Source: Jeremy Clarkson Published: 5 May 2013
When someone is
designing a zoo, they do not put the cobras in the same cage as the mongeeses.
They also know to keep the owls separate from the mice. This is because the
people who design zoos are wise. Sadly, however, the people who run the EU are
not.
Zoo people know that when they have created a “living farm” in which rosy-cheeked children can pet and stroke the goats and piggy-wiggies, it’s not a good idea to say, “And let’s put a couple of crocodiles in the pond.” Because if they did that, there’d be no more goats or piggy-wiggies. Or children.
Zoo people know that when they have created a “living farm” in which rosy-cheeked children can pet and stroke the goats and piggy-wiggies, it’s not a good idea to say, “And let’s put a couple of crocodiles in the pond.” Because if they did that, there’d be no more goats or piggy-wiggies. Or children.
Zookeepers know that all the animals are different. But politicians have been conditioned by collective madness to believe that all of the world’s peoples are exactly the same; that we all want democracy, a free press and a Hyundai people carrier. So they see nothing wrong with inviting Romanians and Bulgarians to come and live in their back yards.
Unfortunately, though, the people of the world are not all the same. The French take their medicine anally. We do not. The Dutch think the rudest word in the world is “swaffelen”, which means “to bang your penis on the side of the Taj Mahal”. Whereas Italians think that the rudest thing you can say is, “Dove e Starbucks?”
I’ve been to Romania. It’s lovely. But out in the sticks you encounter settlements even Jesus would call “a bit backward”. If the people who live there come to Britain, it won’t be a move of 1,500 miles. It’ll be a move of 1,500 years.
It’ll be difficult, I suspect, for the new boys to integrate straight away. If they try to pay for their groceries in Asda with a goose and some firewood, people are going to point and giggle, that’s for sure.
And where will it end? The Eurovision song contest allows entries from Azerbaijan and Israel and various other nations that simply vote for their neighbours. It’s an example of how big is not necessarily better.
For some time I’ve been suggesting the perfect EU would be made up of Germany, England, Denmark and Holland. These are four countries with a broadly similar attitude to work and life in general. None of us wants to throw a donkey off a tower block or spend all day sitting in a plastic chair by the side of the road. Instead we all go to work, pay our taxes and have police forces in which bribery is the exception rather than the rule.
Scandinavia could form its own little group of countries for people who like to wear jumpers and give everything they earn to the government. France, Italy and Spain could create a zone where everyone spends nine months of the year on the beach. And all the new boys would be asked to reapply for membership after they’d turned the horse from a means of transport — or supper — into a plaything for little girls.
That leaves Belgium. I was there last weekend and it’s really very lovely. Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent are northern Europe’s prettiest towns. Apart from Driffield, obviously. The food is sensational too. Pick a restaurant at random and there’s a better chance of eating well than there is in Italy. And they have a cafe society that makes Spain look industrious.
And yet despite all this there’s a problem. Today, if a comedian makes a joke about any nation on earth, he will be branded a racist. But if he cracks a gag about Belgians, even the most right-on, left-leaning audience will laugh until their spleens come out of their noses.
Belgium’s most famous son is Hercule Poirot, who’s fictional. Its most famous daughter is Audrey Hepburn, who’s dead. And the only thing they’ve invented in their 183-year history is Bakelite, something Jean-Claude Van Damme appears to be made from these days.
If it’s possible to liken Europe to a zoo, the Belgians are like moths. Pretty, if you can be bothered to stop and take a closer look . . . but you can’t. Because they’re really of any interest only to academics. However, there is one thing that sets them aside, one thing that would cause all right-thinking people to say, “We would like these people in our zoo.”
Some sources claim Cambodia once went for 353 days without a government, though Guinness World Records says that post-Saddam Hussein Iraq went for 289. Whatever, more recently Belgium took the record: a whopping 541 days with no one in charge.
Back in 2010 a general election produced no overall majority. And because the parties were split, not just politically and ideologically but also down nationalistic lines as well, there was no chance in hell of forming a coalition. You had the People’s Front of Wallonia. The Popular Front of Wallonia. The People’s Popular Front of Flanders. The Flanders Popular People’s Front of Wallonia and so on and so on.
It all stems from the fact that Belgium itself is split between those who speak French and those who speak Dutch. It’s Celtic and Rangers, only on a national scale. One man tried to form a government, but when he discovered it wasn’t possible, he was sacked and replaced with someone else, who tried to resign but was prevented from doing so by the king. The stalemate became so entrenched that some French politicians even suggested that Wallonia become the 28th region of France.
And while all these men in suits did all this bickering, the doctors carried on going to work, the streetlights remained lit, the injured were ferried to hospital in ambulances and the economy grew by 2.3%. Belgium, home to the EU, was busy showing the world that, actually, a government isn’t really necessary.
Yes, ministers from the previous administration remained in their jobs, but they had no directives. They had no goal. So there were no new taxes, no new regulations, no new quangos. And it worked.
So in my smaller, more efficient EU, the Danes would design everything and the Germans would make it. The Dutch would do the deals and the English would handle the money. The Belgians, meanwhile, would be in charge, on the basis they’d spend all day squabbling and wouldn’t do much of anything else at all.
Source: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/jeremyclarkson/
