At the End of the Day

Practically every Western State of any eminence is currently suffering from politics that are divisive – rather than just showing where the division lines are. All of them are run by a political Establishment that hasn’t renewed itself for decades. And most of them are being run by Coalitions.

While this is an obvious thing to remark, we still need a convincing explanation for it. I think I have one – I think most sites like this one share it to one extent or another – but so far the ‘conclusion’ about how we are ruled in the 21st century (and why it doesn’t work) has failed to break out into the depoliticised mass market.

The following are ‘democratic’ States I would describe as capable of having a massive influence on the economy and money-transmission systems of planet Earth: the Unites States (sheer size), the United Kingdom (banking centre), France (bulwark against Merkelism), Australia (raw materials), and Greece (raw materials and financial contagion).

They are all divided right down the middle between the hypocritical and meaningless divisions of Left and Right. And they all have small oligarchies running that show who – because they protect their positions – utterly fail to represent their constituencies at large. Republican, Democrat, Labour Party, Conservatives, UMP, Socialists, Labor, Liberals, and PASOK, New Democracy. The people they represent – all of them – are the people with the kind of money, organisation, and communicatory power to make a difference to opinion generally, and elections in particular: globalist multinationals, banks, media conglomerates, Internet Service Providers, and bureaucrats.

What have we discoverdd since 2008 about the way these people are treated by government? Well, large global concerns pay on average a third of the tax rate enjoyed by the rest of us; banks that lost money through their own reckless stupidity have been bailed out by the rest of us, and starved the businesses of the rest of us; media conglomerate crime has been protected by both legislators and policemen in their pay; ISPs provide risible service, and carte blanche to close down, ban, ignore and even demonise users; and in the UK especially, bureaucrats have enriched themselves at the expense of the public purse to the tune of £1.3 trillion in pension obligations.

This is the human ‘tribal power’ model of social anthropology: four or five key families with the alpha genes tolerate the Chief and constantly compete to replace him, while the rest of the tribe or ‘pack’ are kept reasonably well fed and distracted….and thus happy with their lot.

The also-rans of higher animal species beyond Homo sapiens do introspect: but rarely to the point of influencing very much in terms of the pecking order. Humanity is different because it has language, printing, and sophisticated media for communication. Thus, to go all Geithner for a second, ideas can be leveraged. If one columnist invents a phrase or word – like Sloane Rangers or Yuppies – 300 million people will know about it within a short time. What the internet has done is reduce that time from years to hours.

This gives ISPs enormous power to select and censor information, and that in turn attracts the envy of the security services – organisations set up to ‘defend the State’ – by which they mean ‘protect the oligarchy’. Once the oligarchy is so unassailable as to keep any intruders out, it becomes stale, smug, mediocre…and incompetent. The vicious circle now comes into play, for the more process-driven, fruitless and incompetently administered Establishment policies are, the more ordinary voters and taxpayers become angry. They therefore have to be watched via surveillance cameras and £13bn GCHQ digital monitoring programmes 24/7.

Thus one tiny group gets infallible protection, and the 93% get the crumbs. To rationalise that reality, wombats like Milt Friedman come along and explain how this is the only way to create wealth. But no matter what degree of bollocks is applied to the attempt to make red green and up down, the practice of The Law is the obvious giveaway.

So it is that after getting on for 500 days of Hackgate, not a single Newscorp, police or government apparatchik has been so much as placed in an official dock…let alone tried. But when those at the bottom – badly parented thanks to mad social engineers, and rejected by the accountancy model of capitalist social responsibility – decide to torch neighbourhoods and steal things they’ve been told they should aspire to, 3,420 miscreants get caught, tried and imprisoned within weeks. (And of course, the media point out how far-Left elements were working these poor stupid people from behind. Which they are…but why does that excuse exclusion? It’s a result of exclusion isn’t it?)

Why does any of this matter? For one thing, in Greece it has started to break down. Over the last ten days, young voters there have have realised that they can defy the self-interested 3%. The Greek and Brussels oligarchies have in turn seen this happening – indeed, spied upon its occurrence – and, I remain convinced, will do whatever they can to derail its progress.

It matters in America, where the self-appointed elite let a tame black man into the White House. Their antidote for this empty suit is Mitt Romney. It matters in the UK, where a Prime Minister who has lied to Parliament on several occasions now tries to defend a slimey careerist on grounds so illogically ridiculous, the media barely know where to start in deconstructing it. It matters in France, where (having torpedoed one opponent) the Sarkozyistes are now busily engaging the services of bankers and Germans to demonise the new challenger. (They needn’t worry: Hollande is not exactly a game-changer in my book). And it matters in Australia, where the truly appalling Labour Stateist Julia Gillard came to power and stays there on the basis of a grubby agreement with mining conglomerates.

But above all, it matters because these clowns are in power to do as they’re told, not to address the profound problems facing their respective nations.

America’s debt, and sociopathic banker elite, are driving the country towards inevitable ruin. The weakness of its banks and dependence upon an imploding EU make the UK a hugely vulnerable nation in turn saddled with gigantic debt. France is a nation suffering a crisis of identity, an increasingly bellicose neighbour, wasteful bureauracy and perhaps Europe’s biggest exposure to Greek default. Greece finds itself surrounded by malign forces ranging from the Troikanauts to Recep Erdogan. And Australia has an overdependence on mining exports to China – coupled with a frigthening property bubble – that will give it, in time, the sort of economic and fiscal descent to make Greece’s demise look like a gradual incline.

My soundbite tonight is this: the faster the descent, the greater the dissent. As the Greek tragedy also befalls first Spain, then France and finally us here in the UK, then – when they are hit with a vicious right-hook in the pocket – the sofa dwellers will finally rise up and o something.

But my recurring fear is that they will go for somebody horrible with a nice line in “Let me take you away from all this”.

EUROBLOWN: What a difference seven months make

Der Spiegel, 5th October 2011: ‘What Greece needs is a new Marshall Plan’.

Athens News, 30th April 2012: ‘No new Marshall Plan for eurozone’.

The Athens News story states:

‘The European Commission on Monday dismissed as unfounded and speculation a report published by Spanish daily newspaper ‘El Pais’ alleging that the European Commission was examining a massive Marshall plan to boost economic growth in the Eurozone, worth 200 billion euros.’

So then, clearly a fall-off in commitment re this one.

Fanny Adams goes for Roy Hodgson. Oh Dear.

I am dyed-in-the-wool RED: the colour blue was banned from our house when I was a kid. But I’d rather City won the Premiership (just this once) than have the English Fanny Adams appoint yet another deadbeat, obedient England manager.

Yes, the FA has done it again. Roy Hodgson seems a nice enough bloke, but his cupboards are filled with Readers’ Digest back numbers, not trophies.

Why didn’t the F**k All folks at least interview Harry Redknapp? Do they know something we don’t about his tax affairs?

Time before last they overlooked O’Neill, the greatest practitioner at making silk purses from sows’ ears. The manager who had that skill before him was Cloughie….also overlooked. The man who had it before them was….Alf Ramsey: the only World Cup winning manager we’ve ever had.

How do these pillocks get it wrong for 46 years and remain in place? I don’t know. All I do know is that I no longer  want these provincial greengrocers with sweaty bald heads running English football.

Perhaps the problem is that, now Murdoch effectively owns the FA, they’re on some sweet deal from him to screw up England’s chances of ever winning anything again….old Wrinkly Roop’s main obsession being the destruction of all things English.

Which makes them Sweet FA. And that’s about as much use as these tossers will ever be.

 

SKETCH: The madness of billionaires, central bankers, and Chancellors.

The Titanic, the Quantitative Easer, and the Austerititor System

The way in which you grasp just how disturbed the super-rich and powerful are is by observing what they do with stacks of money when given half a chance.

Australian billionaire Clive Palmer is going to build a 21st-century replica of the Titanic with his pile. He plans to sail it from England to New York – accompanied by the Chinese navy -  some time late in 2016, once a Chinese dockyard has built it for him.

Mr Palmer has signed a first-stage agreement with Nanjing province’s CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship as part of a planned fleet of luxury liners. As Palmer’s investments include property, coal, metals, soccer, and horses, you can see that he’s a philanthrope only in the sense that his definition of philanthropy is pretty eccentric….and eclectic.

It’s not clear what the Chinese navy’s role in all this is going to be, but one must also wonder about several other imponderables. These would be (1) What speed will Titanic II be doing off Nova Scotia (2) will the same approach to unsinkability be employed  (3) will there be enough lifeboats this time and (4) who’s going to be in charge of iceberg discipline?

The only time I’ve agreed with Andrew Marr this year was when he said three Sundays ago that the entire Titanic centenary jamboree is boring, tasteless and merely another disgusting attempt by Mammon to grub up some money. Looking in a WH Smiths at the weekend, I was stunned by the repetition of the word ‘Titanic’ on every shelf, in every magazine, and on the cover of every film review. And almost as tedious, hardly a day goes by without at least one financial writer referring to one economy, bank, government or another having ‘its Titanic moment’.

What they should of course be writing is that the governments and central bankers of the West face a titanic struggle. Mervyn King is another man in charge of lots of money (albeit ours) and he too is an object lesson in what not to do with it. The Bank of England Governor has just 10 days before he and his MPC drones meet a week on Wednesday to decide, as Bloomberg put it this morning,  ‘whether he can risk halting stimulus for an economy trying to shake off a recession’. I would’ve phrased it slightly differently, as in ‘whether he can justify chucking taxpayers’ hard-earned money at banks so they can stay alive without lending us any’, but maybe that wouldn’t be particularly constructive.

The point one should really make about Bloomberg’s dim-witted observation is that it is based on roughly the same amount of evidence as that supporting the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, minus only the grainy photographs. Neither QE nor Zirp have made the slightest difference to the US or UK economy, because that was never the idea in the first place. (Bernanke himself is still trying to persuade observers to forget his paper of 1988, in which he rejected QE as unproven and ineffective).

Anyway, data that starts pouring in tomorrow on manufacturing, construction and services, as well as consumer credit and house prices, will lead to his decision on May 10 to almost certainly continue doing it. Put it like this, given we are now officially back in recession, what bigger number could possibly come along to suggest he should stop doing it?

Well, perhaps I should answer my own question re that one. You see, it’s not just that Merv’s money-lobbing marathon is completely pointless for 99.5% of the citizenry and 71% of the economy: it’s every bit as much a problem of the quite remarkable endurance and stamina he has displayed in throwing vast amounts of our money at the firewall.

This is where the debate going on in the columns of the FT and on the floor of the Commons at the moment really begins to sound like something Jonathan Swift might have come up with while chewing some fresh new leaves of Mescalin. By the government’s own reckoning (and the Bank of England agrees) Mr King has spent £325,000,000,000 on the project thus far. That’s 325 billions, by the way: I know billions are old hat these days, but it’s more money than Imelda Marcus could’ve spent had she lived to be 7,800 years old, and had the internet to go at. In fact, the age I hail from was one where 325 was a pretty big number too.

Compare and contrast this number with the Treasury’s estimate of what net savings are to be achieved by Draper Osborne’s cost-cutting scissors between 2010 and 2014: £13,000,000,000. Same number of noughts involved, but in front of them is a number which, research shows, is one twenty-fifth of what the Bank of England’s Governor has spent propping up the banks stimulating an economy in the last eighteen months…an economy that mulishly refuses to be stimulated.

The whole idea is predicated on an inability to understand basic mathematics. Not only are these targets absolutely irrelevant to Britain’s survival or insolvency – we are talking about saving over four years a sum that represents very little more than the deficit per annum, and a mere 1.4% of the National Debt – even these aren’t being achieved: the current running annual budget deficit rose to £11.1 billion last February, and borrowing rose to £15.2 billion.

But just take in the mismatch here: Sir Mervyn King has spent 96% of the Get out of Jail pot on strengthening the financial system, while Little Osborne has patched just 4% of the hole in the bottom of the pot:

THE OSBORNE AUSTERITITOR SYSTEM. Legend:

A – Hand of M. King inserted into neck and £325bn removed to help Needy Banker Benevolent Society

B – £20bn going to Internation Bankers in debt repayments over same period.

C – The Chancellor’s pot-hole suspension-bridge. (Under construction, due for completion 2078)

D – Bottomless bucket previously referred to as National Debt. (Only 1% visible above the waters)

It really isn’t going to work is it? No, it isn’t.

But here’s the truly terrifying part: Ed Balls has an idea for another machine, the Bollockometer. It consist of his mouth emitting spittle and bollocks. That’s it.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

 

SPANISH COLLAPSE: Last but one piece of the doom jigsaw about to be slotted in.

Spain, which was never going to need a ‘bad bank’ is in talks to assemble one.

The “bad bank” scheme is the latest attempt by the centre-right government of Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, to avoid a Troika-style rescue. This rescue is that last remaining thing that Spain was never going to have that hasn’t already been had. So the end is getting nearer. 

Rajoy’s Popular Party – give him his due, it’s a great name – has deepened fiscal austerity, reformed Spain’s labour market, and ordered banks to set aside an extra €54bn of bad loan provisions and capital buffers this year. But the banks have now somewhat sheepishly come back to say that’s about a third of what they need. That’s worrying, because translating bankspeak into English, it probably means it’s about 5% of what they need.

Events today have already made thing worse for Spanish bond sales: Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services just announced it is lowering the credit rating of 16 Spanish banks  most importantly, those of Santander, and its vital subsidiary Banco Espanol de Credito. They’ve been downgraded from A- to A-2 and A+ to A-1 respectively.

But when the markets are in a mood to think the best of a disaster, it’s amazing how much excrement you can chuck at them before they decide it tastes bad. Spain’s statistics bureau said last Friday that the country’s jobless rate rose to 24.4% in the first quarter, from 22.9% in the fourth quarter of last year; but because the recession forecast was pessimistic by 0.1%, European stocks rose.

It doesn’t take a lot to get European stocks rising these days. Thanks to all that QE and Zirp, large concerns and their bankers can buy their own shares if necessary. But 0.1% in one country about to topple over a cliff is the best bippy so far in terms of a crazy rationale for confidence. I hear there’s a donkey auction on Spetse tomorrow. Stand by for a bull market on the main Greek bourses of they sell two hind legs more than expected.

 

 

BREAKING….Cameron cracks Ministerial Code

Newscorp market leader The Shunt is proud to bring its devotees the first picture of Sh*tstorm victim Jerry Punt (above) following his exposure to a sh*tstorm in the light of a Not Guilty M’lud plea to Lord Leveson last week. His Lordship refused to hear his plea, however – a decision that has rattled British PM Cavedin Dammerung.

“I don’t believe Jeremy Hunt broke the ministerial code,” said Prime Minister Dammerung, “Although he may have broken his word here and there. But I’m pleased to announce that I and my colleagues in GCHQ have cracked the Ministerial Code, and from that exhaustive private enquiry, it is very clear that Mr Blunt did not break the Ministerial Code, and so that’s that.”

Speaking on the Andrew Blowpar Show, Mr Dammerung said he was very surprised to be asked if he took prescription painkillers.

“Now look here,” he said, “That’s entirely out of order. I only ever take proscribed drugs, and I’ve never taken Happy Pills like that Boredom McGoon had to. That is a slur and I resent it, I mean my drugs not his. I am merely here to explain that Mr Hunt in whom I have qualified confidence is an ethical man who has done nothing wrong except excavate Mr Murdoch’s bottom and forget to tell Parliament about 156 pages of entirely innocent emails involving done-deals and no-brainers. He has done a marvelous job in promoting the Olympic ideal of a level playing field at Eton, and I feel sure that nothing new will come out – but of course if it does I will have no alternative but to fire the grubby little oik on the spot.”

Well, the jury is out. But one senses it will soon be coming back in with a verdict.

FOOTNOTE: an anagram of Jeremy Hunt is ‘the jury men’.

For further reading, see Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, Andrew Lansley, Lord Ashcroft, A horse etc etc etc

MED ENERGY WARS: UK Foreign Office slumbers on as Israel/Turkey showdown grows ever nearer.

If you still can’t see the geopolitics behind all this, go see an optician.

Wannabe EU Member Recep Erdogan

As the Aegean/Mediterranean drilling disputes, elections, financial problems and land-grabs gather pace, The Slog makes sense of the jigsaw now revealing a darker and darker picture of potential conflict.

Veteran Sloggers are well aware of Erdogan The Mad: Turkish leader, free-speech crusher, Kurd-basher, Holocaust denier, energy thief, and best friend of Iran and David Cameron at one and the same time.

They’ll also know from earlier in the week that, ignoring existing territorial waters ratified by the UN, Rabid Recep and his Erratic Engineers have plonked a drilling derrick right next to Cyprus (having earlier this year threatened to annex it) and got right down to the task of tapping into other people’s oil.

Now the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is denying Greek media reports that a Turkish Petroleum Company is carrying out oil exploratory works along the Greek continental shelf in the Mediterranean Sea.

Still, at least this area is disputed….a first for Turkish ideas about sovereignty. The continental shelf row stems from the absence of a delimitation agreement effected between the two countries and ‘has a bearing on the overall equilibrium of rights and interests in the Aegean’, as it concerns areas only hazily attributed beyond the 6 mile territorial sea.

It’s a smart tactic by Erdogan this one: deny you’re up to anything where you have the right to be, as a distraction to the fact that you’re ploughing ahead in places where you don’t have a right in Hell to be. Thus there are now serious concerns among the Greek diplomatic community following an official announcement in the Turkish Government Gazette asking for tenders to explore areas in the Aegean Sea which are in the Exclusive Greek Economic Zone (EGEZ).

Personally, I think the UK should start drilling in Dublin Bay. I’m sure the Taioseach would understand entirely.

This is really just Turkish diplomacy moving into the third stage of challenging the status quo in the Aegean Sea. Using an obvious parallel, Recep Erdogan had his march into the Rhineland moment with Cyprus, and drilling thereof. Now he’s trying to engineer an Anschluss.

Media reports earlier said a standoff ensued when a Greek gunboat was dispatched to the EGEZ area, where a Norwegian ship was prospecting for oil in the southeastern Aegean escorted by Turkish frigate the Gediz.

The continental shelf issue has in the past led to tensions between Turkey and Greece. Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras said that the determination of Turkey to move ahead with this venture – and license petroleum activities in areas south of Rhodes and Kastelorizo – was contrary to the rules regarding international waters. He underlined that Ankara cannot “undermine sovereign rights and powers of Greece, based on international law”, and promptly summoned the Norwegian Ambassador for a serious dressing down.

A spokesman said that the Greek Foreign ministry “will take all necessary steps to safeguard and defend the sovereign rights of Greece”, but as I’ve posted several times recently, there are bigger sharks hunting in these murky diplomatic waters.

The Franco-German sales of weaponry to Greece since 2009 have been enormous (even if you don’t count the bribes involved) while the Americans retain a crucial interest in the energy and rare-earth deposits now known to exist in profusion in the Med/Aegean region…hence their plan to isolate and then befriend Greece. Clearly, both the White House and the Berlin Chancellery sorry the Brussels Commission plan to defend what they’ve opportunistically lucked into.

But US ally Israel also wishes to glue its destiny firmly to the ClubMed EU States – especially Greece and Cyprus – while the EU’s mad poppinjays are busy trying to recruit new North African members. (Except, of course, that being profoundly dumb, they also believe that sworn Israel enemy Turkey can somehow be included in this happy union without a serious punch-up ensuing at the wedding reception).

So you can see where all this leading. And oil isn’t the only energy-tie we’re talking about here.

PPC Quantum Energy S.A., a subsidiary of electricity giant Public Power Corporation, this week formally announced the launch of the construction of a 2,000-megawatt undersea electricity cable to link up the electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece. The company has notified the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) and CERA, the corresponding authority in Cyprus, over the «EuroAsia Interconnector» project.

In a joint letter to the company, both authorities underlined that the implementation of such an ambitious project will decisively contribute to ensure the safety of power supply for the entire region of SE Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. (Cast your minds back to the Russian insistence on attendance to monitor the May 6th Greek General Election…all of a sudden that makes sense too).

This is a vast construction task being undertaken at an eye-watering cost. The total length of the undersea cable will be 1,000 kilometers, making it the world’s biggest. It will be placed as deep as 2,000 meters from the surface at some points.The project will be completed within three years and cost some 1.5 billion euros, with the participation of PPC’s Israeli counterpart.

Naturally in these straitened times, things are a little unclear on the question of who’s paying for it. Israel coughed up some serious money for the original geological survey about oil and minerals. Being Israel, it will pay its fair share for this idea to become a reality. But Brussels, Berlin and Washington? Sadly dear reader, I know not. Yet.

It does however bring into sharper and sharper relief, does it not, why America wants Greece to default, but the Germans sorry sorry Europeans don’t. As ever, this is a war in the making…and energy is the cause of it.

Well, they laughed when I told them that Washington and Berlin had fallen out over Greek amputation from the eurozone. They laughed when I told them Erdogan was a trouble-making Islamist headcase.

Are they laughing now, I wonder. And in the Foreign Office, is anyone awake? Sorry, silly question.

Falklands War anyone?

The quickest way to catch up on this saga is to type ‘Recep Erdogan’ into The Search box top right from here

Robbing the State blind can only lead to the State hiring prying eyes.

There’s an island just to the south of Corfu called Zakynthos, and it is home to nearly 600 visually challenged Greeks.

A story of survival against the odds? Actually, more a case of the survival of ckeeky sods. All of them are sighted enough to be taxi drivers, shopkeepers and restaurant owners, farmers, hunters – and regular players of backgammon in the island’s cafes and bars. But all of them have been living for years on a blindness allowance to which none of them were entitled.

Sadly, they weren’t very far-sighted. When a new Mayor replaced the former crooked one, he saw the names of those registered ‘blind’ and realised he knew most of them….but had never noticed their sight problems – on account of them not having any.

So he’s turned them in – for which he got pelted with eggs and yoghurt in the traditional Greek manner. (Amazingly – considering their disability – very few taxpayers missed).

Hat-tip to the sharp eyes of Nick Squires at the Sunday Telegraph for spotting this one.

 This is, of course, merely an honest Mayor doing his job. But when too many people rob the State, official snooping takes off. Jamaica now has a cheat line, and over the last year it has grabbed $176m back from those evading tax. They operate in varying sectors, including manufacturing, wholesale, retail, security as well as legal and medical services. That doesn’t leave many areas of life where they don’t cheat.

In East Germany – where Angela Merkel flourished in a manner she now prefers to deny  – they had denouncement lines for everything…with the result that grudges were simply fed by a State that wanted to know about everybody and anything. Once a culture heads south and cheats prosper, it’s an open door for the taxman and – in Britain since Jacqui Smith’s time – GCHQ to start watching, listening and monitoring 24/7.

I was given sight of some Troika ‘helpful tips’ offered to the Athens Government about collecting tax last month. Oddly enough, quite a few of them involved surveillance technology…with recommendations about German and US companies who would be only too happy to supply them with said snooping equipment. Imagine that.

The response of governments to feral teenage burglars and pissheads is not to tackle the parenting, educational and social reasons for this, but to stick cameras everywhere. It’s the same with tax evasion, benefit crime, white collar fraud and banking scams: what we get is an army of regulators and snoopers, as opposed to a recognition that the culture sucks. Once the police give up the fight (which here in the UK they did some ten years ago) then the circle of excuses is complete: “Well,” say the Theresa Mays, “We have to give GCHQ all this power and money because all these Underclass, unemployed and Islamist folks don’t know how to behave. Nothing to do with anything we did, goodness me no”.

It’s a great scam, and it will never end until more people like David Davis try to say ‘no’. But we too must shoulder the blame: if you think it’s clever to cheat the State, the State will simply get more clever still, employing more and more unproductive civil servants. Misbehaviour costs us all a fortune, and gives the control freaks a gold-plated excuse to spy on all of us.

As for tax specifically, a I’ve posted endlessly (to the derision of most readers) the only answer is to stop directly taxing incomes in any shape or form. Overnight, the vast majority of people would have the ability to cheat removed by default. But the short-term, easy answer is to start making Britain’s larger corporations pay their fair share.

DSK BACK ON THE ATTACK: SLOG’S PREDICTION OF SEPTEMBER 2011 VINDICATED

Dominic Strauss-Kahn, the one time boss of the IMF, told the Guardian yesterday that forces close to Sarkozy and the UMP party maximised the damning nature of the scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo.

From the very start of the saga, The Slog led the field in believing that DSK was the largely innocent victim of a sting.

Strauss-Kahn said yesterday that although his encounter with the Sofitel maid probably wasn’t a set-up, he believes his arrest on May 14 2011 was “shaped by those with a political agenda…more was involved here than mere coincidence”.

DSK now alleges that French intelligence had been eavesdropping on him weeks before he was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting Miss Diallo. On November 28th last year, The Slog alone put forward the evidence that the episode was in fact a French intelligence caper to get rid of DSK’s mobile phone, as very clear evidence of hacking was contained on it. (Hence the phone’s permanent disappearance).

And when he returned to France, The Slog alone averred that Strauss-Kahn’s entourage would be painstakingly putting together a case to demonstrate Sarkozy/Intelligence forces complicity in the orchestration.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. DSK has served this one up with impeccable timing.

Study the full Dominic Strauss-Kahn Waltz here

EUROBLOWN: GREECE EXCLUSIVE – SECRET POLL REVEALS PASOK, ND COLLAPSE

Anti-Troika swing among young voters

The Slog has received details of two secret opinion polls in Greece, both of which suggest that, as young voters finally make their minds up, PASOK in particular has seen a major fall in its share of the vote. There are rumours in Athens itself that at least one poll has also been conducted by EU officials working out of the Troika offices there.

As The Slog predicted recently, Antonis Samaras of New Democracy has his sights on a coalition without the Pasok Party of Evangelo Venizelos. Not only does Samaras believe that the Pasok leader is too unpopular to be anything other than a liability, he also feels that Venizelos would block any attempt to renege on the Brussels bailout Accord signed in March….and leak Government intentions to the Troika.

Samaras is now openly reaching out to Right-wing voters who are leaving his Conservative party ahead of the May 6 elections,  observes the Greek Reporter. While that’s true, in private he is also keen to reach out the the Far Right’s leaders, and put the slavishly pro-bailout Pasok out of power. To do so, Samaras yesterday focused on his Rightist credentials, saying he would get tough on crime, repeal laws giving citizenship to second generation immigrants born in Greece, and allow police to use water cannons to break up protests. Nationalism is a rapidly growing political force in Greece – especially among the country’s youth.

Older traditional voters seem to have made up their minds to vote either ND or Pasok early on, largely ignoring the growing number of fringe Parties. But in the last eight days, there is polling evidence (it cannot be published in Greece as it is after the two-week pre-Election deadline) that not only are young voters firming up their intentions, a sizeable minority are ignoring the more pro-EU mainstream Parties.

One national poll – allegedly commissioned by Brussels – shows the New Democracy Party of Antonis Samaras holding onto its share of the vote, while Pasok has dropped from 19.8% to 15.5%. The Nationalist schism Golden Dawn was also seen to have enoyed a slight increase in popularity. If Pasok leader Venizelos has had sight of this poll, it would explain his desperate call, earlier in the week, for a ‘Grand’ Coalition….naturally, including him. In fact, I’m told that both main Party leaders know they are unlikely (based on the current numbers) to make up a majority of the votes cast. (The survey was leaked by a foreign Embassy in Athens, widely though to be Spain’s).

But a new poll revealed exclusively here by The Slog shows that, in the key voting areas in and around Athens – where the percentage youth demographic is higher -  the mainstream Party share of vote is collapsing.

The area polled is enormous, and electorally important: about 1.5m electors, running across 34 municipalities and accounting for roughly 42 seats in the Greek Parliament. The topline results are as follows:

New Democracy 14% (Conservative)

PASOK 12% (Socialist)

 Independent Greeks 11% (Hard Right)

SYRIZA 11% (Hard Left)

KKE 9% (Communist)

Golden Dawn 9% (Neo-Nazi)

Democratic Left 8%

With the support of less than 3 in 10 of voters, there is no way that the pro-bailout Coalition could have any validity. But equally, based on this study it looks as though neither the Left (32%) nor the Right (34%) could put a government together either.

There are, however, three other important factors. First, the Leftist Parties are violently opposed to the bailout terms and thus could never join in a Pasok Coalition without catastrophic loss of face. Second, as the above stats show, 28% of voters (mainly young) are still undecided – although many may abstain. And last but not least, the minority Parties themselves are now reaching out right across the Left-Right spectrum.

Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Radical Left SYRIZA group, yesterday (Friday) said his Party would be prepared to join forces with the newly-formed nationalist Independent Greeks led by Panos Kammenos. This in turn firmed up a more general statement earlier that a left-wing alliance “would see votes for IG as support for, or at least tolerance of, such an anti-bailout formation.

The situation now becomes intriguing. For starters, there is a clear majority here against the bailout terms. If one adds on Antonis Samaras’s obvious doubts about it, the Troika is seen to have the support of just one in eight voters. Brussels will thus be forced to accept that its bailout scheme, timings and terms are unacceptable to the vast majority of Greeks. Based on their track-record, this won’t worry them for more than a second or two, but if made clear enough to the eurozone’s more apathetic voters, it might serve to point out what they (and that includes the UK) might well be in for one day.

Further, if we work on the assumption – not at all outlandish – that a quarter of the remaining 28% abstain, a quarter vote for the bailout Parties, and half vote for the minority groupings, that would take the anti-bailout protest to 42% Left and 42% Right. Pasok would be unacceptable to both wings of the opposition to Troika plans, so it would take only SYRIZA to join with Independent Greeks and New Democracy to form a majority anti-Brussels coalition Government.

How welcome would that be to the social democrat fluffies and control freaks of the EU? Not at all. More to the point, it would be an unmitigated disaster for the ECB and French banks; the beginning of the end, in fact, of the euro – were the outcome to emerge just as the markets give up on Spain….as they assuredly will do sooner rather than later.

As Dan Hannan would probably say, “That’s another fine mess the EU control freaks have got us into”. But bearing in mind the revelations discussed throughout this week here, one wonders what illiberal, anti-democratic trick they will now dream up to declare the vote null and void?

But for the Americans – a different story? This is, after all, exactly the outcome they wanted in March. But would they still want it in May, with Mario Draghi trying in vain to wrestle a Spanish meltdown to the ground? At the moment I have no idea. But I’d be willing to bet Lloyd Blankfein does.

Once again, The Slog is indebted to those who leaked and tipped off across the spectrum of Greek opposition

Related: Athens in mystery electoral chaos.

Learn more about The Slog here.

 

At the End of the Day

Walking the dogs very early this morning (I couldn’t sleep) I was once again struck by the undiluted ‘Now’ reality of sensory appreciation. The four of us ambled towards the Beer to Lyme Regis coastpath route, and as we came over the rise that overlooks the English Channel, one could’ve been forgiven for accepting Divine Intervention without question. Grey, threatening clouds swept diagonally upwards, while falling out of them in vertical curtains of near-blackness was enough rain to end a hosepipe ban single-handed.

But this was down to the south west, whereas over to the East – where the sun was well into its business of rising – a shaft of pure light landed on the cliffs between Beer and Banscombe, turning them in an instant from a sort of dirty off-white into a glowing spectrum of creams.

As the April shower clouds danced about, the sunlight poked through at random, bathing now a field of rape seed and now a field of young wheat in astonishing colour…literally, in fact, a saturation process.

Terriers keen on sniffing, running, weeing and chasing do not notice such things: they are far too engrossed in spotting and then catching the young rabbits that – this being Spring – are everywhere in profusion. What these small bunnies lack in experience, they make up for with incredible speed, so none of the pack bagged any prey. Which was a blessing, because there was far too much beauty around for that sort of thing.

We walked along the cliffs, and I spotted a small fishing boat chugging contentedly out from Lyme. It remains one of my retirement fantasies to buy one for a song one day, restore it, and then phut-phut-phut out into the shallow waters here and drop a fishing line for a few hours disturbed only by the click-fizz of a beer-can being opened. With every week of fiscal denial and economic collapse that unfolds, such a plan looks increasingly unlikely ever to see the light of day. Nevertheless, when you’re out there in the elements, pretty much every so-called ‘practical’ consideration feels like a kop-out: there is just the one life in a 3-D Universe, and only a limited number of things that can suppy complete contentment. We must grasp all of them while we can – not from others, but for ourselves.

There were so many wonderful things about this brief interlude in my life. I didn’t think about Jeremy Hunt once, for a whole hour. I didn’t think about food, or shopping, or bills, or the European Union – or even the unholy trio of falling annuity rates, manipulated stock markets, and zero interest rates.

Predictably enough, however, I spent some of the time thinking about words, and plays upon their meanings. I realise this is a form of mental illness, but it’s been something of a pleasure for most of my life.

I thought about how, when one has rushed to the podium, one has urgent need of Imodium. I thought about the word Nickelodeon, its resemblance to Merkelodeon, and what daring naughtiness a Merkelodeon might show us. I pondered on the fairly useless question of the word Westminster, and how for some reason it made me thing of wet Ministers.  And then finally, I mused about this message I’d seen on my pc screen the day before:

The close-computer-down program is not responding.

Please close the program to close down the computer so the computer can proceed to close down.

Well, my open up the senses program was working perfectly this morning. And even after we’d returned to the house, I had no desire to close down the open up program that kept my mind responding to the joy of open spaces.

 

A new word is invented: the OXYMERKEL

   This from the Berlin Chancellery this morning, on the subject of the Fiscal Pact. Mrs Merkel speaking:

 

“The fiscal pact is negotiated, it was signed by 25 government leaders and has already been ratified by Portugal and Greece. Parliaments across Europe are on the verge of passing it. Ireland is having a referendum at the end of May. It is not open to new negotiations.”

 

Ze diskussion iss closst. But Ireland is having a referendum on it. So 25 government leaders could become 24. Indeed, the latest poll says that this will probably happen.

Ze diskussion iss closst. But that means one of the signatories will have negotiated an exit from the Union. So the discussion clearly isn’t closed.

Ze diskussion iss closst. But Greece looks set to elect a majority of Parties against the Troika bailout. And they’ve ratified the Union pact. So the Greek people are negotiating to unratify it – because they can’t accept the bailout AND join the Union.

Ze diskussion iss closst. And Spain has already told you where to stick your austerity targets. So it is negotiating about the ability to negotiate with the Union.

Ze diskussion iss closst. And Monsieur Hollande in France says he won’t join the Union unless you set growth targets as well as austerity targets. So he will be negotiating about what the Union is about.

Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze diskussion iss closst. Ze disk…..

TODAY’S OXYMERKEL WAS: “We’re having a discussion, and it is closed”.