The Spanish
(non)Government: For reasons
best known to them, the leaders of the PSOE and Ciudadanos parties
felt it necessary to hold a formal signing ceremony of a contract
which embodies their agreed coalition aims. Gratifyingly, these
include getting rid of the provincial layer of government. Plus, they
might well get round to returning Spanish time to what it was –
that of the UK to the north and Portugal to the west – before
Franco moved it to Central European Time in sympathy with Nazi
Germany in 1942. All that said, the chances of the coalition getting
voted in on March 1 are slim, to say the least. Still, it's good that
these objectives are being talked about. Click here for The
Local's comment on the
several hoped-for advantages of a belated return to
British-Portuguese time.
A Merited Mojácar
Moan?: This is a lovely-looking, white, hillside town down in
Almería. Click here for fotos and info on the council's site. Once a
small village, it's now quite a large conurbation in which foreigners
are the majority residents. But this fact appears to have gone
unnoticed by the locals, as my net-colleague Lenox Napier amusingly
notes here. Doesn't seem quite right somehow. BTW . . . Yes, it's the
same Lenox of Business Over Tapas.
Spanish v. English:
The annual Eurovision Song Contest looms and Spain has finally
decided to go with lyrics in English, though with the chorus in
Spanish, I believe. This has naturally upset the President of the Royal Academy, who's condemned the song as “inferior and idiotic". I'm compelled to
say this is probably true, regardless of the language it's sung in.
More accurately, he adds that: Bearing in mind that Spanish is a
language spoken by 500 million people, presenting a song in English
is surprisingly stupid. I understand that a country with a language
that has a limited number of speakers would try to use a language
understood by many, but this is disgraceful. Finally, he stressed
that the state broadcaster, RTVE, had “a moral and cultural
obligation to safeguard the national cultural heritage”. He then
spontaneously combusted.
The Execution
Stakes: Saudi
Arabia is coming in for a bit of stick because of its public
executions. Fair enough, but here's a Private Eye comparison
with a country that's just come back into the international fold:-
Saudi Arabia: 90 in
2014 and 158 in 2015
Iran: 694 in the first
half of 2015 alone.
Which reminds me . . .
Iran and Britain: When
I lived in Iran 30 years or so ago, it was amusing to be told
regularly that is was still the UK, and not the USA or the Soviet
Union, which was manipulating global affairs in its interests.
Particularly in Iran. Astonishingly, they're still at it there.
Recent demonstrations – no doubt spontaneous – have accused
Britain of interfering in their presidential elections, apparently by mentioning them on
the BBC Persian service. The Death to America signs have been
replaced – temporarily? - by those demanding Death to England.
Which will annoy the Scots. It should, of course, be Death to
Britain.
Finally . . . A ham-footed Spanish thief.
THE BREXIT
SUPPLEMENT
Superstates: So,
Trump's triumphs so far – they say – indicate that the Americans
are more than unhappy with their malfunctioning federal government.
So, what is David Cameron asking Brits to sign up to?I rest my case.
Demonstrating my
impartiality, here's an article from a Stay Inner, Oliver Kamm
in The Times:-
Any
economic benefits from Brexit will be trivial and short-lived
Dire
forecasts about Britain and Europe have a habit of looking silly in
hindsight. In the early 1970s, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary
James Callaghan warned that the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare and
Milton was in danger if Britain joined the European Economic
Community as “French is the dominant language of the community”
Voters
should be wary, therefore, of confident claims made about the
consequences of Brexit. Here are mine, anyway. The immediate
financial savings from being outside the European Union are likely to
be trivial and shortlived. The long-term economic costs, on the other
hand, will be big.
One
problem with the referendum debate is that partisans on each side are
looking at different things. In his thoughtful statement for Brexit,
for example, Michael Gove puts a high value on sovereignty. Fair
enough, but this has costs. Economists refer to a “trilemma”
between national sovereignty, financial stability and cross-border
finance. A country can have two of these things but not all three.
For example, Britain’s financial system is more stable by being
part of international regulation, which means giving up some
sovereignty.
A
rule of thumb is that advocates on either side who don’t mention
the costs of their desired policy aren’t being serious. With that
in mind, here’s my assessment of the competing economic claims.
If
Britain left the EU there would be savings. The main one would be our
budgetary contribution of about £8 billion a year. Food would be
cheaper as we could unilaterally cut tariffs on agricultural produce
from all over the world. Business costs would be lower if we junked
some EU regulations, such as the agency workers directive, which
gives temporary workers the same rights to equal pay as permanent
staff, or the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive,
which requires member states to promote recycling.
But
Brexit campaigners tot up the supposed costs of EU membership without
taking account of any alternative arrangement. That’s not a proper
comparison. For a start, it’s unlikely that interest groups that
benefit from our EU membership would just write off the support they
get. British farmers receive subsidies of well over £2.5 million
under the common agricultural programme. You think they’ll refrain
from demanding compensation from British taxpayers? I don’t.
Moreover,
Brexit would impose costs on British business. The car industry would
face a 4 per cent tariff on sales to the EU. Some would absorb this,
but some would choose to relocate. We don’t know whether Out
campaigners want Britain to have an arrangement like Norway’s,
outside the EU but with access to the European single market through
membership of the European Economic Area. In debate with me in 2013,
Nigel Farage cited Norway as a model for Britain. In that case, we’d
have to pay budgetary contributions to the EU and accept much of its
regulation. And our exporters would have additional costs of customs
and sales-tax bureaucracy whenever they shipped to the EU.
The
economic case for Brexit hinges on the fact that Britain runs a large
trade deficit with its EU partners. Out campaigners claim the EU
would be eager to cut a deal with Britain sooner than compromise its
access to this export market. I don’t see it. The recent
deterioration of Britain’s trade position with the EU is primarily
due to Germany and the Benelux countries. There’s no reason that
the EU in aggregate should throw its consumer markets open to a
post-Brexit Britain.
Set
against speculative and probably overstated economic benefits of
Brexit, there’s the likelihood of a steady diversion of investment
away from Britain and towards the EU in the event of an Out vote.
That’s not everything in this debate, but it matters.
The obligatory FB foto:
My beautiful Grils
Yes, Grils. One is a great tango dancer and the other is a mother who has no time for such fripperies.
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