I bought a USB pen for €7 yesterday. As is customary in Spain, the shopkeeper asked me if I wanted it gift-wrapped as a present . . . It reminded that my ex-wife - accustomed to this gratis practice here - was offered this for the many presents she'd bought in John Lewis's in the UK and then presented with a bill for more than 20 quid for it. I think she actually fainted.
As Russian foreign ministers go, Mr Sergey Lavrov is a delight. No one could possibly outdo him when it comes to feigned outrage such as that displayed around the accusations of Russian hacking into the emails of the US Democratic party. A ridiculous joke, he spluttered when tackled on this. This, of course, is the essence of Moscow's response to any and every accusation against it.
As regards this hacking, where on earth will it end? President Obama tells us he's threatened Putin with retaliation and there can be little doubt the USA is capable of this. Will we see all the lights go out in Russia? Or merely Moscow's?
Over in Italy, one of the reforms wanted by the outgoing prime minister was the abolition of one of the same 4 layers of government we have here in Spain - the provincial administration that sits between the regional government and the municipal council. Surprise, surprise this was felt to achieve nothing but increased bureaucracy and greater corruption. Similar proposals have been made here but there's a greater chance of Hell freezing over before it happens.
Which reminds me . . .
Years ago I was told that the mayor of a local town - subsequently the president of the provincial government - had risen from being a poor doorman to being a millionaire and, of course, a great benefactor of the town. This week he was in court, facing accusations of corruption. Denying everything and refusing to testify. And looking quite smug.
Which reminds me . . .
The Spanish government has 'temporarily' abandoned the anti-corruption measure of making illegal cash payments for goods and service above €1,000. Apparently, the nation's shopkeepers felt that just before Xmas was not the best time to bring this in. On this, I wasn't too surprised to read last week that the Spanish are the most resistant in Europe to moving from cash to cards.
For a common-sense view on Brexit, see the article at the end of this post.
The latest Most Irritating Ad on British TV is, almost inevitably, for a supermarket chain - Christmas: Morrison's makes it. But it has to be said the competition for this award was pretty tough.
Pontevedra's shopping scene changes so frequently I'm beginning to think it might well be true that many owners here aren't really dedicated to the retail business. Here's yet another household stuff outlet, just opened in time for Xmas:-
And this, until recently a furniture shop, is now yet another place selling ladies' dresses and accoutrements. Just what we needed:-
Finally . . . An interesting email this morning, from a lady called Henrietta. She apparently runs a 'school for dissolute and lusty schoolgirl students' in Mexico. For some reason, Google felt this was spam.
Your daily smile, from The Times' cartoonist:
The £50bn 'Brexit
Bill' is merely the futile gambit of a deluded elite which is swiftly
losing control: Douglas Carswell
The notion that Britain
faces a £50 billion “Brexit bill” from the EU is a nonsense.
While the UK must honour any existing obligations while we remain
members of the EU, those obligations end the day we leave.
There is no need for
the UK to pony up any additional contributions towards a club we are
about to leave. Any legacy obligations to be honoured after
departure day, such as payments towards Eurocrat pensions, are likely
to be small.
In general, we should
ignore many of these stories about politicians playing hardball over
Brexit. It might be fun for pundits to focus on some of the
personalities involved in any Brexit negotiations. But if we
want to understand the shape of what is to come, it makes much more
sense to look at where our interests lie. Do that, and it's much
easier to work out what sort of arrangements we are going to see.
Once we are a
self-governing country again, it will still be in the interests of
ordinary people on both sides of the Channel to cooperate. And
those interests, not preening politicians, will shape cross-Channel
relations.
It will, for example,
still be in our mutual interest to trade. The EU last year ran
a trade surplus of more than £70 billion with the UK. They
are not going to impose restrictions on cross Channel-trade, when
they are the principle beneficiaries from that trade, on the day we
depart.
It may also be in our
mutual interest to keep working together in several areas.
Universities will still want to collaborate. Intelligence sharing
isn’t suddenly going to stop.
While the free movement
of people will come to an end, it will be in Britain’s interest to
have some sort of arrangement – with caveats – governing the free
movement of workers. Unless the EU is about to start insisting
that its citizens require exit permits, that's not an arrangement
that will require any EU consent.
Again and again it is
interests, not politicians and their posturing, that will shape UK/EU
relations.
Part of the EU’s
problem is that it is built on the conceit that political fiat should
be central to arranging human economic and social affairs. Reflecting
that, its perhaps not surprising that some Eurocrats will want to put
in place all manner of elaborate arrangements governing what happens
once we leave.
But our departure is
not contingent on any acceptance of such arrangements. And if the EU
elite overplay their hand – by for example demanding we pay a big
Brexit bill – we should simply call their bluff and bid them
goodbye. We have a pretty good fall-back position.
In every age, powerful
elites in almost every society have sought pretexts for control.
Today, our elites use the idea of interdependence between nation
states as a pretext for them exercising top down decision making.
Ever greater
interdependence between states has been endlessly invoked by the EU
elites as a reason for the rest of us to submit to more supranational
decision making. You could almost say that the EU is built
on the Cartesian conceit that international interdependence requires
supranational supervision.
It’s a
nonsense. Global interdependence is increasingly self-arranging
and self-sustaining. Grandstanding elites are not a central to human
affairs as they imagine.
Trade does not happen
between states as a favour, but because it is the interests of
producers and customers across borders to make the exchange.
EU students don’t
flock to UK universities because they seek approval from
officialdom. They do so because it suits them – and indeed our
universities – to have those open arrangements.
The idea that the UK
might pay some sort of tribute towards the EU after we have left has
more than an echo of pre-modern mercantilism about it.
In pre-Enlightenment
Europe, of course, kings and emperors demanded tribute as a
precondition to trade. How odd that the EU project, which the
true believers still insist is contemporary and modern, should retain
such an antediluvian outlook.
Perhaps if the
Eurocrats behave and think like the Habsburgs or Bourbons, they will
go the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment