2 myths ...

Yesterday, I watched an appalling television program that bore no reality to the army that I knew nearly 17 years' ago, let alone the army that I understand and believe exists today.  The story was unreal, the plot absurd.  The polemic disguised as a play about an 'accused' contained untrammeled violence and uncontrolled bullying that I simply don't accept existed in the infantry that I was a member of for 7 years.

The myth that this so-called drama perpetrates on the British Army is immensely damaging.  When I came across bullying (which was the exceptional and rare) in my Regiment, I had the support of those more more senior to me to deal with it and remove it - and that was as a newly arrived 18 year-old subaltern. 

The program led the watcher to believe that bullying is endemic and that war allows it to occur without redress or control from the chain of command.  My experience tells me that the British Army cannot work like that: we depend on volunteers to join and teamwork to succeed.  Effective leadership and teamwork cannot be built on brute force - it is built on respect and understanding, on 'service' and support.

That bullying and unacceptable conduct exists within a large organisation such as the Army is, sadly, inevitable.  That it can take hold in such a way as depicted in this so-called drama is myth building of the worst kind.  The BBC should hang its collective head in shame.

There are those in politics who disapprove of the Euro, and I am one of them, who are breathing a collective sigh of relief as we watch events in Ireland over the last week.  But we should never confuse that feeling with something else ... and we do not celebrate the current crisis.

The reason we oppose the UK's membership of and submission to the Euro is because we do not believe that it is anything other than a political project ... the myth that it was purely economic is borne out by the current crisis - and many of those who supported the project tried to sell it as a purely economic project were either wilfully blind to the reality or were too keen to spin their way out of the truth.

But further myths are being pedalled.  By far the worst is that the economic difficulties being faced in Ireland are in some way completely unrelated to Ireland's membership of the Eurozone.  The asset price bubble in Ireland is entirely related to the fact that its interest rates and inflation were outside the control of the Irish central bank - one of the principle criticisms of the creation of the single currency was and remains that without the creation of a single economic Government with the sorts of powers to tax and put effective transfer payments in place, then some parts of the single currency areas will be in perpetual bubble while others in perpetual slump.

The asset price bubble in Ireland may well have occurred anyway; but its effect was increased by the fact that its currency could not appreciate against other currencies and its local inflation rate was too high and it could not use monetary tools to hold down the boom.  The result was that when the bust came, it was bound to be bad ... and it is.  The disaster may well affect us, so assisting in any way that we can is sensible ... but we should ignore the myths and accept that this is a political rather than an economic project and stay out.