Swedish gripe

The Swedish group Abba have just performed again for the first time in 30 years, and today the Swedish Foreign Minister, wearing glasses no doubt to give an air of authority to her statement, added her own voice to the Referendum debate. Maybe she is the first of many such interventions. But it is all a bit late. The time to have pleaded about the “domino effect” was when David Cameron was jetting around the capitals of Europe trying to secure a better deal. But the effective dictatorship of Merkel held the day and we entered the Referendum at a disadvantage.

margot

Now, Ms Wallstrom whines, “everyone might want one”. Absolutely. And what is wrong with that? A series of referenda to determine the future of the Continent- democracy in action might actually re-invigotate this EU project. Because Europe is failing because it has been hijacked by largely unaccountable political ideologists who forget that the two primary functions of the EU are to bolster trade and preserve unity. Instead, a number of political obsessions have been allowed to take over- it was politics, in other words, not economics that dictated the spread of the EURO and, similarly, the punishment of Greece. But it is the creed of ever closer union that has most seriously damaged the overall project.

While I think her intervention is late and slightly patronising, I am afraid she is right (for once- because she was wrong about the arms deal with Saudi Arabia and that one blew up rather spectacularly in her face), but what she says in itself is not a good enough reason for us to vote to remain in the EU. The only reason to vote against BREXIT is to sort out the mess Europe has got into (and it is people like Wallstrom whose background in the EU Commission was put to the test and found wanting in her spat with Riyadh). We cannot afford to have this EU monster of such mindlessness and arrogance growing on our doorstep.

If we left Europe and it collapsed in our wake, the pressing political need to set up a new “EU” would be paramount for the very reasons the EU was established in the first place to provide trade, unity and security. Better, then, to repair the old one, waste less time and money and cement our common alliances. The measure of our success will be not only the prosperity of Greece but also our own security.

It pains me to say

Much of what Farage says here is right, particularly about his reservations and warnings about the Euro- “through massive ambition and hubris, you ploughed on.”

I was in Greece in the run-up to the Millenium and the Euro project there was clearly a disaster hidden beneath a carpet of half-truths. But while Farage thinks we should walk away now the damage has been done, I think we should hang around and clear up the mess.

So much of what Farage says is reasonable, and of course brilliantly done- from a rhetorical point of view, he is a master of the verbal put-down and the jocular aside. But then he does a typically Farage thing and says he is walking out, never to return. But we know Farage from last year, when his resignation then turned out to be just a two week holiday following his unplanned defeat in the elections. Time to lick his wounds perhaps but not time enough to reflect on what the electorate had told him.

While I accept his comments about the hubris of those who drove the Euro, and while I share his concerns about the EU and its future, I hasten to add I have drawn different conclusions, partly because of his failure to eradicate racism in his own party, his endorsement of views that might well be taken to be racist, and his inability to control the thugs in his own backyard.

UKIP is the only party in the UK to embrace a libertarian view, and that is attractive, – more than that, there are excellent people in the party (not least Douglas Carswell, but I hope the option remains for him to return to the fold) – but it is too wide a church and the BPMers who infiltrated its ranks have been both tolerated and advanced to the detriment of others. (What was Sajjid Karim thinking of when he talked about “dealing” with Farage- I hope he was not suggesting violence and I am sure he was not- but no doubt that’s the way Farage would interpret it! We do not want to encourage the thuggery surely!) If Farage is walking out of the EU, then, thank God, but recent history suggests he is not to be trusted to follow-through with this!

farage

The Aegean idea

There are 47,500 migrants stranded in Greece at the moment. These are the ones who are counted and regarded as part of the ongoing “EU migration” process. There are countless more who have found a way of hovering on the fringes of Greek society, making a buck in the cinemas near Omonia and begging or stealing whatever they can to get by. Certainly the current agreement does nothing for them and does little to sort out the squalor that remains in Idomeni. All it will do at best is to send a signal to the people who manage the boats in Turkey that this Aegean crossing is closed. After 4 years, that is modest progress, but I was talking about the dangers of this people-smuggling issue nearly 15 years ago and no one paid much attention to me then.

So what is changing now?

An agreement about illegal migration to Greece may well have taken place, but to implement it will involve the movement of countless judges and lawyers from Athens to the islands, as well as the 2300 experts cited by Tsipras and imported from mainland europe to oversee the process, because presumably each of the migrants landing on Samos or Lesbos or wherever will demand and be entitled to a legally responsible decision before being shipped back to Turkey (lest the plan fall foul of the declarations made by the UN under the Geneva Convention). More than that, the EU deal will not process back those refugees already on Greek soil- Turkey ruled that out on 10th March! merkel

I find it hard to see how Greece will be able to manage this in practice, so whether the deal with Turkey and the EU is morally or legally sound, it still faces a practical problem. What has taken months of legal work in Athens so far will now be done in a matter of hours in makeshift courts along the seafront of Samos- I doubt it somehow! As I understand it, however, the Syrians who are deported from Turkey to the EU will be sent to specific EU countries to be processed, so this might ease the burden on Greece in the long run and that thought alone might energise the process a bit.

Amnesty calls the EU/turkey agreement a “historic blow to human rights”, though to be fair, when I was in Greece, Amnesty had been infiltrated by some very peculiar people, some of whom were certainly illegal migrants. So, as Christine Keeler might have said, “They would say that, wouldn’t they!”

It seems unclear, at the moment, whether Greece is also being awarded extra funds to deal with this. If not, I await the outcry from Athens (a) that Turkey is being unfairly awarded 6 billion euros and (b) that this much hyped agreement merely moves the problem from one country to another. It might deter the boats in the Aegean, but it will hardly stop the boats already arriving again in Malta from Libya and Tunisia..

And it does not answer the moral question at all- why should a country like Turkey accommodate so many more refugees/migrants than the 28 different countries currently in the EU? I worry that we have somehow shifted all discussions away from the bigger picture and we are focused only on making a quick “deal”- in other words, have we just all become barrow-boys or costermongers in some sort of market-place… oh yes, we have! And wasn’t it once called “the Common Market”?

Whatever trading we do, we must not forget the bigger picture. We need a moral centre, not just a tidy profit or a quick solution.

Do not fear!

welby I need to choose words very carefully here- I am stepping over (or into!) the shoes of the current Archbishop of Canterbury. I am certainly challenging what he said. Justin Welby preached “fear” and that, to me is a red line that should never be crossed. Gone are the days when the pulpit offered such entertainment. Today we can cast our minds back to “Hammer Horror” if we want a thrill, or we can look to the diet of films that have played out in the few years since the millenium. Here are a selection of such films for a man evidently hooked on “fear” like the current Primate of Canterbury- “The others” (2001), and Mulholland Drive (2001), “the Ring”(2002), “Orphan”(2009), “the descent” (2005), “Bug” (2006), “Let the right one in” (2008) and its sequel “Let me in” (2010). We do not need fear-mongers in the pulpit and certainly not those who advocate principles that fly in the face of their own vocation. At a time when the TV is filled with the xenophobic rants of Trump, I believe Justin Welby makes a bad problem worse. In short, as the senior cleric in the UK and leader or guardian of our moral health, he had no right to sanction our fear of migrants.

Wesley’s rather than Welby’s “fear”

But, to be fair to Welby, “fear” is a confused word in the mouths of English Churchmen. “Work out your salvation”, says Paul in the King James Version, “with Fear and trembling”. It seems to me, for instance, that there is certainly room for this kind of “fear” in the next few months because we shall be making a collective decision at the Referendum that will determine the way this country works and to do that casually would be folly. We should be mindful and in the language of John Wesley, therefore, that might mean we should be “fearful”; in other words, we should be respectful and careful. My own name calls out the same message- “Timothy” comes from two greek words meaning literally to “fear God”, but the sense of this name is to be “respectful”, not to be cowering in terror or worried about whether God might steal my job.

Calling for fear in this debate is tantamount to a licence for racism or at least xenophobia and that must be wrong in the mouth of an Archbishop.

The Fear stuff comes in an interview published in “House” magazine where Welby concedes there is , in his words, “a colossal crisis” because of migration into Europe. That is perfectly reasonable. He then says that people who express fear about this migration are not racist -“There is a tendency to say ‘those people are racist’, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous.” He went on and added ” and the UK should be “taking its fair share of the load”. (well, thank God he concedes that much!)

“Fear is a valid emotion at a time of such colossal crisis.

“This is one of the greatest movements of people in human history. Just enormous. And to be anxious about that is very reasonable.” (*TW: note how he’s already back-tracking. anxiety rather than fear, so he knows he said the wrong thing!)

However, it seems to me that fear is not a valid emotion in this context (though I admit there are instances where migrants have behaved badly) and in a country where there is actually a good deal of wealth, we should be better placed to manage people’s insecurities and at the same time, offer significantly more hope to those who have turned to us with outstretched arms, looking for a better life or looking for any sort of life at all!

These words, of course, play well in the hands of the BREXIT group- as Ian Duncan Smith intoned-

“These are rational comments from the archbishop – they’re to be welcomed – but you wonder just how late they’ve come from various people in institutions, so I congratulate him. If you think back, for far too many years what’s happened is that in a sense the elites have all said ‘It’s terrible to talk about immigration and if you do you’re racist’, so they’ve shut down the debate for many, many years.”

But we should not be engaged in this debate and certainly it should not have been started or been licenced by the Archbishop. Welby’s job is to preach the Gospel, and he would do well to heed the message in Matthew 25:36- to provide for the needy, the poor, to visit prisoners, the sick and the dying. He might also look at Gen 23:4, Ex 2.22, Lev 25:23, 1 Chron 29:15,Ps 39:12, 119:19, Hebrews 11:13 and reflect on the fact that we might all migrants and all in need of shelter. There, but for the grace of God…

The Greek example:

I also refer the Archbishop to the example of the villages on Lesbos, Kos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes and Leros who have good reason to fear for their security in an economoc crisis frankly imposed on them by Northern European bullies. These islanders have routinely shown migrants pouring on to their shores the hospitality and shelter that Welby ignores.There may be fear- but it is Welby’s job to preach an answer to fear, and that answer is kindness.

The islanders in Greece deserve a nobel prize in the same way that Welby deserves to be stripped of his office (or at least suspended for the duration of the Referendum). This is what Spyros Limneos said,

“By opening their hearts the islanders sent a powerful message that humanity is above races, above nations.”

Humza Yousaf, up in Scotland, has the right idea, of course! Certainly he’s ready to debate the idea without all this “fear” nonsense. But really, he is not alone. We may talk about the many things we must thank the waves of migrants for over the years- from fine tailoring to fish and chips but we must still also be ready as a Nation to help those who need help now, and- as for economic migrants: well, many of those we need too- they are the ones with the vision and maybe the skills to kickstart our economy. Fear-mongers are just plain wrong!

humza

Oh, and unless it looks like I advocate a migrant “free for all”, not at all. Our responsibility is to be ready without fear to welcome these strangers but the response to our kindness and hospitality is also responsibility and people who come here have their own responsibility to learn our language, promote our values and engage in our society.

Migration is not part of the Referendum

I understand many of the arguments put forward by BREXIT as also by the “staying in” camp, but there are enough valid issues to be discussed without touching on that of migration: economics, fishing, farming, political independence and so on. Moreoever, the migration issue was surely done to death last year by the nasty brigade that lurks within UKIP (Believe me, there are some very good and noble UKIPpers who, like me, think the migration issue should be off-limits). Migration is a separate deal that will be solved by finding a Syrian peace, and by working in harmony with our neighbours to deal with the flow of migrants: the migration issue will continue whether we are “in” or “out” of the EU and the Archbishop gives a very cheap and simplistic lead in what he says today. What he also says is categorically against the spirit not only of Christianity which he represents, but of Judaism and Islam. It is wholly wrong. Leave it to others to preach fear if he must. BUT If he intends to stay in office, or indeed leave office with any honour, this garrulous priest needs to shut his mouth for the rest of the summer.

Boris

Boris lightened the tone today by referencing Welby’s comments and saying that after the referendum, we may need prayer. We certainly need unity and we need to work on that now. the referendum may well energise our democracy but we must be careful that it does not fracture our society as indeed the Scottish referendum threatened to do. We need to engage in this debate without fear, and look at both sides so we can reach a decision that leads us to make a reliable and informed vote in the summer. It is the role of the churches and faiths to bind us together during this process: we will remain a single Nation and British whether we are “in” or “out”. I would like to see us become a better Nation for this debate.

to the Queen

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/06/25/exclusive-buckingham-palace-backs-queen-on-europe-speech/

queen1 There is a great moment in the play “A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt when Thomas More is finally brought to trial for treason and faces Sir Richard Rich (played in the film by John Hurt), the man who has perjured himself and More asks, “Is it probable that after so long a silence on this the very point so urgently sought of me, I should open my mind to such a man as that?” As Richard prepares to leave the chamber, More looks at his new chain of office- “the red dragon?.. Why Richard it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?”

This exchange is very much in my mind as I read about the alleged indiscretion about EU by Her Majesty the Queen. Quite apart from the fact that private conversations are by custom never made public, the question lingers- why would a monarch who has spent 63 years carefully avoiding political controversy open her heart to the people at lunch that day on 8th April 2011? I simply find it unbelievable. The Queen is above party politics and this story should not have been splashed over the front page of The Sun. But as it was, it is worth looking in a bit more detail to see that is actually alleged to have been said-

In 2011, the Queen is supposed to have told Nick Clegg that she believed the EU was going in the “wrong direction”. She was apparently very forceful in the presentation of her views. This was when the Euro was in full-blown crisis, with a deeply dodgy Italian Prime Minister clinging on to office despite a gathering sex scandal, and just before the first IMF bailout to Greece. The lunch took place on 8th April so a quick trawl through the internet shows that on 7th, Portugal joined Greece in requesting financial help. So, (a) Her Majesty’s alleged views well-precede any serious discussion on a Brexit, and are long before the PM called a Referendum and (b) are little more than a statement of fact. I cannot imagine anyone with sanity believes that EU has been infallible or foolpoof and indeed, most people would agree with the Queen, even today, whether they advocate an “in” or “out” option in the Referendum. If she said anything at all, then some serious “spin” has been added to the telling.

However, both Lord Mcnally and Nick Clegg deny that any such views were expressed at all at the Lunch. Nick Clegg said on TV this morning, ‘It is not true. I have certainly, absolutely no recollection of a conversation like that, which I suspect I would have remembered if it had taken place. I just think it’s wrong that people who want to take us out of the European Union to now try and drag the Queen for their own purposes into this European referendum debate.’

However, there can be no doubt at all that the EU has followed “the wrong direction” and requires (radical) reform, so that simple statement, whether made by the Queen or not, neither supports a BREXIT nor a “stay in” vote. It is simply common sense. I hope enough noise is now made about the referendum that, whatever the result, the EU tidies up its act significantly. There should never have been reason to campaign for the fishermen in Cornwall, but their livelihood is in danger as indeed is the whole British Fishing industry. The way Europe has treated Greece is deplorable and its handling of the Syrian refugee crisis has been tardy, sanctimonious and foolhardy. There are times when urgent action is demanded and instead, the EU has observed a number of serious crises, from the banking crisis to the humanitarian crisis that is Syria and, frankly, fiddled. “The wrong direction?” Most certainly!

But to draw from this comment in 2011 the conclusion that the Queen favours BREXIT in 2016 is absurd and cheap. A number of people today are being exposed as the possible source of this Palace leak- and how petty, weak and insignificant they appear – dragging the Monarch into a debate she never entered and scoring a cheap home-goal.

Among those who deserve a smack is the otherwise admirable Rees Mogg: He was reported in the original Sun report as saying “I’d be delighted if this was true and Her Majesty is a Brexiter.” He later tweeted “The Queen will be mortified to have been manipulated thus. It does Brexit enormous discredit.”So, let’s hope Mr Rees Mogg was also been mis-quoted by the people in the Sun. It wouldn’t be the first time.

gove

Apparently, beyond Mr Clegg and another Liberal, Lord McNally (both champions of the “In” campaign anyway), there are two likely candidates for leaking the alleged comments- they are, firstly as forerunner and chief suspect, Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and a prominent “outer” who says he had “no idea” where the claims came from and whose department underlined his innocence this morning with the statement that, ‘We don’t comment on private conversations with the Queen.’ Secondly, the Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillian, who, so far, has issued no denials – what should we conclude?

“Why Cheryl, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?”

PS: here is a link to a Breitbart article. This organisation is very pro-UKIP so I think more reliable than most to stress the Queen’s pro-EU thoughts. It claims her speech was written for her, so does not express her views… but I think it restores balance and frankly is in tune with the Queen’s approach to what matters- unity and kindness. Whatever our views on the referendum, we must now look beyond that to ensure that unity in our country is fully restored as soon as any decision is made.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/06/25/exclusive-buckingham-palace-backs-queen-on-europe-speech/

“Since 1945 the United Kingdom has determined to number among Germany’s very strongest friends in Europe. In the intervening decades, Britain and Germany have achieved so much by working together. I have every confidence that we will continue to do so in the years ahead.

“Our work together includes every part of life, from politics to commerce, from industry to every aspect of the arts, in particular, music, museums and education.

“In our lives we have seen the worst but also the best of our continent. We have witnessed how quickly things can change for the better. But we know that we must work hard to maintain the benefits of the post-war world. We know that division in Europe is dangerous and that we must guard against it in the West as well as in the East of our continent. That remains a common endeavour.”

“Since 1945 the United Kingdom has determined to number among Germany’s very strongest friends in Europe. In the intervening decades, Britain and Germany have achieved so much by working together. I have every confidence that we will continue to do so in the years ahead.

“Our work together includes every part of life, from politics to commerce, from industry to every aspect of the arts, in particular, music, museums and education.

“In our lives we have seen the worst but also the best of our continent. We have witnessed how quickly things can change for the better. But we know that we must work hard to maintain the benefits of the post-war world. We know that division in Europe is dangerous and that we must guard against it in the West as well as in the East of our continent. That remains a common endeavour.”

Xavier Bettel and Gauthier Destenay

Firstly, congratulations to the Prime Minister of Luxembourg who was married yesterday. It is a few months later than planned, but well done anyway. I hope he and Gauthier will be very happy.

meanwhile…

Nikolopoulos, the Homophobic twitter

A little while ago, I ran a story about Nikolopoulos who criticised the Prime Minister in Greek on twitter which I am reprinting below.

What is he up to now

He is still in the Greek parliament (and actually part of the Governing coalition) and was voting a few days for educational reform. His basic point here, if I understand correctly, is that German should no longer be taught in Greek schools. This is what he says-

“The German language, for the past 20 years, has unreasonably been promoted and supported by the Greek state to an excessive degree in relation to others, equally if not more important languages at a global level such as Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Italian,” he writes.

“We must not continually complain of the burgeoning of one member state of the EU when we ourselves, without it being imposed on us, make the choice to support the transmission of the language, the culture, and the traditions of a people, who in general lines, have been proven to systematically harm our country and have opposed our legal sovereign rights.”

Parallels

This is a man who represents the equivalent party in Greece to what UKIP stands for in the UK, the Conservative Independent Greeks, or ANEL (remember the correct vowel here). He is a bully who takes swipes at whoever he thinks his audience might enjoy seeing done down. He plays deliberately to the crowd and does not think of the consequences of what he says.

Bullies

Like all bullies, when he goes too far, he is the first to cry foul. In October 2014, days after having upset the Minister for transport, (who defiantly said he was not a “wuss” and would not be so “threatened”), Nikoloupoulos sought public solace by claiming himself to have been threatened in an SMS that someone would cut off his leg with a chainsaw. So far, he appears to still have both legs.

And so far, regrettably, this nasty man remains part of the committee that oversees the detailed bailout terms and what to do with bad debt. The only positive thing is that Nikolopoulos’ position in the Greek Government is tenuous because of Syriza’s contempt for his homophobic attack last yera on Xavier Bettel. Accordingly, while he remains the leader of ANEL, it is Panagiotis Sgouridis who got the Cabinet position as Vice Minister for Production Reconstruction, Environment and Energy.

Just a final point- while the Prime Minister and cabinet from Syriza were sworn in during a civil ceremony, the ANEL members insisted on the traditional religious ceremony which I know well from visiting the office of a ridiculous Pasok MP who had offered to see me, and when she realised who I was, pretended to be her own secretary. Around the walls behind her were dozens of photos of the religious ceremony that marked the beginning of a Greek parliament and there she was in picture after picture, fingers poised in the sign of the cross, very pleased with herself.

Religious imagery is not going to whitewash rogues. She should have known that and so should the people in ANEL. Poor Greece.

The older story about the Homophobic tweet -2014

an ANEL MP, Nikos Nikolopoulos, has tweeted a nasty message about the Prime Minister of Luxembourg who has just announced his plans to marry his gay partner. The twit or tweet seems fairly innocuous in English: “From the Europe of nations, to the Europe of queers. The Prime minister of Luxembourg has been engaged with his special one!” In Greek however, “Από την Ευρώπη των εθνών στην Ευρώπη των πουσταριών. Ο πρωθυπουργός του Λοξεμβούργου αρραβωνιάστηκε τον αγαπημένο του!” The word “των πουσταριών” is particularly offensive, a derivative of the word, Pousti, street-language in Greek for “gay”.

The Prime Minister somehow heard of this tweet but, though he had studied maritime law and religion in Thessaloniki, did not speak enough Greek to know what was being said and contacted the MP, “Hello, I heard you want to tell me something, but I don’t speak Greek. Sorry” – now for the juicy bit that exposes the full rump of this silly man, Nikolopoulos. He said the message had been written by Kyriakos Tobras. He then modified his original tweet. What a twit!

Here are the two tweets. The understated graciousness of the second is such a contrast to the nastiness of the first.

Here is Nikolopoulos’s replacement twit (it is almost as bad but does not sound as “chavish” perhaps):

My own experience in Greece

I remember when I tried to register as self-employed in Athens back in 2001. I had been working for a company called Grivas which refused to pay me until I changed my employment status. Apparently, it was then impossible to do more than one particular type of job for any single company, and Grivas had me writing editorial, illustrating and recording vocals for their various English teaching materials, their decision, not mine. It was a horrible experience and a week of going from office to office in the then-labyrinthine bureaucracy was soul-destroyed. On the final day, with minutes to go before the tax office shut, I was asked for yet another pointless bit of paper. I am afraid I began to cry. At this point, the thug of a tax-manager started to assail me in Greek from across the room, saying that all english were “pousti”, and then listing (improbably but I remember this precisely) Thatcher, Blair, Clinton, as examples of gays in public office. This was about the time of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Incidentally, I knew that the man was the boss because he was overweight and had nothing on his desk save for a cup of coffee and a glass of water. Also, I knew enough Greek to understand what he meant, but I turned to the official next to me whose desk was heaving beneath paperwork and asked him what the word “pousti” might mean. “For example,” I added in my best Greek and as loudly as I could. “is that nice gentleman there who has so much to say about the english, also a pousti?” It shut the man up, and I got my papers quite quickly. I cannot recall if Grivas ever paid me what they owed. Probably not. Some of the other people working there seemed to have been driven to insanity and visits to an asylum in Dafni; others attempted suicide, taking a kitchen knife to their wrists. I know. I had to call the ambulance! It was tough living in Greece back then! But also rather exciting.

I think I had found myself in the “wrong crowd”. There is certainly a “right crowd” in Greece. There was then and there clearly is now, and that crowd would wholly condemn Mr Nikolopoulos and all his fascist cronies, clerical and lay. I am very proud that I made good friends in Greece and that we remain in contact. Like me, they believe passionately that the “wrong crowd” is firmly on the way out, but like cockroaches, that wrong crowd takes its time going.

Here is a picture that was printed in the Greek newspaper eleftherotypia at the time- It shows what I looked like then!! (the article is about the shows that were on in the West End, and the closure of “Cats”)

I think Greece has changed

I had hoped that institutionalised homophobia was a thing of the past in Greece, but apparently not. It is a shame. The younger generation of Greeks, among whom I count many good friends, are shocked by the story of Niko Nikolopoulos. But he is a dinosaur and they need to make sure his political career is rendered extinct as soon as practically possible. I have a small cartoon for this story which I will post later: my computer is in general melt-down as I write this!

Meanwhile, my hearty congratulations to the Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and his partner, Destenay Gauthier who are to be married on January 1st. He is not the first openly gay Prime Minister in Europe. Iceland’s Johanna Siguroardottir and Belgium’s Elio Di Ruppo beat him to this!

A cartoon I did at the time

I think my computer is reeling from the absurdity of this story: Niko (Νίκος Νικολόπουλος) wrote something nasty about Xavier (Ξαβιέ Μπετέλ) and then said that it was really written by his friend Kiriakos Tobras (Κυριάκος Τόμπρας). This is all about a particular group of powerful men in Greece who are running around saying something like Δεν δέχομαι να προσχωρήσω στη λογική της γκέι ατζέντας (“I do not believe I have to accept the European Gay agenda”). This is a country which was eager to join the European club and when I was there, the EU Commission in Greece got me to illustrate one of the more absurd books I ever put my name to: “You are in Europe- Learn about Europe!” Some people, like Nikolopoulos evidently did not learn very much.

Europe has a liberal social image that promotes equality, friendship and assistance with better-off parts of the continent helping the less-successful parts. I know Europe as it stands has problems but it still remains a great ideal and was always clear about these aims even if federalism has crept in through some unwatched back door. I don’t really understand how a country like Greece which still boasts an island called Lesbos, and celebrates the history of Alexander the Great as well as the writings of Plato can possibly allow anyone to be championing such a ridiculous cause as this “we think there is a gay agenda” thing, especially when promoted in part by Churchmen who are civil servants*, that is, funded by the State. Truth is, of course, all this shouting and “tweeting” is done by only a minority of silly men with a complex, stirred up by a pile of pernicious priests. All of them should have better things to do. And, moreover, this story demonstrates how feeble these men can be: even when they are caught out, they are not honest enough to admit what they have done, or take proper responsibility for their own actions.

Religion

This is what Nikolopoulos is doing this afternoon. He is in Patras surrounded by Churchmen, so my cartoon (which drew links between him and the Archbishop of Thessaloniki) seems all the more pertinent.

*much needs to be said about the problems of having a “State church” especially when it thinks it has a right to vocalise about modern issues. I will write more on this!!

Modern Greece is not homophobic

Oh, and just to emphasise that modern Greece does not endorse this horrid racist thug, here are some responses from the days following the twitter incident:

Stefanos Livos said: “Not all Greeks are … morons like @NikNikolopoulos”.

Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Dmitris Kourkoulas, tweeted: “@Xavier_Bettel Dear PM,thanks for helping us unveiling the dirty face of some of our ‘politicians’.”

Bettel himself replied by saying: “Relations between GR & LUX and with @PrimeministerGR are perfect and won’t be affected by the comments of an isolated politician”.

Nikolopoulos has spent much of the last year combatting a draft anti-hate law which will make the sort of attacks against homosexuality, that have been spearheaded by Golden Dawn, illegal.

Why Farage cannot be Vicky Pollard

Vicky (Vicki?) Pollard is a tremendous creation- a whinging no-hoper, so from that point of view, it might surprise people who have read my other posts that I think the link between Farage and Pollard is wrong. Particularly as Mr Farage has now resigned without winning South Thanet, a failure for which I hope I can take some personal credit.

“no but, yeh but, what happened was- shut up. I wasn’t even supposed to be here like this… blah blah blah” Brilliant!

She blisters forth with a barrage of contradictions and bluster, some of it quite unprintable and, in fact, all beautifully cadenced.

Farage, for all his faults, is one of the best political performers in the UK today. His speeches in the Chamber of the EU alone are always worth watching on Youtube and I am sure are thrilling in real life. I love the fact that he is so confident and speaks without notes. His delivery, the content, the Chutzpah and humour are always, therefore, remarkable and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that. His only rhetorical rival is Boris. Just to press the point, listen to, or watch Ed Miliband who has a stream of very specific rhetorical flourishes, most of them repetitive, and that is it. He has managed a slightly better screen image of late- with some coaching, but it is nothing as extreme as the transformation wrought on Thatcher by Gordon Reece, nor indeed as effective. (Reece was a schoolboy contemporary of Norman St John Stevas at my old School Ratcliffe College) Ed remains, therefore, “nice Ed” and today watching him resign, I felt that what he really needed was a good hug. (I am not volunteering: I am not really a hugger at all) But Ed Miliband does vulnerability and that is not the diet of choice for leading British politicians today.

I can go a little further and add that on many issues, I share Mr Farage’s views. I differ significantly about immigration but I certainly recognise that the EU project, as it stands, is seriously damaged. Simply looking across to Greece, which is a country I know well confirms that Europe is no longer working properly. No country in a cohesive federation of National states should be so bullied or so shamed and punished for faults that were made years ago and with the connivance of the very countries that now seem to press for austerity. The Greek demand for reparations, incidentally, from Germany seems to me reasonable, but more reasonable would be Germany’s unconditional offer of such reparations. That way, at least the money would flow, and we would no longer be talking about debt.

When Farage tries vulnerability, however- with pleas about back-pain or, today with a reference to his plane-crash (which caused the back pain in the first place), it all seems a bit disingenuous. He is better on attack, and that is why he is no Pollard. Pollard is all stammer and alot of unprintable invective scatter-gunned at whoever might be in the Farage’s attacks have bite and bile. I should know- his people tried some of that on me!

Vicky Pollard, however, is all about vulnerability. A different type of vulnerability to Ed Miliband’s, of course. She is aggressive because she is hurt. That is not Miliband, and certainly not Farage.

I have drawn a picture of Farage as Vicky, which is below, and that is why I have given this some thought. The idea came from a tossed-off comment made on the BBC so it is not my analogy at all.

Let’s face it, a politician cannot plead for sympathy when he has lost an election. Farage tried that and he was compared on the BBC to a character from Little Britain. Well done, BBC!

However, for UKIP resignation is not about honour. It is about punishment which is why Coburn will not resign and why Farage has converted his resignation into something else. Let me offer a visual hint with refence to Cliff Richard and Greece- “Who forgot to fill the tank?”

Farage’s resignation was odd. Within minutes of resigning, he was offering to stand again for office in September. So for Farage, resignation is just a cheap holiday away from responsibility. But he remains an MEP and I have already written to him as my MEP to ask him very specific questions.

Meanwhile, the fate of the UKIP project hangs in the balance because there is no-one quite able to take the place of Farage. Suzanne Evans, who Farage recommends as interim leader, exposed herself the other night on TV as morally hollow when she failed to recognise the wealth of difference between a labour man, Sumon Hoque, dismissed for not having a proper MOT- a driving offence- and a UKIP man, Robert Blay, who has threatened to shoot a rival Sri Lankan candidate between the eyes. She pleaded, rather stupidly, that the press were over-emphasising the case of Robert Blay simply because he was a UKIPPER. If anything, they underplayed the story because of a BBC fear about political bias in the days immediately before the election.

Because of the postal votes, the system in both cases went ahead. the labour guy insisted he was still standing; I am not sure Blay has said anything and I assume both that Blay did not attend the count and that the votes were wasted. The issue is largely academic but it would have been interesting if either had come first.

In the case of Jason Zadrozny, who was arrested I think just before the campaign began, he withdrew from the election process himself. As I understand it, unless the issue was bankruptcy, criminal proceedings would not automatically bar a candidate from standing in an election and indeed Bobby Sands was elected to Parliament in 1981, the then youngest MP but a prisoner who died a month after his election. Prisoners who are serving gaol sentences of more than a year’s length are now forbidden to stand under the Representation of the People Act 1981.

My red line, however, remains: Racism, in any form, cannot be condoned, and, so far, I understand neither Humza Yousaf nor Ranil Jayawardena has received a written apology from the leader of UKIP or from anyone claiming that authority. If Mr Farage has indeed resigned, and if Evans is appointed only as a caretaker, then maybe there is now no-one left to write these letters until a new leader is elected in Septamber. Should Mr Farage don the mantle again then, I suppose these questions will remain there to haunt him. And certainly whoever succeeds to authority in UKIP would take on the responsibility of writing at least the three letters I have myself demanded of the leader. This is quite apart from the demand that Mr Coburn MEP should resign, which I suppose is his own decision now as there will be no leader with the authority to command his suspension. I still hold out hope that Farage has a heart and will take proper responsibility during the next few weeks to sort out what he has so far not bothered to do. I would genuinely like to hear that he has bothered to respond. And anyway, Paul Oakden in his interview on Radio Northampton promised that “after the election, he will get round to” answering me. Who knows!

I remain an optimist.

More on Greek debt etc

I had a very interesting meeting today with an old friend and I found we agreed on so many things, not least of all sympathy for Greece’s current situation and the strategies of Syriza. My understanding of Economics is not as good as his at all, and I tend to think that the whole story boils down to one larger country bullying another smaller country and that seems unattractive. But let’s have a go at analysing the issues….

The fear-mongers (John Mauldin, for instance, an American pundit, who compares Syriza to the Keystone cops) continue to dominate the press while the Greek Finance Minister is busy clarifying his aims and establishing that what was reported in the run-up to election is not quite what he intends to do- he is, of course, rather brilliantly making use of the natural ambiguity of anything that is translated from Greek, a language notoriously difficult to render with absolute certainty as many Biblical and classical scholars will readily attest. Greece remains the language of poetry and mysticism. German or Latin is the language of rules. I wonder which language best reflects “common sense”? Though in this case, after the election and directly on the BBC, the splendidly telegenic Finance minister can put his case very well in English.

The Greek situation still resembles a stand-off, but actually what Varoufakis says makes perfect sense. At least, it does when I am listening to him! He is admirably convincing. He should really take over here from Mr Osborne. (Osborne might have had a recent haircut but he has rarely spent time in the gym… oh and “haircuts”. More on that as a solution another day!)

So, two points- firstly about the result of a possible default and then about the right of Greece to default.

First Point:

The first point is that if Greece defaults, it surely does not have to leave the euro or indeed leave Europe, neither of which it wants to do –

1- There are countries, like Britain, that do not use the Euro and yet are part of the EU and there are countries like Kosovo, that are not part of the EU but, nevertheless, still use the Euro; Kosovo and the like can default because they do not have to abide by EU fiscal and monetary policy’s, in the same way, it should be possible and practical for Greece to default and still retain the Euro.

2 – Greece’s economy is much smaller, by some measure, compared to many companies registered in Europe, like, for instance, Deutchebank, BlackRock, BNP Paribas and so on and these can, like all companies, default, but they are not expected to give up the Euro if they do so.

3 – In the US, where the fiscal union is consolidated between the different states (i.e. an isolated default is much more dangerous), Detroit filed for Chapter 11 last year but still, it did not give up the dollar or leave the US union. The problem with Greece defaulting is not the Euro, but that Greece’s national debt is owned by various European governments who do not want to loose their money and have the power to make or bend the rules. It is essentially political and not economic. It is about bullies.

All countries in the Euro pay different interest rates although there is a single monetary policy – Different member states in the Eurozone are perceived by the market to have different risk levels, and so, they borrow money from investors at different rates of interest. The central interest rate set by the ECB is there as a regulator for the banking industry (private not public) and, indeed, all banks across the Eurozone, by law, can borrow at the same rate at the ECB, regardless of their exposure or Nationality. It is the ECB which sets the rate of interest for the financial sector to borrow money, NOT the Governments, no matter how powerful (or self-righteous) they may feel at the moment.

Second Point:

Secondly, and Finally, local democracy must count for more than the authority of a foreign, though powerful state like Germany. The culture or limiting choice because of the repercussions of bad decisions is an invasive one. If the citizens of Greece have expressed a wish in the ballot-box to stop the austerity and default, it is undemocratic to put pressure on them to not do so and it meddles with their rightful and respected sovereignty. Is default a good decision? Probably not, but we must, nevertheless, tolerate their wish to do so and probably more than that, facilitate that wish- in other words, make it easier for them and for us to negotiate the path towards a default.

There are many companies, peoples and governments that go bankrupt over and over again, and the people and businesses and governments that had lent money to them, thereby lose their money. Nevertheless, the right to declare bankruptcy is a constitutional right and the investors must accept their losses – after all, when making an investment, the investor accepts the return while also taking on the risk. Why should different laws apply for Germany! Why, in other words, should it be impossible for Germany’s creditors to default! It sounds to me like Germany is behaving like a Mafia boss in 1930’s Chicago. Time for a flustered Mrs Merkel to embrace reality. In a time of crisis, she could take a few tips from the man who simply comes across as cool- Yannis Varoufakis.

a fashion statement in Downing street

Yannis Varoufakis

Very odd that everyone misrepresents what Varoufakis is actually offering or, as the TV claims, “threatening”.

The BBC says he refuses to talk to the Troika. In fact, he seems prepared to talk to anyone. The only thing he does not accept, it seems is to be bullied into a position by people who claim to know better.

As a pretty distinguished academic, Varoufakis seems perfectly positioned to comment on the last 5 years and Greece’s debt. He says, “The disease that we’re facing in Greece at the moment is that a problem of insolvency for five years has been dealt with as a problem of liquidity.” Thank God this is a man who can express himself perfectly well in both Greek and English. His appearances and explanations on the News’ channel Al Jazeera were excellent too! This is a man we can afford to take seriously.

Mrs Merkel meanwhile says she is not prepared to discuss anything and wants Greece nevertheless to stay in the Eurozone. I cannot see that she can have it both ways, poor lass. The fact that someone repeats herself does not make what she says any clearer or more certain- she is just repeating something.

Nazi salute

Here are the headlines in one of the Greek newspapers today. A Greek police-chief has been caught in a photograph giving a Nazi salute-

ΑΣΤΥΝΟΜΙΚΟΣ ΔΙΟΙΚΗΤΗΣ ΧΑΙΡΕΤΑ ΝΑΖΙΣΤΙΚΑ

Ναζιστής ο αστυνομικός διοικητής

Υδρας

The story, however, is not at all as simple as it first appears. The police chief (υπαστυνόμο) in question, Yiorgos Kagkalos,(Γ. Κάγκαλος) has been stationed for the last two years in a tourist hotspot, Hydra, and the photo was taken in 2011 in the Nuremburg transport museum. The Greek newspaper “Ethnos” added that the officer was wearing a black t-shirt with some sort of nazi-style insignia on it. I am not sure the photo is actually that clear but the newspaper writer is incensed and adds: “Shame on the police!”(ντροπή για το Σώμα της Αστυνομίας). According to “the Sunday Nation” («Εθνος της Κυριακής») Kagkalos is also a supporter of the defeated Military Junta that ruled Greece in the late 60s/early 70s and was involved in some sort of military salute to the dictator Papadopoulos when he was caught firing his pistol several times over the graveside in 1999. This led to a slap on the wrists by the police federation but no serious prosecution because of “a lack of evidence”. This man has form evidently and a position of authority. So much for the man. Had he been caught saluting by the electric train in Nuremburg, then he would have faced the more serious penalty of a prison sentence or a hefty fine because it remains a serious offence in Germany to give Nazi salutes. (There is a full summary in English here in Damian Mac Con Uladh’s excellent blog, A Gael in Greece: http://damomac.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/greek-island-police-chief-snapped-giving-nazi-salute/)

International Arrests

In 2011, a Canadian tourist was arrested in Berlin for saluting outside the Reichstag. He was temporarily imprisoned and his girlfriend had the memory card removed from her camera. While threatened with a 6 month period behind bars, he was cautioned, fined and warned not to do it again. At about the time Kagkalos was doing his salute in Nuremburg, a British tourist was being questioned by a testy car hire man and in response did a nazi salute which had him under arrest within 90 seconds. The police said very simply: “You can call him a bastard and give him the finger but you cannot do that.”

However, a recent case in Switzerland has questioned the automatic penalty for the Nazi salute- this is Switzerland, mind and not Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic where it remains an offence. After a demonstration this year on Ruetli Meadow that took place on the Swiss National Day, the Swiss Federal Tribunal ruled that the salute is only a crime if it is part of a racist ideology and intended to influence a “third party”. It is not a crime if it expresses a person’s own conviction. This seems to me to be very difficult to determine. The law as it stands in Germany does not allow for irony, or any personal expression – if the arm is raised in a Nazi salute, it is an offence.

Film and Disney

The film industry has long had issues with the German/Austrian law. “The Sound of Music” had problems filming the Nazi troops in Saltzburg, and the musical itself was rarely seen until recently, yet no one could be in any doubt what message the film carries about Hitler and the flag with “the spider” on it. Things are changing and there was a production of “Cabaret” on in Berlin when I was there a few weeks ago. Disney produced a number of celebrated films during the war which made active use of irony. “Der Fuehrer’s face” (1943) involves a scene in which Donald Duck repeatedly salutes machinery and people, even the postbox. It is part of an insane dream that was the only Donald Duck film to receive an Oscar. We also used the salute twice in the revised “A Torture Cartoon”, once for the main character, the Turkey and once subliminally when the Archbishop was complaining “All Turks are Barbarians.”

Though he certainly said those words, I would not imagine he intended any salute and when I look at the footage this morning, it is not really very obvious. Under German law as it currently stands, however, it might still be an offence: it is the act itself that is offensive- not the intention.

As for Christodoulos himself, the man died in 2005 and was given an elaborate funeral in Athens. I began a film about some of the more absurd things he said, but in the end, left the film unfinished. Maybe somewhere in my head echoed the Greek equivalent of the Latin tag, “De mortuis nil nisi Bonum”. Who knows. Animation takes time and I ran out of time! Christodoulos rose to power because the Church was felt to be too distant from ordinary people but his meddling in politics once he was made Archbishop has led today to a triumphant reaction against the Church, particularly by the youth whom he claimed so enthusiastically to understand. So much so, it seems today that the only people who attend Church are members of Far Right activist groups. The picture of Orthodox clerics tinkering in politics and wearing expensive cufflinks can also be seen in modern Russia where the current Patriarch is building an elaborate Country pad for himself just outside the main city, in one of those enclosed bits, sealed with gun-touting sentries and high fences. It is a sorry statement about power. A few months ago, I watched his motorcade whizz past – a show of power or a display of brute force?

Football & Putin

Now, the reason for this post is the punishment of Girogos Katidis in Greece last year. I have absolutely no interest in football, though today I am supposed to watch a school match and in a few weeks’ time, I believe I am to be taken to my first stadium game. But I am deeply fascinated by crowd behaviour and by the whole idea of entertainment, whether in the theatre, on film or in Church. Gestures play as important part in that, as they do in politics. I have little doubt that the 20 year old footballer who played for AEK was “having fun”. I do not think he was intending a racist or fascist statement. He said at the time, “I am not a fascist and I would not have done it if I had known what it means.” Here is a link to the actual moment…

His coach, Ewald Lienen, who was German, said that the boy had no political ideas and “I am 100% sure that Giorgos did not know what he did,” though the actual offence might lie in the plethora of tattoos. Despite that, Katidis received from the Greek football authorities a lifetime ban from the sport. It seemed draconian especially if the boy intended something ironic and while Newspapers say the salute lasted a long time, I see no evidence of that. This was a punishment that went far beyond the one year ban that had been imposed on Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio in 2005. And Di Canio readily admitted his Fascist link:

“I made the Roman salute because it’s a salute from a comrade to his comrades and was meant for my people,” he said. Football has a long history of links with political slogans- most recently with the development of Путiн – хуйл (ukrainian) and Путин – хуйло (Russian), abbreviated or adapted as PTN, PNKH (Путин, пошел на хуй), something very rude about the current Russian President.

The threat of Golden Dawn (or as my friend has written earlier “Golden Yawn”)

Here is a picture showing the Church’s blessing of the leader of Golden Dawn

There is a Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) flag I notice in this scene that we did of Athens. Of course the presence of the flag in the picture does not suggest I sympathise with the movement at all. Quite the contrary! The presence of the flag is entirely ironic- and that I suppose is part of the theme of this blog. When is an offensive symbol or a flag offensive and when is it humorous. You cannot stir up debate without reference to the issues.

Greece faces a serious rise in right-wing political activism, mostly through the hideous “Golden Dawn” though there are other groups, some of which like “Laos” are allied to the Church, but the membership of these groups is pretty fluid and interchangeable. Golden Dawn claims it is simply espousing the principles of the pre-war leader Metaxas who thought that National unity could be best achieved by abolishing rival political parties. Well, there you are! It has many nasty elements to it and I can speak as one who was once targeted by their thugs. The leader of that party claimed that the salute he was giving is the “Roman Salute” and not the Nazi salute, though of course the German salute itself was borrowed from Mussolini and the “Fasces”, from which Fascism gets its name were carried in Ancient Rome before senior magistrates and political dignitaries.

Here is a link to a short film that sums up the Golden Dawn story fairly well.

Like many others, I wait to see what happens to the Police chief in Hydra. The photo does not seem, on the face of it, to be ironic, and nor were the shots over the grave of the Dictator. I do not think this man was being humorous and I do not think he is being misunderstood. It would surprise me, however, if he faced serious punishment for his actions. Let’s not draw too many generalisations here….There are policemen in Greece who act honourably. I know some and even taught some of them English (which was a thing laced with alot of humour and a very fond memory); I even knew the man who set up the system of Internal Affairs there, but the level of cronyism and corruption remains intense and I am afraid that, with the rise of the far Right and the strength it has gained in austerity, there will be a fairly vocal minority that will be saying, “Well, so what! What has he really done wrong?”

Sometimes, in pursuing silly ideas, people may forget their own past: I hope that, should he escape official censure, Kagkalos will now remember the starving families in Crete during the second world war and the holocaust victims of Thessaloniki and Corfu. These are not people who would have understood why a man tasked with the protection of his own people should stand beneath the Hoheitsadler and salute the man who had ordered their deaths.

	Steve Friedman on Nigel Farage deal
	timewilson on Biden-Putin
	timewilson on Nigel Farage deal
	Steve Friedman on Nigel Farage deal
	Nitya Paul on Biden-Putin