EU Referendum

"The choice of two low-profile leaders means that there are two immediate political winners from the process. The first is the European commission, under its renominated president José Manuel Barroso, who has emerged as at least the first among equals in the new Brussels lineup ... ".

You have to read quite far down the piece, but at least its there, in The Guardian - the first (and only) newspaper to realise that the EU commission is one of the winners from the selection of Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton.

They still have not fully put the story together though – but it will eventually emerge. This was a successful coup by the commission, downgrading the position of the European Council president and the high representative. They were helped by France and Germany, neither leader wanting to be outshone by a high-profile figure.

There remains, of course, the mystery of why the Commission let the two positions find their way into the new treaty, and it looks possible that they took their eye off the ball. But once the threat was recognised, they acted swiftly and decisively, and have got their people in place.

Not only are the leaders of the member states constrained by the absorption of the European Council into the maw of the institutional structure, but the commission have got their man in as president. And, as any good chairman will tell you, the power lies in being able to set the agenda. The commission now has that power, on top of which their high representative – who is also a commission vice president – will be singing to the same hymn-sheet.

Thus, while we get The Independent reporting "limp waves of polite puzzlement" circling the globe at the appointments, the commission is well-satisfied with its gains.

To understand that, it just has to be appreciated that the purpose of the Lisbon treaty was not "as advertised", extending the external reach of the EU, but one continuing the internal process of consolidating the structures of the EU government and increasing its powers. The rest can come later.

Once that is understood, the events of the last few days are completely coherent, and entirely in character. The name of the game is European political integration, and that process has just taken a lurch forward.

ROMPUY THREAD

Sky News tells us that: "The supermodel turned entrepreneur and photographer Helena Christensen has demanded that world leaders take action to combat climate change."

WUWT reports that the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many, many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown.

We now wait to see whether the MSM will catch up with the real news. However, James Delingpole is on the case, while Spiegel is asking where all the warming went.

The Guardian, on the other hand, is trying out its damage limitation techniques, alongside the BBC. The Realclimate feed to which The Guardian refers is a tad tarnished though.

COMMENT THREAD

Paul Belien over at Brussels Journal has an inside track on Herman Van Rompuy.

Despite his comic-book name and his benign, avuncular appearance, this is a shrewd political operator. He was once, by all accounts, a human being, but has gone over to the Dark Side. Paul equates him to Saruman in the Lord of the Rings.

The important point to take on board is that this is the Commission's man on the Council. He is a "plant", one of them – a man who will work assiduously for the break-up of nation states.

Herman is a Machiavellian operator, a man who has no time for nationhood or democracy, a man who once had the locks on the doors of the Belgian Parliament changed to stop a vote on a key issue. He is not undemocratic – he, like the EU, is anti-democratic.

Read Paul's piece and worry. The forces of darkness are on the march.

COMMENT THREAD

UPDATED 1

There's no other way of looking at the result ... Dick Van Dyke and the Baroness Completely Ashen. The two posts of European Council president and "foreign minister" have been successfully neutralised by the commission and its allies.

The appointments are almost a joke – except that they are not. The candidates admirably fulfil the essential (commission determined) qualifications for the job. They are both nonentities, they have personalities as close to those of a discarded cod as it is possible to be, and still be breathing, they have absolutely no qualifications for the jobs and neither were elected for their erstwhile offices.

We should note, however, that the Baroness was voted politician of the year in 2006 by the homosexual lobby group Stonewall – which is about as near as she has come to being elected for any public office. She should do well in the EU.

Predictably, though, there is a considerable amount of press comment, much of it not worth reading. Once again, The Independent makes most sense:

In both cases, their main qualification was that they offended the fewest number of EU leaders and competing EU sensibilities. They were lowest common denominator candidates for posts originally conceived as symbols of a more visible, more democratic, more efficient, more globally effective European Union.

Mr Van Rompuy fitted the bill as a competent, uncharismatic right-of-centre man from a small country who would not get big ideas and annoy the large countries.

Lady Cathy Ashton balanced the ticket as a competent, uncharismatic left-of-centre baroness (ie woman) from a big country, who could co-ordinate, rather than create, European foreign policy. She had the added advantage of being British: a useful consolation prize for Gordon Brown and another attempt by the wily continentals to remind the island race – 36 years on – that they are members of the EU.

Stitch up? Well of course it was a stitch up. How else, in the present state of things, can such jobs be decided? A proper selection process – let alone an election – would have endowed the posts with real influence and real power.

There seems a resolute determination in some quarters of the media to deny reality, something which is especially noticeable in The Daily Telegraph leader today.

"The State Opening of Parliament symbolises constitutional continuity," it gushes, its earlier pages offering huge pictures of the Royal procession to the throne. "It is an event intended to reassert the supremacy of Parliament," something, we are told, "that is desperately needed after conceivably the worst few months for the institution since the Civil War."

This, however, is less than two weeks to go before the Lisbon treaty comes into force, when Parliament takes another hit, on top of those it has already taken, further diminishing its powers and importance, as its primary legislative function is dragged over to Brussels.

In theory, Parliament is still supreme, but in fact, having outsourced most of its powers, it is but a hollow shell. There is nothing much left but the symbolism. Small wonder that the newspaper noted "something distinctly Lilliputian" about the proceedings. The Queen read out fewer words than were contained in the Telegraph editorial. The Commons Chamber, where there is normally standing room only for such an event, was barely two-thirds full.

Ben Brogan, the paper's political hack, nevertheless argued that the the Queen's Speech was all about "naked politics", in which there was some comfort to be found. Politics is the means by which we can start a debate about a programme for rebuilding Britain, he writes.

Beguiled by the Westminster bubble, Brogan believes that only the Conservatives can lead this programme. Voters may be fed up, even jaded, but they are not uninterested in the question of what happens next in our island story. "They will," says our egregious hack, "want to hear far more from Mr Cameron about this work of renewal before he gets to ask the Queen to read his speech."

Many voters, however, seem to think otherwise. Via WfW we see in the Tory Party Blog Eric Pickles counting down to victory, only to have the bulk of his commentators remind him about that inconvenient treaty, and Mr Cameron's desertion of his referendum promise.

Like the MPs who could not be bothered to attend the Commons chamber yesterday, they too have seen through the hollow charade, which leaves the pomp and circumstance of the Queen's Speech, but none of the substance. A more honest Parliament would have the ring of stars to flying over its Houses.

COMMENT THREAD

A trickle of scary headlines reminds us that Copenhagen is nigh. The warmists are doing their level best to ramp up the fear factor – but so far do not seem to be succeeding.

With even the Canadian weather forecasting service doing its best to emulate the UK Met Office, however, nature seems to be having the last laugh.

Reading a first-hand account of the aftermath of the British retreat from Kabul in 1842, one of the barbaric actions of the tribesmen on happening across groups of camp followers sheltering from the bitter winter was to strip them naked and to leave them to die in the cold.

Such a fate might be too kind for the warmists. They should be kept alive to bear the torrent of mockery that attends their creed, as the snow gently falls.

COMMENT THREAD

As the media wakes up to the "drama" of the selection of the EU president, the usual ladles of hyperbole are being deployed, with The Daily Mail reporting the "chaos" as the member state leaders "struggle" to agree on a candidate.

The Guardian on the other hand is working up its stock of pugilistic metaphors, as it headlines: "Gloves off as EU presidency enters final round", but this itself is a not-so-subtle dig at the media, who seem to be turning the process into a vast circus.

"The bad puns and juvenile jokes are washing back and forth across the strait separating Ostend from Folkestone," this paper says. "On the one side, warm beer, worse food, and football hooligans; on the other, chocaholics, fat wasted Eurocrats, and historical nonentities."

Even the Financial Times seems to hae been caught up in the madness of the moment, giving a blow-by-blow account of the in-fighting, with "voices-off" commentary from non-EU observers.

Perhaps the only newspaper which has got near understanding what is going on, however, is The Independent, with John Lichfield sniffily declaring that there is "nothing presidential" about the EU president's job.

"In truth, the great majority of EU governments," Lichfield writes, "are determined to make sure that it amounts to nothing very much at all: a Wizard of Oz without even the giant, illuminated mask or the booming, amplified voice."

Delve into the text of this piece and you will see earnest attempts to play down the importance of the post, but what you will not see is the hidden hand of the EU commission. But Lichfield articulates its voice, as it wakes up to the threat of a strong European Council president and his potential to marginalise the Boys in the Berlayrmont.

There is also an element here of personal alarm amidst the high-profile leaders of the member states, such as Sarkozy, who would not liked to be upstaged – in public or private - by an EU official taking centre-stage.

Thus, as we pointed out in our earlier piece, the real battle is to put not so much the man but the very position of the presidency back in its box. Neither the majority of the European Council members nor the commission wants a powerful or dominant personality.

That very much gives Van Rompuy the edge in the selection stakes, which have become a race to choose a nonentity, from whom all trace of personality and initiative has been excised. It may even be that this non-descript Belgian is too flamboyant for the "colleagues", in which case the hunt will be on an escapee from the Common Fisheries Policy - an apparatchik with the personality and character of a dead cod.

With the likes of Sky News hyperventilating about a "circus", therefore, it is quite amusing to watch the serried ranks of the media comprehensively fail to understand the nature of the drama going on under their very eyes.

Sadly, that typifies both EU politics and the reporting of it. Nothing, ever, is on the surface. What you see is most definitely not what you get. Our people, who have cut their teeth on the British "biff-bam" school of politics, have not even begun to understand the subtleties of EU politics. That is why they so often – as in this case – get it wrong.

COMMENT THREAD

"The public has now so lost interest in politics ... that having a few more months of this Parliament may distress commentators and the highly politically motivated, but it probably won't matter at all to the electorate." That is Heffer in The Daily Telegraph today, talking about the Queen's speech.

He is right, after a fashion. It is almost as if a light had gone out - we look at our political classes performing and it is like watching an obscure soap opera on the television, broadcast in a foreign language. But it is not only a lack of interest. Simply, what is going on has no meaning, no relationship with the real world, no relevance, nothing to which people can relate.

Where there was once stuff of seemingly vital interest, where you would drop whatever it was that you were doing to watch the TV, is now of no relevance at all. Many times, I find myself skipping over political stories in the newspaper, or on the net – one simply can't be bothered listening to or reading what they have to say. As for political blogs, without even realising it, I've largely stopped reading them ... not consciously – one just forgets them.

To suggest that this is apathy would be completely to misunderstand the mood. "Indifference" gets close, but it even that does not really describe it. The mood is larded with cold contempt, the sort that could very easily turn into anger ... if we could even be bothered.

Elsewhere, we see that awful story of the man stuck head-first in a drain, screaming for help only to have his cries ignored. Unaware of his plight, his neighbours simply rolled over and went back to sleep.

The closest we can get perhaps is that, even if we were aware that the political system had its head stuck in a drain and was drowning (which is probably the case), we would still roll over and go back to sleep. It is that bad.

COMMENT THREAD

It would not have been the first time we have observed that the EU is very strident about other people – like member states – "respecting" their obligations, but whenever the boot is on the other foot, it invariably goes AWOL.

The latest evidence of that propensity comes from the New York Times, which is rather pointedly telling us: "EU Mission to Train Afghan Police in Disarray".

Two-and-a-half years after our beloved Empire took over the responsibility for managing it from Germany, the EU's police training mission in Afghanistan is still understaffed, lacks security and transport, and has yet to develop a uniform training program.

That is according to the diplomats and security experts involved in the mission and, we are told, "the failure in setting up the 400-person mission could be a fatal flaw as several European countries fighting there are linking a withdrawal date with the ability of the Afghan Army and police forces to take over responsibility for security."

One of the most voluble critics is Piotr Krawczyk, a security expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs and former deputy head of the Polish Embassy in Kabul. He condemns the mission a "a logistical nightmare," claiming that there is a "complete lack of coordination between the EU institutions in Afghanistan and between the other big players, including the United Nations and NATO."

So dire has the situation become that Nato is now to start its own police training program which, needless to say, will be financed by the United States. Combined with training the Afghan Army, the US government will provide $10 billion in 2010. By comparison, the EU's budget for this year is €64 million, or $95 million.

Those with longer memories will recall that EU member states originally committed to providing 400 trainers and personnel, something foreign ministers of the EU member states in have just admitted they have failed to do. Even the Frau Merkel has failed to step up to the plate, promising to send 120 police officers and civilian experts this year. So far, she has sent 46.

"The bottom line is that there is a lack of political will among the member states and a lack of security on the ground for the EU to do the job properly," said Kees Homan, an Afghanistan expert at Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations.

And now we get a joint letter from Solana and foreign minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, holds the EU's rotating presidency, sent to all EU foreign, defence and interior ministers. "Delivering on our political commitments is a matter of EU credibility vis-à-vis the Afghan government and the entire international community," they write.

Well, they said it, not us. But, when it comes to credibility stakes, one of their problems comes under the "you couldn't make it up" category. A core reason why the "colleagues" are so reluctant to commit the little pink bodies of their "EU police officers" to the theatre is that they have no guaranteed protection from Nato if they come under fire.

This, would you beleive, is because Turkey - a Nato member and sometime candidate to join the EU - and Greece, also a member of Nato and already in the EU, have been blocking a security accord which would allow Nato to provide military assistance. So the "colleagues" sit at home and dream their dreams of Empire.

And this lot thinks they are going to rule the world?

COMMENT THREAD

The BBC and others are reporting on the increasingly fraught negotiations in the EU over the selection of a European Council president.

Word was that he was supposed to be chosen over a working dinner to be held on Thursday, in the lead-up to the formal European Council meeting. However, we are now being told that the member state leaders cannot agree on a candidate, and that the negotiations might extend into the next day, or even beyond.

The selection though is being portrayed as a test of wills between the member state leaders, but what is not fully appreciated is that that is another player in the game – the EU commission – which has a vital stake in the outcome.

Historians of the EU will know that the original structure of the (then) EEC did not include the European Council in its institutional structure, the intention being that the supreme body would be the commission.

When the European Council was set up in 1973, Monnet intended it as a "provisional government", initially to provide the broad direction of European policy, until the commission was strong enough to stand on its own feet.

However, in the way of things, the "provisional" has become permanent, and with the adsorption of the European Council into the formal institutional structure of the EU, the "colleagues" have inadvertently created a rival power base, challenging the supremacy of the commission.

It is very much in that context that the candidacy of Herman Van Rompuy must be seen. As a Belgian politician, from a country which is traditionally one of the strongest supporters of the commission, he would be seen as a "safe pair of hands", who would not challenge the commission hegemony, and keep the lid very much on the European Council, restraining its ambitions to become the lead institution.

Behind the scenes, therefore, there is a vicious institutional battle being fought out. But this is not about the name of the candidate. Rather, it is a fight to the death as to whether the commission or the council will come out on top, determining the political shape of the EU for perhaps a generation to come.

As the commission's champion, Van Rompuy can expect a great deal of support, while the member states are divided on their own champion. If they fail to agree who to front in the lists, the Belgian nonentity could win thorough and the commission will have won the day. Until then, all we will see is the blood seeping from under the doors, into the couloirs.

COMMENT THREAD

An interesting read, from a Vietnam veteran.

" ... in a move designed to address public fears that allied troops could become bogged down in Afghanistan for years to come," reports The Daily Telegraph (and others), Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to hold a summit for the Nato allies to discuss a timetable for withdrawal starting in 2010.

He is to offer London as a venue in January and wants the conference to chart a comprehensive political framework within which the military strategy can be accomplished. "It should identify a process for transferring district by district to full Afghan control and set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010," he has said.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Having written at length about many things stirring in the European debate (and no thanks to the main parties or their outriders) over on Your Freedom and Ours, I felt duty-bound to listne to the BBC programme. As it was Analysis, the only things that is even remotely rational and balanced on the Beeb, it was not bad at all.

Of course, it was still unbalanced, with four europhiliacs a.k.a. people who supported the idea of Britain staying in the EU against two eurosceptics, who wanted to come out. These were Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Daniel Hannan MEP. In all fairness, both put up a credible performance with Lord Pearson specifically demolishing the Common Fisheries Policy as a method of conservation.

It was all very civilized, which is a good thing, as we want to make it clear that this debate needs to be conducted. The two outlined several scenarios that involved gradual withdrawal and subsequent agreements and friendly relations. The other four, specifically Sir Stephen Wall, an arch-europhiliac admitted that nothing disastrous will happen if Britain withdraws though they all worried that people might not realize that somewhere down the line there might be bad consequences, such as loss of influence in the world. How anyone can still say that with a straight face, I do not know. As Daniel Hannan pointed out, tiny Norway has more influence in the world than good-sized, rich and militarily quite strong Britain does as long as the latter remains in the EU.

The stupidest comments came from Professor Simon Hix of the London School of Economics, who appeared to think that once Britain was outside the EU all goodies will disappear from supermarkets and we shall be back to boiled mutton and cabbage with no cheap flights anywhere. Just to state that, as Daniel Hannan said, shows how risible that argument is.

As it was not a debate in the real sense of that word, nobody pulled up Gisela Stuart MP as she produced the usual canard about Norway having to obey those "faxed" directives. The amount of EU legislation that Norway has had to accept is minute compared to the amount Britain has had to accept and much of that is because Norway's trade with the other European countries is proportionately far greater than Britain's.

The Norwegians do not have to accept EU legislation about fish, agriculture or oil; they pass their own legislation on most issues and are in control of their foreign and defence policy though they have always been stalwart members of NATO.

There will be two points that, I suspect, many listeners will remember.

The first is that the arguments against withdrawal have now turned almost entirely into threats. Will the other EU member states punish Britain? Sir Stephen Wall and Gisela Stuart thought probably not, Simon Dix thought probably yes and the Lib-Dim MEP could not make up her mind and just droned on about the beauties of having MEPs, Commissioners and other suchlike personages. In principle, she was in favour of people making decisions about the exact nature of the relationship as it happens in Switzerland but in practice, she did not think it was applicable to Britain. Of course not. Democracy is always for other people.

The second is the particularly important one. The BBC, in the shape of the interviewer, has now formally acknowledged that the debate is not going to go away; that despite no main party and no main publication supporting it 55 per cent of the population is in favour of withdrawal; and that the concept is no longer unthinkable. Though they still prefer to think that the people will come to their senses.

COMMENT THREAD

The little Beeboids must be getting a little worried about their favourite construct, enough at least to broadcast a programme called "Divorcing Europe" this evening on BBC Radio 4.

To judge from the publicity blurb, it will be the usual amalgam of "one the one hand, this – on the other, that", without coming to any overt conclusion, although you can bet that the subliminal message will be that it is all too difficult, so we'd better make the most of it.

As always with the Beeb, they go for the usual "talking heads", so – at least from what is on offer in the blurb – there is very little new, or illuminating. We see the same old sound-bites and the same over-rehearsed, tired arguments that we have always heard.

Perhaps, as it does with the EU, the BBC is aiming to bore us to death with the "eurosceptic" argument, making it so dull and deadly that Joe Average simply walks away.

There is nothing, for instance, at least in the blurb, about immigration from the EU, common asylum policies and other such sensitive issues, which would spark a real debate. Therefore, the essence of the Beeb grip – and the hidden bias – is what is not said, rather than what is.

As an example of just this, we have the notorious Europhile, Stephen Wall, who bemoans "a major loss of British influence" with the UK no longer being part of the EU. But he is talking about trade.

"There is no alternative way of advancing the British national interest," he says. In trade negotiations for example "the Americans play hard ball… you have to have the strength to hit them hard where it hurts in response. On our own, it's quite difficult for us to do that".

This is moonshine. As it stands, we have no voice in trade talks, other than through the Council, where we agree a "common position" with the other 26 members, and then are forced to leave the EU to do the negotiations, in which the French agenda invariably predominates.

On the other hand, as an independent nation – and one of the largest food importers in the world – we would have enormous clout, not least if we allied ourselves with the Cairns Group. Under our leadership, this could become a powerful third force in global trade politics, and help to balance out the monolithic blocs of the USA and the EU. In other words, we would have far more influence out than in.

That sort or argument, however, you will not hear from the Beeb, or indeed from the born again eurosceptics. Having discovered "Europe" rather late in the day, with the zeal of the convert, they are rehearsing issues which were being addressed well over ten years ago, with as little success then as they will have now.

We refer, of course, to the TPA (of which my co-editor has some views) – which is bidding for the position of High Priest of euroscepticism. Frankly, they are welcome. But, to focus on the money issue is rather old hat. More than two decades ago, when people were fully aware of the amount of money pouring into the coffers of Brussels (remember Maggie and the rebate argument?), it never gained much political traction.

If there is an issue which will get Joe Average worked up, it is immigration and open borders, but that is not on the TPA agenda. But, more to the point, eurosecpticism, under its new proprietors, seems to be locked into an 80s groove, with very little to offer, and nothing by way of a serious view of how we might look for a way out.

At the heart of the problem is the limited understanding of the way we are governed these days. We, for instance, have written of the role of international quasi-legislative organisations – such as UNECE. In this context, when it comes to the fabled "single market", many of the standards which are promulgated as EU law originate with these organisations.

This actually makes the EU merely the "middle man" translating the standards into law – and we could well do without Brussels, dealing direct and taking part in these international negotiations, as do so many other countries without need the EU to hold their hands.

All that, though, is detail. The real issue is independence – the right of a sovereign people to have their own government and their own legislature, which it can hold accountable for its actions. Without our own government, we have the status of slaves, and the universal cry of freedom has a resonance down the ages. That is, or should be, at the heart of the eurosceptic message.

That is a message you will not hear from the Beeb tonight, although you will hear about the risk of losing cheap flights – which are not so cheap any more, since the "colleagues" started loading taxes on them, with more to come. Should we keep our chains simply to enjoy the embrace of Ryanair – carbon allowances permitting? Tonight, we will not be asked.

COMMENT THREAD

"National Geography book Polar Obsession shows animals suffering from climate change," says The Daily Telegraph. And why are they suffering?

COMMENT THREAD

On Saturday, thousands of passengers were stranded in Xianyang International Airport in Xi'an, Shaanxi, due to the dense frog, China Central Television reported yesterday, as recorded by People's Daily online.

Who could they be talking about?

COMMENT THREAD

As EU controls on pollution get ever-more rigorous, our manufacturing base ups anchor and goes elsewhere ... like China, where it is destroying the environment and lives. And all our little greenies do is prattle about CO2, while Jonathan Watts of The Guardian give the PRC a glorious puff. They should be ashamed.

(via WUWT)

COMMENT THREAD

Sometimes the writing comes easy. Other times, it is a hard slog and you have to fight for every word. This one is one of the latter, another piece in the continued exploration of Afghan history.

Relatively short, it covers the period from 1947 to 1953, the period of and immediately after the partition of India. These events had a profound effect on Afghanistan and, in many respects, represent a major failure of British foreign policy. In the space of six years, the country changed from a cordial friend of Britain, well on its way to becoming a client state of the USSR – and we let it happen.

Of these events, I knew next to nothing until I started researching them. I am almost ashamed of my own ignorance.

COMMENT THREAD

We said that Tom Wise was not the only one. Next in line is Mike Natrass, fingered by Daniel Foggo in today's Sunday Times.

There are reasons why an increasing number of people will not touch UKIP with a barge pole, and they are beginning to emerge. Behind Natrass are many more, men (largely) who have been running the party as their own private fiefdom, having lost sight of its aims and sold out to their own private greed and ambitions.

Fatally, such is their arrogance that they have been neither cautious nor discrete in the handling of their affairs, leaving themselves wide open to intervention by the authorities. The forces of darkness were always going to be gunning for UKIP, but the current actions of the leadership are equivalent to their standing in no-man's land having painted bull's eyes on their foreheads.

There has grown within that claque a belief of invulnerability, the feeling that "they can't touch us", not least because of the willingness to play the "victim card", as was done with the electoral commission affair, with many willing to believe that poor, innocent UKIP is being picked on.

Well, they asked for it, and the forces of darkness are beginning to close in. One by one, they are set to fall, and they brought it on themselves, betraying the party and the cause in the process. The only hope now is that there will be enough wreckage to salvage, allowing the party to be rebuilt with what is left.

COMMENT THREAD

In his column today, Booker picks up on the theme we have been running on Defence of the Realm looking at Afghan history in the context of the current conflict.

Actually, he goes further, bringing it right up-to-date, whereas I am still plodding laboriously through the narrative, having only reached 1947 and the period just before the partition of India.

With what we have both put together, Booker is able to argue that "our armed intervention in that unhappy country is doomed", and I could not begin to disagree. He takes the line from the blog, telling us that Afghanistan has been for 300 years the scene of a bitter civil war, between two tribal groups of Pashtuns (formerly known as Pathans).

On one side, he tells us, are the Durranis – most of the settled population, farmers, traders, the professional middle class. On the other are the Ghilzai, traditionally nomadic, fiercely fundamentalist in religion, whose tribal homelands stretch across into Pakistan as far as Kashmir.

To DOTR readers, the narrative will be quite familiar, until we get up to the Soviet invasion in 1979, after years of Durrani rule, which Booker notes was to support a revolutionary Ghilzai government. I haven't researched that period fully yet, but he remarks how the eventual outcome was to lead to the dominance of the Ghilzai-run Taleban, toppled by our 2001 invasion when we again imposed Durrani rule.

As so often before, writes Booker, the Ghilzai have seen their country hijacked by a Durrani regime, supported by a largely Tajik army and by hated outsiders from the West.

One reason, therefore, why we find it so hard to win "hearts and minds" in Helmand is that we are up against a sullenly resentful population, fired by a timeless hatred and able to call on unlimited support, in men and materiel, from their Ghilzai brothers across the border in Pakistan (with the support of the Waziris and other tribes).

The situation is, of course, far more complex than that (there is only so much Booker can cram into his piece). There are many other factors which contribute to the current situation, but even the Islamic fanaticism of the Taliban is not new, or indeed the breakdown of some of the tribal structures, which has been an active goal of successive Afghan rulers since the 1880s, when Abdur Rhaman Khan first embarked on a programme of breaking the power of the tribes.

But whatever the layers of complications, though, at its very heart the Afghan conflict remains a tribal contest.

Thus, while in towns such as Sangin and Garmsir are there islands of Durrani, willing to support the Durrani government in distant Kabul, no sooner have our forces "secured" a village from the Taliban than their fighters re-emerge from the surrounding countryside to reclaim it for the Ghilzai cause.

Writes Booker, without recognising this, and that what the Ghilzai really want is an independent "Pashtunistan" stretching across the border, we shall never properly understand why, like so many foreigners who have become embroiled in Afghanistan before, we have stumbled into a war we can never hope to win.

Left there, Booker's piece ends up on a pessimistic note, from which the obvious conclusion can be drawn. But it has to be said that, for short periods in the history of Afghanistan, the tribes have been suppressed, although with a degree of ferocity that current Western mores would never allow. It is not that it cannot be done, therefore. More like, it cannot be done by Western military forces.

As long as we remain there, it thus seems, we will be the "piggy-in-the-middle" of an unresolvable tribal war. If we have an effect, it is to unite otherwise disparate tribes against a common enemy.

Should we leave, however, history tells us that the country will degenerate into a vicious civil-war, but that would not necessarily lead to another Taliban take-over. But what would emerge is anyone's guess. Traditionally – in the Raj days – our role has been to pick a winner, supply him with guns and money and let him get on with it, closing our eyes to the mayhem that results.

That is the reality of Afghanistan. But there is another reality: democracy has absolutely no place in the middle of a tribal war. As a system of government, it is entirely inappropriate, a society split on tribal (and ethnic) lines preventing the emergence of a demos, the very essence of a democratic system.

Eventually, we will recognise this – when the patience of our own people wears out and we refuse to accept the continual drain of our blood and treasure. We will then walk out, as we did in 1947, and leave them to it. The result will not be pretty, and could possibly drag the whole region down into a nuclear conflagration, which is one of the reasons why a clean break seems impossible.

From there, it seems that we have got the whole problem upside down. In order to prevent regional instability, we are told, we must maintain a presence in Afghanistan. But we have got to the stage where our presence in Afghanistan is exacerbating the regional instability, possibly to the extent that the cure is worse than the disease.

Logic suggests that we should seek to broker a regional solution to the broader regional problems, and then revert to the only policy for Afghanistan that has worked for the last 300 years – to empower one tribe to suppress the others, and let them get on with it, encapsulating the boil, rather than seeking to lance it.

In a sense, that is what the "Afghanisation" policy is really all about – building up the Afghan security forces - but the one thing missing is a strong leader. Karzai has demonstrated neither the will nor the capability to deal with the problem, and there is no indication that he ever will. In traditional Afghan politics, weak leaders are either assassinated or deposed, a new leader then emerging from a period of civil war.

By interposing our own requirements for a "democratic" leader, we have interrupted that process, but we have not abolished it. Hoist with our own petard, we are now locked into that unenviable role of "piggy-in-the-middle", saddled with Karzai for an indeterminate period.

There is, however, always our traditional escape route – an engineered coup d'état, opening the way for the leader of our choice. That, in the past, has not worked so well for the Americans. It certainly did not work in Vietnam and it is difficult to achieve in the glare of modern media scrutiny.

Short of that, though, Booker is right. We will lose. Our only real choice is whether sooner - or later, when we have the fig leaf of a Afghan army in place. There will be bloodshed either way, but the longer we leave it the bigger will be the butchers' bill for our own troops.

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