When Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things
The fate of empires and the fall of kings
When quacks of state must each produce his plan
And even children lisp the Rights of Man.”
Robert Burns, 1792
Last week the world’s power list met in Davos with storm clouds gathering around the international economy.
This week European parliamentarians meet in Strasbourg in the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe and the political environment is no less troubled.
The Council of Europe is not the Council of the European Union. It is bigger for a start and it is also older.
The Council of Europe has 47 member states, the European Union a mere 28 nations. The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 in the Treaty of London. The Common Market came into being some eight years later in the Treaty of Rome.
The difference between the two organisations is more than age or size. The member states of the European Union agree to pool sovereignty over specific areas. In the Council of Europe member states maintain their sovereignty but commit themselves through conventions and cooperate on the basis of common values.
At first sight this would seem to be a Euro-sceptics’ dream. Here incarnate in the Council of Europe is a broadly based European organisation pledged to co-operation between countries but one which doesn’t involve the sacrifice of sovereignty or being in thrall to the hated Brussels bureaucracy.
The trouble is that the greatest single achievement of the Council of Europe is the Convention on Human Rights, which was adopted in 1950 following a report by the Parliamentary Assembly. The key man in drafting the report which led to the convention was the brilliant Scottish advocate and Tory MP Sir David Maxwell-Fife.
And this very convention is also a favourite target of the Euro-phobes. Now it has to be admitted that a few of the Strasbourg Court decisions can be seen as a giant pain in the backside.
However, there is little doubt that there are substantial gains to be made. It is highly embarrassing for any country to be “in the dock” of the European Convention and great efforts are made by all states to be influential in the Council of Europe.
In other words the states with the worst human rights records have to go through the hoops to stay within convention law. Those with better practice have a little inconvenience.
I can speak from experience. Almost uniquely the re-convened Scottish Parliament in 1999 was established with the European Convention embedded in its founding statute. That means that not only the legislation of the Parliament but every single ministerial action must be compliant with the Strasbourg Convention.
That could be occasionally irritating. For example, I was not a great enthusiast for the proposition that Scottish prisoners were being denied essential human rights by having to use chemical lavatories in prisons!
However, sorting that out was a minor matter in return for helping to secure far more fundamental human rights in other countries. Significantly the Scottish law officers have won each and every judgment in recent years when in front of the Strasbourg court.
With a European Union in trauma over its inability to deal with a humanitarian crisis on its doorstep, the Council of Europe’s concentration on practical achievement looks like a considerable success story.
Meanwhile in the Brexit referendum campaign, both sides are competing to produce the biggest scare story the “Out” campaign on the nonsense that most laws are made in Brussels and the “In” on the equally silly canard that international trade would somehow grind to a halt if Britain left the EU.
In contrast, the practical concentration of the Council of Europe on human rights, on campaigns against racism, the battle against drugs and the promotion of minority rights looks like an island of sanity amid a sea of troubles.Time for weak Government to front up to Kremlin ‘bully-boy’ PutinThe Tory Government looks weak as water in its response to the gruesome, radioactive murder of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on the streets of London 10 years ago.
They are correct to focus on the arrest of the two named suspects by European warrant.
Guilt or innocence are established in a court of law and not by a public inquiry.
And they are also correct not to sever all ties with Russia since the position in Syria requires a deal to be done to bring to an end the civil war and restore peace to that benighted country.
However, in terms of a meaningful response which would make our Westminster Government look less feeble, ministers could do worse than cast a glance back to the example of Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath and Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas Hume in 1971.
Faced with evidence of unacceptable conduct of then Soviet representatives, Heath and Hume did not hesitate.
They ordered the expulsion of 90 diplomats, or 20% of the entire Soviet delegation in London, on suspicion of spying.
Certainly it resulted in retaliation and an awkward year or two.
However, it made the point in a balanced but determined fashion, strongly and reasonably.
And once the position was established and tempers calmed, relationships improved.Boxing clever with fine words from tartan-clad ‘King’ KenWhen I was a lad my English teacher was the formidable Charles AG Mungall, secretary of the Scottish Schoolmasters Association.
One of his specialities was to decide on a particular quote for the day while he was reading his newspaper.
Through this technique over the years Mr Mungall managed to drum a fair amount of the great literary quotes into me.
However the one I remember best was from September 1970.
After reading aloud, with flourish and pride, the paper’s account of a enthralling boxing bout from the
sweltering heat of Puerto Rico, Mr Mungall decided to quote not from Shakespeare or Burns but from the new Scottish world champion.
“Show me a good loser and I shall show you a loser,” thundered Mr Mungall and attributed the quotation to Scotland’s most gifted ever professional boxer Ken Buchanan.
In truth I don’t know if it was actually Ken who first coined that particular quip but I do know that he was deeply deserving of the civic reception he was accorded this last week in his native city of Edinburgh.
Buchanan, who always graced the world ring in his trademark tartan shorts, accepted the honour with aplomb, saying: “I’m so happy to say I’m Scottish.”
And Scotland is happy to be able to say that about “King” Ken.