The Lloyd automobile mystery

This was going to be a complaint about the misleading subtitle of Dominic Sandbrook's Das Auto, which spent more time whingeing about the failure of BMC (Austin, Morris etc) than on German successes. First, the British failure was an oft-repeated story (though Sandbrook didn't mention the part played by the financial services industry in failing to support investment); secondly, by concentrating on VW and to a lesser extent on BMW and Mercedes, he didn't give due credit to the other interesting German manufacturers of the post-war era. Looking up the details of these raised an interesting question.

Volkswagen was very important, and Sandbrook gave due prominence to its rescue by REME, and the failure by both Rootes Group in the UK and Ford of America to take a stake in the new company. However, there were other export successes. People of my generation will remember the "bubble-cars" and "microcars" Heinkel, Isetta (produced by BMW under licence from its Italian originators), Goggomobil and especially the Messerschmitt which gave rise to a number of wry jokes when it appeared on British roads.

However, some of the most popular German cars did not register over here. I remember from my trips in the 1950s (my father was serving in REME in the British zone at the time) that Borgward family cars like the Isabella were as common as Mercs and BMWs, and that Lloyd (part of the Borgward group) was a favourite microcar marque. Borgward probably deserves an English-language programme to himself.

That Lloyd name always intrigued me, but I hadn't bothered to research its origins until now. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_(Automarke) tells us that "the Bremen motor-manufacturer NAMAG (Norddeutsche Automobil und Motoren Actien Gesellschaft) brought out automobiles under the marque Lloyd from 1906 onwards". The question remains: why Lloyd? The obvious answer is to associate the new machines with the cachet of Lloyd's of London, but I wonder whether it was also inspired by David Lloyd George, who was appointed President of the Board of Trade in the 1906 Liberal government. Ll G's wikipedia entry states that his work on the 1906 Trades Disputes Act attracted praise from Kaiser Wilhelm, so he clearly already had a continental, if not international, reputation.

Does anybody know the answer?

John Amis

I thought he would go on for ever and I shall miss him. John Amis was on my reading list as soon as I learned that in his eighties he was gracing the blogosphere with his music criticism and reminiscences. He was still attending performances and posting his sharp observations only two months ago. I trust the pages will be left up for this and later generations to enjoy.

Like many, I first became acquainted with his work through My Music, when he occasionally stood in for Ian Wallace or David Franklin, finally taking over permanently from the latter in 1974. (The programme had a long run, using only five performers throughout as I recall; the musicians were augmented by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, with Steve Race in the chair. Sadly, only Denis Norden is still with us.) Amis was also deeply involved in the Hoffnung concerts. His turn (with Gerard Hoffnung) as one of a pair of pretentious German critics puffing squeaky-gate modern music is a gem.

He was a fund of great Thomas Beecham stories, having worked as a dogsbody for the old rogue great man just after the war, including a tour of Australia. I just hope that somewhere those tales are recorded, as the BBC in its wisdom seems to have wiped all but the last year of My Music recordings. At least the corporation still has the programmes commemorating Amis's 90th birthday last year.

US-brokered Middle East peace talks

Whether there will be an agreed two states of Israel and Palestine is going to depend on how heavily the US government is prepared (behind the scenes) to use its financial muscle to support the solution. Given that the Democrat Party traditionally enjoys majority Jewish support in the US, the Obama administration would appear to have the best chance for ages to bring it about. However, Chris Davies MEP in his regular Notes is cautious:

The best news this week is that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are to meet in Washington for preliminary discussions about a two-state solution. Certainly the chances of success cannot be considered good. A majority in the Knesset may now be against any sort of independent Palestinian state; too many Israelis have grown accustomed to managed occupation and seem prepared to accept gradual annexation of Palestinian land and to live as dominant partners in some kind of apartheid structure. Meanwhile, Palestinians are divided, with Hamas leaders refusing to accept an agreement on any terms and challenging the right of Mahmoud Abbas to speak on behalf of all. But despite the difficulties huge credit must go to US Secretary of State John Kerry, and behind him President Obama, for their persistence in bringing the two sides together.

Surely this really is the last chance of achieving a two-state solution? Israel's policy of settlement building and of changing the facts on the ground has already made it virtually impossible to conceive of a genuinely independent Palestinian state being created. Maybe it's time to start talking about the economic interdependence of the two peoples - and the need for something like the EU to be born in the Middle East. 

Although there have been protests by Israeli citizens about a falling standard of living, Israel still enjoys great financial support from both private and public sources in the West. Apart from Iran and Syria, whose concentration on assisting the militants in Palestine is as much an embarrassment as help, there is no similar support for the Palestinians. So there is no incentive for the Netanyahu government to make any concessions, unless the US and EU are prepared to wield a financial stick. As Chris Davies continues:

An influence upon the debate has been the decision by EU foreign ministers to start putting some substance behind their words. From January next year, whenever Israel reaches an agreement (about virtually anything) with the European Commission (and by implication with any EU member state) it will be required to sign an explicit declaration that no part will apply in any way to Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 line, including in East Jerusalem where the vast majority of settlement expansion has taken place.

 While Palestinians have praised the EU, Israeli politicians have reacted with fury (and horror). Some have claimed that the EU decision could halt all economic, scientific, academic and cultural co-operation. Maybe they have at last realised just how much they could be affected if their allies tire of Israel's refusal to end its occupation. Although some commentators have suggested that the timing of the EU move was 'unhelpful' to the peace process you can be absolutely sure that the USA had been fully consulted about it. Even Israel's strongest supporters within the EU have lost patience and in this instance I have no doubt that they were given tacit encouragement to play 'nasty cop' to John Kerry's nicer version.

Owain Glyndwr Centre once more

The Guardian reports that a logical decision has been taken over the naming of the main community centre of Blaenhonddan CC. I trust that this is the end of the saga, and that the council-tax payers in the community will pay as little as possible to effect the reversion to the original name. I also hope that Labour accepts the decision and does not embark on another campaign, expensive in terms of both money and councillors' time, to reverse it.

Volatile bird numbers

This web page reproduces and augments the graphic in the current issue of Birds magazine, illustrating the decline of some of our most common bird species. However, the simple overall figures must mask local variations. In particular, there has been no shortage of sparrows round here and it has been a good year so far for blackbirds (like a recent visitor, left). It seems to me that the conservancy bodies in England should look at what has changed there as compared with South Wales, say. My own theory is that there are fewer wild places producing insect prey and nest sites.

LibDems should not follow the other parties' path of patronage

First of all, may I congratulate Nick Bourne, a relatively progressive Conservative former leader of the party in Wales and a casualty in 2011 of our mongrel system for election to the Assembly, and especially Christine Humphreys, Welsh LibDem president and near-miss (by just one vote) inaugural leader, on their elevation to the House of Lords. They will clearly be effective working peers, as Mike German and Jenny Randerson have proved to be before them.

However, I am disturbed at the appearance on our list of James Palumbo. I'm sure he's a nice guy, and as co-founder of Ministry Of Sound, he will bring useful knowledge of the leading edge of culture to the Lords. My objection is that his barony is already being seen to have been bought by his financial contribution to the party, just as the already-leaked honouring of Rumi Verjee was. As that posting by Stephen Tall explains, the party has regularly and democratically voted for an Interim Peers List, a procedure suspended last year only because it had been assumed that Lords Reform would proceed. I am sure that if the vote had gone ahead, Brian Paddick and Olly Grender of this week's nominations would have been successful anyway, but the passing over of so many of the names on the 2008 and 2010 lists is another symptom of the lack of trust in the membership by the leadership which has been highlighted in the media recently, but which already manifested itself in the coalition negotiations.

Of the fifteen on the 2010 list, it seems that only Sal Brinton has been installed as a life peer. A sound case can be made for all the other fourteen, but to me the most glaring omission is that of Mark Pack.

As I type this, I'm listening to the Countess of Mar and Baroness Falkner on "The World Tonight" on the subject of the inflation of the upper chamber. But that's another story ...

After the next general election

At last some sense on the Liberal Democrats options: http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-lib-dems-cannot-choose-their.html

Vannevar Bush and Theodor Nelson

 - not to mention Herbert George Wells.

This article by Alice on the intellectual roots of the World Wide Web is worth reading.