Thoughts from Galicia,Spain: 21.1.19

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.

- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain. 

Spain

• Here’s why the Spanish government is worried about a Brexit. The data comes from Exceltur, via Don Quijones.:-

- In 2018 Spain attracted 17.6m British visitors. That’s 22% of her 80m foreign tourists. 

- This  was down by over a million on 2017’s record haul. But it still dwarfed the number of visitors from second-placed   Germany (11.8m) and third-placed France (10.8m). 

- Brits also bought more Spanish real estate than any other nationality in Q3 of 2018.

- The tourist industry is vital to the Spanish economy, accounting for 11.8% of GDP in 2018.

- It employs, directly or indirectly, 2.8m people — roughly 15% of the total working population. 

- But the good times are beginning to fade. After years of double-digit/high single-digit growth the number of foreign visitors grew by only 0.9% in 2018 while the number of overnight stays actually fell by 3.4%. 

- For the first time in 8 years the tourist sector closed out 2018 with real revenue growth rate (2%) below that of Spain’s GDP (+2.5%).

- After an extended period of runaway expansion that brought with it buckets of money and jobs as well as sky-high prices and rents, overcrowding, noise, overstretched public services and infrastructure, Spain appears to have finally hit “peak tourism.” 

- Last year’s slowdown was also accentuated by the “marked recovery” of cheaper rival destinations in the Eastern Mediterranean such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. These 3 countries alone attracted 12.5m more tourists last year.

- There is a risk that Spain’s tourist industry could suffer a major demand shock just as broader market conditions begin to deteriorate. Worrying, then.

• Interesting to see that it’s not only in Spain that the right-of-centre parties are in disarray. In neighbouring Portugal too. . .

The EU and Brexit

• Per Don Quijones:- With just 70 days left before deadline day, fear is rising on both sides of the English Channel that the UK will unceremoniously crash out of the EU without a deal. Though the economic fallout for the UK is likely to be greater and for that reason tends to grab a lot more of the headlines and attention, it is becoming increasingly clear that many EU Member States and the businesses they harbor are no less ready for a no-holes-barred, no-deal Brexit than their British counterparts

The UK and Brexit

• Richard North 1: We have a group of dissimulating morons under the flag of the ERG which, against all the odds, continues to insist that the no-deal scenario is an acceptable – and even beneficial – option which we can embrace without fear, lying through their teeth at every opportunity, with a bizarre perversion of the truth which is as close to arguing that black is white as makes no difference. 
• Richard North 2: The claim that parliament is "taking over control" of the Brexit process can only be true if this takes in the concept of watching Brexit being pulled into the oblivion of a no-deal. All that is left for us to do is watch in awe as the process of government disintegrates. And, for that, we have ringside seats.
• Clare Foges: The mother of all parliaments continues its makeover as the madhouse of all parliaments. . . While the fashion for MPs to plough their own furrow may smell at first like heroism, the base note stinks of egotism. Though the breakdown of party discipline may have been accelerated by Brexit, it is symptomatic of something that has been brewing for a longer time. Alas, the age of self-obsession has captured Westminster. See the full article below.
• I don’t read Boris Johnson’s articles but I just have to cite the headline of his latest - "These feeble plots won't stop Brexit - but they are destroying public trust in our politicians". Given his track record, this must rank as one of the largest-ever examples of chutzpah and hypocrisy. What a shit. A British Fart.
• The last word, from Jeremy Warner????  . . .  The Brexit dream is over - in any meaningful sense, at least. That was the clear and unambiguous message from markets this morning, which cynically marked the pound up sharply in response to Britain’s seismic political crisis, and they are probably right. You might have thought the correct response would have been the other way around, but no, markets are betting that Theresa May’s crushing defeat makes a no-deal Brexit less likely, and either a much softer Brexit - Norway Plus - or no Brexit at all, the overwhelming odds-on end game. . . . What of the anger that Brexit betrayal will engender, dividing the country in renewed civil war? Well, anger dissipates over time, and if the politicians could for a change start to focus on the real issues facing the UK economy, from poor productivity to technological revolution, rather than the distractions of Brexit, then there is some chance of things getting back onto an even keel. Brexit was an expression of these discontents, but in itself, scarcely an answer to them.

Finally . . . 

• I read recently that Germans eat a lot more Brussels sprouts than the Brits, which rather surprised me as I’ve always found this vegetable to be rather bitter. But, on Saturday, they were included in a wild boar stew I enjoyed with my Porco Bravos friends and they were truly delicious. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
• Yesterday I mentioned difficulties with my Apple ID. Having failed just twice to enter this correctly, I was told I’d have to go through a recovery process and that I’d be advised of something within 24 hours. This turned out to be that they would run checks on me and send men a message at 19.37 on February 2. In other words, in just under 2 weeks’ time. Beats me but IGIMSTS. Meanwhile, there a lot of things I can’t do on my new laptop, such as go to iTunes. Frustrating, if not quite the end of the world.

THE ARTICLE

The age of self‑obsession has gripped MPs: Clare Foges, The Times

Party discipline may seem passé amid the trend for going rogue but it is essential if the country is to be governable.

The mother of all parliaments continues its makeover as the madhouse of all parliaments. MPs trade slurs not only across the House but with colleagues. The Conservatives are split into more segments than a clementine. The European Research Group acts as a party within a party. Cabinet ministers openly clash. Whips are treated with disdain. The late Alan Clark once said that a good chief whip knows “who the shits are”; in terms of loyalty there are now too many to count. Meanwhile, Labour is in disarray. Jeremy Corbyn urges his MPs to refrain from engaging with cross-party Brexit talks and a handful gleefully ignore him. It is reported that up to a dozen shadow ministers will resign if Labour backs a second referendum.

Across parliament, party discipline is dissolving. The leaders’ authority is shot. There is a positive spin you can put on all this, which is that faced with hopeless leaders and issues of urgent national importance, some MPs are putting principle before party. Certainly we can cheer politicians such as Yvette Cooper for choosing to defy Corbyn to help find a solution to this mess. All power to her independent elbow. Plus the sight of MPs breaking ranks is naturally more edifying than that of backbenchers parroting the party line: “May I ask the prime minister to confirm that Brexit really will mean Brexit, that her leadership is both strong and stable — and that this government is indeed one that works for everyone?” If toadying makes us recoil, this age of rebels should make us rejoice.

Yet overall, while the fashion for MPs to plough their own furrow may smell at first like heroism, the base note stinks of egotism. Though the breakdown of party discipline may have been accelerated by Brexit, it is symptomatic of something that has been brewing for a longer time. Alas, the age of self-obsession has captured Westminster.

Beyond politics, the age of self-obsession stretches back decades. While once there was pride to be found in being part of life’s backdrop, in living modest lives and serving something bigger than oneself (think of the hordes of young men signing up to fight for king and country), now we push ourselves into the foreground (think of the hordes posting selfies). Once it was crass to use “I” or “me” too frequently, now it is the conversational default. In the age of self-obsession, the greater crime is not narcissism but excessive humility: following the herd; being sheep. As that sage of solipsism Ayn Rand put it, “the word ‘We’ is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it”. Breaking out of “We”, being lauded as our own unique selves, is the imperative of our age. Humility has gradually lost ground to pushy self-obsession. I recently met a (non-famous) person who referred to their own personal “brand”, for heaven’s sake.

Little wonder, then, that these attitudes have infected politics. It used to be understood that MPs served their time in the political trenches, spending a decade or two quietly supporting their party before perhaps being entrusted with ministerial office. These days an ambitious young backbencher would find this far too dull and glacial. Who wants to be an unknown foot soldier in parliament — mere voting lobby fodder? Better to be outspoken on Twitter to make a name for yourself early on. Picture the fame-hungry among our MPs watching the endorsements of their tweets stack up, exclaiming à la the Oscar-winner Sally Field: “They like me! They really like me!” If a reality show comes calling, even better . . .

It used to be that if you had won an election under your party’s banner, the circumstances would have to be pretty extreme to vote against it. Yet in the past decade or so MPs have become far less deferential to the party line. For years, the professors Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart measured backbench dissent in the Commons. They found that, compared with 1945-2005, the years 2005-2015 were significantly more rebellious, with the coalition parliament the most rebellious in postwar history. Nowadays backbenchers going rogue hardly raises eyebrows.

Resignations used to mean something, too. For a senior parliamentarian to depart with a volley of direct fire at their own side — as Geoffrey Howe did over Europe and Robin Cook did over Iraq — was genuinely shocking. Whether you agreed with them or not, to speak out against the party they had long served took courage. Now, when Johnson, Davis, Raab and a load of junior ministers resign there’s a sense of “So what?”. We know that to wound their leader or party is not painful for them. We know they have eyes on bigger prizes, on burnishing their reputations in hope of higher office.

Indeed, what better examples of the age of self-obsession than the speeches given by Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson last week, each thinly veiled leadership bids? Raab talked of a “bright post-Brexit future”, brought about by policies such as “requiring energy firms to publish clearly the constituent parts of their standard variable tariff energy bill”. Johnson also wanted to project beyond Brexit. He believes that to bring the country together we should be “investing in great public services and safer streets, better hospitals, better transport links and better housing” — the kind of original and detailed policy prescription we have come to expect.

Yes, while the clock ticks down to March 29 — with parliament paralysed, businesses frozen by uncertainty and Britain the butt of the world’s jokes — Johnson and Raab thought this a good time to pitch for Downing Street. Never mind your party or your country; jostle, jostle for centre stage. After all, if there’s no “I” in team, what’s the point in playing for one?

This trend for going rogue augurs badly for effective government. If an administration can’t reliably march its troops through the lobbies, how will anything get done? Without discipline, effective government is impossible. As Will Storr, author of Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed, says: “The problem with individualism is that it ignores the fact that . . . we live and survive and succeed in tribes.” Governments succeed when their tribe sticks together, sometimes swallowing differences or conflicting views for the good of both party and country. Many of today’s MPs would do well to remember that.