David Cameron’s big speech on Europe last week was intended to be blue in tooth and claw. It came out beige.

That’s not to say there were no good ideas in it, no splendid rhetoric, nor sterling aspirations, just that it projected everything so far into the future they all but disappeared in the mists of time.

Realistically, we’re looking at a treaty signing around 2019/20, in the last gasp of the next Parliament. It seems this will be the same document that creates a fiscal union from most of the rest of the EU, giving the Commission endless opportunities for mission creep into British interests.

The timescale can only mean one thing: forget it. It will be Harold Wilson all over again.

Particle physicist, Professor Brian Cox has produced another visual spectacular in his new TV series, Wonders of Life. This follows Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe.

He’s beginning to run out of wonders, I fear. Perhaps his next series could be: Wonders of the Spiritual Universe?

I’m serious. He opens his first episode in a remote village in the Philipines at a festival where locals are celebrating the spirits of their ancestors who are thought to be living in the rocks around the houses.

Contemplating why so many people believe in a spiritual reality and survival after death, he remarks, “it feels right.”

It doesn’t last though. The day job kicks in and suddenly he’s claiming that life doesn’t need a mystical spark to get it going, just the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Laughable, you might think, but he does have a point. The law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. In other words, energy is constant in the universe. Moreover, he equates energy with life itself. And it’s certainly true that energy animates living things, while death disperses it, leaving creatures inanimate and crumbling.

But that still doesn’t explain the crux of the matter. There is a point where physics gives way to metaphysics and the former loses its force. I would much prefer the terms, mystical or spiritual rather than metaphysics, which suggests a carry-over of methodology that does not happen.

Cox’s esteemed colleague, Stephen Hawking, put it best: “I understand how the universe works, but not why,” he wrote in one of his books. To equate energy with life still doesn’t explain what motivates energy, the “why” conundrum.

Somewhere in the back story, there is a force that creates intention. Intention is what animates life, especially higher forms like humans. We are not totally reactive creatures. No law of thermodynamics can explain the works of Shakespeare or the Upanishads.

The famed British astronomer, Fred Hoyle said that a hurricane blowing through a scrap yard for a million years will never create a jumbo jet. While his colleague, James Jeans asserted that the universe is “more like a great thought than a great machine.”

To be fair to Brian Cox, he does say in Wonders of Life that there is a strong chance “that the universe is alive”. Now we’re getting somewhere. The infinite monkey cage is not as deceased as we thought.

Coupled with his statement that the notion of a soul leaving a person at death feels right, that is a lot to wring out of a physicist in one hour of television.

What will the new unified Europe be like? I’ve let my imagination run riot in the following assessment:

A recent television item showed a house that had been left untouched since the early 1950s. Almost everything, from wallpaper to paintwork to furniture, was beige.

Beige is the colour of the future thanks to Brussels’ obsession with conformity — in the shape of the notion of equality — and control of every aspect of life.

I can see it now in my mind’s eye: mass immigration will mean there will be only one skin colour, beige, while rising populations will increase pollution so much that both sky and sea will be beige.

Eventually, there will emerge a new seat of world government in the vast conurbation of Brussels/Geneva, shortened to Breneva, which will set the pace on equality legislation around the globe.

To avoid class differences, nobody will be allowed to wear coloured clothing. All will don beige trouser suits, reducing individuality to a minimum.

Education will be identical for all, regardless of intelligence or aptitude. A new law abolishing war — to avoid winners and losers — will be hotly contested by women’s groups claiming that their new “right to fight” alongside men on the front line had been breached.

How soon “rights” become imperatives.

It will also become apparent that, to avoid such clashes in future, gender must be abolished. Castration will be voluntary at first, winning the participants a gold medal for services to the State. Then it will gradually be compulsory, with sexless children produced in Person Laboratories.

Mass medicalisation will eliminate all illnesses and psychological complaints except one: Boredom, the new plague.

A wide range of drugs will be prescribed to keep it under control: uppers and downers, cannabis, heroin, skunk, cocaine, all are available on prescription at no charge.

As the human population becomes ever more incapable of serious work, an increasingly robotic workforce is developed to take over. Humans will be the drones of the new world order.

However, in one little lonely outpost of the world designated, Rebel Colony 47b, once known as Great Britain, a freedom movement has survived.

Its population maintains all the old traditions of marriage, family and freedom of conscience. Children are born naturally and educated according to their talents and inclinations.

The colour beige is strictly forbidden.

A few years ago, Business Week journalist, Stephen Baker, had a thought-provoking piece over at Blogspotting. Its title is a telling Knowledge workers: We’re on our own, and it means what it says.

Face it, knowledge workers, if we’re not already freelancing, we’re heading in that direction. I’m typing this on a company-owned laptop, but Gartner predicts that within three years, one in 10 companies will be forcing employees to provide their own laptops. I’m surprised the number isn’t higher.

He painted a grim picture : “Increasingly, we’ll be on our own.” Grim for some, at least. Personally, I’ve always been “on my own”. All authors are. But I can see it would be tough for the gregarious types who are addicted to office politics and the water-cooler mafia.

He continued: “Why is this happening? Companies have the data and the intelligence now to cut the jobs they need done into tiny slices, each one going to the person best equipped to handle it anywhere on the globe. It’s a virtual assembly line.”

This is my long-held theory that each critical decision should be taken at the point of maximum competence, regardless of job title. I call it “superdemocracy”.

Now comes the juicy part of Baker’s idea. For those who write online more in hope than expectation, this is a Business Week endorsement:

So what do we do? For starters, we blog. That way we build our individual brands, our knowledge, and our network of connections. These are going to be ever more vital assets in the years ahead. If we do a good enough job building them, companies may decide to bid for our services fulltime, even throwing in insurance and a 401K.

Soon, in the “ecosystem that’s unfolding, one teeming with knowledge entrepreneurs, I’m betting that most of us, by choice or circumstance, are going to be running our own show.”

This is happening now. Many of my friends are peeling away from the corporate system, and those who are not, would like to. Interestingly, as Stephen says, blogging is the centrepiece of that effort. It puts you out there and up there, in the neon lights of a business Broadway that’s tapping its way into the 21st century, as the hoofers of old tap-danced into the 20th.

Poppycock Watch
All mergers and acquisitions are based on the idea that economies of scale will drive down costs across the board and produce synergies between organizations. This assumption is so ingrained in our thinking that few people stop to ask why most takeovers fail.

In any group activity there’s a hierarchy of decision-making. Each person in the structure (we won’t say “node”) gets a bagload of responsibilities based on various assumptions, and the empire-building of their predecessors. Like cream in a milk bottle, decisions have a strong tendency to rise up the hierarchy, stopping only when the number of assumptions needed to take them exceeds common sense.

Notice the word “exceeds”. This isn’t a rational process, it’s pushed purely by ego and vanity.

The result is that most decisions in any organisation (business or governmental) produce a one-size-fits-all outcome which gives a false sense of synergy, while destroying efficiency and particularity.

“Particularity” may sound odd here but, in reality, it’s the crux of the well-being of any complex infrastructure. It means decisions are made with few assumptions and with a “size”, or scale, that fits the need of every case.

Modern Western countries are one-size-fits-all societies. It’s our weakest link and the point where our enemies concentrate their attacks. They know most decisions, whether laws, regulations, red tape, whatever, are unpopular and largely unworkable, because they lack particularity.

Thus we need armies of lawyers to sort things out, over long periods of time. We also have to throw huge amounts of national and business capital at problems just to keep them afloat.

Politburo orders are always wrong. EU “directives” are never right for most people. Decisions taken on 10 Downing Street’s sofa have been proved disastrous time and again. White House decisions are hardly spangled with success. Microsoft, and even lucky Google, make crass moves all the time which go totally pear-shaped.

If every decision were taken at the point of maximum competence, or very near to it, there would be few assumptions to make, and the outcome would be as close to perfect as it’s possible to reach.

So here’s The Syntagma Principle: Particularity means never having to make assumptions. If you’re making assumptions, the decision shouldn’t be taken at your pay grade.

Profundity of the Week
The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be; otherwise, you will be forced to relive the past again and again.
Eckhart Tolle, in Oneness With All Life

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Coming up: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

Recent Related Articles

John Redwood MP has published a devastating indictment of the policies of Brussels and the European Union. At our request, he has given Syntagma permission to reprint it in full, and has agreed that other concerned websites can do the same.

First they came for the hedge fund managers. They had to be regulated, stopped from short selling, and taxed until they went offshore. They were uniquely to blame for the collapse.

Then they came for the investment bankers. They had to be bankrupted, subsidised, vilified and regulated. They were the crash.

Then they came for the elected politicians. They had to be condemned for their salaries and expenses.

Then they came for the elected governments. The Irish, Portuguese, UK, Spanish and Greek governments all were dismissed.

Then they came for the rich stars. A hypocritical comedian was dragged through the mire, a foul mouthed footballer was fined, many well heeled stars faced tax enquiries.

Then they came for the journalists. They were exposed for phone tapping and bribing.

Then they came for anyone with any income or wealth, and taxed them some more.

The EU is happy for others to take the heat, accept the blame, and pay the bills. They have not come for the EU Commissioners, the European Court of Justice or the European Central Bank. These bodies all claim they need more money and more power to right the wrongs and sort out the mess. They float above the crashing economies, the growing dole queues in Spain, Greece and Portugal, and the squeezed living standards. They turn a blind eye to the anger in the ballot boxes, and the trouble on the streets.

Are they blameless as they think? Who is responsbile for the mess of the Euro? Who is responsible for spending too much public money that taxpayers cannot afford to pay for? Who designed the austerity policies which many EU voters now dislike? Who created the rigid regulations that help deliver dear energy and badly working labour markets? Who watches as Asia out competes Europe?

Will the peoples of Europe ever think some of this is to do with their EU government? The modern EU is not of course embarked on violent repressions of freedom and voice, but it is failing to respond to the cries for help from many people in many countries.

Please reproduce this on your website.

John Evans

Imagine a man falling off a motorcycle at speed. As he hits the ground, bones splinter and break. As his body slides agonisingly along the road surface, he sustains multiple cuts, grazes and contusions.

Some medics arrive and treat the outer wounds, while leaving the shattered interior untended. What chance of survival does this poor wretch have? Vanishingly close to zero is the obvious answer.

Bluntly, that is the fate of the new European “superstate,” partly put in place yesterday to cover the wreckage of the Eurozone single-currency area. None of the sums announced, including the €1trillion ballooning up of the EFSF from thin air — the so called “stability fund” — is anything like enough to calm the markets for more than a year or two.

As for the underlying fundamentals, they remain virtually untouched. Europe’s southern and western periphery will never be able to exist in a currency union with Germany and its satellites without massive fund transfers from the Germans and a dangerous political transfer in the other direction. Dramatic instability is built into the concept from the start.

While Angela Merkel and the Brussels Commission desperately want Europe to strut its stuff on the world stage, the fact is that the German people are outraged that their hard-won savings are to be used to fund the lifestyles of the lazy Club-Med members.

It is doubtful that Merkel, or indeed Sarkozy, will survive their next elections. It’s an interesting, and perhaps ominous, fact that the three Eurozone leaders you’ve actually heard of — Silvio Berlusconi, Merkel and Sarko — are all up for re-election (or retirement) fairly soon.

The deal signed off yesterday is a short-term bandage to ensure the survival of the Eurozone through 2012. It accomplishes nothing else. You will notice there are no celebrations in Brussels like the jamboree that launched the euro twelve years ago.

What is the name of this supposed superstate? Frankia, perhaps? We don’t know because nobody serious has given it a thought. And so it will remain.

They have cleaned up the skin, but left the broken bones untouched.

John Evans

Recent Related Commentary
Political Snippet: Europe’s 9/11

Earlier this month we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the events that became known as 9/11. On September 11, 2001, four American airliners were hijacked in mid-air. Two of them destroyed the “twin towers” of New York’s international Trade Center. It is no exaggeration to say that the world has never been the same since.

Ten years on and Europe is experiencing a very different, but equally existential, collapse. The twin towers of the Brussels estabishment: political union across the continent — the EU — and the common currency area — the Eurozone — are being brought low by internal inconsistencies and the vaulting hubris of its ruling class.

Some might think this comparison overworked, straining for a pattern where none exists. I don’t think so. Whatever the ultimate causes of both events, the result will be the same, the end of a natural dominance that appeared impregnable.

Without becoming too mystical, we are being reminded of the transience of the works of Man. For Buddhists, annica — impermanence — is one of the three marks of existence.

Europe’s historical glory days were ended by a string of grotesquely unnecessary wars and the transfer of power across the Atlantic to the old British colonies in North America. Europeans, the French especially, seethed with a combination of bruised pride and envy.

Influential personages decided to build an American twin that would dominate the Continent and even exceed US power and influence. The strutting officer class that led the nations of Europe into near endless conflict moved to Brussels. The EU was born.

The sheer effrontery of their ambition in recklessly tearing up the separate cultures and political settlements of almost 300 million people was breathtaking. Using the techniques of revolution: concealed intent, expansion through fifth columns and quislings, high-flown rhetoric, and unrelenting dedication, they succeeded in their goals.

Something was wrong though, like an itch that can’t be scratched. It was articulated by a very down-to-earth housewife, Margaret Thatcher. “Europe is not a country because it doesn’t have a People. Genuine democracy is not possible.” (paraphrased from memory).

Now, as with the twin towers in New York, the European edifice is burning. Soon its constituent parts will fall to earth one after another. The very words, European Union, will induce shudders in all who hear them.

The home of Nemesis, Greece, will have delivered the first and fatal blow.

John Evans

The world economy is on its knees, and it’s all going wrong at once. A major depression must now be the most likely outcome.

David Cameron appeared before the Pariamentary Liaison Committee today sounding like a lightweight holding onto “red lines” and old nostrums. He had little new to say and spoke mainly about minor issues of outdated policy and seemed very ill at ease. One hopes there is more behind the front than we heard.

Tonight, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, did all he could by holding to his deficit reduction plan, but there’s not much new thinking going on right now.

As I wrote some years ago in my piece: Up-to-a-pointism, humans lose control if things get either too good or too bad. They lose the ability to act normally and get carried away by tides of enthusiasm or despair. We are entering that territory now — on the side of despair.

Whichever way the German Constitutional Court reacts on Wednesday, it will only make things worse. We are into a “least worst” place now, which is probably to declare the bail-out mechanism illegal. That at least will force a major retreat from monetary union and the whole process of undemocratic political federalism across the Continent.

It will be very painful for everyone, but the truth is always preferable to lies and deceit. Let’s hope we can avoid war this time.

I wrote about optimism recently. That can only come from a massive re-evaluation of the postwar international political settlement. It’s long overdue and is worse because it has been held up by the inertia of vested interests, mainly of political fantasists.

It’s time for realism and a little faith in the future. It’s not difficult if you clear the slate of the exhausted ancien regime.