THE
GENERAL ELECTIONS: The worst possible result? No party will be able
to achieve a governing majority without allying itself with more than
other party. So, a tripartite coalition. A by-word for stability.
President Rajoy is surely on his way out. Indeed, he might not even
be given the chance to resign – unless he does it soon – as the 3
left-wing parties could well vote to prevent his investiture. An
interesting sidelight . . . The socialist party, the PSOE, could well
dump their current leader – the man who made much of the PP party's
corruption in his debate with the president – and the frontrunner
for his replacement is the president (we have a lot of them) of
Andalucia - universally recognised as the most corrupt region of
Spain. I guess it makes sense to someone. Commentaries, in English, here, here, and here,
CUSTOMER
ORIENTATION: The British company, Npower, has been hit with a £26m
fine for not treating its customers properly. Not for being corrupt,
just for being nasty. If this gets reported here, people will be
rolling on the floor with laughter. This is the basic plank of all
corporate planning for Spanish energy suppliers. Their specialities
are lack of information and incomprehensible bills. Not to mention
crooked meters.
THE
EU: Nice letter to The Times, posted at the end of this blog.
Probably representative of the majority of Brits now. Especially
since the Prime Minister suffered the latest setback to his goal of
getting substantive change to the way the institution operates. I say
“institution” but it's clear that the technocrats and bureaucrats
who run it believe they already have a supra-state in place and can
impose EU police on the borders of members against the will of
national governments. Where is today's George Orwell? If you want to
see a cynical view of Cameron's manoeuvres, click here.
FINALLY
. . . SWANS: There's a little bit of doggerel I've always loved:
Swans
sing before they die.
'Twere
no bad thing
if
some people died
before
they they sing.
Being
a humanistic atheist. I always think of it during the Xmas carols
season.
THAT LETTER TO THE TIMES:
SIR
– Crises are exploited by euro-zealots to suck powers from member
states into the European Union’s acquis communautaire – a
veritable black hole for national sovereignty.
However,
the EU has become too big and bureaucratic to exercise its powers in
an effective or even honest manner. The EU has not received a clean
bill of health from its Court of Auditors for 18 years and its
Sisyphean effort to make the dysfunctional eurozone work has
dissipated all its energy and accelerated its decline.
Incompetence
in the handling of relations with Russia and the migrant crisis are
just two glaring examples of recent EU bungling. An EU border force
would be a catastrophe.
It
is now clear that the EU is going to fail. Furthermore, the
eurozone’s inevitable break-up is a real threat to Britain’s
prosperity. We should ignore the hackneyed, doom-laden propaganda
about the consequences of leaving. Britain’s trade deficit with the
EU is more than £50 billion annually, ensuring that we will be able
to secure a sensible trade deal on exit.
We
should leave the EU, join the European Free Trade Association and the
North American Free Trade Agreement, and seek to rekindle closer
relations with the Commonwealth and the Anglosphere. Economies
smaller than Britain’s, such as those of Canada, Australia and
South Korea, prosper on their own. We will be as successful outside
the EU in the future as we were for many centuries before we joined
it.
Gregory
Shenkman
London
W8
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