Vivan Las Cadenas

The problem with Empires is that people don't like being ruled by foreigners. The Empire may bring good governance, the opening up of new markets, all sorts of desireable things- but that's not what people really care about . People are intensely tribal. They want to have their chief be one of their own, not some great white father over the sea. They'll always prefer a bad ruler who grew up on the block to a good one who didn't.

It's not rational, it's not particularly admirable, but it's how human beings roll. I've always loved the story about how Napoleon turned up in Spain with his enlightenment values, promising to rid the Spanish people of their chains and a bunch of captured resistance fighters went to the wall- where the enlightened French soldiers were going to shoot them- shouting, "Vivan las cadenas- Long live chains."

And that's why the EU isn't going to last much longer.

The Smith Report

The BBC is not uniquely wicked. Every big, hierarchical institution took exactly the same line with the paedophiles on its staff. The Liberals closed ranks around Cyril Smith, the Anglican church closed ranks around Bishop Peter Ball, the Catholic church closed ranks around its thousands of paedophile priests.

And, of course, the investigation into what may or may not have happened at Elm House is still stymied. Leon Brittan has been "cleared" of the one anomalous charge of raping an adult woman and his supporters- family, party, press- are taking that to mean he's been cleared of all the other- far more plausible- charges of raping children.

Janet Smith says senior managers at the BBC never heard a whisper about the doings of Savile and Hall. If that's really so- and I find it hard to believe- they knew less than the general public did and stand accused of being hopelessly out of touch- and all the knighthoods and lordships awarded to them should be rescinded forthwith.