Is this what you call a Union?

Not since Captain Corelli's Mandolin have images of the Swastika in Greece been so prevalent on our TV screens.

Is this really the 21st century reality of the European Union?
Chillingly, yes.

Fifty thousand people took to the streets to protest against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Athens as she made her first visit to Greece in five years. Despite strict security measures and a ban on public gatherings, police still resorted to firing tear gas at protestors and arrested almost 200 people.

The Greek people blame Merkel for overseeing the strict programme of cuts that have been conditions of receiving financial help.

Greece is set to miss the fice year debt reduction target that was set when the country's €100 billion bail out was negotiated, that's despite the extraordinary measures taken by the Government that has seen thousands reduced to poverty and homelessness.

Across Europe the situation is deteriorating. In Spain the Red Cross has appealed to the public to supply food parcels for stricken countrymen and has launched a massive appeal for millions of Euros to help those most in need in the country. It is the first time such an appeal has been launched to help those in need domestically, with usual campaigns targeting the world's poorest in Africa and Asia. The charity say some 2.3 million Spaniards are now extremely vulnerable and in need of food aid.

Yesterday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaris pleaded with the German Chancellor that his country was "bleeding" from all the internationally imposed cuts, however she showed no sign of backing down on German sanctioning of the demands, instead choosing to compare the situation in Greece to that in her own East Germany after reunification with the West.

You would think with so many Nazi-themed insults being bandied about by the disgusted people of Greece,  she would avoid alluding to the war.

Yet what we got from the Greek Government was more of a tail between the legs grovelling about rectifying mistakes, perhaps in reference to the image being portrayed by German media as a nation of lazy and workshy complainers. Similarly Merkel has been tarnished with Nazi Overlord representations through out Greece. Yesterday's meeting was more a PR stunt to show solidarity between the two nations, rather than a meeting to discuss a productive settlement and reinforce both sides' commitment to maintaining Greece within the Eurozone.

Yet for many, the cards are still very much in German hands.

German-led conditions attached to emergency loans have made Merkel the face of austerity for Greeks. Merkel has been depicted in the Greek media wearing jackboots and an SS uniform.

Yet the austerity is not working. The Greek economy is set to contract for a sixth year in 2013 while the government continuously fails to meet deficit-reduction target. The economic downturn is the worst since World War II, post Nazi occupation. Which brings us onto the thorny matter of war reparations.

Under German occupation Greece was forced pay war loans to Hitler, leading to hyperinflation and a famine in which more than 500,000 Greeks, or 7 percent of the population, died between October 1940 and October 1944, a quarter of a million from hunger.

It is believed that under  occupation from 1941 to 1945, Greece paid Germany some £86 billion, which many believe the German's still owe. Despite Greece receiving reparations from Italy after World War II in recompense for Mussolini's occupation of the country, Germany never paid Greece. Fast forward the clock sixty years and the irony that the Greek people see the German Chancellor as transforming their country into a "German protectorate" is evident amidst calls for the occupation loan to be repaid, which would go a long way to securing Greece future financial security.

Is this what the European Union, set up in the wake of World War II, was supposed to lead to?

One country dominating the affairs of another, peoples at loggerheads over who is right, who is wrong, and who owes who what?

It amazes me that the international community has failed to speak up on the issue. When it is falling to charities in 21st century Europe to make appeals for food aid due to political measures being enforced by other countries or unelected organisations, it is staggering that nobody is speaking up.

The UN's Development Policy and Analysis Division (DPAD) notes that the debt crisis in the euro area, especially in Greece, remains the biggest threat to the world economy. An escalation could trigger severe turmoil in the financial markets and a sharp rise in global risk aversion, leading to a contraction of economic activity in developed countries. In their World Economic Situations and Prospects report, they advise

"Breaking out of the vicious cycle of continued deleveraging, rising unemployment, fiscal austerity and financial sector fragility requires more concerted and more coherent efforts on several fronts of national and international policy making.
On the fiscal front, it is essential to change course in fiscal policy in developed economies and shift the focus from short-term consolidation to robust economic growth with medium- to long-run fiscal sustainability. Premature fiscal austerity carry the risk of creating a vicious downward spiral, with enormous economic and social costs.
Fiscal austerity has already pushed many European countries further into recession. This is particularly relevant for the debt-ridden euro area economies. Euro area countries have fallen back into recession, following fiscal retrenchment over the past two years. Clearly, the efforts at regaining debt sustainability through fiscal austerity are backfiring in low growth and high unemployment."

What is so staggering is that Europe, and when I say Europe I mean a few figures from the European Commission in Brussels, the European Central Bank and leaders of the wealthiest Eurozone member states, are being allowed to dictate policy that is having a very human cost.

One wonders if a similar situation was being faced by ECOWAS or with the CFA Franc whether or not Europe would be muscling in to dictate what be done to rectify the situation.

Without a doubt.

Although Central African CFA francs and West African CFA francs have always had the same monetary value against other currencies, they are separate currencies. They could theoretically have different values from any moment if one of the two CFA monetary authorities, or France, decided it.

Why does the Euro not break up and follow the same agenda?

Answers on a postcard please.

The moral implications of bail outs and austerity

Morally bankrupt.

Bankrupt?

How little we have seen of the human impact of the ongoing financial crisis in the Europe.

Of course we have seen reportage of the human reaction, be they stern faced Ministers assembling around large oak tables, shooing away the clucking throngs of news journalists awaiting any shred of carrion to be tossed from the wreckage, or the gathering crowds of unhappy protestors, waving banners before being strewn with rubber bullets by an equally unhappy, yet duty bound police.

And yet then, when we read on, we learn that Greece has asked for that, despite being reprehensible for having committed such and such an oversight, while doom laden Spain is sure to encounter this in their fate leaving it to Germany to propose that, and so forth.

As such the anthropomorphic labelling of whole countries is enabling both journalist and reader to be removed from what should be the real news story of the unfolding Eurozone disaster, the true cost to the everyday citizen. The people angle.

But it has suited the European Union to convey this image and the largely national-leaning print press to extenuate it. Define the problem as an entire country’s fiscal profligacy and then the only tool for debt solution is the EU's favoured austerity that must be shouldered by all. In Brussels it allows for a convenient bypass of democratic wont in order to transact further powers within their scope, while for national governments and newspapers, it conjures a sense of national unity  by lauding an "all-in-this-together" sermon that allows the weakest in society to be most heavily burdened, despite being the furthest removed from the causes of the crisis. What is so ironic is that while in Brussels, Barroso readily condemns the very notion of nationalistic, populist barriers to deepening European integration, he relies upon it implicitly to sell the Troika imposed programme of cuts to a nation. Everyone must do their bit.

Mr Barroso, it was your fiscal policy and foolhardy adherence to a single currency, placing political will before economic sense, that both caused the problem and continues to prolong it, so why must Senor Garcia be forced to work until his joints are ground to dust while his children will be taxed for the ills committed by their predecessors? I am sure when the concept of a single currency without unified fiscal policy was being drawn up he wasn't consulted.

Every country that found itself in the same position as the Eurozone after the credit crunch in 2008 was able to find a solution. In Iceland, the economy hit such a wall that the country defaulted and devalued the Krona. Iceland is now recovering very quickly and is borrowing again on the world markets as a creditworthy entity.

You see the debate that has raged in newspapers across Europe about what to do with a problem like Greece depends heavily on viewing each and every man, woman and child on an Athenian controlled island as both part of the problem and therefore responsible for its solution.

If a person borrows money, they receive the amount directly and must pay it back according to the terms and conditions. If a country borrows money, the citizens are unlikely to be informed of the loan, its purpose and certainly not its terms and conditions. How then does central government, let alone the government of a third country, morally justify imposed austerity?

Yet the personification of Greece as the naughty member of the Eurozone allows the EU to paint the picture of the reckless neighbour who, finding themselves unable to pay for their mortgage, appeals to the bank for help to keep their house. They are relucantly granted a reprieve on condition of some very stern, and of course wholly warranted, terms and conditions. Therefore if Greece gets a bail out at the cost of imposed spending cuts and strict austerity measures, then Spain would have to subscribe to the same punitive conditions if their economy is also to be rescued. Of course Senor Garcia cannot see why his benefits are being stripped when he has done nothing but work hard all his life. Meanwhile Germany, who does not find herself in such a financial mess, can bang the fist on the table and make demands which will affect the retirement age of Kirios Papadopoulos. Of course when I say Germany I mean Merkel and her cronies and their Brussels-based counterparts.

In 1995 Germany strongly opposed an IMF bail out of Mexico arguing moral hazard in giving a €17.8 billion loan as it essentially worked out as a rescue package for the American investors who had shored up so much Mexican short-term debt. Now the boot is on the other foot and it is German banks facing losses if Greece is allowed to go under, with as much as €22 billion of Greek public debt held by German investors. Suddenly Frau Merkel repeats the tune of solidarity for Greek and EU ears, but will happily pour scorn on Athens as and when it will placate her own people.

It may suit Brussels, political leaders, newspapers and ministers to talk about Greece, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Ireland as if they are characters in philosophical problem. But the real moral debate is not who should be paying the debt, but how.

Welcome to my club

How easy it is to jump onto the bandwagon of popular opinion.

For years, UKIP have been labelled everything from fanatically anti-European to xenophobic for holding the view that the European Union was bad for Britain. As recently as a couple of years ago, throughout the early months of my tenure as an MEP, I received accusations of scaremongering if ever I suggested the Eurozone was doomed. Those critics have fallen strangely silent of late.

Now politicians from across the political spectrum are championing a British exit from the EU, warning of the dire economic consequences of prolonging the single currency without fiscal unanimity and bandying about suggestions of an in-out referendum. All of a sudden our party line is trendy.

One thing is for certain. For the single currency to survive member states must forge closer economic bonds, to the extent of becoming a single federal entity (the argument is that the EU has borders, a flag, an anthem, a Parliament, an army, foreign policy, a currency and laws, so the only thing separating it from a federal state is the lack of tax raising powers). If this does not happen, the Eurozone will, eventually, implode, and in doing so, force the UK into a decade of depression.

Of course, the UK would resolutely not wish to be part of a federalised super-state. It raises the question of what sort of relationship we could have with a new Europe. UKIP has always championed a relationship akin to the current Swiss model, where free trade and continental cooperation remain priorities, despite not being a member. This is now being mooted by politicians who but a few months ago championed a more integrated European Union, only to find their subject today ridiculed by fate.

Either way the tapestry that has been woven by Brussels over the last five decades is unravelling at an alarming rate. Spain requires a £100 billion bank bail out to save her finances. The incomprehensible nexus that has formed between the Spanish state and the banking sector means the Government can no longer sensibly bail out the very banks that have been bailing out the Government. The Spanish Finance Minister has resolutely denied needing a bail out, but we’ve heard this before. Greece, Portugal and Ireland all said the same thing. In the UK, the Government recapitalised British banks to the tune of £1 trillion, a measure that was widely criticised on the continent as too closely bound to Anglo-Saxon capitalism. But it saved us from the economic disaster we are now seeing affect banks in the Eurozone’s largest economies – even in Germany. It’s estimated at least £200 billion must be injected into Eurozone banks to stimulate borrowing capacity, but in order for this to happen Germany must essentially underwrite all single currency loans.

It’s understandable that Germany doesn’t like the idea of so-called “Eurobonds”. Why would they? Holding them culpable of the debts of their neighbouring countries is hardly going to seem fair to the majority of Germans. Meanwhile Spain wants a bail out with no strings attached. Of course they would. They can see what has happened in Greece, where desperately ill people are queuing outside pharmacies for life saving medicines as stocks run dangerously low. Germany does not want Spain to get a free handout without agreeing to fairly stringent conditions. And thus we are left trapped in an ever revolving circle of national self-interest that is leading critics to cry out for the greatest seismic shift in political power ever seen by Europe – the move to federalise the Eurozone before the clock ticks down, despite such a schismatic resolution flying in the face of democracy.

What about the UK? What do we want? We need Eurozone banks to be protected. Barclays is exposed to Spanish banks to the tune of £26.5 billion. RBS is liable to £14.6 billion if they do collapse, while Santander, one of the high street’s biggest financial retailers, is actually Spanish owned. Then there’s our economy. In many respects inextricably intertwined with European markets, not just through EU membership but as the result of simple geographic positioning.

The most sensible answer would be the UKIP option. Leave the EU, enhance trade with traditional partners in the Commonwealth and demonstrate neighbourly cooperation and free trade with Europe as is the modus operandi of Switzerland and Norway.

As part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, a lunch with Commonwealth leaders was hosted at Buckingham Palace. We were reminded that our Queen is not just the head of state in the UK. She is Queen of Antigua, Barbados, Bahamas and Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica and New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts, St Lucia, The Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Australia, as well as being head of the 54 countries that make up the Commonwealth of Nations, including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa and Kenya. These are long established natural allies of Britain, countries with a diverse diaspora, different geographical landscapes and as a result, present true international trade opportunities.

This year Commonwealth GDP will soar past the Eurozone’s. While the Eurozone will grow by only 2.7% if it manages to avert fiscal disaster, the Commonwealth will be boosted by 7.3% growth.

I’m not bitter that my views are now being championed when for so long they have been slated. I would be a poor politician were my pride more important than my conviction. I just hope the newest recruits to Eurosceptic ideology have strength enough to hold as steadfast to their beliefs. For what Britain and Europe needs more than anything right now is a steady hand on the tiller.

Oil, banks and democracy - a potent blend

Oil carries with it so many connotations.
The social, moral and geo-political implications create a quagmire as opague and viscous as the crude substance itself.
When Ghana discovered oil off its coast line a few years ago there was a sharp intake of breath. Everyone saw what had happened in Nigeria. The Government were not prepared to fall into the same trap, creating a feral landscape where natives and multi-nationals go head to head over the black stuff, where misery is wrought across borders such as in Sudan, and where corrupt governmental allegiances and illegal wars exacerbate religious and ethnic divides. Where there is misery and oppression, there is often oil.

In the case of Spain, Italy and Greece however the interconnection between oil and misery is different.

Oil in Spain?

Yes. The Golden Stuff.

Olive oil.

For in Spain the price of oil olive has slid so drastically, caused by a sharp decline in domestic demand, a failure of potential foreign export markets to embrace the oil - such as the Far East, and a supply overload flooding the market. As a result, the EU has been forced to intervene. [Sigh]

Taxpayers' money is now being driven in to shore up the prices in order to maintain employment in rural areas that rely almost exclusively upon olive plantations.

We all know what happens when the EU intervenes, fixing prices and stockpiling resources.
Should we expect olive oil producers over the next few years to become completely dependent upon single payments?

The future of the Mediterranean economies in the Eurozone is bleaker than is being made out. In Spain, the Government are beginning to realise there is little they can do to avoid becoming the next Greece. The likelihood of the country needing an EU bail out is almost certain. Spanish banks have been propping up state finances to the tune of €316 billion borrowed from the European Central Bank. Those banks now emergency finance, to the tune of €23.5 billion, which the Spanish Government has been determined to find itself - creating an ironic cycle of debt that cannot be broken without outside stimulus.

Yet the people of Spain have already shown vehement opposition to the Government's own austerity measures, and with a quarter of the adult population now unemployed, who could blame them? Yet any EU bail out comes with a multitude of conditions that must be met - however unsympathetic to the plight of the normal person. This is the situation we are now seeing in Greece, where the democratic choice is an end to austerity, yet the EU refuses to climb down on the demands stipulated in return for propping up the single currency. One can be assured that if Spain ends up in a similar position, the opinion of the public would be known the world over.

In Ireland,  the public have gone to the polls to vote in a referendum on Irish approval of the "EU fiscal pact" set out last December. Prime Minister Enda Kenny has urged the nation in a televised address to back the proposals, in order to ensure the rug isn't pulled from under their feet, and for the time being, the propaganda appears to have worked with early results indicating voters would back the fiscal pact. Of course in Ireland they also have the added security of sterling propping up some Government debt after George Osborne signed off a £7 billion bilateral loan, but this also means our loan, which is due to be repaid with interest in the future, is at risk of falling into a fiscal blackhole if the single currency collapses.

The coping mechanism that has been rolled out during the course of the last four years has been for deeper integration and mutualised responsibility, yet this flies in the face of the will of the majority of voters in the EU,  be they Germans who do not accept their share of any burden or Greeks forced out of work, unable to access medicines and even food. The public conception is that closer EU integration has weakened national economies, rather than providing the reinforcement that it was purported to achieve.

Economics is more of an art than a science, it is often argued. It involves theorising, when nobody can understand or predict what any outcome may be, however well read they may be in the field or practised and proven in managing national debts. While one side of the argument would state that breaking the single currency up would cause a lot of short term pain but enable each country to forge an idiomatic platform upon which to compete and rebuild, others would argue that disintegrating the Euro would leave huge unaccounted for wounds of debt that would plunge the global markets back into disarray, creating shockwaves more severe than those witnessed in 2008 and the first global credit crunch.

One thing is for sure. The break up of the single currency would not be good for the EU. It would undermine the entire European project and pit disenchanted countries against one another, further enhancing the risk of member states applying to leave the EU, potentially resulting in the domino affect of the entire dissolution of the entireUnion. It is argued that nowhere in any treaty is exiting the single currency accounted for, further enhancing the risk of the break up of the Euro resulting in ejection from the EU itself - by law.

June is set to be an interesing month. If Greece runs out of money before the elections, and if Brussels are resolute in their stance that a bail out would not be provided without obeisance to their conditions, we could have a humanitarian crisis on our hands.

I hope, for the sake of the people of Greece, this is not the case.

FFS the FTT is not FFP

What a difference a day makes.

In the rapidly unfurling madness that hs gripped the Eurozone, the summer may prove to be a cataclysmic season. Yesterday European finance ministers gathered to thrash out plans for growth and investment ahead of an EU summit at the end of June. It was an opportunity for new French President to bring the the table the concept of Eurobonds - a policy idea on the back of which he competently rode to election victory. Yet the concept of drawing up co-liability between Eurozone member states for debt, as such becoming eachothers' guarantors, has never sat easily with the Germans. This is despite the fact that simply sharing in a currency is enough to allow economic contagion to rip through the continent like an Australian bush fire.

Last year, 25 of the 27 member states of the EU signed a fiscal treaty. Only the Czech Republic and the UK refused to be signatories. The treaty essentially outlined austerity measures that all member states agreed to in order to try to protect the fragile economic situation in Europe from further sharp blows. Yet also in this treaty was a proposition to add the Tobin Tax, or Robin Hood, tax, on financial transactions. The concept that the tax robs the rich (bankers) to give to the poor (Brussels) is a twisted distortion of what would likely be the outcome. As we all know, incurred costs are more often than not passed down to the consumer. In this instance, all members of the general public with bank accounts. The other potential repercussion is the mass exodus of the banking sector from the European Union to more liberalised financial sectors in other countries, such as Zurich or Hong Kong, This of course would result in a disproportionate blow to the UK, who houses more than three quarters of the banking sector of Europe in The City of London, as well as many corporations around the world. Were these institutions and multi-national conglomerates to up and leave, the impact on the UK economy would be substantial. The contribution to GDP of the financial sector in the UK is hugely significant, as well as the jobs it provides and the capital that flows to the country.
And so for this reason, in December last year, the UK vetoed the treaty. As a result of not being able to achieve unanimity, such a schismatic legal change could not be made under EU terms. In effect, the withdrawal of the UK ace should have brought the house of cards down

And yet it hasn't. For yesterday the European Parliament voted 487 votes in favour, 152 against, with 46 abstentions for the Podimata report which paves the way for the Financial Transactions Tax to be levied.

An amendment to shoot down the report brought forward by the ECR group, to which the Conservative Party belong, was strongly defeated, leaving the UK Government with little room for manoeuvre. The question now is whether the UK Government can do anything at all to prevent the FTT from coming into affect. 

The proposal is for both sides of the transaction to be taxed. Those who signed up to the treaty vetoed by the UK Government on the basis of this tax would benefit from a reduction in EU contributions. The UK veto has as such been rendered useless, placing the onus on the UK taxpayer to pay the tax on all transactions for member states who had signed the treaty, yet without receiving the benefit of a reduction in EU contributions. 


The tax essentially allows the EU to finance itself directly from taxpayers’ pockets  - and yet without any recourse to a public vote. Giving the EU tax raising payers without any democratic scrutiny is utterly unacceptable and is also the final step in making the European Union a federalised super-state.

In theory the tax cannot be approved without the unanimous backing of the European Council. Surely the British vote would most steadfastly be against the introduction of the FTT. However the Parliamentary report calls for the implementation of the tax by the beginning of 2015 "even if only some member states opt for it".

Nine countries have come out in favour of the tax including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with it being labelled as the main route of exit from crisis. Yet rapporteur Anni Poadimata's view that it would brung a "fairer distribution of the weight of the crisis" is utterly skewed. The majority of the weight of such a tax would be carried by the UK, and it would appear the intentions are to use the extra finances to shore up the single currency.

The FTT is not FFP

The Financial Transactions Tax is not Fit For Purpose

A report by the Institute of Economic Affairs warns agains the dangers of a Financial Transactions Tax. In it, it is suggested that

• An FTT can be imposed with varying effects depending upon how many other governments do so at the same time. A purely EU FTT would see much trading leaving the EU, as happened to Sweden when it unilaterally imposed such a tax in the 1980s and 90s. A global tax would not have the problem of trading moving but would still have all of the other associated problems
• There would be no net revenue. While there would be revenue from the tax itself there would also be falls in revenue from other taxes. The net effect of this is that there will be less revenue in total as a result of an FTT
• The FTT simply means it would be the EU's own money to spend as they wish. The revenues from the FTT would be designated as the EU’s ‘own resources’, that is, money which comes to the centre to be spent as of right; not, as with the current system, money begrudgingly handed over by national governments. The EU bureaucracy therefore has a strong interest in promoting such a change. What’s in it for the rest of society is harder to spot.
• It will be the taxpayer who carries the burdern. All taxes and any tax, means less money in the wallet of some live human being. The first and great lesson of tax incidence is that taxes on companies are not paid by companies. They are not, despite legal personality, live human beings and therefore cannot carry the ultimate burden of any tax. With the FTT the one place we know the tax cannot fall is on the banks. Banks are corporations and corporations cannot bear the burden of a tax; it has to be some human being. Some part falls upon capital, making raising capital more expensive. This, in turn will affectworkers’ wages: more expensive capital leads to less of it being employed. Yet this does not mean bankers earning less: it is the workers who earn less as a result of less capital being employed. The second part is the incidence upon the users of the financial markets: a fairly obvious result of a transactions tax. Pensions would yield lower returns, partly as a result of lower share values as a result of the tax and partly as a result of paying the tax itself. The FTT would thereforeimpact upon all users of any financial instrument.
• The loss in GDP as a result of the tax is larger than the revenues raised from the tax. The total incidence, the total lost from all pockets, is higher than revenues and thus the incidence of the tax is over 100%.
• A transaction tax would increase, not decrease volatility. Since an FTT would decrease the size of the financial markets, prices would jump around rather more than they do at present - completely the opposite of what certain supporters of the FTT suggest.
• The markets that do high volume, low margin trades  would be affected by an FTT such as the foreign exchange (FX), futures, options and stock markets. None of these markets failed in any manner in the recent or current troubles. So the FTT doesn’t even work as a way of avoiding the recent financial crash: for it taxes the things that did not cause problems and would not make much difference to those things which did.

 The situtation in Greece is appalling, with drugs at an all time low as a result of deep austerity measures cutting healthcare budgets and forcing families onto the streets. The country is on the brink of a healthcare crisis, with panic spreading among high risk patients who fear they will have no access to life saving drugs. One healthcare profssional predicts that within two weeks, if the European Union does not grant Greece the loans it needs, chaos will erupt on the streets. Another healthcare worker, a cardiologist, has told the press of his horror at treating mean, women and children for sickness due to eating out of bins. A member state of the European Union is quickly degrading into scenes of a third world dictatorship.

Yet the money currently being dangled in front of Greece would not restock pharmacies.Instead it would be placed into a separate account, inacccessible by public service financiers, to simply pay off interest of Greek debt. In return for the loan, further cutrs would have to be implemented by the Greek Government - itself non-existent after dramatic election results left no one party with a big enough majority and 70% of Greek people voting for manifestos that promised an end to the crippling austerity measures.

It is without doubt a crisis situation in Greece, and the country desperately needs money. The causes of the problem, the finger pointing, the accusations of profligate waste during boom years, have been rendered vacuous. These are real people's lives. But what people must understand is taxing the banking sector is not going to directly resuce Greece. Far from it. It will line the pockets of Brussels and enable them to continue with their single currency project while using their new found security as a mallet with which to strike the Greeks into submission.Where they stand now, a Grexit could seriously harm the single currency, removing some of the might from Germany's arguments. Yet if the FTT is pushed through, Europe would be once again armed with power. And this time, not just the war-tanks of legilsation that have ridden roughshod over national interests. They would also have a constant and controlling source of income.An FTT will not reduce volatility, it will increase it. It would shrink those parts of the financial markets which did not in any manner contribute to these problems. It would increase revenue collected directly by the EU - as the Union's first tax raising power, while reducing total national revenues by shrinking the overall economy. Meanwhile those who would carry the economic burden of the FTT would be workers and consumers iplacing dependency straight back into the hands of the federalised superstate.

Over the next few days decisions made by financial and political leaders in all member states could have a profound impact on the future shape of Europe for all. With picture changing so rapidly on a daily basis, who knows what the autumn will bring.

Greek Enlightening?

There is something so poignant yet with an irresistibly aesthetic in the fact that the seat of ancient Western philosophy is currently the seat of political and economic disruption in Europe.

So much of what we have today - the structure of society and politics and the words we use to discuss it - found origins in Greek philosophical scripture.

From Plato's Republic to Aristotle's Politics, Greek thinkers conceptualised and theorised the ideal structure of society and role of law more than two and a half thousand years ago. What would they have to say about what has happened in Greece, and what would their opinion be on the European Union?

Looking at Aristotle's Politics, it is important to highlight that the philosopher believed human kind by nature to be a social and thus political animal. He did not mean that everyone wished to be out canvassing for this party or that, or even sit on councils or governing panels. As a biologist Aristotle was keenly interested in categorising species and observing how they lived. He observed that mankind had a heightened moral code rarely seen in other species, which lended itself to the creation of a complex social context. As such, he determined that the Polis, or city structure, was engineered by man to enable the species to flourish or achieve Eudaimonia.

In order to make the Polis work, everyone, he believed, should be educated with an eye to the constitution. For Aristotle, being co-citizens was not merely about mutual cohabitation under the same set of laws, for this was a matter of justice alone. Instead being a citizen was about participartion in rule and political deliberation.

However this did not necessarily constitute what we term democracy today. For Aristotle, extreme democracy would lead ultimately to anarchy, a theory borrowed from Plato's Socratic works. Instead, Aristotle felt that the rule of law was structured upon socio-geographic properties. Different societies, depending upon topographic features and thus industry and agriculture, and cultural relativisms, prospered under different systems, from extreme democracy to oligarchy to monarchy. Being the philosopher who defined value in his Nicomachean Ethics under the system of the Golden Mean (where a balance must be sought between opposing factors, such as an equilibrium between cowardice and foolhardiness) he saw perfect governance as a balance between monarchism, oligarchy, democracy and other social structures.

However what was vital in this Pragmatic Utopianism is the underlying belief that political rule must be in the interest of the ruled, and as such, abide by a teleological sense of aiming ultimately for what can be deemed 'good'. In order to achieve this, Aristotle envisaged an upper limit to a macro-governance of around one hundred thousand people. Within this subframe resided other micro-governed units, all the way down to the family home where he saw the relationship between man and wife as somewhat political in its ideal operation.


So what would he make of the European Union, and what would he say about the current situation in Greece?

“Polity” for Aristotle is the word to indicate rule by the many in what he defines as the correct system of government. By contrast, he refers to rule by the many in a diverging and thus “erroneous” system as “democracy.” Polity is therefore midway between democracy and oligarchy. Critics would argue that what we are currently witnessing in Greece is bordering on oligarchical rule, or quasi-democratic governance, where stringent measures laid down by ruling factions such as the EU, IMF and European Central Bank or the Troika are not taking into consideration the will of the people.

Aristotle argued that mistreating the people would lead to the overthrow of the oligarchy and thus the establishment of democracy. Perhaps what we are seeing at the Greek ballot box is an increasing mistrust of the authorities that have governed Greece since the outbreak of financial crisis and will lead to a European Spring, where psephological rebellion will overturn the powers held by Brussels.

Interestingly however, Aristotle also argues that erroneous systems of government are necessarily subsequent and not prior to good systems of government. Using this model perhaps Aristotle would argue that as an original concept, the European Economic Community established more than 50 years ago was just in its aims and provided a valuable function. But the system of governance that has developed, as derived from a proper and sensible model, has become distorted by influential factors that disallow the right form of government to prosper. Aristotle might perhaps perceive the biggest influence and thus corruption of EU level politics to be the size of the multitude it governs.

In Aristotle's writings, a city-state must be populous enough to be self-sufficient, but too large a state cannot have an easy system of governance as it cannot be effectively managed, with inadequate representation of or communication with its subjects. However Aristotle does not distinguish between foreign born and original residents. What is important, he believes, is having an appropriate number to be able to forge participation across society.

As such Aristotle also sets great store by education, debate and social inclusion in discussions and inquiry on a governmental level. One would imagine he would perceive the EU as not only too far-reaching in its geographical expanse and ambition, but too opaque, and as a product of its vastness, incomprehensible to its population.

What might be suggest in order to divert crisis from Greek shores?

It is highly likely that he would be an advocate for Greece leaving the EU. He might even go as far as to purport restructuring the governance of Greece into smaller, devolved democratic provinces within which nuclear self-sufficiency could be achieved in order to restore the competitiveness of the economy.

Despite unwittingly scribing a number of concepts and political theories that have been embraced by Brussels, it is hard to imagine that Aristotle would support the structure of the EU as it is today. His belief that different systems of governance are appropriate for different topographical regions, each with their own set of idiomatic concerns, would likely make him a supporter of the nation state over and above supra national entities. He would almost certainly disapprove of Common Agricultural Policy!

Under Aristotelian predictions, the EU would be setting itself up for a fall.
Indeed, recent elections in both Greece and France have witnessed the public making it clear that they no longer have faith in their ruling parties. The question that has been raised as a result of the recent polls is whether or not the EU will heed the warning. The people have spoken - but will they be heard?

According to Aristotle, the greater number of people living in poverty creates a sizeable enough catalyst to act as a stimulus for change. Levied against the inertia of a ruling class who do not allow for the participation of the greatest possible number of citizens, the result is a clash out of which democracy (or perhaps using a different term, anarchy) will come to the fore.

We have witnessed this in the Arab Spring, despite the development in that particular context yet to draw to a final conclusion.

Perhaps we will witness it in southern European states?

One thing however would be interesting if The Republic and Politics became the text books for a European constitution. Under an Aristotelean or Platonic model of governance, Barosso and Van Rompuy may well be exiled abroad and likely replaced by the likes of Roger Scruton,  A.C. Grayling or even Stephen Hawking.  We could call this new system of rule EUdaemonia.

The Young Ones

What sort of country are we leaving for our children?

What sort of society, what sort of culture, what sort of world will they inherit?

It's a question that is often asked.
But perhaps we should be questioning what sort of children are we leaving for our world?

With some of the worst youth unemployment figures in the developed world, Europe is home to a disengaged, disenchanted and disenfranchised generation who will soon be expected to take over the mantles of their nations.

Figures for youth unemployment are largely double the incidence of adult unemployment in many European countries. The economic slowdown is hitting the young the hardest, but we are yet to truly see the scars that will be left behind. Those will only become apparent in around a decade or so.

While Generation X, the post war baby boomers, may be held accountable for the strain on economies brought by capitalism, credit and unsecured loans, Generation Y have managed to squeeze through and are largely upcoming professionals who have completed education and are well on their way to careers. It's the next generation down, dubbed Generation Z. that we should perhaps be worrying about.

There is an increasing incidence of NEETs in Generation Z - Not in Education, Employment or Training. A lost generation who are likely to be living at home, and as such are delayed in becoming fully engaged young adults who are taking an active role in society. Together with their peers, they look at everyone else around them and perceive a world that is forn the most part inaccessible to them. They feel they must carry the burden of the mistakes of their elders on their shoulders, while they are stripped of responsibility, indepence and pride.

Youth unemployment is largely the product of structural factors, where there is simply no capacity to accomodate those entering into the jobs market for the first time in the system. This is then exacerbated by the sort of austerity measures we are seeing in Southern Europe that has put youth unemployment in Spain higher than in Greece, with both running over fifty per cent for 18 to 24 year olds.

Youth unemployment across the Eurozone as a whole was 21.6 percent in February, according to the European Union's statistics office, Eurostat. That accounts for hundreds of thousands of unexploited, underused and wasted capable people who are not only contributing to society, but are starting to feel like society is not contributing anything for them.

Youth unemployment is often the first symptom of a failing economy. Service industries are hit by the reduction in available spending money and the perceived threat of joblessness, causing people to stop going out and buying, or eating in restaurants. It is well noted that service industries are one of the biggest employers for this sector of the demographic. How many of us toiled in pubs and restaurants, or shops, during our youth? Yet with so many places affected by the recession closing or having to cut back significantly, the first area affected is often staff.

Meanwhile, job cuts in other areas are seeing better qualified, better equipped, and perhaps more motivated members of Generation X and Y taking up jobs that Zedders would otherwise have access too.

On top of that, large amounts of immigration, both EU and non-EU, is providing cheaper employment for already struggling businesses who are more likely to be tempted to take on a foreigner for less money.

Youth unemployment is not just about joblessness. Various studies have shown clear links between youth unemployment and antisocial behavior, alcoholism, mental and physical illnesses and suicide. Meanwhile a large number of the protestors involved in the riots that have spread across Europe and are likely to continue and escalate well into the summer, are unemployed youths who feel disconnected from society as a whole. You only have to look at pictures from the London riots and the most recent scenes in Barcelona to see the majority of people who took to the streets feeling that their voices were not being heard, came from the younger generations who feel they are unfairly having to bear the brunt of matters they could not possibly have contributed to.

Not only that, but economists have also argued that youth unemployment creates a scarring effect that reduces the capacity to earn throughout a person's life compared with someone who did not suffer long term unemployment at an early age. Therefore the majority of those young people stuck in an unemployment rut now will be blighted by a decelerated passage of progress compared to their counterparts who are able to traverse the current economic situation relatively harm free.

So what can we do to help Generation Z?

The primary driver of employment is growth, especially for those just beginning their careers who can be taken on baord and groomed and moulded into the future workforce of an industry. But with ongoing austerity measures designed to to tackle structural problems, growth is being sacrified on the altar of a quick fix recovery.

The other solution is to take these people out of the job market by placing them into training. While they may not be earning money, many believe the best solution is occupying them with studies which will also prepare them for participation in the workforce when the better days finally do arrive.

However, with structural state deficits as they are across European nations, governments are ill placed to pour money into the further education of a group of people who have already negotiated the school system and have either chosen not to enter further education, or have come out of it to find no job at the other end as well as potentially a large amount of debt already accrued in their bank accounts.

The situation isn't uniformly bleak across Europe. In Germany, young people's prospects for work have never been brighter. Yet this may also be a reflection on the higher number of young people engaged in education and vocational training.

It is essential countries like Spain and Greece need to ensure Generation Z are well rounded, fully engaged and highly skilled young adults, ready to compete in an ultra competitive global market place. However strategies to encourage youth into training schemes work best when they come with guarantees of employment at the end. However prolonging the amount of time spent in education is not the solution.

Whilst in Germany the length of a degree is similar to that in the UK, in Spain many courses take much longer. As a result, young people may be dissuaded from signing up to such a big commitment, with many degrees taking up to six years, when they are already demoralised by the society in which they live and as a result would be less likely to want to make such an investment when their prospects look bleak.

Meanwhile those attending shorter courses will likely come out the other side to see little change, and may feel even more let down by the system.

At the same time, austerity measures are seeing an increase in retirement age across Europe . It's ironic that at one end of the demographic you have people seeking work who are unable to find it, while at the toher you have people wanting to leave work but finding they must remain in employment for years to come. On top of that, regulations and directives from Brussels restricting flexibility in the workplace are preventing dynamic handling of the socio-economic situation from the bottom up. From the working time directive to the agency workers directive, legislation is costing companies billions in red tape and making it expensive to take on new staff.

It is also likely that such social regulation has also affected the expectations of Generation Z, who are becoming less willing than previous generations to perform what they deem menial tasks, or work for long hours for perceived little pay.

Meanwhile the generation in question has been brought up in a Western capitalist society where they know little other than a culture that demands recognition, luxury items and a certain lifestyle which in itself denigrades the usual forms of employment for those just starting their working lives. As a result, many 18 to 24 year olds look down their noses at employment opportunities in supermarkets or manufacturing plants. As a result, many of those jobs are taken up by migrant workers who essentially flee unemployment in their own countries, but by doing so, essentially shift the burden of jobs creation and welfare onto another country.

The cost of youth unemployment in Europe could be very high. This summer as Spain joins the ranks of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece in economic turmoil, expect to see more riots from a disgruntled public on the streets, with a large proportion of protesters hailing from the 18-24 year old age bracket.

For every young person out of education and out of work, not only is an individual's capability wasted, but also their spirit. It is high time Brussels sought to rescind restrictive regulation that places a stranglehold on enterprise and curtail uncontrolled and exacerbatory free movement of people, if only to give the youth of today a chance while the going is tough.

Meanwhile as adults and as parents, it is our job as a society to keep the fire in their bellies alive, and thank or lucky stars when we have a solid income and a stable job.

If Britain Were Greece

Just watched an excellent comparitive piece on the BBC Website
If Britain were Greece.

The journalist has assimilated the facts and statistics of Greece's swinging austerity measures imposed by the Troika of the EU, IMF and ECB into a British context.

Here's a summary below:

Unemployment would have hit 7 million

Half of all young would be out of work

Minimum wage would be cut from £6.08 per hour to £4.74 per hour, or for under 18s, be reduced from £4.98 to £3.39 per hour.

100,000 public sector workers would be waiting redundancy with their salaries meanwhile cut by 40%

1 million public sector workers would be sacked by 2015

All public sector workers salaries would not just be frozen but cut sharply

VAT would go up 24%

Solidarity levy would account for 5% of income

Alcohol and tobacco prices would be increased by 1/3

Diesel and petrol would rise to around £2 per litre, meaning it would cost £120 to fill the tank of family saloon

State and public sector pensions above £800 a month would be cut by 20%

Anyone with a pension above that rate would see it cut by no less than 40%

The equivalent increase in retirement age would see many Brits working well into their 70s

All state benefits would be slashed and strictly means-tested

Defence budget would be slashed by a fifth, meaning the loss of many personel and the likely merge of the army, navy and air force

NHS spending would be cut bu a sixth, leading to tens of thousands of job losses for medical staff

There would also be the closure of numerous schools, meaning thousands of teachers unemployed.

The outlook for Greece is ghastly and is certainly not set to improve any time soon. And all to protect the common currency project that props up the European Union.

Horrifying, isn't it?

Maastricht 20 years down the line

Yesterday was the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty. On 7^th February 1992 the European Economic Community laid the foundations for becoming the bureaucratic beast it is today. Common Foreign and Security Policy was adopted, as well as the creation of Justice and Home Affairs. The EEC now extended into military and judicial cooperation. But perhaps most ironically, Maastricht also led to the creation of the currency of Europe.

A mere two decades later, the Eurozone is on the brink of collapse. How timely that next month the clock ticks down on Greece to address its public finances. Twenty years to the exact day the treaty creating the Euro was signed, Greek leaders have been told they must enforce austerity measures or risk losing a new bail out which could prevent the country from defaulting on March 20^th when the current loan matures.

Greece must now demonstrate they will satisfy terms laid down by the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known collectively as the troika, ironically a Russian word once used to describe the supreme officials of Communist states. Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult for Greece to enforce spending cuts, leading to job losses and slashed budgets, with full democratic acquiescence from both Parliament in Athens and the Greek public.

In effect, EU chiefs are edging Greece towards the exit door. They are willing to risk a default and then eject Greece from the euro if Athens refuses to comply with demands insisting that the eurozone is now strong enough to fight against the risk of contagion. Both Merkel and Sarkozy are talking to the press about "time running out" and the French President has even argued that the South Mediterranean member state would get "no community money" without reform.

It seems to me that Greece is being made a scapegoat and enabling the two big economies to flex their muscles. Of course, the Greek crisis was spawn of irrationally high unsustainable public spending under a new currency where vast sums could be borrowed at such low interest. But who set those rates, and who benefited from them? Germany of course. Then when the house of cards came crashing down after the credit crunch struck in 2008, all fingers pointed towards Greece and their woeful borrowing track record. Nobody seemed to comment on the fact that a single currency spread across such diverse economies without fiscal integration and with one common interest rate could not in essence actually work.

NowGovernments across the EU are struggling to assimilate into domestic law savage measures dictated by Brussels; measures that, in effect, will soon be underscored by the new fiscal compact signed last month by 25 member states which essentially criminalises budgetary indiscipline as determined by the European Court of Justice. Finally the Euro members are building fiscal integration, but are essentially closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. As a result, Greece, who indeed was reckless with spending in the boom years, will effectively be left in tatters and expected to pick up the mess.

It is now widely held that Europe cannot cut and grow. Thus far austerity measures have led to deepening recession. Focus on growth is needed to pull southern European states back into competition, yet ironically the stranglehold on trade and working flexibility imposed by EU competition rules and social policy written twenty years ago prevent growth-enhancing investment taking hold.

Twenty years ago the UK negotiated opt outs which could be argued as having prevented us from becoming like Greece ourselves. As a nation we run quite a high structural deficit, that is, we spend far more on public services than we can logically afford. However the pound is strong, enabling us to borrow at rates that we can pay back. As a result, the Labour Government ran up incredible debt, leaving the mess to be sorted out today, but because we were not a euro member the tidy up is not one hundred per cent dictated by Brussels and we did not collapse when Ireland went down. Equally opt outs in social policy mean that we can in some areas be more flexible if we decide to "work our way" out of recession. Despite strikes over pensions and wage freezes, we are not witnessing the sort of uprising that has taken place in Athens. Then again, our austerity measures are not being drawn up by essentially an entente of foreign governments and supra national powers. We are also not part of this new compact, which although by law cannot be an EU treaty following the UK veto at Christmas, in all but title, is. Essentially when we said before Christmas "no" to EU law criminalising cerrtain percentage budget deficit, due to a lack of unanimity, the law could not be passed. Instead what has happened is 25 out of the 27 member states, that is, everyone bar us and the Czech Republic, have clubbed together to forge a treaty that will be governed by the European Court of Justice and whose negotiations and administration will take place within EU buildings. In essence, they went ahead and made the treaty anyway, calling into question the legality of its operation. But what are we to do? The highest court of appeal on such issues IS the ECJ. Are we to approach the Court of Justice and ask them to examine how lawful they are? What about when decisions made between the 25 members of the entente have an impact on Britain, via the single market, or through financial services reform? We are in a highly precarious situation that will at some point in the future rear its ugly head again.

This week Greece has been forced to accept an additional 15,000 public sector job cuts, which still fail to satisfy the demands of the troika. It has been reported that the Greek Finance Ministry is now examining the economic consequences of leaving the Euro, following on from the not so discreet rhetoric being issues from France and Germany.

Unsurprising then that this milestone anniversary for the EU has been kept so quiet

Dear George

Now the EFSF has been downgraded as a result of the recent ratings slash of France and Austria and 7 other EU member states it would appear to me that the Eurozone is headlong towards obliteration.
How can Greece expect to avoid default when the initial loan matrues on 20th March? With the bail out fund essentially halved by the downgrade, just where is the money other than subsumed within an imploding black hole that threatens to consume the entire European economy if leaders continue to simply cut cut cut and use thimbles to bail out a stricken cruise vessel?
It is apparent now that the crisis cannot be resolved and as I have argued for a long time, a more sweeping, schismatic approach needs to be taken if Europe is to rectify its ills.
With it in mind that the red letter day fast approaches and the bailiffs are poised in the wings, I have addressed George Osborne imploring him to tell of what sort of reinforcements are in place to present British interests in the wake of a catastrophic downfall and break up of the single currency. I will also write a letter to Welsh Government Minister for Business Edwina Hart asking her what her department is doing to prepare welsh businesses for a possible fall out in trade. I was alarmed to read a statement from the First Minister's Office suggesting Wales seeks to broaden trade ties with the Union, when financial experts from Ernst and Young are imploring the UK to trade further afield to prevent a return to recession.

Anyway, below is the letter I will send to 11 Downing Street today.
With any luck we will get a prompt reply and have insight into whether the government really are protecting British interests.

Letter to George Osborne

Dear Chancellor

In response to the recent downgrades of both France and eight other EU member states and most recently the European Financial Stability Facility I am deeply concerned that the UK and its constituent countries have made preparations for what is now looking like inevitable fiscal disaster across Europe.

It is a growing probability that Greece will default on debt repayment when the current loan matures on March 20^th. This of course would likely lead potential investors to lose confidence in the Eurozone and alongside the near halving of the bail out fund as a result to the EFSF downgrade, would lead to a spiralling downfall that could occur extremely swiftly.

The escalating urgency of the situation is without doubt apparent yet I adhere strongly to the sentiment that it is not the UK’s responsibility to bail out stricken single currency nations, as I hope you would agree.

However it is imperative that all of the United Kingdom’s constituent territories prepare for a break up of the single currency and mitigate the impact of fall out from ongoing crises within the Eurozone which may cast reverberations across global markets. It is with regards to this matter that I contact you today.

I would like reassurance that Britain is prepared for the worst when it comes to the future of the single currency and ask that you outline the preparations that have been made to ensure UK industries and markets are protected from ongoing problems on the continent. There has been suggestion that the UK Foreign Office has drawn up preparations for executing evacuations of British nationals if the single currency break-up leads to social uprising. However I have heard little of how British businesses, banks and investments would be safeguarded and whether public finances would be summoned to prop up the private sector in the event of a catastrophic fall.

I would also wish to question how Britain would react to potential future Irish default given the implications it would have on the UK after underwriting a significant tranche of Ireland’s debt.

Please would you also reaffirm commitment to resolutely standing against the notion of the British taxpayer bailing out single currency members, either directly or as a contributor to the International Monetary Fund.

It is a deep concern of mine that devolved governments have been consulted and advised on how to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone. I am writing to the Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science in the Welsh Government Edwina Hart to determine what measures she has taken to ensure her department prepares for the worst. Have the relevant devolved administrations been consulted on the matter and are you reassured as UK Chancellor that businesses and investments across the UK are sufficiently protected?

I was alarmed to hear a statement from the First Minister’s Office suggesting Welsh businesses should seek to expand trade with the EU at a time when many experts have advised that the UK slough trade with Eurozone countries in favour of trading with the wider world.

Please could you outline any strategic implementation that the UK Treasury has thus far coordinated with regards to safeguarding British interests in the event of the break up of the single currency and also clarify future intentions of the British Government to protect British business and investment against a financial crash in Europe?

No surprise at latest Turner of events

Whatever Brussels touches turns into disaster, rather like a kind of Anti-Midas.
We have seen Common Fisheries Policy destroy marine stocks and encroach upon the seas of developing countries, trawling their waters and stripping whole communities of a means of sustenance.

Common Farming Policy led to stockpiling milk, leading to artificially high prices. Farmers are effectively paid by Brussels rather than by the consumer and only after jumping through hoops, rather than having the freedom to farm and sell their produce at proper prices and maintain and healthy and free agrarian industry. Seeing what has happened to the single currency, can you imagine how severely food supply and self-sufficiency would be rocked should a bio catastrophe or drought hit the European farming sector? I dread to think.

Of course the Eurozone is an utter, utter disaster and is heading directly towards even deeper crisis as Eurocratic egos cannot face relinquishing the keystone project of the single currency or admit defeat.

Now proposals to tax financial transactions have been slammed by Ernst and Young for potentially creating a £95 billion abyss in EU public finance at a time when quite frankly the European economy is crippled by the single currency albatross nobody is prepared to slaughter. It's common sense that a tax levied on banks making financial transactions only in Europe will cost Europe dearly. It can only work if the rest of the world agrees to something similar. But the EU is desperate to get their hands on cash from somewhere and are left with the difficult situation of either having to go to the German taxpayer and potentially alienate the one stalwart voterate of the block or find international investment to plug the trillion euro hole that has emerged like a gaping apocalyptic chasm, and unsurprisingly, nobody wants to cough up. The Chinese have turned their backs, stating that Germany is the only country that can rescue the common currency, and other than that, few international buyers are really up for solving the debt crisis of a bungling Union.

2012 has started much in the same way that 2011 trundled along, with inconclusive crisis talks, insubstantial commitment to solve the problem and pie in the sky solutions that say more about inter-state grievances than any clear direction to grab this issue by the scruff of its neck. We've had more rhetoric from France seeking any way to attack "anglo saxon" capitalism, hence proclaiming they will steamroller through a tax on the City of London. But hold on, was it really anglo-saxon capitalism that got us into this mess? It is convenient to point the finger at bankers, and nobody is saying they didn't play their part in the global financial crisis, but what is keeping the Eurozone stuck in fiscal quicksand is no longer the credit crunch but for a large part underscored by the sort of unrealistic, idealistic and potentially disastrous socialism that blighted Communist Russia.

There is even a storhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify today on the BBC that I could hardly bare to read, about Greek parents abandoning their children due to the severely troubled economic times being faced in the member state. Why it is almsot like the beginnings of Holodomor. When the common currency is leading to heartbreaking poverty on this scale it is time to let go of political ideals and admit defeat. It all chimes of the sort of blind arrogance of a political elite who wish to impose plutocratic ideals on the populace, regardless of the fall out.

It makes you want to put your head in your hands and simply yell out "how on earth did they let it get this far?"

Current rumours have reverted back to suggestions that Greece may be ousted from the single currency. Merkel and Sarkozy warned that vital rescue funds would be held back from Athens unless Greece completes a deal over the size of losses that will be imposed on private investors, with the German leader branding Greece a "special case" suggestive that rules may be twisted to allow a swuft departure of Greece, thus sparing the German taxpayer the financial if not the moral onus of rescuing the failing mediterranean economy. For while the southern states of the Eurozone may have ended up in a quagmire of overspending brought on by sudden access to low interest rates and the possibility to spend more than they could ever hope to accrue, Germany flourished due to riding roughshod over interest rates to suit her own booming manufacturing economy and has come out on top not just due to the German work ethic, which is evidently commendable, but due to sheer bloody dominance of the single currency. There is surely some burden to shoulder there, as the Chinese press has rightly pointed out.

One thing is for sure, if 2011 was a year that rocked the boatm perhaps 2012 will either see the whole vessel capsize or a man thrown overboard.

Anarchy,,,Or something like it

anarchy from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader" noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless" from an- "without" + arkhos "leader"


So this is it. This is what the punks of the eighties screamed for. The restless rumbling of an underbelly of discontent has broken through to the surface and caused constitutional breakdown in the UK. The voters said "no" to Government, and were left, leaderless and in the wilderness.

But here we are, heading to work on a Monday morning wondering when the election coverage will be over so we can have some "real"news back on telly, and God forbid another election be called, which would put the schedule for airing The Apprentice back yet more months.

If this were Thailand, France or even America, (actually, any other place in the world that is not The British Isles), there would at least be a restless crowd in coloured T-Shirts waving placards in Trafalgar Square. As it stands all the riots, petrol bombs, chants and mob rule are reserved for Athens, that cornerstone of Western Philosophy and the ancient home of Western Civilization, because people have been told their pensions will be reduced and they must start paying tax.

What's wrong with you, UK? We have no Government! Tear up your council tax bills, take a day off and go guffawing in the rare spot of sunshine we are set to enjoy this week, exploiting your Post Lockean civil liberties in our Constitution-less country!*

But something tells me this is not in the British psyche. And something tells me it never has been.

When Henry VIII drew up a whole new religion for the country for his own convenience, tore down monasteries, chopped the heads of his wives and ate so many swans his waistline demanded its own postcode, the good people of the country probably just stuck at digging their potatoes, shearing their sheep and postulating what the following week's weather had in store. Similarly when Queen Victoria demanded prudency be applied to lounge furniture, with every table and chair in the country forbidden from flashing a naked ankle, we all covered up like Quakers and continued to toil away at our work like boil in the bag kippers with nothing more than a mild grumble.

In fact, the most social outrage I have seen in recent years was over foxes.

So is the problem the Politicians, or is this just a reflection of a peculiar British mindset that regards Politics as a sort of ineffectual ceremonial production absent from the concerns or real life?

John Milton once observed that "Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; or no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them"

I guess therefore that Governance is an inevitability, as is, so it would seem, stability. Perhaps it is the product of centuries of Parliament, the creation of which witnessed the very last Civil War on British soil, that has led to the accepting apathy of the British voterate. We will have a Government. They will rule us. And life is unlikely to be very different from how it is now.

The irony in this observation is that, actually, scratch below what the papers tell us we think, and you will find an unidentified yet unerring trust in our Government. Yes, you read that right. Trust.

Because you know, and I know, that whatever sort of Government is formed from the wreckage of the 2010 election, death, disease, poverty, starvation, conflict and persecution are unlikely to be on the menu.

We are one of the only countries in the world that does not automatically label our police force as corrupt. One of the only countries where, although we may grumble about the NHS, we are safe in the knowledge that if we are struck down by a bus tomorrow, one thing we can be guaranteed is not receiving a massive medical bill in the post. One of the only countries where literacy is pretty much a social guarantee. One of the only countries where racism takes the form of a one-eyed, Oxford educated, Gruffalo lookalike who's allowed to appear on prime time TV and use the word "indigenous" with caution.

What I'm trying to say is, actually, the reason why this anarchy is slipping by unnoticed is because it has no place in Britain, whatsoever, in the pejorative sense.

So looking today at the European Commission's Eleventh Hour rescue package for the Euro, worth €750bn, of which Britain has ended up indirectly having to commit UK taxpayer's cash (it's rather useful that there's an election going on in the UK, without resolution, isn't it Mr Barosso?) it strikes me as even more appalling that the 27 member states are having to cowtow to Greek debt problems brought upon by poor Governance.

Look at us! We have debt worth more than Sir Elton John's wardrobe. We have no Government. We have the most overcrowded cities in Europe and a couple of million immigrants sponging up our spare cash. But we're able to hold it all together. In fact, falling apart hasn't even crossed our minds. Yet our European counterparts plot revolt in the playground the minute rumours start to flow about milk money cuts.

Do we really want to share laws, ideals and policies (and our cash!) with these countries, when we have demonstrated without celebration or expectation of praise that we are the most sorted society in the Western World, even in times of constitutional crisis?

It's like our mothers used to warn us, it does no good to be associating with a bad crowd. They will only drag you down to their level.


*Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better insure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments.

A Greek Tragedy?

Well we don't know yet, we'll have to wait and see, but it has been at least a tragi-comedy.

It is such if we don't have to bail them out, but if we do, public mood over here deserves to change with regards to the EU.
We can smile, or perhaps breathe a sigh of relief, as we have always staunchly rejected inclusion in the Eurozone, whereas it is in France and Germany's interests to not watch Greece go under. But apparently the Council, under Van Rompuy, has come to an agreement, although the details wont be revealed until probably Monday when the Heads of State sit down for a summit regarding economic and fiscal strategy in Europe.
So who is to blame? Well, everyone of course says Greece, who apparently covered up the true extent of their deficit in order to become a member of the Union. But look what has happened, one falls and risks dragging the rest down. At least if Greece were going solo, the problem would be contained in one country.
But what happens here will set a precedent for future behaviour. A bail-out is by all accounts "illegal" under European Law - Open Europe cover this really well. At first there was hesitation from other member states at rushing to Greece's aid, and help has only been forthcoming from those states-France and Germany- who would suffer the fall-out of a Greek fall-apart. So much for strength through solidarity. It goes to show that this Union to which we belong is more of a dead weight than an enriching co-operative, and is certainly no elixir for a good economy.

Throughout the recession Federalists would have had you believe that the only reason so many European countries haven't folded under the weight of all those red letters is because of the global bargaining power and economic strength the Union delivers. This week we've heard how Obama thinks the EU is all hot-air, and wouldn't attend the latest summit. Then the Greek affair has turned that on it's head and goes to show that, if anything, doubt has been cast over the value of the EU globally and speculation and caution have been tempered towards the other Eurozone countries because the single currency has no single treasury, no stringent development plan and no recognisable fiscal policy. We have also seen that, get it wrong, lose it all and fall to your knees and the European Union will only kick you while your down and take the opportunity to march in and turn you into an economic protectorate!

I wonder how we'd be doing right now had we not joined the European Union at all. Those countries that are flourishing and are set to grow over the coming era are historically more likely to call upon Britain than Europe, as a whole. Our Commonwealth ties should serve us very well as we progress into a new era of socio-economic development. India has one of the world's fastest growing economies and already trades with us separately from the EU. Oil fields have been found offf the coast of Ghana (not to mention the Falklands of course) - and already the Chinese,who have always shown great trading interest with Africa, are offering to provide the technoloy to drill it. Why we follow around France and Germany and fund the development of their lesser continental friends rather than standing on our own two feet and using all the trade relations and opportunities centuries of history enshrine, we'd rather sit back and lose out all for the sake of creating a better Europe.
We may not have been the most fair or ethical country in terms of our practices in trade and foreign affairs. We have a lot of apologising to do. But the UK was mighty due to attitude, industry and innovation and can be once again. As for Greece, perhaps they kept in mind the concept expressed by their very own Socrates in Plato's Republic and sought a Philosopher to take control in times of crisis...Haiku-writing van Rompuy certainly channels Karl Marx.