Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'
NOTE: For about 18 years, I've had a page on Galicia and Pontevedra at www.colindavies.net but I haven't revised it or added to it for several years and it's now defunct. I've got a new site - www.thoughtsfromgalicia.com - where I'll be adding stuff as and when I can, And when I've worked out exactly how Wordpress works. If you go there now, you'll find a work-in-progress. And also this blog in exactly the same format as here. Except it automatically give more detailD of cited sites which use Wordpress.
Covid
The UK: A Year of Fear. Has the government achieved widespread conformity with restrictions on liberty through the unethical use of covert psychological strategies — “nudges” — in their messaging campaign? . . . The covert psychological strategies incorporated into the state’s coronavirus information campaign have achieved their aims of inducing a majority of the population to obey the draconian public health restrictions and accept vaccination. The nature of the tactics deployed — with their subconscious modes of action and the emotional discomfort generated — do, however, raise some pressing concerns about the legitimacy of using these kinds of psychological techniques for this purpose. The government, and its expert advisors, are operating in morally murky waters. Click here for more on this
Personally, I'm getting tired of people telling me - in the open air even - that my mask has slipped a fraction below the tip of my nose.
Cosas de España/Galiza
A reader has has reminded me that Spain's birth rate is so low as to be insufficient to even maintain the population, never mind increase it. Thus, he/she/ze writes in respect of the 7m increase in population since 2000: All 7m are foreigners. [The alleged Spanish births of 1.5m] are the children of those migrants who've already acquired a Spanish passport. Had it not been for immigration, Spain's population would now be lower by at least a million, at 39 million or so.
Guy Hedgecoe is an estimable British journalist, writing from near Madrid on Matters Spanish. He sort of went off my radar after the demise of the Spanish news website Iberosphere but I’ve been catching up via his blog page. Here are posts on subjects I cover from time to time, albeit more briefly . . .
https://guyhedgecoe.com
May 2017: Corruption: Why so much here?
July 2018: The effusive Mr Rhodes
Feb 2019: The Real Spain. A personal view
April: 2019: The Editor. Ex, that is. Of El Mundo.
Feb 2018: The Spanish 'Brother-in-Law' Part 1
June 2019: The Brother-in-Law Part 2
Jan 2020: The dreadful facheleco garment
April 2020: The blame game Appalling Spanish politics
Oct 2020: After the second wave, how about a second Transition? The need for constitutional reform.
Jan 2021: A Resolution
María's Level Ground: Days 4 & 5. Also on 'political slime'
The EU
For those interested . . . At the end of this post, there's a list of EU benefits provided by reader sp but drawn up by someone else. Below that are my comments on it.
The Way of the World
Novelist Philip Roth was right about our online witch-hunts as he foresaw the modern mania for denouncing anyone who doesn’t conform to the new puritanism. As we moved away from censorship - he said - we gravitated towards censoriousness. A nice line. Click here for more on this.
Spanish
Less informative but more amusing . . .
Finally . . . En Cataluña fue detenido un emigrante gallego que circulaba en dirección contraria y con un cadáver en el asiento.
THE BENEFITS OF THE EU TO THE UK
What has the EU ever done for us?
Shock horror - EU membership costs £9 billion a year. But that's 34p per person per day (1% of Government budget) and in return we get a mind-blowing amount of goodness back:-
- Longest unbroken period of peace between European nations in history
- Free trade deals with over 70 countries
- Just in time manufacturing that supports millions of jobs, thanks to no customs checks or complex procedures
- Scientific and academic collaboration
- Support for the Good Friday Agreement & active promotion of the Irish peace process
- Shared space exploration
- Participation in the Galileo GPS satellite cluster
- Driving licenses valid all over the EU
- Car insurance valid all over the EU
- Pet passports to make travel with pets simple
- Simplified fixed compensation scheme for flight delays & cancellations
- European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
- Mobile roaming (calls, texts and data) at home prices
- Portable streaming services (can watch Netflix etc. all over the EU)
- Erasmus student exchange programme
- Simplified VAT reverse charge mechanism for those selling across the EU
- Safer food
- Clean beaches
- Enhanced consumer protection, including for cross-border shopping
- Horizon 2020 (funding and assistance for over 10,000 collaborative research projects in the UK as part of the world's largest multinational research programme.)
- Courses for the unemployed funded by the European Social Fund
- Disaster relief funding e.g. the 60 million euro we received for flood relief in 2017
- Free movement for musicians and their instruments, bands and their equipment, artists and their materials etc.
- Enhanced environmental protections
- Court of last resort (ECJ)
- REACH regulations & EU Chemicals Agency, improving human, animal and environmental safety around chemicals
- Pan-EU medicine testing and licensing
- Security cooperation and sharing of crime/terrorist databases
- European arrest warrant
- EURATOM for medical isotopes
- Support for rural areas
- Better food labelling
- EU funding for the British film industry, theatre and music
- European Capital of Culture programme, which has boosted cities such as Glasgow and Liverpool
- Service providers (e.g. freelance translators) can offer their services to clients all over the EU
- No UK VAT or duty on imports from the EU (great for online shopping)
- EU citizenship (it's a thing - look it up!)
- Cross-border collaboration on taxes, e.g. to hold huge firms like Amazon and Facebook to account more than we otherwise could
- Venture capital funding
- Legal protection for minority languages such as Welsh
- Mutual recognition of academic qualifications
- No credit and debit card surcharges
- EU structural funding (over £2 billion to Liverpool alone) with matched private funding requirement
- Supporting and encouraging democracy in post-communist countries
- A bigger presence on the world stage as a key part of the largest trade block in the world
- Use of EU queues at ports and airports
- Products made or grown in the UK can be sold in 31 countries without type approval, customs duties, phytosanitary certificates etc.
- Protection from GM food and chlorinated chicken
- Objective 1 funding for deprived areas and regions
- Financial services passport, enabling firms in the City to service the whole EU market
- Strong intellectual property protections
- Mutual recognition of professional qualifications
- Consular protection from any EU embassy outside the EU
- Minimum baseline of worker protections (which we can always improve on)
- Enhanced medical research prospects
- A friend to cosy up to against the might of the USA and China
After all that, do you *really* still begrudge 34p per day? If so, what's wrong with you?
MY COMMENTS
One overview I have is that the author is too young to have known what things were like pre-1973 and seems to assume that nothing can be done in cooperation with Europe unless one is a member of the EU.
Putting that aside, another general comment is that it would be instructive for the author - or sp - to divide the list into Essentials and Nice to Have, something done in business, to determine priorities and to provide perspective.
As to specifics . . . I've said before that I don't subscribe to the major argument that the EU has saved Europe from war. Possibly one in which a (yet again) resurgent Germany invaded Belgium and tried to get back Alsace and Lorraine. Not to mention Prussia. It may well be, as sp says, that the founders of the EU forerunners had this as a motivation and aim - who the hell could blame them so soon after WW2? - but this is not a persuasive argument for events since then. Not for me, anyway. As the Romans put it - Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
A second way to divide the list would be:-
1. Those things lost to the UK which would have been retained if the UK had gone for an EFTA/ EEA model.
2. Those things lost to the UK which would have been retained if the UK had gone for Richard North's Flexcit, involving a gradual - and cooperative - exit over several years.
3. Those things lost to the UK because of Johnson's very poor and dishonest Brexit deal. These, of course, cover everything in the list above.
The purpose of this would to be show - admittedly academically - that it's not Brexit per se which has led to the current situation but the dreadful deal struck by the UK and the EU. It didn't really need to be this way.
The bottom line is that, with a bad deal done, no one really knows whether or not it'll prove beneficial to the UK in the longer run, whatever the near term hit on the economy (and my pension) turns out to be. As it is, Covid had considerably clouded the issue in the very near term, meaning that Boris Johnson is very much more lucky than competent. And that's something which surely must change. Possibly even before the next general election.
But, yes, some things have certainly been lost. For example the life enjoyed by Brits who lived here in Spain below the horizon and didn't seek residence and pay their Spanish taxes. As I've said, I find it difficult to feel sympathy for these folk. Likewise those who didn't live here for more than 60 days and rented out their property - tax-free - for much/most of the year. They've lost what they were never entitled to, it might be said. And they should have seen it coming and put their affairs in order before the deadline.
15 comments:
On nice to have vs essentials: There are items on that list which have made my entire adult life possible - without them I would never have bothered learning several languages, without the languages my cv would not have risen to the top of the pile, I'd never have been able to live and work in France and Spain, never have met girlfriends and my wife...
(Sidenote: it was the Conservative Party that encouraged people like me to take full advantage of European integration. I feel doubly affronted by this game of bait and switch.)
Those essentials for me are irrelevant to a lot of people, but perhaps they are bemoaning the loss of pet passports or shellfish exports.
That's the way it works. There's something for everyone, and now it's ALL gone because some people didn't like some things on the list and did insufficient research on how the others would come back and bite them.
Yes, practically everything could have been retained by going for a Norway solution, but do you really think Farage etc. would have shut up when the UK became a rule taker? It's just wishful thinking that a "soft" Brexit would have been a stable outcome. Norway can live with it because it is too small to have delusions of grandeur. The UK would forever be wailing about handing over cash and having no say.
If you don't like some aspect of the EU, you stay in and try to change it. Despite what the Brexiters say, this is what the UK did for 45 years, and in virtually every area it was a successful strategy. The UK is now discovering what it's like when no one cares what you think.
I am old enough to remember Europe before 1973. Before the EEC/EU things would have been very different for most Europeans (excluding Britain perhaps). Britain had been an empire very recently before that. Of course, there had been many opportuniites for travel for Britons - all over the world. And for many life was wonderful when they were allowed to lord it over hundreds of millions of Indians, Africans, Chinese and what not. The opportunities granted by the EU must have seem, in comparisson, underwhelming to some. Particularlyto the many in the Tory party, whose ancestors often were public school educated officers, civil servants and other professionals, who held grand "positions" overseas.
But one aspect stands out for me above all other. One that very few people, almost nobody, will agree upon with me here in the UK. Britain entered the EEC/EU in the mid-seventies, and bar a few hicups here and there - mainly at the beginnig -
it was upwards all the way. Nowadays most people would say it was Thatcher who did it. I remember the seventies- the winter of discontent and all that - but I'll wager she actually destroyed as much as she created. Were it not for Britain's access to EEC/EU markets and the flush of investment from the EU and from outside the EU (USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Arab countries and later China) the "bigbang" would not have succeeded. Thatcher's reforms would have failed miserably. North see oil also helped, by the way. And now? We will see. I am convinced the price the UK will have to pay will be much too high. And all the talk about sovereignity and parliamnent and all the other blah, blah, blah means zilch, honestly. The thing that really matters to most Britons is the money in their pocket. And there is going to be less of that, a lot less.
Over a period of several weeks I have been asked three times if I want the vaccine and each time I have said no. My doctor asked me twice and the third call was from the clinic. By the way I am 83 years of age. The covid-19 virus is not a virus that has come directly from an animal but via another party that has interfered with it. Also the so called vaccine is not a true vaccine of the virus but a man made look alike. You are free to take or reject it at the moment. In the future there will be some sort of identification that one will have to carry to show that one has been vaccinated to be able to travel, enter a shop, use public transport or whatever and those who can't show the proof will not be allowed to participate. I have made my choice and no matter the pressure I am not going to have the vaccine. I am willing to wear a small bell and sign to warn the general public that I am unclean, if I am allowed out on street of course.
Brexit - Unfortunately the Brits are a bunch of sanctimonious fools who insist on playing by the rules and expect all others to do so as well.
If the Brits had played the European Game as the other European players had, all would have been great.
Like the Greeks we should have lied through our teeth about our accounts when joining the block etc, etc, etc.
Brits, like the classroom snitch who grasses on all the other kids for cheating on their exams, ends up with no friends or allies.
Very sad, and we will pay heavily for this enormous mistake of leaving the EU.
The best hand of cards doesn't win at poker. And a winning poker player, plays
his opponents hand not his own.
@Anonymous. Sure......Britain......the most corrupt country in the world according to Roberto Saviano.....remember the holiday insurance scam in Spain a few years ago? Why wasn't anybody surprised it was Britons who were involved? Honest Britons? Give me a break.....
The Costa del Sol sheltered major British criminals for decades. As for the British insurance scammes, absolutely no one in the world thinks there are no crooks in the UK. Saviano might be right but I doubt it. The competition is v tough.
And I think you might have enlarged RS's claim:
Roberto Saviano: ‘London is the most corrupt city in the world’
Ironically, it seems he said it was being in the EU that allowed this to happen.
Rin co " Strong Earring "
@CD I myself certainly do not think Britain is the most corrupt country in the world. Britain is one of the least corrupt countries in the world. But you know, and I know what Saviano is trying to imply - he himself did qualify his comment at a later stage. My flippant answer was directed at Anonymous' sarcastic comment. I have a dislike for the often repeated view - prevalent amongst brexiteers - that Britain is this squeaky clean holier-than-thou victim of European decadence and deceiptfulness. A convenient myth and deeply unfair.
Thanks,
"I have a dislike for the often repeated view - prevalent amongst brexiteers - that Britain is this squeaky clean holier-than-thou victim of European decadence and deceiptfulness"
So would I, if I'd ever heard it. . . . Where is it often repeated/implied, I wonder? The Daily Express?
The comment about the UK's fidelity to rules was exaggerated but has a kernel of truth. I will cite an example tomorrow.
@paideleo: It took me a minute to work out that Rin co was 'l laughed at' . . . . .Tho' Google back translates that as only Rinme. And only gives me Rin co if I put in 'I laughed with', which is not correct English . . .Actually, no. It gives me Rin con.
@Spain. Well, I am, of course. pleased for you that the EU has been so beneficial for you but I suspect I could find at least one young person in Southern Europe who feels that the EU and its flagship policies - the euro, austerity and 'internal devaluation - have blighted his life.
Of course there are bad things about the EU. Austerity and the inflation created by the Euro are some of the worst. But others, properly done, such as freedom of movement, work, and trade, are actually beneficial. I repeat, if properly done, which they haven't been, always.
I downloaded that photo onto my phone and showed it to the first student yesterday. Use the dictionary and your head, kids! Google translator is not a god!
@Maria. It pains me to see people continue accusing the EU of things of which it was nor the root cause nor the main actor. The financial crisis of ten years ago had its epicentre in Wall Street and the City of London. The EU was the victim. The financiers, bankers, fund managers and other thieves were allowed to come out scotch free of the whole affair, and are still in command. I happen to think the EU did what it did in order to save the euro and the EU. In the UK many believe this is a bad idea and so they had brexit. And the media, here in the UK, continues to spread their version of events and intoxicate the atmosphere with a profusion of lies. Many believe them. I don't.
So, you exculpate German and French banks from responsibility for the loans which fuelled the Spanish phoney boom and gloss over the poor Spanish banking system, which was far from the stable and solid creature Zapatero claimed it to be?
But I don't disagree about the guilty escaping punishment. But they weren't only in NY and London.
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