The European political elite knows only too well that the fix is in: after some recent wavering by the Portuguese and with the constant fear that the Irish will somehow manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, they can relax a bit and plan for the future in peace. They can even risk a bit of truth escaping.

French planning for how it will run the Union in its interest is well under way. The French are going to be like the proverbial child let loose in the chocolate factory in the run up to the Treaty coming into force. Not only do they hold, quite by accident, I am sure, the six month rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008, but the Slovenians, whose native skills of diplomacy and statecraft go back all of sixteen years, have effectively handed control of their Presidency in the first half of this year to, yes, you’ve guessed it, the French.

A quote from Bedfordshire on Sunday, 13 January 2008

Police are threatening to arrest an internet ‘web logger’ for incitement to racial hatred the minute he returns to Britain. Paul Ray, who ‘blogs’ as ‘Lionheart’, left Britain for an undisclosed location in the Middle East two years ago. […]

If it isn't the certifiable Jacques Attali, it’s the Grand Orient. And if it isn’t the Grand Orient, it’s Tony Blair. Nicolas Sarkozy has no interest or affinity for ANYTHING that isn't left-wing. Yes, he’s accused of being a “capitalist” because he sails on the yachts of his rich friends. And he’s accused of being friendly to religion because of ONE speech he gave in Rome (that will turn out to benefit Muslims, most likely). And he is accused of being an ARCH CONSERVATIVE because he wants to deport 25,000 illegals a year, allowing the remaining 575,000 on French soil to collect welfare.

When first elected Nicolas Sarkozy proceeded, with uncommon alacrity, to pull out of the mothballs every socialist from the Mitterand era who was in need of making a comeback. He picked for his ministries and his commissions names known to all for their irresponsibility, lack of good judgment and indifference to French traditional values. One of these was Jacques Attali, former economic adviser to Mitterand, and known as “the man who is never right.” A good choice, since Sarkozy seems to get along better with socialist misfits than with conservative men of quality.

As the American Primary/Caucus season cranks into a frenzy of campaigning, claim, counter-claim, low blow and moments of pathos (or, in the case of Hillary Clinton, a carefully contrived moment of pseudo-lachrymosity), take heed of the rude good health of American democracy. How unlike some aspects of our own but more particularly European democracy, it is.

A documentary with Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or, Serge Trifkovic, Walid Shoebat and Abdullah al-Araby (Dutch subtitles by Sagunto).

A quote from Mick Hume at spiked-online, 9 January 2008

Never before has so heated an electoral contest appeared to turn on so little – the competing images of Barack smiling with his young daughters or Hillary weeping on camera. Once again, America is setting new standards in the politics of personality and identity. But it will be coming soon to an election near you.

A quote from the Daily Mail, 7 January 2008

A coalition of [British parliamentarians] is hoping to halt a gay hate law which will stop Christians pronouncing their beliefs about marriage and family life. The Tory, Labour and Lib-Dem MPs are demanding an amendment be introduced to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill to make sure religious leaders are not prosecuted for criticising homosexual lifestyles. They are threatening to force a vote on an issue which has split Gordon Brown's Cabinet. […]

A quote from ADN Kronos, 9 January 2008

The Italian interior ministry issued expulsion orders for an imam of a mosque in Turin in northern Italy […] Mohamed Kohaila, 44, was accused last year of delivering fundamentalist sermons at Turin mosque in a television programme aired on Italian state-run RAI television. During the programme, broadcast on 29 March 2006, hidden cameras were used to film Kohaila as he called on Muslims not to integrate with Christians and Jews in Italy, […]

A quote from George MacDonald Fraser in the Daily Mail, 5 January 2008

It’s the present generation with their permissive society, their anything-goes philosophy, and their generally laid-back, inyerface attitude I feel sorry for. They regard themselves as a completely liberated society when in fact they are less free than any generation since the Middle Ages. Indeed, there may never have been such an enslaved generation, […].