You know that feeling when you just put a wash in the machine, and then you walk into the hall and see one sock lying on the floor? It’s not a disaster, but it is a nuisance. There is no point at all in washing one sock. There’s no alternative to simply building up another wash of that colour, and then whacking the odd dirty sock back in, while the odd clean sock snuggles down to lose itself totally in the sock drawer. Previously, however, that one sock in the machine will have been belting round to no purpose whatsoever, taking up valuable space that could’ve been gainfully used by a pair of knickers. It’s all what you might call mildly irritating.
If only I could say the same for the macro world at large. That, I think, I would dub wildly infuriating. For whereas a naughty sock that drops from one’s grip while hawking a huge amount of washing downstairs to the machine à laver is not up there with the Hwang Ho flood of 1931 as a human tragedy, the eurozone’s pestilent insistence that it exists for the benefit of Man most assuredly is. The eurozone may well exist for the benefit of one man – Mario Draghi – but he is not capitalised in my account here, on the grounds of being a mortal citizen as opposed to an allegedly immortal species. The same cannot be said of the Spanish banking system, which is (as I have reported many times before) woefully undercapitalised.
A senior German government source last night grumbled that Spain has not done enough to recapitalise its banking sector. He was particularly critical of the fact that Spain had only applied for of €40bn of relief, whereas its real problem is much larger than that. I could’ve told him that last September, but once again we are in the land of agenda on this one: why is this senior government source choosing now to moan about it?
I’m not entirely sure, but one thing I can tell you is that he alleges “the stress tests in Spain were manipulated politically”.
You don’t say? What, like you mean in France under Lagarde, and in Germany as regards the Landesbanks? Well, he does say: “French and German banks still have many toxic assets on their books, which have not yet been properly accounted for”. Hold the front page, I think we need the banner headline typeface.
In other ‘news’ today, Greece’s economic output fell by 5.3% in the first quarter of 2013, a disastrous drop described by the Troikanauts as “expected”. Can you imagine what the American reaction would be if George W Bush had said the swamping of New Orleans was expected? No, neither can I – but a similar madness was in play when UK High Court Judge Andrew Nicol dismissed a claim by UK Uncut that HMRC’s tax settlement with the bank in 2010 was an unlawful “sweetheart deal”.
Andrew did criticise the way HMRC had decided how much tax Goldman Sachs should pay, saying “the settlement with Goldman Sachs was not a glorious episode in the history of the Revenue.” But adopting that sociopathic stance of the Judiciary these days, Judge Nicol concluded that “maladministration and illegality are separate issues”. They are indeed sweetie, and at some point you need to explain to us when – if indeed ever – the line between the two might be redefined for those of us being screwed for lack of definition.
Meanwhile, the Thin Blue Line tackling child sexual exploitation – inexplicably known as Greater Manchester Police – put its special undercover Spin Force on the job of hard-selling to the media how child buggery is now a bigger priority than gun crime up there. All things are, of course, relative: GMP has indeed reduced gun crime in recent years. But in the 1990s, it grew almost unchecked at 35% per annum….while Plod was busily denying there was a problem.
And finally, the now shamed ex Procurator Fiscal Stuart MacFarlane escaped prosecution by the Crown Office in 2006, which claimed at the time “it was not in the public interest” to prosecute MacFarlane……who has now admitted to being a paedophile. MacFarlane, 45, from Glasgow, was caught with almost 15,000 unpleasant infant images at his former family home in Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, on 28 December 2012.
Somehow, it seemed important tonight to put the issue of mislaid socks into perspective. I think we should all apply a similar judgement hierarchy to The News from here on.
Earlier at The Slog: Zero threat to multinational business interests from David Cameron
The Slog 