Vorsprung durch Technik?

We assume that Germans are so efficient that it comes as a shock to discover not one but three monumental cock-ups.

German news weekly Der Spiegel interviewed the architects responsible for three national fiascos – Stuttgart’s railway station, Hamburg’s concert house, Berlin’s airport – and asked them to explain. They blame contractors, clients, national character, changing regulations, and, just a little bit, themselves.

But their professional chutzpah is rather reminiscent of this:

Seventy years ago tonight...

Seventy years ago this evening, nineteen Lancaster bombers of the RAF’s 617 Squadron took off from RAF Scampton near Lincoln to bomb the Ruhr dams in Germany. The anniversary has been marked by events at Scampton and over the Derwent reservoir.

The Dambusters raid was an extraordinary act of bravery and a remarkable technical achievement for its time. The military usefulness of the raid was probably limited, but the propaganda value was immense.

The casualty rate was high, even by the standards of RAF Bomber Command. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40%.

During the Second World War, the casualty rate on individual RAF bombing raids was usually no more than 5% but the overall casualty rate was still very high. Wikipedia’s page on Bomber Command records:

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I.

Only 27% of all bomber aircrew who served during the war avoided death, injury or capture. The Wikipedia page adds:

Statistically there was little prospect of surviving a tour of 30 operations and by 1943 the odds against survival were pretty grim with only one in six expected to survive their first tour, while a slim one in forty would survive their second tour.

Pupils at my school in Lincoln had a sobering reminder of this. In the entrance hall was a glass case containing a book of remembrance to all the old boys who had died in the two world wars. Each day, the book would be opened to a different page, displaying portrait photos and brief descriptions of two of the dead. The casualties of the First World War were mostly infantry. Those of the Second World War were mostly bomber aircrew.

The controversy over the RAF’s area bombing campaign meant that wartime bomber aircrew were never issued with a campaign medal and had no memorial (apart from the Airmen’s Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral) until one was unveiled in London last year.

With perfect hindsight, it is possible to question the efficacy and ethics of the bombing. At the time, Britain faced an existential threat from the Nazis and did what seemed best to defend itself, when the final outcome of the war was by no means certain. It is right that we remember the self-sacrifice of people who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. In the case of RAF bomber aircrew, that means people who were effectively on a suicide mission and knew it.

When the Germans envied British manufacturing

It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when Germans envied British manufacturing. Admittedly, the German in question was Hermann Göring.

Göring’s envy was prompted by the performance of the RAF’s de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. Wikipedia’s page on the Mosquito explains:

The Mosquito famously annoyed Luftwaffe Commander in Chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring when on 20 January 1943, the 10th anniversary of the Nazis’ seizure of power, a Mosquito attack knocked out the main Berlin broadcasting station, putting his speech off air. Göring complained about the high speed of the aircraft and its wooden structure, built by a nation he considered to have large metal reserves, while Germany had shortages of such materials and could not produce such a design.

Göring said:

“In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I’m going to buy a British radio set – then at least I’ll own something that has always worked.”

That’s where the Nazis went wrong. They had no Vorsprung durch Technik.

Where did the British go wrong? They replaced their geniuses with nincompoops.

The balance of Cameron’s competences

France and Germany have decided to have nothing to do with David Cameron’s review of the powers of the European Union. And they are quite right.

They consider that the UK government’s ‘review of the balance of competencies’, launched at the insistence of the Conservative half of the coalition, is a “domestic political exercise”, which it plainly is. If several EU member states had agreed that a comprehensive review were necessary, this project would have some legitimacy, but they haven’t, so it doesn’t.

The sole purpose of this review is to enable the British Conservative Party to mollify its eurosceptic wing sufficiently to avoid an internal split, while fending off the electoral threat from UKIP. To propose a review on these parochial grounds is imperial conceit of the highest order. Does anyone seriously believe that any sort of fundamental constitutional review for a 27-member union should be based primarily on the selfish needs of just one party in one member state?

France and Germany also point out, quite rightly, that you cannot have an “à la carte” approach to EU membership. When you join a club, you must abide by its rules. Of course, all the member states have a say in what those rules should be. The UK, as one of the larger member states, has more say than most, or would if the Tories were not so maladroit at making friends and influencing people.

The British Tories would rather the EU were simply a loose, free trade area. If that is what they really want, they need to build a coalition behind it by mobilising allies across the EU. Instead, they pulled out of the main right-wing bloc in the EU (the EPP, the largest group in the European Parliament) and formed a rival right-wing bloc (the ECR, a rag-bag of “nutters and homophobes” – Nick Clegg’s words, not ours).

And anyway, why should France and Germany care what David Cameron thinks? They know that he is unlikely to be able to leap all the hurdles he has set himself and won’t be around for much longer. As John Palmer points out:

The survey [the UK government’s review] is one part of a carefully orchestrated campaign designed to lead up to a possible referendum on EU membership, to be held towards the end of 2017. This, of course, will be well after the next general election and is designed to follow on what London expects will be a major new EU constitutional treaty to give the Euro area sweeping new powers.

The prime minister’s strategy therefore depends on him successfully clearing three critical hurdles. First: survive as leader of the Conservative party up to the general election. Second: win the next UK election with a clear overall Tory majority. Third: trading demands for the UK to be given a special semi-detached status in the EU in return for not blocking a new treaty for euro-area economic and political union.

There are obvious question marks over all three stages.

The irony is that all this nationalist posturing by the Tories is actually harming the national interest. As this morning’s Guardian leader argues, it is marginalising Britain and diminishing its influence. But then the Tories are so short-sighted and unimaginative that symbols of national pride matter more to them than the substance of national influence.

Are British train fares the most expensive in Europe?

The annual increase in train fares was a major news item yesterday. Fares are rising this month by an average of 4.2% and the annual increase has been greater than the rate of inflation every year since 2004.

Naturally, passengers resent any fare increases, especially those that exceed inflation or pay rises. You also hear the claim, as the Guardian asserted, that “British train tickets are the most expensive in Europe”.

But is this true?

To find out, The Man in Seat Sixty-One compared British fares with those in France, Italy and Germany. The results certainly surprised him. And they might surprise you.