Our phony war - by Richard... Sunday, May 02, 2010

Our phony war - by Richard... Sunday, May 02, 2010

"Saturday's riots on the streets of Athens, in which police fired tear gas canisters after being pelted with stones and petrol bombs by crowds protesting at the proposed new austerity measures, may prove to be the start of a long, hot summer," writes The Sunday Telegraph.

And, it continues, as the details of an economic life raft from the EU and IMF are announced today, prime minister Papandreou will be forced to survey not simply the wreckage of the Greek economy, but the beginnings of "cultural revolution" that analysts say his homeland's crisis is set to unleash across the continent of Europe.

One cannot help but note the contrast between this troubled country, where reality has come to roost, and the unreality of the UK, where Cameron could afford to get worked up about claims that he was going to abolish free bus passes.

This is a country where the media have actually taken this joke of an election campaign seriously, where The Guardian tells us the "liberal moment has come" just as The Sunday Telegraphannounces that the support for Clegg is waning and the Conservatives are "in sight of victory".

This latter newspaper, by the way, tells us that the country needs "a Conservative government with a strong majority in order to tackle the enormous challenges it faces." Despite that, without even batting a metaphorical eyelid, it calls on us to vote for David Cameron's party.

Then we have Jon Snow arguing that this has been "a campaign like no other." There has, he says, "been an engagement with the electorate that those of us who have reported general elections down the years have rarely seen before."

He is wrong – and faced with such intellectual porridge, there is something attractive in the purity of a gloves-off riot, where at least you know who the enemy is, and the issues are couched in black-and-white terms. When we have finally lost patience with our own politicians, our turn will come to express our views in the manner of the modern Greeks.

In the interim, consider this election merely part of the phony war – it means nothing. The real "engagement" is yet to come.

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Bus passes - by Richard... Saturday, May 01, 2010

On the utter triviality of British politics, it takes an American to point out the obvious. For Jon Stewart's audience, however, it is funny. For us, it is less so.

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A fraud a day - by Richard...

A comment on yesterday's piece in The Independent on the increase in voter registration:

For no reason my name was removed from the electoral register in a London labour area, to rectify this I visited the local council with all the necessary paperwork to re-register. The officer at the council showed me his computer screen to validate my details, what was then immediately noticeable that some moderate sized houses on my road had 40-50 registered voters registered to them which were at most able to accommodate 8 people.

I pointed this discrepancy out to the officer, and he shrugged his shoulders. Because of this and the various cases of voter fraud in the past few decades, I no longer have faith in the electoral system.

Like they say ... a fraud a day keeps democracy away. Can we shoot them now?

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Euro off the hook? - by Richard...

Contrary to the predictions of the doomsayers, it could just be that the Greeks have got away with it, and that the euro is off the hook - for the time being.

The reckoning, though, has yet to come. "Greeks face tax, pensions and pay misery in austerity plan," is what The Times is writing, thus announcing the "austerity package" that is going to have to be swallowed in return for its financial bail-out.

The crisis is given a human face by The Daily Mail and it would be hard not to have sympathy with the people who have been caught up in this. There but for the grace of God go we ... and, even then, it may be our turn soon enough.

As you would expect, the Wall Street Journal gets down to business, telling us that Greece is "very close" to an agreement with its European "partners" and the IMF, having accepted a three-year austerity program which is a precondition for the aid.

The final deal expected to be announced Sunday, by which time the cash buffer will have grown to €120 billion, spread over three years. The package must, however, be accepted by the Greek parliament and, all importantly, by the German legislature (with a possible court challenge in the wings). Despite this, the brief details so far emerging have been enough to quieten the markets. Talk of default is receding.

However, today is May Day and a sharp reaction is expected on the streets of Athens. The Guardian is reporting that the trade unions have pledged to turn traditional the celebrations into "raucous protests." Furthermore, a general strike – the third this year – has been called for Wednesday.

This, I suppose, is going to be the test – whether the deals between the eurozone leaders are going to stand against "popular" dissent, or whether there is enough pressure on the streets to bring the government down and blow the whole thing wide open.

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