Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- An interesting development up here in Galicia. For some at least. But not something I'll be rushing to visit.
- Here's Lenox Napier on the current travails of the leader of the' centrist'[???] Ciudadanos party.
- Talking politics . . . A sample of Vox philosophy:-
- Something I didn't know about the Infanta Isabella:-
Sadly, Wikipedia claims this is a myth.
- Very good news on the Spanish mortgage front. Though not if you're a bank.
Those EU Appointments
- Not everyone is impressed by the appointment of Ms Lagarde as the head of the ECB. See the comments on her below.
- M Macron seems to have done well . . Emmanuel Macron was the victor once the smoke of 27 hours of intense summit negotiations cleared in Brussels to reveal the nominations for the EU’s most influential posts for the next five years. . . . The disruptive French president played his cards skillfully in the poker game of the EU’s top jobs. . . But the victory came with a cost, with the losers from the brutal power-broking left bruised and resentful and the EU’s first tentative steps towards reducing its democratic deficit in ruins. . . This was a brutal reassertion of the ‘Old Europe’, with France and Germany calling the shots as backroom deals were stitched up behind closed doors. . . To get his deal through, Mr Macron destroyed the EU’s brief experiment with democratising the European Commission.
- A propos . . . The EU is a sham democracy, and its pitiful new leaders are the proof: See the second article below, the (Brexiteer) author of which might well be suffering from confirmation bias. On the other hand, he might be right. The best cure for Europhilia is always to observe the EU’s big beasts at their unguarded worst, wheeling and dealing in their natural habitat, unencumbered by any attachment to democracy, accountability or even basic morality. Strong stuff.
- The operators of the video-sharing app TikTok have apologised after children said they felt pressured into sending money to their favourite vloggers. TikTok, a Chinese app popular with children and teenagers, is already under investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office over fears about paedophiles targeting users.
The Way of the World
- A UK TV ad for a company providing cooked meals: This is food freedom - To be too busy to cook. Some freedom!
Spanish
- Word of the Day: Alianza
- From a local menu:-
- Arroz caldoso - 'Brothy rice'. Nice.
- Zamburiñas - 'Bay scallops'. Not sure this is right. Zamburiñas are usually translated, I think, as variegated scallops and are smaller than bay scallops.
Finally . . .
- One traveler at least thinks that Peru is the friendliest nation on earth . . . Nearing the end of a five-week trip in Peru I was coming to the conclusion that Peruvians might just be the most genuinely pleasant people in Latin America – perhaps anywhere. It wasn’t only the positive vibes emanating from the cow-themed love-in. While panting and gasping my way around the Cordillera Blanca, the support staff – herders, porters, cooks, guides – were, without exception, kind, thoughtful and caring.
- This week saw the death of the very estimable Christopher Booker, eulogised here by Richard North.
THE ARTICLES
1. Comments on Ms Lagarde's appointment: Matthew Lynn, the Daily Telegraph.
- Putting Christine Lagarde in charge of the ECB will lead the eurozone into catastrophe
- The nominee for European Central Bank President is too inflexible, has a dreadful track record and knows nothing about monetary policy. Some of the biggest budget deficits ever recorded. The deepest recession since anyone started gathering statistics. A conviction for negligence. It is hard to imagine what exactly it might be that would disqualify somebody from being made President of the European Central Bank anymore. After all, those are the major achievements of Christine Lagarde’s time in public office and yet she has just been elevated to what may well prove the most pivotal role in the global economy over the next decade. . . .
- Lagarde will lead the eurozone into catastrophe. Mario Draghi, the Italian she will succeed, was a brilliant economist who through his mastery of the inner workings of the financial markets just about managed to keep a dysfunctional single currency afloat. Lagarde is a lawyer who is great at making alliances and brokering compromises but who knows nothing about monetary policy, and whose rigid application of the rules, and commitment to the reigning orthodoxy, may well finally crash the euro.
- The ECB controls monetary policy for the entire continent, and determines the fate of its economy. For that, Lagarde is a terrible choice. Her record is abysmal, and she has so far shown none of the flexibility that will certainly be needed in the next few years.
- Without Mario Draghi's brilliance the eurozone would have lost at least a couple of members by now and might not have survived at all. Lagarde is not in the same league. While she glides from senior job to senior job with consummate ease, and without the unseemly bother of ever having to confront an actual voter, her achievements are, to put it mildly, a little hard to work out.
2. The EU is a sham democracy, and its pitiful new leaders are the proof: Allister Heath, the Daily Telegraph.
The spectacle of the past few days has shown the EU’s big beasts at their unguarded worst
Thank you, Eurocrats, for being yourselves. The best cure for Europhilia is always to observe the EU’s big beasts at their unguarded worst, wheeling and dealing in their natural habitat, unencumbered by any attachment to democracy, accountability or even basic morality.
The spectacle of the past few days made for compulsive watching: we witnessed rare footage of the secretive process that propels so many retreads and second-rate apparatchiks into positions of immense power in Brussels and Frankfurt, utterly disregarding public opinion.
Peeking into Europe’s dystopia was certainly the right medicine for pre-Brexit Britain, guaranteed to convert erstwhile moderates into raging Brexiteers as they looked on, aghast, at the shocking disconnect between elites and people.
Everything that is wrong with the EU was shamelessly on display: a Franco-German stitch-up; smaller countries being bulldozed, especially Eastern Europeans; a constitutional coup which sidelined the (useless) European Parliament; the fact that so many of the new generation of EU leaders have had brushes with the law that would have terminated their careers in the US or UK; their explicit commitment to a “United States of Europe” and a “European army” (about which we keep being lied to); and the singing of a national anthem we were promised wouldn’t exist when the European constitution was voted down.
For the past three years, the debate in Britain has missed the point: Brexiteers argue that we must leave because we voted to do so, rather than because the EU is bad; Remainers that we musn’t leave because it’s too risky, rather than because the EU is good. But we’ve forgotten what unites 65 per cent of the public, including many Remainers: a profound dislike of the EU as it actually is, of its preposterous schemes, its authoritarian nature, its commitment to harmonising and centralising everything.
At times like these, it is obvious that there is no – and can be no – European democracy. For that you would need a genuine demos – a people – and to give them real power – kratos, in Greek. But almost nobody feels primarily European, and the average Sicilian has little in common with a random Finn. There is a such a thing as a metaphysical, abstract Europe; but in practice, no workable common European nation. While the EU apes some of the rituals of democracy, they are a sinister sham, and will always be. The EU is a technocratic empire, and can be nothing else. We must either give up on centuries of democratic, inclusive political progress, or leave.
In any case, as imperial ruling classes go, Europe’s is pathetic. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president-designate, herself the daughter of a Eurocrat, has wasted many depressing years as German’s defence minister, presiding over a decrepit and underfunded Bundeswehr. A devastating parliamentary report earlier this year exposed planes that can’t fly and guns that don’t shoot. Fewer than a fifth of its helicopters are combat ready.
It is almost impossible to find anybody in Germany who has a good word to say about von der Leyen, her appointment a clear case of rewards for failure. “Our weakest minister”, one said. It gets worse: a parliamentary committee has launched an inquiry into a spending scandal in her department, relating to massive contracts awarded to consultants. But she supports a United States of Europe and an EU army, so what other qualifications are required?
Josep Borrell’s woes are equally recent, and haven’t prevented his nomination as foreign policy chief. Less than a year ago, as Socialist foreign minister in Spain, he was fined €30,000 (£26,900) for insider trading. The regulator ruled he had engaged in “a very serious violation” of securities law when he sold shares in Abengoa in 2015, “having privileged information on this company”. As champagne socialism goes, this takes some beating and he refused calls to resign. He also supports the disgusting clampdown on Catalonia, has made trouble over Gibraltar and agreed to set up a joint cybersecurity group with Russia last November – a move that won’t end well. Last but not least, he will be worse than useless on Iran: in an interview with Politico, he said: “Iran wants to wipe out Israel. Nothing new with that. You have to live with it.” His appointment will prove catastrophic.
As for Christine Lagarde, the new European Central Bank head, she is neither an economist nor a banker but a competition lawyer. Let’s hope that the era of boom and bust has miraculously come to an end, or else the euro could be in trouble. Having served (and messed up) as head of the IMF, a political position, is no substitute for hands-on understanding of financial markets and economics. She was a full participant in the Project Fear anti-Brexit propaganda.
Worse, she too has been embroiled in scandal. She was caught in a row involving Bernard Tapie, a controversial businessman and politician who served time for fraud. While France’s finance minister, she agreed to an arbitration panel to determine a dispute involving the tycoon which led to him being awarded a huge payout, since reversed. Investigators claimed that she approved the scheme because Tapie backed Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign: this, they alleged, was a way of thanking him with taxpayers’ money. She denied the allegations, which could have landed her with a one-year jail term. She was found guilty of “negligence” but, astonishingly, the Cour de Justice de la République waived any punishment or criminal record, citing her “international reputation” and role in dealing with “the international financial crisis” as IMF boss.
Who should govern us? Is it von der Leyen, Borrell and the others, none of whom any of us were asked to choose or are able to sack? Is it a group of apparatchiks with dubious pasts and almost no name recognition outside their own countries, operating in opaque, top-down bureaucracies? Or is it well-known, heavily scrutinised UK politicians, who can now be recalled if they engage in wrongdoing?
Brexiting won’t be easy: the EU’s latest leaders are hard-core federalists, and won’t cut us any favours. But leave we must, and as soon as possible.
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