THIS will not be an original thought, but the Turkish government could well have spared the European Union the trouble of refusing Turkey's membership application. After all, it is hard to see even the most welcome of countries (the Netherlands, say) being allowed into the club against a background of police brutality, the jailing of journalists and the proposed near-prohibition of alcohol sales in urban areas.
And let's face it, Turkey was never the most welcome of countries. The only way its 80 million-strong population would ever be allowed in would be if Turkey could convince the other EU members that they were really European, deep down, and that Turkey was a sort-of sticky-out bit of Europe.
When I was in Istanbul in 2009 (in an hotel not far from Taksim Square) this process seemed well under way. It truly was a great city. EU accession, it seemed, despite the roadbumps, could not be long delayed.
Now that seems to have been thrown away, not, bizarrely, as the result of an economic downturn but on the back of a (rare these days) boom. Funny old world.
It could be, as one of the City's leading economists put it to me earlier this week, that it is precisely because Turkey knew it was unwelcome in the European club that its voters swung behind the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Whatever the reality, I don't see Euro-MPs from his AKP party taking their seats in Strasbourg in the near future.
1) It's that delusion again!
BRITAIN, of course, remains a staunch supporter of Turkish membership. Well, I say 'Britain', but that does not mean the British people, no, perish the thought, it means the top people, the establishment. Presumably this is the latest (and let us hope the terminal) phase of the long-running Whitehall delusion that says that the more countries come into the EU, the more the prospects of an integrated federal Europe will recede.
You can judge the success of this brilliant strategy by the fact that shortly after Greece, Spain and Portugal joined, we had the single market legislation, followed by the Maastricht Treaty, Subsequent additions to the club have led to more and more powers passing to Brussels.
Actually, I wonder if our support for Turkish membership isn't starting to wobble a little. Given the electoral damage Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party is inflicting partly as a result of the looming prospect of 21 million Romanians and seven million Bulgarians being allowed to come to Britain, the mind boggles as to what hay he would make of even the remotest prospect of 80 million Turkish people being allowed to do likewise.
2) The press: a reader's guide
I am in the early stages of compiling what I hope will be a reasonably comprehensive list of all the newspaper articles that one does not need to read. On recognition of these pieces, the eyeballs can automatically move on, rather like a supermarket barcode reader recognises free offers and disregards them.
Here are a few contenders:
- Any health-related story the headline of which contains the word 'time bomb';
- Any story claiming one or other State service is 'at breaking point' or that its staff's morale is 'at an all-time low';
- Any story insisting that schools are failing to 'meet the needs of employers';
- Any story the headline of which reads something like: 'Minister: I'll get tough with yobs';
- Any story using the expression 'crippling cost of' to suggest the taxpayer is woefully failing adequately to subsidise something - housing, childcare, commuter rail fares and so on;
- All stories (there is at least one a week) suggesting middle-class women are drinking too much;
- All those leader articles and features thanking the Queen for her years of service. I write as a small-r royalist, but if you've read one 'thank you ma'am' piece, you've read them all;
I had been going to add to my list those (usually) unfunny and whimsical third leaders in the posh papers, the editorial equivalent of the boss wearing a paper hat at the Christmas party 'to show I have a lighter side'. But occasionally they can be brilliant, as in this example from The Daily Telegraph on May 1
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10030638/Ticking-the-right-boxes.html
3) Quote of the week...
...courtesy of Martin Amis, currently living in the US, interviewed by Mark Lawson on Front Row, Radio 4, on Thursday.
'I feel a bit out of touch with London culture now...I have to say that very little of it penetrates, you know? It's an eye-opener that you might get half a page a week about England, Britain, in The New York Times and when you're in London, this great world city, it feels central and pivotal but it ain't really and that's a hard lesson to learn but it's the truth.'
Are you listening, Boris, London Evening Standard, assorted Ministers? Thought not.
4) An overdue promotion
Yesterday morning's edition of Today on Radio 4 included an excellent (and disturbing) report on in-fighting among the north London 'Turkish mafia' (it's been a big Turkish week in the news, one way and another). One local woman, interviewed towards the end of the piece, displayed staunch common sense:
'I think people are watching too many films like [The] Godfather. Because they are in the United Kingdom, everyone wants to create their own kingdom. No! And I'm telling you there's only one Queen, Queen Elizabeth, and her King is King Philip and there's no other king or queen, not in this century, mate.'
I hope only that the Duke of Edinburgh heard the piece from his hospital bed. His promotion (albeit temporary) will surely have cheered him up.
Thanks again for reading and enjoy the weekend.
dan.atkinson@live.co.uk
Going South: Why Britain Will Have A Third World Economy By 2014, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson is published by Palgrave Macmillan