoint an English-dominated Cabinet, to hide from the inevitable efflorescence of the West Lothian Question? Or does Brown continue with his promotion of ‘Britishness’, a strategy which looks ever more impotent in the face of even higher English than Scottish support for the partial dissolution of Britain in the above-quoted November ICM poll. It would be a deeply destabilising situation for the Chancellor-cum-Prime Minister to endure, which of course explains the terror projected SNP gains engender among a Labour elite which has all but reconciled itself to an annointed succession in the Labour leadership. The prospect of SNP probing at the fundamental weakness of a Brown premiership has the potential to crucially buttress a credible Stop-Gordon candidate's support. But then no such candidate seems to exist.

Premature Presidents

Awoke this morning to find that leftist Ecuadorian presidential hopeful Rafael Correa had declared victory after taking 66% of the counted votes in his run-off with Álvaro Noboa. But this claim came after a bare 20% of cast ballots had been counted, continuing a worrying trend particularly in Latin American countries of premature declarations which have the potential to undermine often fragile democracies. In July of this year, after 25% of votes had been counted in the Mexican presidential elections, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a lead of over 3.5% from the governing National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. It was not until 97.70% of polling stations had declared, nearly 24 hours after the first declarations had been given, that Calderón took the lead, going on to open up a margin of victory of 244000 in over 40 million votes cast. Both candidates had however already claimed victory on the basis of an earlier quick count and private exit polls all of which had lain within margins of error, and while Calderón has since been vindicated López Obrador has refused to concede, bringing Mexico City to a standstill for much of the past four months and threatening further instability.

A Correa victory in Ecuador is clearly the most likely outcome of yesterday's poll; at the time of writing with nearly half the votes counted Noboa trailed by a massive 35%. But this only heightens the dangers of an unexpected but decisive late Noboa surge; the Banana magnate is after all yet to concede defeat, and should he ultimately claim legitimate victory, we will again end up with two self-proclaimed presidents. As López Obrador and his supporters found, once victory has been declared accepting defeat is an incredibly bitter pill to swallow. Yet the temptations to declare premature victory are obvious, when street protests have had the power to bring down governments across Latin America (most recently that of Bolivia's Carlos Mesa in 2005). A failure to declare could lose a candidate the initiative, look ineffectual and appear to tacitly concede the race.

Part of the blame, therefore, has to lie with electoral systems that release partial results to the public and press long before all the votes have been considered. In elections with a clear winner, as appears to be the case in Ecuador, this has the benefit of swifting curtailing the political uncertainty which inevitably follows an election. This is obviously important in a country of endemic political turbulence where three presidents have been extra-constitutionally forced from power in the past decade, and Rafael Correa has indeed begun naming ministers and pronouncing policy. Moreover, poor communications can indeed render full counts in rural areas protracted affairs; in Peru's presidential election first round of April 9th Lourdes Flores Nano was not forced to concede defeat to Alan García Pérez for the final run-off spot behind Ollanta Humala until a full 24 days after Peruvians actually went to the polls. Yet in such closer contests, by obliging candidates to second guess the ultimate outcome, partial counts run the dangerous risk of prolonging the uncertainty long after all the full results are actually in. Announcing provisional results does little to further aid transparency so long as election monitors are given adequate oversight of counting procedures, and it perversely allows candidates such as López Obrador to spuriously paint the thwarting of their ambitions before the eyes of electorate as fundamental electoral fraud. In an ideal world candidates would not declare until victory truly was assured, but it is naive to expect politicians not to do so while partial results continue to be released. It thus falls to election officials to hold back from announcing provisional results, and strive harder still to minimise the time it takes for fully definitive results to come in.

Look What My Tory Did!

After recent moves to reposition themselves on the issue of poverty, it is hard to see what the latest Conservative online gimmick Sort-It, following on from the infamous WebCameron, is supposed to achieve. Describing the impulse to spend on credit as 'the tosser inside' manages to offend both traditional Conservative supporters who find the language repulsive, and younger voters to whom the message is supposed to appeal and persuade. They may have had considerable success in beginning to shake off the image of being the 'nasty' party, but they still have much further to go before their advice, which indeed addresses a very important issue in contemporary British society, looks anything other than opportunistic and patronising. Employing a Silvio Berlusconi look-alike to prance about in garish garb does not 'do something about' the problem of debt as Conservative Leader David Cameron claims - it is hard to see nearly enough young people first finding www.sort-it.co.uk and then being persuaded by it to make anything but the tiniest of dents in the short-term debt which holds them back - but rather succeeds in recasting the Tories in the image of paternalistic 19th Century politicians lecturing the working classes on the evils of drink.

The third postulate of special relativity

As expected, Conservative Leader David Cameron today highlighted the Tories' shifting attitude to poverty - now seen as relative rather than merely absolute - and even suggested some of the potential outlines for the relevant eventual Tory policies. Cameron argued that the Conservatives needed to 'stop treating poverty as an issue for government, and start treating it as an issue for society'. Borrowing the traditional language of Labour, he called for 'an element of redistribution' in economic policy, but his main emphasis was on tackling the issue at its supposed roots, such as mental health problems and drug addiction. This heralded the latest in a trend across the political spectrum to call on the 'Third Sector' - voluntary organisations and social enterprises which comprise that part of society which neither falls within the 'public' or 'private' sectors (and are supposedly better placed than either to meet some of society's needs) - to play a greater role in addressing these factors. But of course, the wait continues for what exactly such Tory policies will entail.

Double Dutch

With the votes all but counted in the Dutch general election of 22 November 2006, a chaotic and confused situation has emerged in which no two parties are able to secure a parliamentary majority. The most likely outcome will be a 'monster' coalition of the Christian Democratic (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) parties (with at least a third coalition partner) - the Dutch equivalent of Germany's Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats and a far from ideal situation with Labour leader Wouter Bos one of the harshest critics of Christian Democrat Premier Jan Peter Balkenende's four years of government. Dutch voters have granted defenders of Britain's 'first-past-the-post' electoral system yet another inconclusive European election result to point at to demonstrate the weaknesses of a proportional system, following similar recent ambiguous aftermaths to polls in Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the inherent fragility of the ever-fragmented Italian system.

Should those in favour of electoral reform in Britain thus be questioning their beliefs? Far from it. The moderate centre's loss of ground to minor parties across Europe (and indeed in Britain, with yesterday's Guardian/ICM poll giving 'Others' (ie not Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats) 9% of a projected popular vote) has indeed made forming governing majorities difficult, but this is no reason to disenfranchise those disillusioned with the centre ground. Including extreme parties on both left and right within the mainstream political process is a far healthier means of containing such currents than attempting to suppress them, which can result in disquieting backlashes such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's success in reaching the second round run-off of the 2002 French Presidential poll - France having a single-member-constituency National Assembly like Britain's House of Commons. Moreover, if an element of Single Transferable Voting is included within the electoral system, as the Electoral Reform Society proposes, British general elections could well result in larger majorities and hence more rather than less governablity, allowing voters to vote for a party of choice without losing the ability to vote 'tactically' to keep out undesired candidates. No system of government is without its flaws. But recent events on the Continent have not diminished the argument for fundamental reform at home.

Compassionate conservatism's finest hour

Just read today's Guardian, which leads with Conservative MP Greg Clark's calls to modernise the Tories' 'Churchillian' approach to the Welfare state. In a policy paper set to be endorsed by Tory Leader David Cameron on Friday, Clark, a shadow minister focusing on poverty within the Conservatives' comprehensive policy review, labels increases in relative poverty in the 1980s a 'terrible mistake'. By the early 1990s Britain's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, stood at a record high of over 35%, having risen from under 28% in 1984. This mooted shift in Tory social policy is the latest attempt of the reinvigorated Conservative Party under Cameron to claim at least the language of the centre ground, following celebrated posturings as champions of the environment and the NHS.

Do such manoeuvrings merely signal the continued convergence of the main British political parties towards a supposed 'centre-ground'? If one looks at the purported goals of the parties, than perhaps the answer is yes - but that is no bad thing. For as Greg Clark himself said, 'poverty is too important an issue to leave to the Labour Party', and the same could be said of the environment or indeed the nation's health. That there is substantial agreement on what the goals of politics should be facilitates rather than hinders an active debate on how to achieve them. For now the Tories have woken up to the areas of social policy which left them looking an aloof elite, we can for the first time hear how an instictively small-government party would approach traditionally big-government topics. After all, the Gini coefficient rose during the present Labour government's first term in office before its recent fall. The appetite for concrete Conservative policy is whetted more than ever.

Iraqi freedom

Iraqi leaders are exploiting a new found freedom of manoeuvre to take the diplomatic initiative towards stability in their country: Iraq and Syria have restored diplomatic relations for the first time since 1982, and Iraq and Iran's Presidents Jalal Talabani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are to meet in Tehran for security talks. With British Prime Minister Tony Blair and American President George Bush's credibility weakened over recent months through Leadership strife within Labour and Republican defeats in the Mid-term elections, Baghdad has been able to operate with a much freer hand regarding its neighbours. These Iraqi moves have been aided by shift in emphasis in London and Washington towards increased regional co-operation, but it seems to be Iraq which is now setting the pace of diplomatic manoeuvring, beyond - and at a faster pace - than what the western powers expected. This is surely a positive development. American and British views and priorities in Iraq are inevitably distorted by distance and domestic concerns. Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems will not only have the benefit of the clarity of proximity, but will reinforce the status of the Iraqi government as more than a front for the occupying powers. If some sort of stability is found for Iraq, it will primarily be the achievement of Iraqis, not their western allies.

Green blues

The Economist, a newspaper which only reletively recently came around to the idea of climate change as a significant global threat, leads this week with fears that 'the flood of money into clean energy is better news for society than it is for investors'. 'Displays of excessive enthusiasm for particular new technologies often end in tears', and the risks of boom turning to bust are especially acute with industries that will remain heavily dependant on government subsidy for much of the foreseeable future. Yet the idea that this will prove 'excellent news for society' as a whole should current rapid increases in investment (up from $500m in 2004 to over $2 billion this year thus far) in green technologies prove foolhardy for investors is woefully short term. Should many investors get burnt this will most likely be due to a political climate that has begun to chafe at the costs associated with containing global warming, which a collapse in the industry would no doubt reinforce, leaving cheaper clean energy and lower fossil-fuel consumption over the next few years more than offset by the subseqeunt loss of green momentum. It thus falls to governments, and perhaps of equal importance over the medium term the oppositions in the demoncratic world which hope to replace them, not to disappoint. It is vital that current momentum in countries such as Britain is not alowed to wane, and attempts are made to reach out to facilitate the distant dream of a global carbon tax.

The Lib Dems cash in

Saw the Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP in the latest Liberal Democrat TV broadcast on their website this morning, trying to make the most of the Tories' lack of concrete policy until their Policy Groups report back next year by presenting the Lib Dems as the only party with a coherent alternative plan for Britain. Its a pity that despite their best efforts Sir Ming still looks much, much too old to be Prime Minister in waiting. What caught my eye was the Lib Dems' reiterated promise to cut the basic rate of income tax by 2p, a proposal first announced in their Tax Commission's August report. This makes them the only one of the Big Three parties to explicitly favor a cut in income tax, arguably making shifting a party touted as 'left of Labour' for their largely Social Democratic manifesto at the last election to the 'right of the Tories'. Of course, shortfalls would be met by nice, fluffy, politically palatable Green Taxes, so the overall tax burden wouldn't be jeopardised, but the emphasis on tax cuts in their latest broadcast chimes in with Liberal attempts the re-position the post-Charles Kennedy party as firmly market-orientated in time to claim the centre ground for the Scottish and Welsh elections in May.

Consider the Lilley...

Went to a talk by the Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP (Hitchin & Harpenden; Con) last night in the Latimer Room, Clare College, entitled 'Why isn't poverty history (after $1 trillion of aid)?' As the recently appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party’s 'Globalisation and Global Poverty' policy group, Lilley delivered an informed and stimulating speach, if one which could have been delivered by any member of the Big Three British political parties. It got me thinking at any rate. If 'Making Poverty History' was the moral vogue of 2005, that of the moment, in the wake of the Stern report, seems to be 'Making Climate Change History'. Could these noble causes prove in conflict over the coming years?

The liberal chatterati should beware, because they could. Peter Lilley was keen to see commerce as the cornerstone of development, but I put it to him in subsequent discussion that efforts to increase the volume of trade and tourism between the developed and developing worlds would increasingly rub against a new emphasis on localism in production and a concern with 'food miles' and 'carbon footprints'. Save promising to defend the world's poor against the depradations of his counterpart John Gummer at the Tories' 'Quality of Life' policy group, and mouthing about the potentials of carbon trading, he had little response. Yet thus far, those preaching ecological catastrophe have seemed remarkably blinkered to the wider impact of winding down our imports from developing nations and cuting back our carbon-intensive flights. I am in no way doubting the vital threat of climate change: it is the single greatest challenge of the 21st century. But recognition of the potential conflict between development and environment is thus far an element largely missing from the debate.