Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Invaluable advice - despite the nation-wide rain of all this week - on how to have an outdoors BBQ in Spain.
- Santiago de Compostela hosted 14,000 'pilgrims' between the 12th and 14th of April, an increase of 61% on 2018 . . .
- We now have a Moroccan tapas bar here in Pontevedra city - El Dükela. If you go to TripAdvisor there's just one review, saying that the place is appallingly bad. But if you go to Google, there are 13 very positive reviews. Coincidentally, yesterday I read of web pages which will (attempt to) tell you which reviews are genuine and which are not. Must give it a try.
- Pontevedra is about to host a huge international athletics event and the council has gone to the lengths of producing an impressively long and detailed supplement for the local press, plus of course an internet version. Not only that . . . It's all translated into English. And I was delighted to see that this had been given the once-over by a native speaker. Not. Just joshing. I would write (again) to the mayor, offering my services for free. But I know my letter would be ignored. Go figure, as our American cousins say.
- So, which is the noisiest city in this extremely noisy country? Well, it's not Madrid. Would you believe it's Vigo, up here in Galicia? But, truth to tell, if you read the report, Vigo turns out to be the Spanish city whose residents most complain about the noise. Which isn't really the same thing.
- Richard North today: To my weary mind, there only looks to be one possible outcome. On 31 October, we will be leaving the EU in a humiliating and largely unwanted no-deal Brexit, simply because our establishment is incapable of preventing it. . . The trouble is there is just as easily a possibility that Mrs May presses the revoke button or, in this mad world, we could even have the EU, against all the odds, giving us another extension. There is no way of telling. And this means that we are most certainly doomed to 6 months of unremitting tedium. Hey ho.
- A caustic but not very surprising - nor inaccurate - view of one commentator on the political scene: In 3 decades of studying political public opinion, I can’t recall a time when voters were more despairing about politics. . . The Brexit process has shone a light on something far more unsettling: the sheer incompetence of our elected representatives whose apparent instinct to put party before nation has shocked even the most cynical voter. . . 84% are “not impressed” with either party’s performance, or that of their leaders. See the full article below.
- And another:-
o None of this was supposed to happen. After 52% of the country voted for Brexit, Britain was supposed to put populism back in the box. The mainstream Conservative government was supposed to devise a competent negotiation strategy, trigger Article 50, lead Britain out of the EU and then go back to the country with the offer of a radical new settlement that would address the other drivers of Brexit, from reforming immigration to tackling regional inequality, from devolving more powers to the regions, to doing more for left behind and left out Britain. . . Except, as we now know, none of that happened.
o Britain used to be known around the globe for being immune to populism. Britain was the quintessential ‘civic culture’; its people were sceptical of their politicians but were deferential to authority; and they trusted their institutions and those who had been elected to represent them. But now all that has changed. Instead of diluting populism, somehow Mrs May and the Conservative Party have found a way of putting it back on steroids.
o Britain might have once been known for being immune to populism but from hereon it will be known as a textbook case in how not to manage populism.
Europe/The EU
- Does it really make sense to talk about ‘European values’? See the second article below.
- Fart is making a state visit to the UK in June. It'll surely be an interesting spectacle. Here's one cartoon on the subject:-
- The tech companies are struggling to impose control on the influential global platforms they have built: their attempts to police the toxic content flooding their sites are plodding and inadequate. Just as damaging is their inability — or unwillingness — to strike a workable balance between free speech and harmful content. . . . The failings of the tech giants are helping to usher in a new age of censorship by making it easier for governments everywhere to justify shutting down access to the internet.
- Word of the Day: Arena
- A friend of mine was telling me yesterday of her problems in finding the perfect partner. Or at the very least an acceptable one. And then she suggested that, if neither of us had achieved this in 5 years, we should get married. So, I guess I'm engaged. Sort of. Passively. But congrats are not in order.
1. In 30 years of research I've never seen the public so despondent about politics: Deborah Mattinson, founding partner at the research and strategy consultancy BritainThinks. Daily Telegraph.
In three decades of studying political public opinion, I can’t recall a time when voters were more despairing about politics - and that includes the fall out from the Telegraph's incredible MPs’ expenses scoop back in 2009. The expenses scandal, shocking though it was, merely confirmed what the public thought they knew already, that some - by no means all, but certainly far too many - politicians had their fingers in the till.
The Brexit process has shone a light on something far more unsettling: the sheer incompetence of our elected representatives whose apparent instinct to put party before nation has shocked even the most cynical voter. BritainThinks has been running the “Brexit Diaries” project ever since Article 50 was triggered two years ago. Our latest wave of research into public opinion over Brexit revealed a dramatic downturn in mood. Asked to describe the Brexit process, “broken” is the word the public most often chooses while 83 per cent blame the “entire political class” for the mess.
All the major players’ reputations have been trashed: not only the EU and UK parliaments but also teams Tory and Labour. Eighty-four per cent are “not impressed” with either party’s performance, or that of their leaders.
Voters feel pity for Theresa May combined with exasperation at her dogged perseverance. Jeremy Corbyn, once insulated from the Brexit taint, is thought even more likely than Theresa May to put his party, and even his own career, before the national interest.
People also have Brexit fatigue. Eighty-three per cent now say they are fed up with it dominating the news. There have been vociferous complaints made in focus groups about the important issues that are being ignored: crime, NHS, schools, housing, while Westminster relives its Brexit Groundhog Day.
Even Leave voters, so optimistic two years ago, with talk of “independence”, “choice” and “freedom” are now plunged into the same gloom. In focus groups three weeks ago they railed against “chaos”, “mess’ and “lies”. This is not a trivial matter. An astonishing 64 per cent (rising to 70 per cent amongst women) believe that Brexit is bad for our mental health.
This is clearly not the ideal backdrop to running an election – especially a European election – but that is where we seem to have ended up. As the campaigns get underway and parties scurry to select candidates, the biggest story has been the Brexit Party, catapulting from launch to lead position, polling between 23 and 27 per cent in the first published polls.
While Remain voters are spread thinly across a number of party options, the Brexit Party has managed to attract an impressive 50 per cent of 2016 leavers. It has also pulled in 42 per cent of disaffected 2017 Tories and eight per cent of Labour leavers.
The appeal is straightforward: a simple “does what it says on the tin” offer. The profile of those drawn to it mirrors the core leave demographic: male, older, more working class and from anywhere but London. Farage himself is at once the new party’s strength and its weakness.
Better known than most front line politicians – a YouGov poll last year had him as the “most famous” with 96 per cent awareness – he knows his audience well and has successfully positioned himself as their champion, articulating grievances that other politicians seem to ignore. His positive ratings at 24 per cent place him favourably but it is also worth noting that his negative ratings – 56 per cent have a negative view – demonstrate a ceiling to his appeal that may make electoral success harder to predict.
Many pollsters and commentators were wrongfooted in 2016, underestimating the degree to which leavers, especially those who were not regular voters, would turn out. Assuming next month’s European elections go ahead, turnout will again be crucial. We can already see how polls using different turnout weighting are producing very different results. Predicting elections is a fool’s errand at the best of times, but this one is particularly hard to call.
However, what I can predict is that, whatever the result, the agonising Brexit trauma that has all but destroyed voters’ faith in the political establishment will be with us for some time to come.
2. EU’s two-faced ‘values’: Does it really make sense to talk about ‘European values’?, Hans Kundnani, senior research fellow at Chatham House.
Proponents of the European project like to talk about a core set of “European values” for which it stands.
At a time when the European Union is threatened from within and without, the idea is particularly tempting. It lifts the EU from an entity that simply pursues its own interests — like any other state or group of states — and makes it a “normative power” that can credibly be said to be making the world a better place.
It does not seem to even occur to people who talk about “European values” that the idea is somewhat Huntingtonian. It suggests that international politics is a “clash of civilizations” in which the fault lines are cultural.
But do “European values” even exist in any meaningful sense? They would have to be values that on the one hand unite Europeans and at the same time are distinct from the values held by people from other parts of the world.
There are some rather abstract universal values that are broadly shared around the world. There may even be such a thing as “Western values” (though of course that is also a civilizational idea). But as soon as you try to be more precise and identify distinctively “European” values, differences within Europe — that is, between Europeans — become as apparent as the differences between Europe and the rest of the world.
When people talk about “European values,” they usually conflate two things — first, a set of values that Europeans are claimed collectively to believe in, and second, a set of values that are embodied by the institutional structures and policies of the EU — the values of the EU. It is far from obvious that the two go together.
Europeans may collectively believe in democracy, for example. But aside from the obvious point that they are not the only ones, it is difficult to claim that democracy is a specifically “European” value given that one of the main criticisms of the EU is that it is undemocratic.
In order for the idea of “European values” to be meaningful, Europeans must surely also in some way be collectively committed to them in a way that goes beyond mere rhetoric. In other words, Europeans must live by these values rather than simply proclaim them.
The EU’s founding treaty claims it “is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.” But the bloc is pretty inconsistent in the way it promotes these values beyond its external borders.
To be sure, the EU promoted democracy, human rights and the rule of the law in its neighborhood as it enlarged. But is the EU promoting democracy and upholding human dignity when it strikes deals with authoritarian regimes and sends refugees back to unsafe countries or allows them to die in the Mediterranean Sea?
The value that can most plausibly be claimed to be “European” is the rule of law. After all, the EU is nothing but a set of rules — and creating rules is what the EU does. And yet this, too, is problematic.
Beyond its usual rhetoric, the EU is doing very little to try to uphold the international rule of law outside its borders. In one of the main threats to the international rule of law — China’s acquisition and consolidation of islands in the East and South China Seas — the EU talks about “principled neutrality” but is largely absent in practice. France has long urged the EU to carry out freedom of navigation operations — to walk the walk, in other words — but has received almost no support. Meanwhile the United Kingdom, which is in the process of leaving the EU, and the United States are actually taking action to uphold the rule of law in Asia.
Brussels has invoked the idea of “European values” to justify taking tough action against Poland and Hungary for violations of the domestic rule of law. The problem is that the EU previously used the same rhetoric to enforce the eurozone’s fiscal rules and mandatory quotas for refugees and thus discredited it.
It turns out that the EU’s insistence on rules is not a European idea, but really a German one. And that is actually a big part of the EU’s internal problems.
Many of the conflicts within the EU are about resistance to rules seen as being imposed by Berlin and as undermining a member country’s sovereignty. This became obvious during the euro crisis, which can plausibly be seen as a battle between a German approach based on rules and a French and broadly Southern European approach based on discretion.
In practice, even the rule of law turns out to divide Europeans as much as it unites them. It may be a value in which a lot of “pro-Europeans” believe, but that doesn’t quite make it a distinctive “European value” — and like other “European values,” it doesn’t necessarily mean all Europeans support it.
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