Then what's the point of you?

Two things have happened this week that are quite unusual these days - one of them has rocked the nation to the core, and the other is causing small ripples of concern that spread slowly outward.

The first event was a 'snow event' according to the weather people. It snowed quite a lot in the south-east of England, and particularly in London, which has nearly brought the country to its knees, apparently. And the second, lesser event is a good old-fashioned labour dispute, of the sort that I grew up with and that I thought I would never see again.

In fact, it's both a labour and a Labour dispute. For the record, a group of British workers - who I believe are mostly contractors - are in dispute with Total, the oil company, because a company has been awarded a job by Total and is using Italian and Portuguese labour. The British workers believe this work is theirs as of right, because the refinery is in Britain and they are British. I heard one of them say on a TV report "our fathers and grandfathers built this refinery, and we have a right to work on it". Good to see the principle of primogeniture extending beyond royalty these days, I suppose.

But of course, anyone with the slightest knowledge of EU labour law knows that he is incorrect. Any EU national can work in any EU state. That's why the old Eastern European countries fell over themselves to join. You don't think they did it just so they could meet Nigel Farage, do you? So Total are within their rights to hire any company they like, and that company is within its rights to hire any EU nationals it likes. The work goes to the people with the skills and the best price.

Here's where the ruckus starts. Everyone was happy with this idea until the world's finance experts decided that losing all the money is better than keeping it; and somehow (in a way that no-one quite understands) that led to everything no longer being worth anything like we persuaded ourselves it was worth only a couple of years ago; and now no-one's got a job they can be sure of and no-one's got any money. Once this happened, the people without the work no longer think it's a good idea. I don't know what the Italians and the Portuguese think, as no reporter appears to have seen fit to ask them. Either that, or they replied in Italian or Portuguese, which of course we don't understand, being British.

Not only are the British workers unhappy, but the British Labour government is unhappy, too. Mr Brown is unhappy because he made a great rabble-rousing speech a year or so ago to a party conference which included the sentence 'British jobs for British workers'. Of course, what he meant by that was not that British workers should get British jobs, but that British jobs should be for British workers. You see the difference? He has been very busy making sure that we all do see the difference, but having to do so has made him very unhappy.

In addition, some of the other members of the Labour government have remembered that they started off as socialists who sought to further the cause of the common working man. This ought to involve something about ensuring there is work for the common working man to do, they reflect. In which case, shouldn't they try to ensure that British jobs do go to British workers, and not to Italian and Portuguese workers? Well, yes, but they also have to remain fully signed up to New Labour, which supports European ideals and structures. Mobility of labour is paramount, and the goal of the government is to ensure that our people are as well trained and skilled as any, so that they are the natural first choice when the gang-master comes down to the dock and picks those who are going to be able to feed their family tonight. This realisation naturally sets off an almighty dogfight amongst the ranks, with each interview countermanding the one before, as quotations are nuanced into the night.

Oh dear. How has it come to this? The real problem, dear reader, is that we're not sure what the role of nation states is any more. They used to run things in a big way, being in control not only of the government and the army and the battleships, but also the class hierarchy and what was right and what plays we could see and whether we could beat our dogs or our wives or our neighbours. Nobody told them what to do, unless they walked in with guns and tanks, in which case a nation state had to listen quite attentively. But nowadays you can dispense with the rifle and the armour - all you need is a treaty and some sort of democratic mandate from a parliament in another country that never gets reported by the national broadcaster nor any of the papers, and you can make up whatever rules you like. Which we have to obey. Where has all the power gone, long time passing?

But gone it has. National governments are no longer sovereign. Every EU state has to fall in line with the structure they all promulgated and publicly support. The nation state is not what it was. Now, is this good or bad? - well, considering what many of the nation states got up to in the past, I'm quite happy, to be honest. A structure where none of them can get up to anything much seems like quite a good idea. As long as someone organises the refuse collection and a kind of health service and an education system of sorts, that'll do me.

Unless, of course, these things can be provided by someone other than the state and farmed out to commercial providers. Which a lot of it has, come to think of it. Which makes the nation state simply the main awarding body of a series of contracts for services rendered. Rather makes you think we could cut out the middle man, and deal directly with the service provider.

The nation state can't act in favour of its own people, because it's not allowed to. The multinationals are bigger than the governments. The banks are finished. I can buy everything I need directly from someone else. And every time we send the army in, it ends in tears. So my question to the nation states is...

Then what's the point of you?