Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Only Poland, Portugal and Greece are cheaper places to retire to than Spain, it says here. Poland is off the list for me but Portugal is increasing in its attraction. I'll be travelling there this week, checking it out, while meeting up with friends in Lisbon.
- Ten of the best Spanish wines?
- As I've said, it's the time of the Oposiciones, the civil service exams. There are reported to be almost 19,000 applicants for just over 2,000 teaching posts. For all the 'administrative' posts available this year, there are said to be 70,000 applicants. And each of these has spent an average of €1,500 on 'training' for the exams. A nice little business for the many academias around the city.
- It's not uncommon for museums and art galleries around the world to have numerous items in their basement. But do many have more than 50% of their artefacts there? I ask this because this seems to be the case in Pontevedra, following the closure of the old museum and the opening of the new glass and granite monstrosity which is the new museum and art gallery. I have wondered about this. But ,even if so, the latter is still well worth a visit.
- One of our (several) local papers has been running an 'article' on a 'British' private school. Its text is pretty indistinguishable from the paper's normal text but in the top right-hand corner there's the word Remitido. Which we can perhaps translate as Supplied in this case. I guess quite a few readers will be fooled by it, seeing it as an objective report. Which is possibly the aim . . .
- Richard North this morning: There is one thing you can guarantee about our wonderful British media. Whatever subject it addresses, it will always go for the lowest common denominator. And so, when the [Boris Johnson] comes up with an insane scheme for re-opening Brexit negotiations with the EU, the media ignores the detail and picks up on the headline-grabber, his threat to withhold the so-called "divorce bill" – when they can drag themselves away from speculating about who took what drugs. The fact that Johnson's overall plan is insane, one which would bring our relations with the EU to the point of collapse, goes without comment. This is a catastrophe in the making yet it is so far under the media horizon that you'd have to dig down to Australia to find it. Will anyone be able to believe it in 100 years' time?
- Is Germany really on the edge of recession? See the first article below.
- It's s complicated world these days, full of bear-traps. See the article below by a lesbian feminist who was attacked by a man in a skirt claiming to be a woman.
- A personal axiom I've (jokingly) cited over the years is: What is the point of power if you can't abuse it? That was pre-Fart. I recant it now.
- Trump’s war on science and reality continues. He has disbanded scientific advisory panels and reversed their recommendations on a vast range of environmental issues. It’s truly horrifying.
- Another micro canine, smaller than a cat. This time in the lap of a Portuguese visitor. Needless to say, it disturbed my peace with its yapping.
- As for 'my' sparrows, I continue to fail to find a way to give them a chance against not just the greenfinches but also 3 or 4 collared doves and a couple of fat wood-pigeons. However, the sparrows themselves might have shown me the way. They feed off the seeds which have dropped to the floor, below the feeder dominated by the greenfinches. So I will scatter some there in future. Even though this attracts rats . . .
- Said collared doves may be about to nest in the bougainvillea outside my bedroom window. In the meantime, their incessant dawn-time cooing has forced me to move into the bedroom of one of my daughters. Life is tough sometimes.
1. Germany braced for catastrophic Trump auto tariffs - which could create a perfect storm for Europe: Anna Isaac, Daily Telegraph
Germany is braced for catastrophic car tariffs that could send the country into a deep economic shock and create a perfect storm for Europe, experts have warned.
US taxes on car imports could act as a massive jolt to the bloc’s economy, wiping €14.5bn (£12.9bn) off GDP, according to analysis from investment advisers, Redburn. The firm’s economists believe a “nasty turn” in EU-US trade tensions is coming, which when combined with market nerves over Italian debt, could shake the eurozone.
If the US presses ahead with tariffs, Germany, which relies on carmaking for a fifth of its manufacturing activity, could see 0.28pc shaved from its GDP alone, Redburn claims.
A darkening world economic outlook, including a slowdown in Germany’s major export destination China, mean US tariffs could tip the country into stagnation or even recession.
The country’s government predicts its economy will grow by just 0.5pc in the year ahead, even without the imposition of import levies. This has serious repercussions for the eurozone as a whole. Germany is the bloc’s biggest economy and the source of one-third of its economic output.
Redburn predicts a broad-based rise in trade tensions between the US and EU, following research in Brussels.
November marks the deadline for the Trump administration to impose tariffs on European car exports to the US. If it presses ahead with the levies, the EU is set to retaliate.
Resolution is unlikely to come easily. The EU remains resistant to opening its market to US food standards.
Rows over the security implications of including Chinese telecoms firm Huawei in EU 5G networks, the Russian gas pipeline to Germany, Nordstream II, and digital taxes on US tech giants such as Google and Facebook, risk serious trade spat escalation between the US and EU.
It comes as tensions over Italian public finances mount between Brussels and Rome.
The country’s massive debts, worth more than 130pc of its GDP puts Italy “on track for imposed austerity either from Brussels or the market”, Clemmie Elwes of Reburn said.
Brussels has already triggered a procedure whereby it can fine the Italian government billions of pounds as punishment for overspending.
Rome will have to present its 2020 budget in the autumn, and Brussels will hope this shows a commitment to prevent public debt rising.
If it fails to do so, the European Commission is unlikely to want to push the so-called excessive debt procedure to the point where it could threaten Rome’s membership of the single currency. However, “this doesn’t mean that Italy cannot be pushed by market overreaction towards Italexit”, Ms Elwes said.
This would likely cause significant financial stress for the country raising its borrowing costs, forcing the imposition of capital controls.
Italian banks, already risking a doom loop of balance sheet stress because of their large holdings of sovereign bonds, could require emergency liquidity help from the European Central Bank (ECB), as was the case during the Greek debt crisis in 2015.
There is also little ammunition in store to counteract the downturn that could result from the dual shock of car tariffs and an Italian debt crisis,analysts found.
This is because Germany’s reluctance to spend its stimulus or enter into full risk sharing by way of closer monetary union in the eurozone is “deep-rooted”.
2. The man in a skirt called me a Nazi — then attacked me: Julie Bindel
One radical feminist can handle verbal criticism of her stance on trans issues. A brush with a violent activist last week was another matter
On Tuesday, having given a talk at Edinburgh University about male violence towards women and girls, I was attacked on my way to the taxi that was taking me to the airport. A man, wearing a long skirt and with lots of dark stubble, started screaming and shouting at me, calling me a Nazi and Terf scum (an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”).
I recognised the man from an earlier protest. A group of about 50 people, many young “woke” students with the requisite orange or blue fringes and a couple of trans women, had been holding signs with slogans such as “No Terfs on our turf” and chanting “Die cis scum” (a “cisgender” person is one who is not transgender).
The event, which the protesters had tried hard to get cancelled, was on women’s sex-based rights. In light of previous proposals by the government to allow a person to change their gender based on their own self-definition, some institutions and even local authorities have already put the policy in place despite it not yet being law.
As a result, male-bodied trans women have ended up in women’s prisons, hospitals and sports teams. Men self-identifying as women are now allowed into many women’s changing rooms. The ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath, in north London, which for almost a century had provided a haven for female swimmers (there is also a men-only pond and a mixed pond nearby) now admits trans women despite the fact that most of them retain their penises.
The university event went extremely well, despite a group of trans activists attempting to set off stink bombs in the hall. The organisers had endured threats, bullying and intimidation since it was advertised, mainly because I had been invited. (In 2004 I wrote a column in which I railed against a trans activist who had tried to get a rape crisis centre in Canada closed down because it would not accept him as a volunteer.) A number of academic staff joined in with the students, claiming my presence on campus would cause “literal harm” to trans people and that I spout “hate speech”.
I was the final speaker, focusing on the amazing feminist activists I have met in countries around the world who are countering male violence such as prostitution, rape, sexual assault and forced marriage. My speech went down well and as I left the hall I received a standing ovation.
I went outside to wait for my taxi, followed by the security staff. As I was saying my goodbyes a man, who had clearly been waiting around the corner for me to emerge, ran up and began screaming in my face, calling me “scum”, “Terf” and “bigot”. He lunged at me and was a split-second away from thumping me full in the face when three security guards pulled him away. I took out my phone to try to record the attack. As I did this, the attacker lunged at me again and had to be restrained.
How have we arrived at this shocking state of affairs, where feminist campaigners are called “Nazi scum” and are no-platformed — denied a forum — for speaking out on behalf of marginalised and abused women?
I have been labelled a bigot, a Nazi and a transphobe since I wrote that column in 2004. It matters not that I have since apologised for some of the language I had used, because unless feminists totally capitulate and adopt the Stonewall mantra of “trans women are women”, we are labelled “transphobic bigots”. My view on transsexuality is that trans women are trans women, as distinct from natal females. It is impossible to change sex, it is only possible to live as the opposite sex.
I have experienced abuse for my views these past 15 years for the simple reason that I refuse to accept the Orwellian concept that it is possible for a man simply to declare he is now “a woman” because he “feels like a woman”. The attack has left me feeling anxious and depressed. By coincidence, I had ended my speech by railing against the way women, rather than the perpetrators, are often blamed when we are raped or suffer domestic violence.
I have been beaten up, but not for a long time. Being a lesbian and a radical feminist brings with it certain dangers because there are some serious misogynists out there. But the transgender activists and their allies, a mix of woke bearded blokes and queer-identified female students, argue that they are on the “right side of history” because they are “calling out” transphobic feminists and are defending trans people.
The men who join in the abuse and vilification of feminists are little more than misogynists but now have permission to scream insults in our faces and still be seen as progressive. Until the liberals who defend this behaviour see it for what it really is, feminists will continue to be silenced and abused.
The vast majority of transsexual people, many of whom I count as allies and friends, detest this behaviour. We all should.
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