All of this week I have been keeping an eagle-eye on the development of the Anglo-French defence treaty with ever growing interest. Then finally on Wednesday it was staring out at me from the front of my morning newspaper, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy posing for what surely must have been confirmation that the treaty was pressing ahead.

The HMS Ark Royal- Could the Royal Navy's flagship become shared?

I have a mixture of feelings on the whole issue. For those of you who don’t know what the treaty is suspected to entail, quite simply it will be be Britain and France taking armed forces alliance to a level never really seen before during peacetime. “This consists of such things sharing two aircraft carriers, one from each country, to even such high level army regiments such as the SAS being shared.

My immediate concern was due to this sharing. Let’s face it, the French aren’t really the greatest military race this planet has even seen are they? They didn’t even have time to dust off the ‘welcome’ mat before they had surrendered to the Third Reich. How can the French army compare to that of Britain, which is renowned for being very well trained if not very large. The Royal Air Force survived and won its stripes in the Battle of Britain and “so much” is quite deservedly “owed to so few”. Our Navy is and has been for the long period of around three centuries one of the most dominant powers on the sea in the world, whereas a Frenchman’s idea of Naval assault probably involves a Parisian waitress and a bath. France has seemingly a vast amount more to benefit from this deal than us.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the French, and my second main concern is that of misinterpretation. I think that Wednesday’s  Matt cartoon perfectly illustrates this. The cartoon showed an aircraft carrier with two crashed jet planes on the right and a dotted line down the middle of the landing platform. On one side of the runway it had ‘tenez la droit’ or ‘keep right’, whereas on the other end was written keep left. During any military alliance there always has been and always will be a very high risk of mistranslation (why do you think the ‘special’ alliance so special?!) and with the SAS under a Frenchman’s control or vice-versa this risk is magnified. We as a country linguistically are about as skilled as a socially inept hedgehog, many people can’t even speak their own language correctly. I am surprised that Matt even thought it was worth it jotting down the brief extract of French on his aircraft carrier. Mistranslation and the need for translation will cause problems at the top all the way down the ranks, and will end up slowing the whole of the armed forces down.

Having only explored these negative factors so far, I don’t even think that the treaty is even a bad idea. I really don’t believe that in today’s society one needs to have a considerably sized army, but a well equipped one. This treaty will just mean that Britain and France will look after each other’s interests, which can only increase both armies effectiveness. In an age of restriction and too many cartoons of oversized axes I think that this deal is not only very clever, but also very necessary. Overall I think that Cameron and Sarkozy have got this one right, even if on the latter’s part it is a last attempt at political survival.

David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, the two main perpetrators of the treaty.

Have Britain and America fallen out ‘big time’?

The fact that one of our largest companies, BP, has covered America’s beaches and nature reserves in oil has apparently driven a rift between the two countries the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

The turmoil began on the 20^th April, when BP’s ‘Deepwater Horizon’ oil rig blew up, killing 11 crew member. The US Government are angry because the rig did not have proper measures installed, and had malfunctioning equipment that was not repaired, so  thousands of barrels per day have since leaked from the snapped pipe beneath the destroyed oil rig. What the USA are also annoyed about is the fact that the rig did not have a cut off valve on the pipe, so that when the pipe to the rig snapped, oil was free to pump out into the Gulf of Mexico, even though US law does not say that such equipment is necessary, which is the case in all European oil drilling nations. The two nations, which for the past century have been about as separable, in the immortal words of Edward Blackadder, as “a Frenchman living next to a brothel”, have fallen out hugely over the disaster. It seems that somehow, us giving America a ‘thousand barrels per day’ of black gold, is wrong! I suppose it is quite like a homeless man throwing an oil drum full of pound coins at Bill Gates!

Barack Obama, saviour of the world, has even likened the spill to 9/11. Okay America, so why don’t you invade France over their “weapons of mass destruction” , steal their oil, and then come after us when Tony Hayward, the ‘most hated man in America’ has already gone to hide in some cave in Scotland.

Having said all that, I don’t even dislike America.

Some of their ideas, such as the cheeseburger, Television dramas, and Sarah Palin are not all bad.

But still, can Obama not see that torturing BP is really not doing any good for anyone? BP, as David Cameron so valiantly praised it, is the provider of millions of British pensions. At a time when the world is only just emerging from the largest recession for 70 years, is it really a good thing to prod one of the most fragile and major economies in the world? It is very irresponsible of America. If anything, they should be to blame, for the lack of legislation in their laws that states that oil rigs must have a ‘Blowout Preventer’, as the laws of nearly every other major drilling nation says there must be. BP didn’t really do anything wrong, they did not go against US law any more than any of the US oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A US public servant hired to look at the rest of the oil rigs in the bay said that every single other company was not prepared for if such a horrific event happened on any of their rigs. All of them had just the same faults as BP did, and any such accidents on any other rig would result in the same catastrophe as is currently happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the Gulf of Mexico spill is a horrific incident, and the company involved should have to pay, but it is the fault of not just BP, but of the US government, of all of the companies drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and especially of human nature. So BP shouldn’t be the only one to pay. One thing is for certain, America should get out their buckets and scoop up the oil floating around in their bay, ‘cause BP certainly aren’t going to give them any more.

The Oil Slick

I’m probably going to be hunted down by MI5′s tame ninja for breaking this news to you, but David Cameron is not the man who runs our country… it’s Andrew Marr. Have you ever noticed how every political interview that anyone, apart from the person being interviewed (is a politician a person?),that is actually paid attention to, is a snippet from his show! Every Sunday night on BBC news there is a section about how some minister muddled his words during his interview on ‘The Andrew Marr show’ that morning. It shows a great deal about the state of our country’s leadership that a BBC interviewer could openly mock our ex-prime minister straight to his face, on national television!

During the 15 minutes that make up his main interview, Andrew Marr has more power to change some of our leading politician’s reputation than a bigoted women. Marr has the power to make even Stephen Hawking kick himself for the way he put something. On Sunday, our new Chancellor of the Exchequer somehow managed to say that the Conservative party would handle the economy ‘irresponsibly after 13 years of irresponsibility’, Marr was quick to point out that he must have meant ‘responsibly’. This just shows the level to which the people who rule us are being mocked by incredibly high brow chat show hosts, so high-brow that it’s above his non-existent hair line! Seriously, what would have happened to him in Soviet Russia?

All thoughts of an impaled man with a terrible comb-over aside, he actually holds real power. He is the most senior political interviewer in this country. An interview with him must be the biggest lie-filled event in a politicians calendar. It’s make or break time for them. I doubt that anyone not from Norfolk could count on one hand how many time Gordon Brown was humiliated time and time again on Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning show. Not content with controlling just today’s politics, Marr has branched out into controlling our history as well. with his recently published book, ‘a History of Modern Britain’ he can alter our political and cultural past, bending it to his will and feelings.

To be honest though, I’m personally happy to let him rule our country. Politicians have had their turn to steer Great Britain for the past 300 years and look where that got us. We should give the chat show hosts a turn. I also genuinely like the guy, he lies a lot less than politicians (is it possible to lie when answer questions?). He actually has a persona and human emotions unlike the rest. Sorry gotta go now … a red dot seems to have appeared on my forehead.

Marr's television studio

First the media were going wild over ‘Cleggmania’ – the surprising win of the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the first ever televised Prime Ministerial Debate. However, now the Lib Dem’s have slipped out of their lead in the polls the thing everyone is now focusing on is the prospect of what everyone is calling a ‘hung parliament’. Judging by the amount of people who have asked me exactly what a hung parliament is over the last few days, I don’t think the public quite understand what one of these would entail…

First, to understand a hung parliament you need to understand First Past The Post, the voting system Britain currently operates under. England, Scotland and Wales are split up into areas called constituencies. There are 650 of these, and each of the main parties (and all the smaller ones as well) put up a candidate in each to run for election. This is how we elect MP’s, and for a candidate to become the MP he or she needs to get one more vote than the candidate that comes in second place. For each MP a party obtains they gain a seat in parliament. This is where all the problems start. For a party to have a majority, aka. being able to form the government and make their leader Prime Minister without any problems they need to have at least 326 (just over 50%) of the seats in parliament. If no party obtains at least 326 of the seats we have what is called a hung parliament. This is a problem because for a government to be able to pass laws they promised to pass in their manifesto they have to win a vote on that issue in parliament. If they do not have more MP’s than all the other parties put together it makes it harder for them to push through legislation. If Labour lose 24 seats or the Conservatives fail to gain 116 more, Britain will be left with a hung parliament.

So what happens in the event of a hung parliament? This is actually where Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem’s rising popularity come in. In the event of a hung parliament, in order for a party to be able to operate without a majority but still be able to form a government some form of coalition or pact needs to be made between the Liberal Democrats and either New Labour or the Tories. Nick Clegg has made it clear he will support the party with the largest mandate (who the public has indicated they want the most) to govern, but he is still not clear if this will be the party with the most votes or the largest number of seats, as this is not always the same party. However, Clegg has made it clear that his price for forming a coalition with his party is a look at, with a view to change the current voting system to a form of Proportional Representation, which is a voting system that would make the number of seats a party holds in parliament more reflective of the amount of votes cast for that party across the country.

Under the current First Past The Post system, as there is not the same number of people living in each constituency, so the party with the largest number of seats is not always the party with the most public votes, something which many people including members of the Liberal Democrats call unfair. Smaller parties would be able to gain more power (including extremist parties, the BNP have representatives in European parliament because those elections use a form of Proportional Representation) and it would be difficult for a party to gain at least 50% of the seats in parliament, forcing more coalition governments or pacts between parties. The Conservatives won’t outright say no to Proportional Representation, but they have made it clear they favour the current system, and as the Lib Dems are insisting on it this could cause a problem if the two parties wish to form a coalition after the election. The Nick Clegg is making the same demands of the Labour party, if they were to receive the largest mandate but a change of Labour leadership from current Prime Minister Gordon Brown would also be most likely be included in the deal. This would probably not cause much of a problem as many in the Labour party already wish to replace Brown as their leader.

In an article in The Times last week Conservative leader David Cameron outlined the consequences of a hung parliament, including the very possible crisis of the pound. Coalition governments are seen as weak as they rarely last, so there is a risk that the international market will lose faith in Britain and its government, and therefore its currency and Britain could face a ‘double dip’ recession, falling back into the economic hardships it is finally recovering from. Another financial issue with a weak coalition is because they rarely last, there is a suggestion of another election before Christmas and elections cost a country a lot of money to hold. A hung parliament can also be seen as undesirable because with the Conservative and Liberal Democrat promises to ‘clean up politics’ in the aftermath of the MP’s expenses scandal, more decisions would be made behind closed doors in the event of a coalition between the parties, warring between their own conflicting ideologies, and this would not be the open and transparent politics that the parties are promising.

Of course, with such a bridging of the gap between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and a new leader, who is to say that the two parties will not join forces on a grander scale than even the proposed 1997 Lib-Lab Pact? In fact, while for the conservatives proportional representation, and thus only between 27% – 40% of the poll, would be a disaster, for a unified Lib-Lab 38(on lowest polling over the past two years) – 62% (on current polling) victory would be almost guaranteed. A hung parliament is not the only option in this Election, but with Blair gone, is a Lib-Lab pact still possible?

So what can you do if you don’t want a hung parliament? Due to the First Past The Post system the only two parties who have a realistic chance of gaining a majority are Labour and the Conservatives. You must vote for what you believe in. However, if you do want to vote tactically and at whatever cost to avoid a hung parliament, according to the opinion polls over the last few weeks the party with the strongest lead is the Conservative party, but as I have just shown, that lead does not translate into seats, and therefore Labour still have the best chance of forming a government which is not a balanced parliament. But they may seek to introduce a system of proportional voting, and so to avoid that, the Conservatives remain your only option.

By Rachel Phipps