Dawn

Dawn

Saturday, May 01, 2010

I wrote the other day about Brits with their head in sand. And earlier about politicians who were cynical because they’d learned not to trust the public any more than the public trusts them. Here’s an article from the always estimable Matthew Parris on these themes. As he says “The Argentine middle classes bang saucepans; the Greeks riot; and the British splutter that they’re so fed up they’ve a good mind to vote for that Liberal Dem-whatever fellow in the nice tie on TV who says he hates the politicians as much as they do. . . But this, the politicians know, is a democracy. The voter is boss. Those who run for office must persuade their abusers to vote for them, or perish. So they grin and take it, bowing and scraping to the electorate and trying to ingratiate themselves into their abusers’ affections. . . That’s why, for all their squawking for change, none of the party leaders will tell us what we will lose, rather than gain, under a new government. And when next week this new government is in place, and orders the cuts it must, the scream of the mob will intensify — this time with a new complaint: “You never told us.” No, they never did. And we’d never have voted for them if they had. It is we, the people, who are demanding a false prospectus. Now we’ve got three to choose from. And in due course, we’ll get the betrayal we richly deserve.”

I also touched on Britain and the IMF. So here’s a commentator putting forward what we could call The Alfie Argument for the UK. As you’ll all recall, my strange friend, Alfie Mittington, suggested Sr Zapatero actually wanted IMF intervention in the Spanish economy so he could avoid blame for the consequences of his mismanagement of the economy. This, it’s argued here, should lie behind a victorious Conservative party’s first step.

I switched on Sky News today, to get the tail end of a report about corruption, nepotism, cronyism and the absence of meritocracy. But I realised it wasn’t about Spain when the size of the black economy was given as 30% of the official one (and not a mere 20%) and that it was said to be normal to have to pay surgeons to get operations done quickly. It was Greece, of course. Where – I read this week – almost 10% of the population is a civil servant. Or maybe 20% of the working population. These, it was reported, all enjoy “generous pension benefits worth 80% of salary and early retirement.” So, should we assume the rioters are these people resisting any reduction in their benefits, or the rest of the population protesting that the civil servants will retain their cushy life while the rest of them take the pain? Or both of these? Plus everyone else who thinks the old times were fine and should be restored. At the expense of the Germans.

But back to Spain. And to an interesting post on regional unemployment ratios from my fellow blogger Trevor ap Simon, the scourge of Catalan nationalists, bureaucrats and politicians. Who could well be the same people, of course.

Still on Spain . . . I’ve long suspected that, although violence against female partners is almost as much of a media obsession here as pedophilia is in the UK, the Spanish statistics aren’t particularly bad. Relative to other countries, I mean of course. Now comes the evidence that this is so, with Spain recording an incidence of 3 murders per million women, the UK 4 and Puerto Rico 14. At the other end of the list is Ireland at 0.6. But perhaps the oddest entry is Austria at 9, against an EU average of 8. Anyone got a theory?

Here in well-off Pontevedra, the recession is finally beginning to bite. My Friday tapa is usually spare ribs. In my case three instead of the normal two, as I tip at extravagant British levels. But what did I get yesterday? A bloody plate of peas with a couple of scraps of jamón chucked in. The slippery slope, I suspect.

Finally . . . How heartwarming to see Afghanistan playing in the cricket world championship. I heard a BBC podcast about the team’s aspirations a year or two ago, when it seemed scarcely possible they’d make it. Play up and play the game, chaps. Even if you did lose to India today.

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