The Chinese in contrast appear to have been particularly heavy handed with their own citizens hence the nature of protest.

Your final question Tom in your blog no.34,is I feel, misdirected.Surely the question is more about the reason behind the protest. Perhaps the protesters need to garner more international support through mediums like AVAAZ.org who seem to be making significant changes around the world.

I did not think of it – but you may well be right. America is suffering from strategic over-reach (as Paul Kennedy called in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers). I do not think China is under any threat – unless chaos results from the surely-inevitable decline in the power of the Communist Party. Chinese history is characterised by periods of stability and periods of violent upheaval. I have read that America’s Civil War was even more bitter than the First World War. I would find it hard to choose between the two options but Civil wars can often lead to periods of prosperity – it is like a couple getting on better after a good ‘sort-out’. England’s Civil War led to the golden age of the eighteenth century – and China’s Civil War led to its present prosperity. Chairman Mao achieved much by liberating and educating women, though the benefits took a while to come through.

I am not sure whether a war between countries or a civil war is best.

In America the war between countries resulted in its independence from Britian and the war between citizens resulted in union and the abolition of slavery. Perhaps you can think of some other examples?

Thank you for the link. I am fostering the delusion that London’s planners are avid readers of the blog – while kidding their friends and family that they do not know of its existence! Beer helps with this task I have set myself.
I happened to pass the American Embassy in Grovesnor Square and then the Chinese Embassy in Portland Place one day last week. The former is guarded like a prison camp with a high fence and bobbies with submachine guns (when it moves south of the river it will be more like a medieval fortress, with a moat). The Chinese Embassy only has one bobby outside – but it also has a Falung Gong protest on the opposite side of the street. These symbols represent the fact that the US attracts violent protests from other nations and China attracts non-violent protests from its own people. Which is best?

Somebody must be listening to you Tom !

But, perhaps as I am viewing this from the outside, there are other opinions about this in the UK?

That said, perhaps, there is a middle path that could be followed in allowing free movement of peoples in the EU? Perhaps counting them ‘in’ and counting them ‘out’ might be a good approach as well as determining when it is in the best interests of the UK to increase and decrease the intake, according to national circumstance?

If this second approach was also adopted, how would one decide what is when it is in the best interests of the UK and the national circumstances to increase or decrease the intake?

Is democratic government a fundamental part of the European Union?

At present it seems both Turkey and Russia have significant internal political issues to resolve.

The EU would like to have open borders between member states (as between US or Australian states) but controlled borders round an ever-expanding EU. Lots of people argue for Turkish membership of the EU. I regard Turkey and Russia (but not Siberia) as culturally part of Europe but I am not in favour of the free movement of peoples between the EU, Russia and Turkey. A better plan would be to ‘count them in’ and ‘count them out’ so that if a million UK citizens emigrate then we allow a million non-UK citizens to imigrate. This seems fair – and it would have protected the indigenous people of Australia.

So (1) is not such a problem but (2) may be.

What is the philosophy in the EU of open borders?

Regulating the growth of London is theoretically possible, by refusing planning permission to all new development. But there are two problems (1) central government has the power to instruct local authorities to make land available for housing (2) the UK has no power to limit imigration from other EU member countries. Neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative party is willing to debate this issue – so we are seeing the meteoric rise of UKIP. Most of its policies are ‘pub talk’ and ‘golf club talk’ but it is willing to discuss EU imigration and the electorate is finding this debate very interesting. So the overhanging issue on London’s size is that if the UK economy does better than that of ANY other EU member states then there will be big increases in London’s population.