Countdown to failure - by Richard... Friday, November 18, 2011

Countdown to failure - by Richard... Friday, November 18, 2011

After his breakfast in Brussels with José Manuel Barroso, ready for his meeting with Angela Merkel today, it was too much to expect of The Boy that he would be seeking seriously to capitalise on the eurozone disarray, by seeking a claw-back of powers - despite this wishful thinking boilerplate from David Davis.

Rather, it appears that The Boy is to concede the game, supporting the German chancellor in her moves to strengthen economic union, all in return for Merkel's assurance that the Tobin tax will not be foisted on the City of London. This he does does not need to do, as the UK can block procedurally any EU commission plans.

That the game is to be conceded is the Financial Times' "take" of the situation. It is billing today's meeting as "tense" and, doubtless, it will be high-octane theatre. In fact, from the British perspective, that is probably all it will be. Cameron's main aim will to to convince his own Party and the nation that he has a grip of things, thus avoiding the worst accusations of a cave-in which are inevitably going to follow in his wake.

What we seeing today, therefore, is the very worst of all situations, where the different players are speaking to their own domestic audiences, while trying to reconcile the EU dimensions and also trying to calm the markets. Reports will become increasingly lurid throughout the day, as journalists struggle to deal with the tedium of covering these mind-numbing summits, while supplying their editors with something fresh to publish.

Working out what is actually going on, therefore, is and will be near-impossible. Much of the media coverage will be expressed in soap opera terms, while anyone who pretends they have a handle on events will simply not know what is happening.

Later, much will depend on market sentiment on the day and, with the disastrous jumps in Spanish, Italian and French bond yields, there is absolutely no sign that the escalating crisis has been contained, or anything like it. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard pins this down, citing David Heathcoat-Amory to tell us that Germany will do whatever it takes to save EMU, but will still fail – because this is a currency rather than a debt crisis.

Thus, as it was in the beginning, so it is in the end – the fundamentals are wrong. Weaker states are uncompetetive, and without being able to devalue externally, are locked into an internal deflationary cycle which, even at its most draconian, still cannot achieve the necessary results.

Through the next few days, this is something to latch on to. It does not matter what they say or what they do. Their plans cannot work. They are going through the motions and whatever they do, they must fail. It is just a matter of time. No matter how many "secret plans" she has, Germany is not going to fix it. Merkel is no more in command of events than King Kong.

I just wish we had someone more credible our end, capable of looking after the national interest, for when it finally goes belly-up. Instead, as Raedwald observes, we are sending in the Second Eleven to bat.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

The elective rip-off - by Richard... Thursday, November 17, 2011

In what should be the death knell for the very idea of elected mayors, we read in the Daily Fail that former MP Sir Peter Soulsby, and now mayor of Leicester, is in line for an 80 percent pay rise.

This is despite his own council making £70million-worth of spending cuts, and cutting back 1,000 council jobs, in a move that could see his pay go up from £56,000 to £100,000. Soulsby's deputy could more than double his salary from £34,000 to £75,000. Six assistant mayors would pocket 65 percent increases from £26,000 to £40,000, and all 47 city councillors would see their basic allowances go up 20 percent from £10,000 to £12,000.

Therein lies the ultimate outcome of the misplaced vogue for "democratising" local government by adding yet another layer of highly-paid elected officials to the structure. One can well see why the political classes like the idea, but all one ends up with is another layer of highly-paid elected officials to the structure, with no demonstrable enhancements in standards of government.

The problem, of course, resides in the fatal confusion between elections and accountability, it being assumed that the need to get re-elected exerts a restraining influence on the greed of ambitious officials. But given that, as an MP, Soulsby employed his two daughters, Lauren and Eleanor, as junior secretaries and his wife, who earned £25,000 a year as office manager, there was never much chance of such restraint.

Wittering for Witney explores further the failings of representative democracy here, arguing that change is required to our system of democracy. And as long as there are troughers such as Peter Soulsby around, he is not wrong.

It really is about time somebody did some serious thinking about the nature of this democracy of ours and where we are going, breaking away from the simplistic notions that currently govern our structures. Not least, we need to recall that politics is about power, and the ability merely to select one's tormentors (very often from a rigged list) without any means of controlling them is no democracy at all.

COMMENT THREAD