angels in marble

One in the Eye for the Globalistas

2012-02-02T19:36:00.000Z

Christine Bortenlänger, the CEO of Munich Stock Exchange, was in a right paddy when she wrote (reported in Der Spiegel )

"The commissioners' decision is a decision in favor of a provincial and anachronistic isolation of Europe from the world. That's something that an export-oriented country like Germany can not support. It's time that the EU thought beyond its own borders, and thinks of itself as an important region on the global scale -- and also acts in a way that is open to the world."

Angels are against Europe being thought of "as an important region on the global scale" just as much as being against the United Kingdom being thought of as an important region on the European (or indeed global) scale.

Particularly as 'global' has a nasty after-taste of 'American ' about it. It isn't the American century after all; and what's left of their politico-economic debacle wrought in its assertion in the last twenty years is taking a great deal of cleaning up.

Who Votes?

2012-01-30T12:46:00.001Z

Here is a fine piece of writing on why a new decision must be taken in the British Isles on whether to leave, or stay within, the European Union.

The use of referendums to capture wishes on major political issues is unattractive given the United Kingdom's parliamentary democracy system. But the referendum has become the rallying cry of the dissenters to continued membership of the EU, and arguably must be accepted as the best understood and, therefore, probably the most efficient way of reaching a national decision.

So it is with the issue of Scottish independence.

So who votes in these referendums? Forceful arguments have been made for the whole of the electorate of the current United Kingdom to vote on Scottish separation from the Union. The English have been particularly vociferous in declaring their wish to end the union with Scotland.

Mutatis mutandis, when the referendum is held on separation from the European Union of whatever remains of the United Kingdom, the European Union member-states, too, should have a voice in deciding whether the UK stays or goes.

Looking at the Democratic Spread

2012-01-30T10:35:00.000Z

European nation states that are facing financial tensions are those who most recently have had authoritarian regimes. Greece, the country in the worst position, has the weakest of democratic arrangements and was the most recently under the control of a military junta; then Portugal, still feeling the after-effects of Salazar; Spain is coping better with its Franco hangover.

Italy has a rather different problem of central state weakness: it never has been able to fully assert its control of the criminal alternative governance that has held power in the South for so long and is now deeply entrenched in some northern regions. Criminal governance is by definition authoritarian and outside the rule of law. It doesn't have its own rule of law either, despite all the mystical novelettishness about rules of honour and shame and clan allegiances; it is violence and arbitrary revenge that maintains criminal, authoritarian rule.

Risk, expressed through spreads and yields, is not measured by economic fundamentals alone, but by an inchoate response to democratic fundamentals - democratic representation, rule of law, constitutional arrangements and the institutions of their enforcement, capacity to assert the will of the sovereign throughout the state. In part this explains why Italy's yields and spread continue to fall less fast than those of Spain, despite the greater economic strength of Italy.

Senator Monti has democratic consent to govern and enjoys constitutional propriety, but the rule of law is weak and under determined assault by criminals. Moreover the consent of the political parties represented in Parliament is fragile. Neither left nor right have competent or even charismatic leadership, nor sufficiently united objectives among coalitions of parties, to wish to precipitate early elections. Spain was fortunate that elections were due when they were, and the electorate was clear in its democratic delivery of a mandate.

The suggestion that Greece should be commissariata is a crude response to Greece's post-colonels' political underdevelopment. No-one could risk taking on Greek fiscal governance: apart from the unlikelihood of being any more successful than the elected Parliament at imposing fiscal restraint measures, there are no means to assert sovereign control for Greeks, never mind Germans.

It isn't just economic diversity and maturity that makes the European Union - and specifically that more important part, the 24 nations of the eurozone - a handful. Our nation states have their own histories and political inheritances to integrate.

What a Schwab

2012-01-28T20:27:00.001Z

'Davos' Schwab is given to presenting personally the most important speakers at the WEF in Switzerland. Introducing one , if not the, of the most powerful bankers on the planet he went on and on:

"Italy is known for its cuisine, its fashion, " he maundered (in a week of all-round maundering that has bored everyone half to death with this failed 'meeting of the world's elite') "but not for its central bankers."

"Thank you, Klaus, for your kind words," said our hero crisply, with his usual impassivity of expression: and went on to deal with the financial crisis without further comment on the almost interminable drivel that was supposed to cover the discourtesy of such stereotyping of Italian history and culture.

Italy does bankers really rather well, not to mention accountants, financial institutions, and money-lenders and manipulators various.

5.4 Richter. Liguria Trembles With the Northern Cities

2012-01-27T19:34:00.002Z

Again the earthquakes have threatened the north of Italy. (Milano, Parma, Venezia, Genova, Verona, Livorno, Bolzano, Torino, Perugia.)

It takes very little to fracture and shed the affreschi, to down the angels and the saints, the facades in marble and travertino, the stucco in all its elaborations and designs, the physical expression of the Italian soul.

That soul has lent itself as the image of western culture.

For some of us.

60-point Suicide Note by French Socialist Outstrips Even Michael Foot

2012-01-27T15:12:00.000Z

Francois Hollande, socialist Leader, is gonna tax the rich until they squeak, he's gonna tax the banks and financial institutions till they flee France, he's gonna re-negotiate everything with Germany, possibly right back to ooooh - the nineteenth century, he's gonna make a lotta jobs for people - young people - in the education system, he's gonna give everyone over 50 their pensions back, he's gonna tell the European Central Bank and Mario Draghi what's what and have European bonds, he's gonna stop austerity and usher in investment for growth and prosperity..... he says he's gonna

..."do such things,
What they are yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth".

PS It was like old times seeing photos of Gordon Brown at Davos with a strange, very wide, blue tie about his neck (rather than his collar) hanging down to below his knees.

Carnival Should Face the Music

2012-01-25T17:06:00.002Z

"The US owner of the passenger liner wrecked off the Italian coast 12 days ago with the loss of up to 32 lives was accused last night of failing to take responsibility for the tragedy, as prosecutors shone a light on failed safety procedures.

Angry consumer groups are demanding to know why Micky Arison, the billionaire head of Costa Cruise's Miami-based parent company, Carnival Corporation, has failed to make an appearance on the island of Giglio, where passengers' bodies are still being dragged out of the wrecked Costa Concordia."
(Independent)

Chances are the Italian magistrates might drag him in front of them, and keep him safe until a lot of the questions about safety procedures, not to mention chains of command and responsibility have been answered. Israeli-American citizens don't leave their hidey-holes when lots of dead passengers, identified and unidentified, are filling the mortuaries of a country with a robust investigative and legal system, or floating in the polluted water inside a sunken ship.

On the Adriatic Plate

2012-01-25T12:21:00.000Z

Most of northern Italy has been experiencing earthquakes since last night. The strongest so far was 4.9 on the Richter scale at 9 o'clock this morning, near Parma. They're still going on. The northern citta' d'arte (that's just about every northern city) have all been shaken; even Florence has been waving the upper floors of its taller buildings today.

It's much more worrying than threats to the economy and the euro.

To Lose Musicians is to Lose Part of Music Itself

2012-01-19T11:51:00.000Z

Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichordist, organist and conductor, born 30 May 1928; died 16 January 2012

How to Speak Italian

2012-01-18T10:12:00.001Z

Capitano Gregorio de Falco telling the captain of the Concordia the difference between honour and dishonour as he orders him back to his duty is exraordinary to listen to.

A Musician comments on the previous post:

Dramatic text, eloquence of speech, impeccable pronounciation, force of delivery, variety in the speed of delivery to underline important moments, even beauty of tone: Capitain de Falco's call to Schettino contains all the ideals so dear to Count Bardi and the Florentine Camerata who aimed to restore the supremacy of speech over music, as in Greek tragedy, at the beginning of the 17th century.

Monteverdi developed the Genere Rappresentativo, more specifically recitar cantando (although there was not much variety in Capt. de Falco's tone so cannot really be called singing, still), taking it to great heights; there are moments when Capt. de Falco is reminiscent of Testo in the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda ("Salga a bordo..."), although of course he doesn't have the continuo instruments backing him.

Capitain de Falco gave the performance of a lifetime and he knew it ("Schettino sto registrando...").

For those who still haven't seen it this is the link with subtitles:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jan/17/costa-concordia-captain-phone-call-video

The text and interpretation are improvised, as is fitting with the style. His extraordinary performance has moved the whole of Italy: he is now being hailed as a national hero.

18 January 2012 09:26

Who Commands?

2012-01-17T11:12:00.002Z

A ship at sea is commanded by its captain who has absolute power over those on board. At least that's what underlies so many stories and adventures and, presumably, the concept of mutiny. It is that absolute power and hence absolute responsibility that enables a dangerous environment to be effectively mastered.

That is what I'd always thought, if I thought about it at all. But the reports of the shipwreck of the Concordia give another account of who commands. There seems to have been a complete breakdown of responsibilities. Having hit the Island of Giglio at 28 kilometres an hour, bringing the ship's speed instantly to 6 kilometres an hour (imagine being inside with no warning, not wearing your seatbelt would take on forceful meaning) the captain is reported to have got on the phone to the director of marine operations of the company that owned the boat. And stayed on the phone for three calls-worth plus a call from a retired former captain in Grosseto. The Second Officer has gone down to the engine room and found it full of water - and all electrical power sources flooded - the only power was a small emergency generator elsewhere in the ship. He tells the bridge that the ship is without any means of control. And the captain gets on the phone again.

Time passes: the ship is still upright, it will remain so for nearly an hour, time enough to lower all the life boats. After 40 minutes of drifting it is driven further onto rocks and starts to tilt. The other officers start the evacuation procedures although the captain is still on the telephone, now denying to the Capitaneria di Livorno that the ship needs help. He then leaves the ship with another (Greek) officer.

By this time the Carabinieri of Prato!! (Prato is a few kilometres west of Florence, you couldn't get further from the sea in Italy if you tried) have declared the emergency. The Capitaneria, having asserted their acquisition of authority over the ship, calls the captain of the Concordia who is now safely on the shore and orders him back onto the Concordia to take charge of the evacuation of the people on board. He takes the first ferry to Porto Santo Stefano.

There seem to have been two mutinies: of the officers against the captain, and of the captain against the Capitaneria. And a ceding of authority to a commercial organisation, far from the shipwreck, which was not helping with the timely provision of plans of the ship or accurate lists of those on board. This is not just a matter of acts of bravado or cowardice or stupidity or criminality.

Who commands a vessel in Italian waters, or any other waters, and to what laws are they answering?

AND (for those who understand Italian) here is the phone call asserting command (it starts a short way in). The furious voice speaking in beautiful Tuscan is from the Capitaneria , the Neapolitan voice ordered to put its mouth in front of the telephone and speak up, is that of the captain of the Concordia.

The Next Transition

2012-01-16T11:44:00.000Z

Vienna can be regarded as the heart of 'old Europe'. The remarks made there by Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, seem to come with even greater weight, spoken in Vienna. And when he is speaking of the political economy of introducing free markets, citizens of new and old Europe pay attention.

The non-economic factors of economic reforms, as experienced in fundamental systemic change, create a multidimensional process.

"Politicians like me, who were actively involved in the Transition ...understood quickly that sophisticated theories of the optimal sequencing of reform measures prepared in the communist era both in our countries and in the West were practically of no use. ...complex systemic change couldn't be organised by a philosopher-king (nor by a group of academic economists)."

"...millions of finally free people... wanted to live without being planned and controlled by anyone and there was no way of stopping them doing so."

"...it was relatively easy to build a negative consensus..., to agree upon what we did not want, such as continue living under communism,... it was much more difficult to find a ...positive vision... where to go and how to get there. The genuine conflict of visions, a healthy process in a democracy...led to inconsistent, controversial and contradictory steps and measures ... overall systemic change is not an exercise in applied economics.
...changes started whether we wanted them or not, whether ... highly needed preconditions had been met or not... it was not possible to stop the spontaneous behaviour of millions of people... even had we wanted to.

...Our critics did not see that there were transformation measures with objectively different time requirements...The institutional framework and the rule of law have to evolve, they can't be "introduced". ... [Yet, at the same time] It was necessary to put forward at one moment a critical mass of reform measures in order to send a strong signal to the citizens of our countries that were ... determined to transform the country. ...the rule was: whenever there was an opportunity - to implement any measure ... [that was] prepared.

"...economic transitions of the 1990s vintage are neither repeatable, nor necessary now ... There is however, another inevitable transition ...in Europe: the transition from die soziale Marktwirtschaft to free markets. To achieve it would require similarly deep and radical changes, similar courage and risk-taking."

"... die soziale Marktwirtschaft prefers social policy based on income redistribution to productive work. It prefers free time and long holidays to hard work. It prefers consumption to investments, debts to savings, security to risk-taking. All of it is part of a broader civilizational and cultural problem, deeply rooted in the European continent or in most of its countries. It cannot be exterminated overnight, it can't be changed as a result of one or another EU summit, it can't be changed by painless cosmetic changes. It requires a deep systemic change, something structurally similar to the task we had to accomplish two decades ago in the moment of the fall of communism."

Sailing Close to the Wind - or 150 Metres from the Shore

2012-01-15T19:44:00.000Z

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more!
If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you "pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie -
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by.

BBB is the New Black

2012-01-15T19:07:00.000Z

Any country flaunting themselves in last year's AAAs and even AAs is not looking good. Lit up like the Ponte Vecchio (as the Florentines say of the over-dressed and over be-jewelled) these countries are most unattractive for long term investment. You wouldn't, for instance, marry one, would you?

Printing money and buying your own bonds is not hard, but future generations won't like to be descended from such flash profligates.

Monti in Berlin

2012-01-11T13:42:00.000Z

The Chancellor of Germany welcomed the Prime Minister of Italy to Berlin this morning. (There's something echoic in those words but the past is another country). Italy's prime minister, in office for fewer than 60 days, is taking up Italy's place in European Union deliberations that was lost by Silvio Berlusconi until he, in turn, lost his parliamentary majority.

Senator Monti has raised pensionable age and removed the indexation of pensions that are above 1,500 euros a month, and reduced access to pensions before a pensionable age rising to 67; raised valuations for land and buildings taxes and reinstated first home taxation; raised VAT; there are other, less extensive measures. The fall in the Italian deficit currently being registered results from his predecessor Tremonti's measures, senator Monti is piling on even more pain.

Under discussion in Berlin is growth; no further cuts will be inflicted in Italy, though he is busy, even as he inspects soaking wet German soldiers in front of the German Chancery, removing ring-fenced privilege from trades unionists, professionals, and service providers of all sorts.

A maestro of the art of waffling, (German speakers may prefer to go to Die Welt) senator Monti has been unspecific on Italy's requirements from Germany but there must be on the agenda:

- Raising the capitalisation of the EFSF (European Financial Stability Fund)
- Agreement to the issue at least on a limited scale and for special public investment purposes of European Union bonds
- To allow formally or informally a greater role to the ECB (European Central Bank) in the financing of euro sovereign debt
- Measures to reflate the German economy
- A slowing in the rate of reduction of the Italian debt/GDP ratio
- Soliciting more generous support for the financial transactions tax (he is Tobin's pupil, after all)

They have a lot to discuss - they were still talking when the One O'clock News finished.

If Not Now, When?

2012-01-10T18:00:00.000Z

Cries that a financial transaction tax can only function when it is a global tax are correct in economic terms but the ascendency of politics over economics is increasing. The politics of a financial transactions tax imposed within the European Monetary Union (both full and candidate members) is compelling, particularly when it is combined with the requirement that clearing-houses handling euro-denominated derivatives are based in a euro country; politically compelling for the European Union, anyway,

It may not be economically ideal but it drives the UK and its globalist rather than European agenda further from European decision-taking.

Never has it been more urgent for the UK to re-cast its relationships and obligations to the European Union. For while the threats to UK stability - grotesque debt levels, constitutional instability, European isolation, and reduction in the attractiveness of it financial activity climate are still just that - threats, the real bringing into being of uncertainty brings, as well, its fellows, low investment and lack of confidence.

Forget the arguments about nation statehood, links with the rest of the world, atlanticist and Commonwealth ties. Europe is not good for an off-shore state dependent upon its financial services industry and the UK government should be abandoning its dated attempts to influence European policy and doing far more to build a road to the exit.

Another European Union Threat: Scottish Independence

2012-01-09T11:31:00.000Z

The fragmentation of federalised member-states is not acceptable to European Union policy. Certainly there is a regional policy that breaks nation-state borders: bits of England subsumed into northern France; bits of north-eastern Europe grouped together regardless of borders....

Until more stable political union, though, individual member-states may not, ever, be encouraged in break-up into their constituent parts and thus thwarting the regionalisation policies of the EU.

Scotland is an enormous threat to all this. The UK is unique in having proper countries as its regions; and Scotland presents the most challenging and realistic advance towards independent statehood (and might even seek independent EU membership). This is not what the European Union is for. The EU is for administratively convenient and historically destructive zones - not the re-affirmation of local identities, unapproved policy goals, and democratic responsiveness.

As the dead Labour Party marshalls its House of Lords zombies to disrupt Scottish expressions of individuality (finding themselves without the mass of Scottish Westminster MPs is to be dead and buried for Labour), the Conservatives conform to their EU directives - no nationalist-rooted fragmentation - and to their own EU sustenance rules - no referendums of any kind, ever, in case an example is established for all of the UK voting to leave their noxious relationship with the European Union, and as the Liberal Democrats wonder how to stop losing the very few seats they have managed to retain on the edges of the UK, we have temporary common cause.

A cross-party consensus, no less, using the undemocratic and brownian-Labour stuffed House Of Lords (sniggers, Lords indeed) has risen from the stagnant pond of political after-life that is the UK democracy's Upper House of Parliament, to take the high ground (more sniggers) against Scottish freedom to choose how it is ruled and settles its affairs democratically. The EU wants none of it; the Labour party wants none of it; the Conservative and Liberal coalition wants none of it; doubtless the hereditary (this is 2012 but feudal structures reign) monarchy wants none of it. But the greatest of these is the European Union. There will be no encouragement to Catalonia, Corsica, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Brittany, the Basques or any other, least of all Northern Ireland, attempt to set up alone or rejoin a lost future.

It will all be cast in the language of UK constitutional practice but Scotland is not going to get away with disturbing ever-closer union.

Hungary: the Real Threat to Europe

2012-01-05T15:33:00.002Z

Angels refers readers to the horror that is developing in Hungary.

Returning to Vienna, on 13 January, it will certainly be worth asking also about the effects of Hungary's moral meltdown (which is causing its economic disaster) upon the Polish and Czech economies. Because the governance of Europe is expressed through the nation states of which it is made, necessarily regional cultural and historical links cause the 'contagion' that has dominated the media over the Mediterranean member states in the run up to Christmas. Now it is the turn of eastern Europe and, once again, without justification of economic fundamentals in some of the affected states. Investors are afraid of some kinds of politico/cultural and historical identities.

Which only goes to show that Marx is again - sigh - wrong. Politics is not a superstructure generated by the economic base. Politics is the public face of private morality. And as Hungarians have demonstrated so horribly, democracy springing from a vile cultural mindset can instal quite evil regimes.

Fortunately democracy's means of expression range further than just voting: from the withholding of civil consent to civil war, with every stage in between. Currently Hungary is enjoying the democratic expressions of media outrage, letters of protest, mass demonstration, hunger strike, appeals to external democratic support from other European democratic states, and international economic pressure. Nevertheless, from Hungary rises a terrible miasma of the central European past that we had thought to bury in the cataclysm of 1945.

Primarily the European Union is not the imposition of a single European order: more importantly it is a bulwark against the atavistic European racialism that led to the Holocaust. England, by the grace of God and its own determined morality, is free of guilt for what was done to millions and millions of fellow citizens in the countries of continental Europe; but in the English rejection of the Union into which they have been tricked by their own politicians for their politicians' gain, they should have the greater grace to be aware of what that Union stands firm against, and which in Hungary is trying to rise again.

And a Happy New Year...

2011-12-31T15:02:00.000Z

Star Child

2011-12-23T16:15:00.001Z

Merry Christmas!

Seigniorage to the Rescue

2011-12-19T13:37:00.000Z

When the Eurozone gets its act together (which should be well under way) and supplies a unified sovereign for the European Central Bank, the Governor of the ECB will finally be able institutionally and constitutionally, to take all the necessary actions that will end the Eurozone crisis. Wisely and resolutely Mr Draghi has refused to step outside the remit the Bank has under current laws, ignoring the siren calls to do just that and destroy the standing of the Bank and its capacity to command the trust of both the markets and the people. A Central Bank is not a sovereign, least of all in a democratic world, even if it could be, briefly, in the face of global financial and economic meltdown fears.

It is notable that Mario Draghi has never said that he cannot act but that he cannot act under the current Treaty. Nor has he said that he will not act if terms change. He has both the means and the will to act as soon as there is a sovereign to instruct him to do so. Which puts a different, wrecker's light upon Cameron's gesture of seeking a quid pro quo entirely unrelated to the matter under discussion in return for according unanimity, and the European Union institutional and legislative processes, to the creation of appropriate structures under which the Governor of the European Central Bank can act.

For if creating the new agreements on the actions permitted to the Central Bank is successful there will be no Euro collapse. Instead there will be a significant transfer of wealth from outside the Euro area into the Euro area (on balance) and, globally, from those who have betted against the Euro to those who accepted its soundness. Those who have sold Euro sovereign bonds may bitterly regret having done so, although they will lose nothing but the profits they would have made from them. Those who have sold short will incur losses. It is difficult to assess the extent of these losses because they depend on the time-pattern of purchases and sales, and the size of short sales and credit default swaps cover (CDS will become worthless to the benefit of issuers); the Euro will rise to its historical peak, around 1.50 to the dollar, the cost of Euro sovereign debt will fall leaving room for easing austerity measures and reviving the Euro economies in spite of the loss of competitiveness from a stronger Euro.

With 3.3 trillion euros of resources from its seigniorage enabling the ECB to continue its purchases of eurozone government bonds, and the changes needed in the ECB's statutes, the Euro is unlikely to be brought down to save the profits ( how great can they be?) of some global speculators. The political forces ranged against the Eurozone and against the financial and economic measures it embraces have chosen an economic rather than political offensive and in so doing may well find themselves beaten off and out of pocket.

A Good Read: How to Resolve the Euro Crisis Without Fuss and Expense

2011-12-14T18:35:00.002Z

The Debt of Nations texts can be found here and here. The second text, in particular is an innovative and convincing thesis on the resources available to the European Central Bank and its role as a fiscal player.

Have a good read..

The Debt of Nations

2011-12-12T13:41:00.000Z

The Bank of Italy and the University of Rome La Sapienza have kindly arranged for Willem Buiter to talk to us all tomorrow on:

Excessive debt in rich nations: what happens when sovereigns, banks and households deleverage at the same time? and

The central bank as a quasi-fiscal player: theory and application for the Euro Area and other advanced industrial countries

Dinner too; Angels are promised excellent fish and considerably more sense being talked than in Brussels last weekend.

Pacta Sunt Servanda

2011-12-11T12:18:00.001Z

"If the euro breaks up because its members have to move clumsily and slowly outside the formal EU treaties and institutions because of Cameron's veto, the resulting series of bank collapses and consequent depression will hurt Britain badly.", writes Will Hutton in today's Observer.

Consider, though, the view expressed by the draftsman of the Lisbon Treaty, from this morning's Sole 24 Ore:

"The fact is that to reinforce the eurozone it is not actually necessary to change the Treaty, it is enough to apply the clauses on the eurozone and, further, the clause on flexibility. The final communique' of Friday's Council specified among the things to be done as a priority, the reinforcing of procedures and sanctions for all the eurozone countries with excessive deficits under Article 26 of the Treaty. It is precisely that which is already permitted under Article 136 of the same Treaty." *

The ntergovernmental accords that Hutton fears are too slow are sought, not imposed upon the 26, by Germany. Why? because Germany must convince its voters that something more than the low-level language of the Lisbon Treaty is reinforcing a more disciplined and integrated fiscal stance throughout the eurozone and indeed throughout the EU ( bearing in mind that all except two of the 27 - shortly to be 28 - member-states are necessarily candidates for entry to the Euro) and all are bound by Stability and Growth Pact requirements, euro-users or not.

Has the UK Prime Minister vetoed parts of the Lisbon Treaty signed so gracelessly by his predecessor? And if he has what other international treaties to which the United Kingdom is a signatory might the Coalition government be tempted to repudiate?

* 'Il fatto si è che per rafforzare la zona euro non era affatto necessario modificare il Trattato, bastava applicarne le clausole che riguardano la stessa zona euro, più, eventualmente, la clausola di flessibilità. Il comunicato conclusivo del Consiglio di venerdì indica tra le cose da fare con priorità il rafforzamento per i paesi dell'euro delle procedure e delle sanzioni previste dall'art.126 del Trattato per i disavanzi eccessivi di tutti gli Stati membri. È esattamente ciò che già consente di fare l'art.136 dello stesso Trattato.'

Britain Can't Afford EU Membership

2011-12-10T14:23:00.003Z

Britain must have a totally free fiscal hand for the financing and refinancing of government debt and deficit by the Bank of England.

It cannot satisfy the rules which, even without the new pact that it has failed to join, discipline all EU members' fiscal policy (regardless of the use or no of the euro) through the Growth and Stability Pact.

Nor can the the main Coalition Government partner antagonise the City institutions that have so generously funded them in their electoral campaign and current activities.

Of course they could always have continued to go through the motions of looking as if they are following the rules, with small qualifications, , exceptions and delays, and pretexts, as they have been doing up to now, claiming exemptions - euro, internal market, Schengen - although sooner rather than later they would have had to accept squarely that the country is excessively indebted and that the Party is in pawn to its funders.

This might once more have been acceptable or benignly neglected by the EU but it hasn't helped that London-based hedge funds mounted the assault upon Italian bonds. Italy isn't a minor, peripheral member-state of the EU; Merkozy is complemented by Montraghi in the governance of Europe.

This time bluffs have been called and exceptions not allowed.

The Full Text of the EU Statement

2011-12-10T11:39:00.001Z

EUROPEAN COUNCIL Brussels, 9 December 2011

STATEMENT BY THE EURO AREA HEADS OF STATE OR GOVERNMENT

The European Union and the euro area have done much over the past 18 months to improve economic governance and adopt new measures in response to the sovereign debt crisis. However, market tensions in the euro area have increased, and we need to step up our efforts to address the current challenges. Today we agreed to move towards a stronger economic union. This implies action in two directions:
- a new fiscal compact and strengthened economic policy coordination;
- the development of our stabilisation tools to face short term challenges.

A reinforced architecture for Economic and Monetary Union

1. The stability and integrity of the Economic and Monetary Union and of the European Union as a whole require the swift and vigorous implementation of the measures already agreed as well as further qualitative moves towards a genuine "fiscal stability union" in the euro area. Alongside the single currency, a strong economic pillar is indispensable. It will rest on an enhanced governance to foster fiscal discipline and deeper integration in the internal market as well as stronger growth, enhanced competitiveness and social cohesion. To achieve this objective, we will build on and enhance what has been achieved in the past 18 months: the enhanced Stability and Growth Pact, the implementation of the European Semester starting this month, the new macro-economic imbalances procedure, and the Euro Plus Pact.

2. With this overriding objective in mind, and fully determined to overcome together the current difficulties, we agreed today on a new "fiscal compact" and on significantly stronger coordination of economic policies in areas of common interest.

3. This will require a new deal between euro area Member States to be enshrined in common, ambitious rules that translate their strong political commitment into a new legal framework.

A new fiscal compact

4. We commit to establishing a new fiscal rule, containing the following elements:

• General government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus; this principle shall be deemed respected if, as a rule, the annual structural deficit does not exceed 0.5% of nominal GDP.
• Such a rule will also be introduced in Member States' national legal systems at constitutional or equivalent level. The rule will contain an automatic correction mechanism that shall be triggered in the event of deviation. It will be defined by each Member State on the basis of principles proposed by the Commission. We recognise the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to verify the transposition of this rule at national level.
• Member States shall converge towards their specific reference level, according to a calendar
proposed by the Commission.
• Member States in Excessive Deficit Procedure shall submit to the Commission and the Council for endorsement, an economic partnership programme detailing the necessary structural reforms to ensure an effectively durable correction of excessive deficits. The implementation of the programme, and the yearly budgetary plans consistent with it, will be monitored by the Commission and the Council.
• A mechanism will be put in place for the ex ante reporting by Member States of their national debt issuance plans.

5. The rules governing the Excessive Deficit Procedure (Article 126 of the TFEU) will be reinforced for euro area Member States. As soon as a Member State is recognised to be in breach of the 3% ceiling by the Commission, there will be automatic consequences unless a qualified majority of euro area Member States is opposed. Steps and sanctions proposed or recommended by the Commission will be adopted unless a qualified majority of the euro area Member States is opposed. The specification of the debt criterion in terms of a numerical benchmark for debt reduction (1/20 rule) for Member States with a government debt in excess of 60% needs to be enshrined in the new provisions.

6. We will examine swiftly the new rules proposed by the Commission on 23 November 2011 on (i) the monitoring and assessment of draft budgetary plans and the correction of excessive deficit in euro area Member States and (ii) the strengthening of economic and budgetary surveillance of Member States experiencing or threatened with serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability in the euro area. We call on the Council and the European Parliament to rapidly examine these regulations so that they will be in force for the next budget cycle. Under this new legal framework, the Commission will in particular examine the key parameters of the fiscal stance in the draft budgetary plans and will, if needed, adopt an opinion on these plans. If the Commission identifies particularly serious non-compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact, it will request a revised draft budgetary plan.

7. For the longer term, we will continue to work on how to further deepen fiscal integration so as to better reflect our degree of interdependence. These issues will be part of the report of the President of the European Council in cooperation with the President of the Commission and the President of the Eurogroup in March 2012. They will also report on the relations between the EU and the euro area.

Stronger policy coordination and governance

8. We agree to make more active use of enhanced cooperation on matters which are essential for the smooth functioning of the euro area, without undermining the internal market.

9. We are committed to working towards a common economic policy. A procedure will be established to ensure that all major economic policy reforms planned by euro area Member States will be discussed and coordinated at the level of the euro area, with a view to benchmarking best practices.

10. Euro area governance will be reinforced as agreed at the Euro Summit of 26 October. In particular, regular Euro Summits will be held at least twice a year.

Strengthening the stabilisation tools

11. Longer term reforms such as the ones set out above must be combined with immediate action to forcefully address current market tensions.

12. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) leveraging will be rapidly deployed, through the two concrete options agreed upon by the Eurogroup on 29 November. We welcome the readiness of the ECB to act as an agent for the EFSF in its market operations.

13. We agree on an acceleration of the entry into force of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) treaty. The Treaty will enter into force as soon as Member States representing 90 % of the capital commitments have ratified it. Our common objective is for the ESM to enter into force in July 2012.

14. Concerning financial resources, we agree on the following:

• the EFSF will remain active in financing programmes that have started until mid-2013 as provided for in the Framework Agreement; it will continue to ensure the financing of the on- going programmes as needed;
• we will reassess the adequacy of the overall ceiling of the EFSF/ESM of EUR 500 billion (USD 670 billion) in March 2012;
• during the phasing in of the paid-in capital, we stand ready to accelerate payments of capital in order to maintain a minimum 15% ratio between paid-in capital and the outstanding amount of ESM issuances and to ensure a combined effective lending capacity of EUR 500 billion;
• euro area and other Member States will consider, and confirm within 10 days, the provision of additional resources for the IMF of up to EUR 200 billion (USD 270 billion), in the form of bilateral loans, to ensure that the IMF has adequate resources to deal with the crisis. We are looking forward to parallel contributions from the international community.

15. We agree on the following adjustments to the ESM Treaty to make it more effective:

• Concerning the involvement of the private sector, we will strictly adhere to the well established IMF principles and practices. This will be unambiguously reflected in the preamble of the treaty. We clearly reaffirm that the decisions taken on 21 July and 26/27 October concerning Greek debt are unique and exceptional; standardised and identical Collective Action Clauses will be included, in such a way as to preserve market liquidity, in the terms and conditions of all new euro government bonds.
• In order to ensure that the ESM is in a position to take the necessary decisions in all circumstances, voting rules in the ESM will be changed to include an emergency procedure. The mutual agreement rule will be replaced by a qualified majority of 85 % in case the Commission and the ECB conclude that an urgent decision related to financial assistance is needed when the financial and economic sustainability of the euro area is threatened.1

1
subject to confirmation by Finnish parliament.

16. We welcome the measures taken by Italy; we also welcome the commitment of the new Greek government, and of the parties supporting it, to fully implement its programme, as well as the significant progress achieved by Ireland and Portugal in implementing their programmes.

Some of the measures described above can be decided through secondary legislation. The euro area Heads of State or Government consider that the other measures should be contained in primary legislation. Considering the absence of unanimity among the EU Member States, they decided to adopt them through an international agreement to be signed in March or at an earlier date. The objective remains to incorporate these provisions into the treaties of the Union as soon as possible.

The Heads of State or Government of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden indicated the possibility to take part in this process after
consulting their Parliaments where appropriate.

____________________

Cooked his Goose

2011-12-09T15:40:00.000Z

Seventeen eurozone countries signed-up forthwith, the remaining countries are inclined to do so but will consult their Parliaments first out of sheer democratic animal spirits. Except for the United Kingdom, whose Prime Minister displayed the brutal reality of Executive power in the United Kingdom's so-called democracy by refusing point blank to accept the greater interest of the European Union, or indeed of the United Kingdom, over that of his party's unity. A democratic leader would have consulted his country's Parliament on Lisbon Treaty changes.

Not even his government coalition's survival was at stake; there is a European majority in the UK Parliament. Cameron put at risk the economic security of most of Europe for a Conservative party faction. He wasn't defending City interests, despite his protestations, for City interests require the highest levels of representation within the EU and he has certainly lost that. Nor could anything prevent greater EU surveillance over the City's 'light touch' regulation; those glory days are gone. EU business will be regulated and (to a far greater extent than might have been with the UK properly represented) transacted within the core EU from now on. And it is impossible to imagine the European Union taking any repatriation of powers to the UK seriously after facing down the UK on an issue as important as the Euro itself.

Let us hope Cameron has the courage of others' anti-EU convictions and leaves altogther; there's nothing but a price to pay and Union meddling in the UK's internal affairs left for the UK in Europe now. No reason to stay and every reason to go.

Innocent Tax Evasion

2011-12-09T12:23:00.000Z

The refusal of the Roman Catholic Church to volunteer to pay property taxes has been dubbed 'innocent tax evasion'. Of course it is nothing of the sort. There has been every sort of pressure applied to the lay State not to levy property taxes on the Church, not least the threatening claim that the Church 'does good' for the poor and deprived and it should not be interrupted in this undertaking by having to pay taxes like everyone else. If it paid taxes like everyone else there wouldn't be so many poor and needy because they could be supported better by all of us and not subjected to Church requirements before qualifying.

This outrage, being presented as a defence of charity by the Church, has given rise to an enormous outcry - the web has resources that have never before been available to those who oppose the primitive internet of the pulpit.

So, just in case our efforts to assert the lay governance of Italy and its people might succeed, a further layer of defence of the politocreligious privileged has been inserted into the the Salva Italia provisions. The revision of property values by the land registry (up, of course) will not be applied to ecclesiastical property: churches, vicarages (or whatever they call them - the priest here has a house big enough for an army) hotels posing as monasteries and convents, city centre commercial developments on Church land, monuments, .....on and on goes the recitation of untaxed riches, while the faces of the poor are being ground unless they pray (and vote) correctly.

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be

2011-12-08T14:59:00.000Z

The real problem, and the fear, facing European Union countries is not sovereign debt or inter-bank liquidity (as the Governor of the Austrian Central Bank pointed out in Vienna, much can be done to improve liquidity). It is stagnation that threatens our living standards and our political arrangements.

Governor Novotny noted too that last year the Bank of England bought 80% of new issues of UK government debt - an action not permitted to the European Central Bank.    If tomorrow the ECB were to be given latitude on this scale, if not unlimited powers, to buy government bonds at least in the secondary markets in exchange for tighter discipine on national governments' fiscal policy, then the Euro would be home and dry. Although frankly this can only be regarded as a quasi-fiscal activity bordering on abuse of central bank position as a monopolist of currency issue.

There are three inter-related crises: budget - the re-financing of the public sector; bank - their not lending to each other ; and in the real economy. And the greatest of these is the crisis of the real economy, for it is this crisis that is intractable.

The United States, Europe and Japan represent over two thirds of the world economy.    They are displaying all the signs that they have reached the limits of standard fiscal and monetary instruments used in the past. In the US despite flat or declining wage levels - something that had not happened in 40 years - unemployment has increased since 2008.   Interest rates have been fixed at 0% for two years in advance. Japan has been flat as a pancake for 20 years no matter what has been attempted, and the US is heading in the same direction.

Europe, despite the fuss surrounding government debt re-financing, and the currency, still shows signs of life. How can it be nurtured? First of all Germany must conform to the Euro requirement for staying under but close to a 2% inflation rate just as certainly as any other member state must not exceed it.

Paradoxically, higher wage levels are needed. Technological innovation under-pinned by reseach and development must be enhanced and facilitated by governmental action. Infrastructural development (not the greenery-yallery agenda but real provision of better communications, natural disaster protection, the recuperation of the devastations of 19th and 20th century industrialisation) undertaken. An end is needed to cruel programmes of 'austerity' that merely attack the weakest rather than the corrupt, driving down demand while spreading poverty, inertia, ignorance and incapacity.

For our political culture failure to ensure growth in Europe is encouraging incoherent but worrying claims for non-capitalist economic systems. As Janos Kornai states plainly:

"At a time when socialism is being reconsidered we need to remember its human cost and we need to re-emphasize its failure on technical grounds - macro-data decision-taking failed to match market choice. There isn't a solution to capitalist difficulties through socialist theorising or practice."

PIGS Breakfast

2011-12-07T16:25:00.002Z

The usual 'austerity' has been delivered, this time to the Italians, by a seriously technically and intellectually under-powered government. The strong impression that an EU blueprint was handed to Monti and he thought merely to give it an Italianate tweak is hard to avoid.

Rise in petrol tax, cuts in pension rights, rise in property taxes, retrospective tax grab at savings repatriated to Italy, VAT hike. Yawn. "Salva Italia!" ? What for? So Church and Mafia and State elites can go on exploiting the captive people - the not awfully well-paid employees, the elderly on pensions and fixed incomes, and with spoiling the life chances of the young through under-funded education and training and long-term unemployment?

The trade unions are calling a national strike; but there's a bit of a problem with timing as today is St Ambrogio, tomorrow is the Immaculate Conception and then it's virtually the weekend so nobody's counting Friday and everyone has gone skiing, or to the Alto Adige to the Christmas markets, or to the near abroad for 5 days (Vienna was already packed with Italians when we left on Tuesday evening).

The minister for Pensions wept crocodile tears in Parliament as she hacked at the incomes of the old and poor, but nothing was said about the cost of useful things like food going through the roof with the fuel hikes. Or about people who have worked and contributed for 40 years from virtual childhood (staying at school and tertiary education is quite recent in Italy) suddenly facing five more years. There are zillions of technical studies on limiting pensions in equitable ways but she showed no sign of knowing them, never mind understanding them. To add injury to insult the old and poor are also having their greater need for health services and treatment met with cuts to free medicine.

When asked why property taxes were not being levied on the Church at all, never mind raised like other people's, Monti acknowledged they hadn't discussed doing that. Well, he wouldn't, would he, getting himself on the telly waving the Pope off on trips and going to mass with the missus all the time? So there's tax introduced on prima casa and rises on seconda casa, but nothing on prima and seconda chiesa.

No cuts to the admirals and the generals either - probably wasn't discussed. And the only nod to encouraging growth is easing payroll taxes - for the South of course: wouldn't want the special status of the corrupt South disturbed would we?

This isn't technical governance - these people couldn't find their bottoms with both hands in broad daylight - this is maintaining the political status quo which delivered Italy to its current public indebtedness, while creeping to the Brussels statist agendas. Just wait until we all get back from the early December holidays next week (not to be confused with the Christmas holidays of course, they go on until 6 January next year) and then we'll see how Monti and his perben'isti mates get this disgrace of iniquity and inequity through.

UPDATE

There is a general strike on Monday next and another of state employees probably on 16 December (they have to give prior notice because of essential services being maintained). The spread has risen above 400 again. [Now hovering in the 390s.]

The Best Cartoon

2011-12-04T18:35:00.000Z

Shingo Araki, 1 January 1939 - 1 December 2011.

School for Scandal

2011-12-01T09:30:00.000Z

The London School of Economics and Political Science has always been an institution that links more widely with governments and political elites worldwide than do many universities. Economics and political science, too, attract more contention than most fields of study - we all have views and experience of LSE's central concerns for they are the central concerns of all our lives. It is to the credit of the School that until the onset of the mass corruption engendered by New Labour governance it had kept clean hands and a clear head in much of what it did and is. It might have been disliked, contested, accused of disruptive, even revolutionary tendencies (quite wrongly, this last, but truth-telling is often confused with subversion) but it maintained its reputation for scholarship and research, and for the independence and distance that must be maintained by any university worthy of the name.

Lord Woolf's report on his Inquiry into the School's relations with the recently overthrown Libyan regime and its dictator ends all that. Couched in the careful clarity and understatement of inquiryspeak it illuminates a hinterland of collapsed political and administrative standards, moral standards even, that typified New Labour's Third Way and its exponents and practitioners.

Regulating Global Markets in Times of Crisis

2011-11-30T12:23:00.000Z

Il dottor Sottile, Giuliano Amato (author of the Lisbon Treaty and its predecessors) will be speaking on this attractive topic - Regulating Global Markets in Times of Crisis - at Rome's La Sapienza at three this afternoon. While many of us are most disappointed that he has not figured in the new Italian government (which is overloaded with a preachy Prime Minister and his grey, male acolytes) Angels remains convinced that he had a great deal to do with its installation.

There is no advance text. It's stand-up, ad lib. The audience of lawyers will find it is greatly augmented by interested political passers-by.

Pecking Orders

2011-11-29T17:09:00.001Z

Everything continues quietly as nothing extravagant is promised, never mind done, about the Italian state debt. The Atlanticist media continues its hysterical screams that Italy is a baddy who owes lots of money, that Germany is a baddy who won't share even though it Lost the War, that France is a deeply baddy cheese eating surrender monkey etc. Admittedly there is something of a stunned silence over Poland's Foreign Secretary asking Germany to do something (for the first time in Poland's history, as he himself acknowledges).

Settled political stances cannot be turned round as quickly as money markets. Particularly when the most indebted nation on Earth is slipping from its pre-eminence and keeps using its remaining financial and other oomph to push Germany and central Europe off-balance as Europe gets itself organised; in the hope of somehow, any how, recovering US former planetary status.

We are resettling post 1945. It takes time; and this time the premier central European power has also taken care to make its arrangements and its settlements with the East. Just look at the painstaking work to organise relations with Russia, and with energy supplies, that Chancellor Merkel has undertaken in recent years - and their success.

The frenzied assault upon Italy is the high tide of turning back this new settlement, an assault enabled by Berlusconi's 10 years of criminal governance of a major European power. This is estimated to have caused 28.7% of Italy's total debt, which has been accumulated at twice the speed of any other government of the current Republic. On average it is 60 billion euros a year, ie, over 1000 euros per Italian citizen head per year. He's gone now, but even a national mess takes time to clean up. And that time is being organised.

Italy is not some kind of Spain, or even remotely a Portugal, Ireland, Greece or Cyprus. ( The comparison would be to rank the UK economy with that of Ireland.) But unless the global brinkmanship currently being practised is not called off we will all find ourselves in a very different kind of chicken run.

Leaning Over Backwards

2011-11-28T14:26:00.002Z

The pressures being applied to the euro have roots wholly other than reasonable doubt that debt can be sustained. The unwise insistence by Germany and France that private investors should bear some of the burden of debt restructuring has led to the US (and others') disorderly withdrawal from financial markets for euro sovereign debt. This has been exacerbated by the European Banking Authority insisting on the principle that such bonds should be marked to market instead of valued at their purchase price, coupled with applying this criterion to all European banks, not just those systemically important, as is the case in America.

There are other more technical problems, concerning the ratios between capitalisation and total assets that the EBA has accepted which are disadvantageous to large sections of European banking. (cf the illuminating article by Marcello de Cecco in today's Repubblica, Perche' L'EBA e' subalterna agli USA).

Considering that there is an Italian in charge of the European Banking Authority, not to mention the Italian in charge at the European Central Bank (who refuses to buy unlimited amounts of Italian bonds), an Italian is Chief Economist of the OECD, (which has just forecast zero growth for the Eurozone in general, and half a percentage point decline for Italy in particular, thus attracting Moody prognostications for multi-state default in the euro-area), an outburst of Italian self-hate seems to be contributing to the financial crisis.

The DSK Scandal

2011-11-26T09:00:00.000Z

The downfall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is well on the way to becoming one of the great conspiracies de nos jours. Apart from his exclusion from running for the presidency of France, his abrupt departure from the IMF has had untold repercussions on global financial affairs.

This account from the New York Review of Books, reported again in the FT this morning, is detailed but contains nothing from DSK himself - who obviously knows what happened and why better than anyone else. Continued attempts to associate him with sexual scandal suggest the rest of this unfinished story may be published during the French presidential campaign.

Running

2011-11-22T20:21:00.001Z

Taking advantage of acquaintance, Mr HG asked the banking association official who is nationally responsible for retail banking payments systems what are the rules on maximum cash withdrawals. The answer was that rules are not clear cut on the frequency of withdrawals, the treatment of joint accounts, or on cumulative limits. Nevertheless the sensation that there is a secret retail run on Italian banks is confirmed by the rapid increase of 500 euro notes in circulation in the entire euro area. And by the fact that the amount of cash that one is told by cashiers can be withdrawn on a single occasion falls steadily - from 10,000 to 5,000, to at present 2,500 with the warning that this might soon be reduced to 300 or even 100 euros. Certainly the media suggest that a 100 or 300 euro cash payment may be the maximum permitted in retail transactions.

Rather than attract attention by drawing 2,499 euros from the bank-at-the-bottom-of-the-hill last week, Mr HG was advised to withdraw 2,400. After repeating the operation a couple of times he was asked to sign a declaration on the uses to which this money was to be put. He then proposed to empty his current account into a safer and more private berth as it wasn't worth keeping our ready cash at 1% interest and suffer nosiness. To do so triggers yet another declaration that our money is going to be kept under our mattress.

Finding we had left the main door unlocked from Friday to Sunday on our return from Rome, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was no longer there.

Good Luck

2011-11-18T15:42:00.001Z

The Italian parliament has handed out yet another vote of confidence (they're really good at this if at nothing else) and the Monti administration is now in full possession of the powers of government that pertain to the Executive. Using this circumlocution is necessary because much of the media has objected that Italian democracy has been replaced by a commission of technocrats. (Mr HG argued that though ugly, the word 'technocrat' means 'technician in power' and is more accurate than 'technician'). It has not.

Democracy is not homogeneous in form. Italy is different from the UK. The head of state has clearly-delineated, and wide, powers under the democratic constitution to act in specific sets of circumstances. This clarity of powers and of occasions for intervention does not exist in the UK, nor is the head of state democratically elected, nor is there a constitutional court to hold parties to the rules. Under the democratic principles and rules governing Italian democracy the Monti administration is not just acceptable but was required to be called into being. Now that it has been voted on and confirmed in the Upper and Lower house (with massive majorities in both votes) it's as democratic and representative as any other western government, though validated by different parts of the democratic structure.

The test is very simple: when Monti starts cutting, taxing, stripping privileges, opening closed shops and removing undeserved special statuses we will all see if the interests concerned can overturn his administration or are forced by the greater democratic will expressed through Parliament, head of state, and constitution, to accept their lot. He's not there at gun point. And his remit is much, much wider than driving down spread and yield in the interests of sustaining the Euro.

Monti's intention is to govern until the elections in 2013: he intends electoral reform, trade union reform, reform of the professions, bank restructuring, extensive changes in the levying and collection of tax, and to take a sword to the proliferation of the political classes.

He starts first thing Monday morning.

Rendering Unto Caesar

2011-11-17T11:57:00.000Z

The new Italian government will outline its policies this afternoon. At the moment we are all fired-up with patriotic support and determination to deal with public debt. Angels proposes requiring the Church to pay rates and taxes and the South to be denied any special subsidies, together with a determined assault upon tax evasion (a southern speciality, although widely practised throughout the country.)

Should there be any attempt to raise property taxes before forcing the Church to pay property taxes at all, or should there be an attempt to cut pensions in general rather than concentrating on southern vitalizio abuse first, then the patriotic support will vanish at once. We are not going to put up with gross inequalities of treatment inflicted or enforced by Church or Mafia. Nor are we putting up with higher taxation after Berlusconi raised the tax burden from 43% of GDP to almost 50%. We need tax cuts, we need deregulation, we need the liberalisation of professions.

It is nonsense to say that this government of professors, lawyers and bankers is not political. Professors are the most exquisitely political of all breeds; closely followed by lawyers and bankers. But they are political dilettanti and like all dilettanti, they fancy themselves no end. Let's hope they are aware that they answer to us, still, and that the fattest should be the first to be sacrificed.

Last Resort

2011-11-17T08:58:00.000Z

A lender of last resort, as Walter Bagehot taught us, is the central bank function of providing unlimited liquidity to commercial banks at a penal interest rate in exchange for good quality paper. Those who today advocate the ECB acting as a lender of last resort to Eurozone governments are misusing the terminology and thus misunderstanding the function of the central bank.

It is true that a central bank has a function of acting as treasurer to a government (or the state) providing unlimited liquidity to fund public expenditure if and when it might be necessary. However this traditional function has been limited over time by the myth of central bank independence and by legislative limits such as the debt ceiling in the US, or the Italian prohibition on lending money to the government (in 1980 Beniamino Andreatta introduced such a prohibition which reduced Italian inflation at the cost of paving the way to the accumulation of Italy's large public debt.)

Angela Merkel and general German opposition to ECB purchase of government bonds should be contrasted not by appealing for a non-existent role of lender of last resort but to the traditional function of the Bank acting as treasurer to the state. There is nothing in the EU treaties that forbids this; the problem is that there is no state. What needs to be resolved are distribution problems across the member states.

Willem Buiter refers to such a possible ECB role as "quasi fiscal abuse" of the ECB. Be that as it may it is a much less expensive alternative than a generalised, large-scale default of the larger part of the Euro area.

Pulling Out of the Death Spiral?

2011-11-16T08:19:00.005Z

The expectation that Mario Monti will confirm his acceptance of the office of prime minister and present his list of ministers to the President is growing by the minute. Then, if the President accepts the administration and the ministers are sworn-in this afternoon, he's got to face Parliament. Both major parties, of the centre-right and of the centre-left, have confirmed their support for a Monti administration after discussions with him and within their own parties; and most of the minor parties, with the large exception of the Northern Leagues who are determined to go into opposition, have offered their support.

But is it all too late? Spread and yield were yesterday back to the earlier highs that forced Berlusconi's resignation and, not unnaturally, he is remarking that it wasn't to do with him but that there is a speculative attack upon Italy which is continuing. The consequences of his stubborn attachment to power, in pure self interest and self defence, are still reverberating.

Yet the Italian economy has: very low private debt: net private assets over four times larger than public liabilities: a primary surplus - a budget surplus before payment of interest, where the only other European country with the same status is Germany; it has a fairly long average maturity of debt, some 7 years; it has a relatively low average interest rate on its past debt of around 4%; and a large but stable debt to GDP ratio at 120%. The negative weighing on Italy really is the slowest growth rate in Europe. We must now add the rapidly rising marginal cost of borrowing which is inexorably driving Italy towards default (though not for the next 2 years, which of course is a very good reason not to want 10 year bonds)

The negotiations over the Monti administration are giving clear indications that some kind of immunity is being constructed, or at least favourable circumstance sought, for Berlusconi. That may be the price for his party's agreement to a Monti government. Which conflicts seriously with the urgent need to pin the blame for the market's loss of confidence in Italy where it belongs - on Berlusconi.

[An afterthought: to appoint a Justice minister named Pomodoro is not going to help the international perception of serieta']

UPDATE
List of ministers in the new Italian government:

MARIO MONTI Chancellor of the Exchequer

ANNA MARIA CANCELLIERI Home office

GIULIO TERZI DI SANT'AGATA Foreign Secretary

PAOLA SEVERINO Ministry of Justice

CORRADO CLINI Environment

CORRADO PASSERA Development and Infrastructure

FRANCESCO PROFUMO Education

GIAMPAOLO DI PAOLA Defence

MARIO CATANIA Agriculture

CATRICALA' vice Premier

ELSA FORNERO Welfare

PIERO GIARDA Parliamentary affairs

ENZO MOAVERO MILANESI European Union affairs

FABRIZIO BARCA Federal affairs and national cohesion

LORENZO ORNAGHI Culture

ANDREA RICCARDI International affairs

Goodbye Silvio

2011-11-14T10:22:00.001Z

Handel on Saturday night. But after Berlusconi's broadcast last night, dripping with self pity and self justification, bitterly denouncing the celebrations on his going, Handel strikes again.

Nick Drew gives the whole opera at Capitalists@Work

Dealing with the South

2011-11-13T11:54:00.001Z

If the Italian government that is to be installed this evening does not start dealing with the South and do at least these broad-brush things very rapidly, it is not serious about dealing with Italy's public debt.

- Gradual but steep reduction of all forms of income subsidies; including fake invalidity pensions.

- Instant curtailment of salaries of public officials such as members of regional administrations, consultants, and other unproductive labour.

- Removal of tax exemptions on all Church activities (a national measure which would be particularly effective in the South).

- Lower wages for the South to reflect relative local labour abundance; and to compensate also for the higher costs of local activities resulting from mafia taxation.

- Once and for all abolition of prestige and useless projects such as the Messina bridge (not least because of seismic exposure but also because it is an opportunity for mafia funding).

- No eligibility of investigated as well as convicted individuals for public office, or of firms for public contracts.

- Campaign to detect and penalize usury.

- Facilitated access to credit, but without subsidies.

- The removal of all tax exemptions that pertain to the South alone.

- An enhanced fight against tax evasion with stricter penalties in the South (where tax evasion has contributed greatly to national debt).

- Increase police funding (at the moment the Force is being starved of funds to the point of officers having to pay for their own petrol).

[There we are Yacht. (Weekend Yachtsman feared nothing could be done in the South as many Italian governments have accepted). Once all this is done, other southern distortions of the Italian economy and body politic can be tackled. ]

Hallelujah!

2011-11-13T08:44:00.001Z

Handel in front of the Quirinale palace on the announcement that Berlusconi had resigned

Stability Law Passed by Lower House in Italy

2011-11-12T16:48:00.001Z

380 votes were cast in favour; the opposition Democratic party abstained.

UPDATE

Berlusconi has now resigned.

Draghi With Monti

2011-11-12T11:09:00.000Z

The Director of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has arrived at palazzo Giustiniano for talks with Senator Mario Monti. (Good name 'Mario'.)

If Mr Berlusconi resigns today then it will be Senator Monti who runs the caretaker government up to early elections, should his planned administration not receive a vote of confidence. Which is a great deal better than having ages more Berlusconi and elections run under his government. By moving so swiftly, in hours not weeks or month before Berlusconi would have to resign, the President has stripped Berlusconi of a major weapon - his control over large sections of the Italian media.

His Way

2011-11-12T10:18:00.000Z

Crozza sings Berlusconi's way

Pictures Speaking Louder Than Words in the Italian Senate

2011-11-11T17:24:00.000Z

The Corriere della Sera has a series of photos showing the reception for Mario Monti, and the entrance of Berlusconi's Finance Minister, in the Senate where the stability law was passed today.

Monti was greeted with a great round of applause. Tremonti went silently to a seat on the government benches, next to the Finance ministry under-secretary.

Good Riddance to Bossi Too

2011-11-11T10:03:00.000Z

While eyes are on Berlusconi the departure of the repellent Bossi of the Northern Leagues is just as worthy of celebration. The new stability law which has just been passed in the Senate has been stripped of the Northern Leagues' gun law which was to make possible the far easier acquisition of 'sporting' weapons. It should be remembered that in Italy wild boar is hunted with laser-guided rifles - little red dots flitting across the woods.

Berlusconi bought Bossi and the Leagues as a coalition party en bloc for 2 billion lira, cheap but then everything about Bossi and his party is cheap.

Tax the Church and Deal with the South

2011-11-10T18:11:00.000Z

There are two enormous elephants no-one wants us to look at in the salotto. The South and the Church.

Neither of them pay in any taxes and both of them slurp tax-payers' money out like, well, pigs at the trough (to borrow a phrase). Who wishes to govern Italy accommodates the South and the Church. And while the South has geopolitical form in many other European member-states, every one of which has its crosses to bear from regions of under- or post- development, none of them have to put up quite so much with the pretensions of the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic church as well.

Berlusconi bought the compliance of the Church in all his goings-on by exempting from tax all property associated with it; not just churches and monasteries, but land, commercial developments, businesses etc. Who wouldn't be a client for that? And deliver a micro-managed flock of voters.

The South, the Church, and (how shall I put this: more primitive governmental practices than democracy and the rule of law?) are intimately entwined with the governance exemplified by Berlusconi and his henchmen. The South, too, is wholly committed to the provision of a vitalizio for all (southerners, that is). The English word for vitalizio is annuity but it doesn't at all cover the extraordinary expectations of the South that it should be supported for life from wealth generated elsewhere in Italy and, indeed, the rest of Europe.

There wouldn't be an Italian public debt without the Church and the South. And public debt throughout Europe would be much reduced if the 'south' problem in Europe, North and South, were faced up to.

Another Fallen Angel?

2011-11-09T10:46:00.004Z

Angels' faith in President Napolitano has been shaken terribly. How could he have agreed to Berlusconi remaining in office? Certainly the vote on the budget was not formally a vote of confidence, and certainly it was passed - but to have voted against and failed to pass the state budget accounts for a second time would have been the height of irresponsibility. We all know what those abstention numbers signalled.

Berlusconi himself has acknowledged that the Parliament is in a state of paralysis. Votes cannot be given against essential legislation but that does not mean that the Prime Minister has maintained democratic legitimacy. In such circumstances the Constitution does indeed provide for presidential intervention in the governance of the country (as does the UK constitution - there would have to be such provision, wouldn't there).

So what possible assurances could have been offered to the President that would justify leaving such a man as Berlusconi in full possession of the powers of a prime minster after the Parliament has indicated their withdrawal? What unpublished deals have been done? And why has there been such a lack of transparency in what seems to have been arranged?

Just look at the yield and the spread.

UPDATE

President Napolitano has issued a note insisting that Berlusconi's resignation will be forthcoming. He has also made Mario Monti a life Senator.

Fin des Jeux

2011-11-09T08:57:00.000Z

So, after all the heart-searching, the constitutional consultations, the references to past crisis solutions, the suggested names: Monti, Letta, Alfano - even Amato, the possible forms the crisis government could take: 'technical', government of national unity, early elections. All this and now we have the answer.

The post-Berlusconi administration will be led by - Berlusconi. And the form of the administration will be a coalition of his (scattered and shrunken) party and the Northern Leagues. Their purpose? Ad hominem legislation for the interruption of legal proceedings against Berlusconi; special statuses for his family companies; generalised assaults upon the powers and independence of the judiciary. Social butchery in the name of Europe will come as a bonus, laying the ground for recast labour relations, the hollowing out of social security (in the best meaning of the term) for all from the youngest to the oldest; the extensive mulcting of the working population in higher taxes.

How do we know? Berlusconi tried some of it with the Decree that President Napolitano refused to sign, requiring that such measures must be agreed first by Parliament. This new Berlusconi Executive will divide the factious opposition readily, and now has the opportunity to scoop the board.

He's even got the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF to help him.

Now?

2011-11-08T18:08:00.001Z

Berlusconi is at the Quirinale with President Napolitano.

With him is Gianni Letta, vice premier, urbane, clever, well thought of - Berlusconi's keeper and advisor, widely touted as a possible successor.

Coalition Lega Nord leader Umberto Bossi, speaking to journalists at the Parliament has said,

“Aspettiamo qualche minuto. Deciderà cosa fare al Quirinale.” [Wait a moment, he will decide what to do at the Quirinale]

when asked if Berlusconi was on his way to resign.

UPDATE

No. He's still with us. He may still be with us till the end of November, given the stages needed to pass a bill through parliament. Getting him out of palazzo Chigi is like getting Brown out of Downing Street; even down to the suggestion that he's been asked to stay on by the Head of State while matters are sorted out. Just look at the difference in body-language on entering and on leaving the Quirinale.

Spread hit 500 today. It'll be worse tomorrow when the realisation dawns that he hasn't gone at all.

Quite an Agenda

2011-11-08T17:23:00.000Z

The note, scribbled by Berlusconi during the vote (and published by Il Fatto Quotidiano), lists concerns:

The ribaltone refers to the overturning of the centre right 2008 election victory if a 'technical' or national government is installed. It notes there are 8 'traitors'.
- Resign, he writes.
- Pres. Repubblica.
- A solution.

Who Did What

2011-11-08T16:42:00.000Z

These are the deputies who denied their vote to Berlusconi this afternoon:

Pdl (Berlusconi's own party):
Roberto Antonione,
Fabio Fava,
Giustina Destro,
Gennaro Malgieri (who says he was in the loo and missed the vote!),
Alfonso Papa (who is under house arrest).
Coalition members who were absent:
Calogero Mannino,
Giancarlo Pittelli,
Luciano Sardelli,
Francesco Stagno D'Alcontres
Santo Versace.
Abstained:
Franco Stradella, Pdl.
The opposition coalition abstained en masse.

The state Budget accounts passed by 308 votes.

Berlusconi needed 316 votes to demonstrate that he commands a majority in the Lower House.

He has now left the Parliament and gone to palazzo Chigi (or Downing Street, so to speak) to consider what this can possibly mean.

Language, Language

2011-11-08T09:55:00.000Z

Berlusconi's behaviour is becoming more and more eccentric. His language resembles that of a mafioso gangster rather than a democratic political leader and prime minister.
"I want to look in the eyes of traitors as they betray me"?? He'll want to send them all to sleep with the fishes next. Having agreed an exit strategy with his party and its allies in Rome, he returns from spending the day in his private house in Milan with his family and personal advisors ("That dickhead has left Rome for Milan... ", fumed a leading centre right politician) to announce he's soldiering on; perhaps it was thought at Arcore that his private business interests and firms' interests are better served by this change of plan.

Pity about Italy's exposure to an unnecessary debt crisis - but he's only prime minister in his spare time, as he remarked recently to one of his whores.

Italian Politics Moves On

2011-11-07T12:18:00.007Z

The Italian media is reporting that Berlusconi will go today. He has gone to Milan but will be returning to Rome this evening.

Whether this turns out to be correct or no, political debate rages now on whether there should be early general elections (Italy has fixed term parliaments and elections are not due until 2013); whether another centre right politician should be asked to form an administration and put it to a parliamentary vote of confidence (but the centre right coalition elected in 2008 has collapsed and reformed so often that it is hard to argue that the original election-winning grouping exists any more); or whether a 'technical' government be formed to put in place the measures promised by Italy to deal with public debt.

This last would face real difficulties in achieving a parliamentary confidence vote because of the unpopularity of all and any debt-cutting measures. In truth it is a fig leaf to hide the installation of a centre left administration that runs against the democratic vote of the last elections.

So unpopular are reforms proposed, and required by lenders, to various parts of the electorate, and so unpalatable the likely further measures that would be brought in by a centre left 'technical' government (wealth taxes, levies on current accounts, worsening of pension rights etc.) that it is hard to see any democratic way of resolving decisions on the choices for cutting state debt other than by holding early elections. Furthermore, before proceeding to general elections there is a pressing need to reform the electoral rules (known as the porcellum - the pig's breakfast) introduced before the last elections which place the choice of candidates on the party lists entirely in the hands of party leaders (hence showgirls reborn as waged and expenses-endowed politicians, and other corruptions).

President Napolitano has held extensive consultations with all political parties in the last week. The President is required to consult with specific people - previous presidents, constitutional advisers etc., but in the end, apart from the need for a caretaker administration to return the electoral rules to their pre-porcellum form, only a general election can assure the markets that the people have consented to the measures about to be visited upon them.

UPDATE

“Le voci di mie dimissioni sono destituite di fondamento e non capisco come siano circolate [word of my resignation is without foundation and I don't understand why it is circulating]”, Silvio Berlusconi has stated to the Italian news agency Ansa. Look at the bonds, Silvio.

Further UPDATE mid afternoon

Mediobanca (+5,82%) Intesa Sanpaolo (+5,15%). Fiat (+5.12% ). Fiat Industrial (+4,06%)
Spread German - Italian 10 year bonds below 470 (it was above 490 this morning)

Early evening UPDATE

Spread Italian German bonds back up to 487. Yield on Italian 10 year bonds back to 6.67%. The yoyo effect of Berlusconi's exit timing is quite extraordinary.

Princess Celestia Rides Again

2011-11-05T10:43:00.001Z

For those who are behind in My Little Pony story lines here they are. Many grown-ups have allowed their My Little Pony knowledge to date and atrophy quite shamefully. The WSJ draws timely attention to this failing.

Get along to the shops now and make your consuming contribution to saving-the-global-economy-and-the-world-as-we-know-it from collapse. Christmas is coming so no-one will know your Pony-purchase is really to complete your own set.

[The Little Ponies are in the soffitta, Small, in a box. I'm not sure about the stable.]

Fatigue and Disbelief

2011-11-03T12:54:00.004Z

Financial crisis fatigue has struck. I look at the spectacular, manicured landscape, the gleaming cities (Rome is looking particularly fine as we watch the polished motors ferry ministers and officials about through imperial grandeur), the streets full of new cars, the holidaymakers returning from their extended break for All Souls, the banks functioning perfectly normally, the gold bars resting under the beds, the net private wealth, some 8,500 billion euros, and the 1,900 bn euro Italian government debt with its 180 billion a year interest [no, 90 billion, doubled it by mistake, sorry] and simply don't care any more about the hysteria of euro-hate that is filling the media.

Lamberto Dini, former prime minister, (there are quite a lot of those in Italy but this is the one who looks like the un-kissed frog) is probably right. The euro is under assault for reasons nothing to do with its stability and functionality and a great deal to do with the decline of the dollar and the decline of America. It's quite cheeky of President Obama to turn up in the South of France, basking in its wealth and sunshine, and tell us to pull ourselves together. We are together, much more so than poor America. The G20 is looking more and more threadbare and irrelevant - just another global jolly for the politicians and their hangers-on who travel from venue to venue living off our governments' largess, using our taxes and networking among themselves ostensibly for undesirable and unobtainable ends (like global governance) but in truth chasing a free lunch (and dinner, and lodging, and transport, and unearned life-style).

Greece is another matter, of course. It's a country burdened by poverty and corruption, by intransigent politics of right and left, by recent military rule and the costs of getting rid of it. Anyone who had any money made for the exit ages ago. We could beneficially show some understanding towards Greece -and recognise its greater claims on us than any country further afield on whom we spend money

Parliamentary Governance Should not Operate Through Referendums

2011-11-01T18:25:00.000Z

Greek constitutional arrangements are, well, Greek, to most of us. Reuters reports that:

"...the constitution... does not allow referendums on economic issues, only on matters of great national importance.
The last time Greeks held a referendum was in December 1974, when they voted to abolish the monarchy shortly after the collapse of a military dictatorship.
"It's debatable whether the constitution allows such a referendum," said Fotis Kouvelis, leader of the small Democratic Left party. "The country must go to early elections. Given the situation, it's the most honorable solution."
For a referendum result to be binding, there must be a minimum 40 percent turnout on issues of "crucial national importance" and 50 percent on a law that has already been voted on in parliament and "regulates a serious social issue,"

That's a very high threshold to clear on turnout alone, regardless of the vote itself.

As has been widely pointed out, if the Greek Socialist prime minister feels that his government cannot govern through Parliament the honourable course is to resign, not call spurious referendums in vainglorious terms.

And if the Italian Centre-right prime minister finds that he cannot govern, through Parliament, to deliver what is required of Italy (which he clearly cannot as his repeated defeats except on dearly-bought votes of confidence demonstrates) the honourable course is for his resignation to be offered too.

Summer's End

2011-10-31T11:09:00.000Z

The hour has gone back and summer is over, even though the days are sunshiny and near perfect. But they are short and the night is cold, which is more or less what the doom-laden economic news is telling us.

Should we believe it? Yes. The jejune economic philosophy of consumption of desirables being interpreted as investment has resulted in effective Greek default on a scale comparable with Poland in the early 1980s - but without a hope that recovery can be effected by the dismantling of realised socialism and competent economic governance put in place. (The Polish experience in the 1970s until the crisis of 1982 is well worth a look - and a gulp of recognition).

Look at the 'letter from 100 economists' and weep. Keynes's "even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall of the ideas of some long-dead economist" could not be more apposite - but, then, Keynes does apposite spectacularly well, even when it applies to himself. Anyone with some acquaintance with the personnel of economic academia can see that a new generation of statist spendthrifts has been spawned by those who believe profoundly that the benefits of capitalism can be harnessed by technology and directed to an ethically justified greater good; a good and an ethic determined by a (preferably) meritocratically selected governing class.

Morgan Forster gave two cheers for democracy (one for individualism and one for facilitating criticism); the same two cheers can be given for capitalism. Not perfect, but the best we've got.

Gardening

2011-03-24T07:57:00.000Z

First light before 6, not dark till after 7, time to set up at the ecohouse, look at the spring flowers, take the walks, read the books, eat the boar and venison (well, not me, but others can.) Libya's over (bar the after-threats) and with any luck Berlusconi will be too, by the time Angels comes back after the summer.

Technically Unskilled

2011-03-23T13:51:00.000Z

Turn on the television and there is the Allied action against the Libyan regime, reported vividly in pictures and words. Open the papers and the detail is even greater. But for those of us unfamiliar with battle and with war, it is almost incomprehensible. Which kinds of aircraft took off from which bases and were away for how long supported by how many refuelling craft clearly is information that should be processed. Only it isn't, at least not by most of us, because we don't understand.

A huge row broke out about intrusive media monitoring of this kind of data by the RAI (Berlusconi controls much of that, the Italian BBC) and other media stations (Berlusconi owns all of that). Announcing the departure of radar-seeking planes, for instance, leads to the radar being turned off and wastes their mission, lamented the Minister of Defence. The coverage drew back, physically kept away from the bases, and informationally bereft. Berlusconi's claims that the Italian jets were flying but not firing fell silent - if they are specialised in finding and destroying radar defences then the ending of announcements and filming of their departure must have profited their undertakings.

Could it be that the Italian Prime Minister is now being kept out of the loop? It's pretty clear whose side he's on, and it's not ours.

Criminal and Political Governance

2011-03-23T12:24:00.001Z

The offensive propaganda so unwisely adopted by last century's feminists - that politics is personal - has a reality that is far beyond their silliness. Personal relations and networks among the powerful, (regardless of their mode of achieving power) as governance, is deeply opposed to democracy.

The stand-off between President and Parliament and the Berlusconi/Bossi populist coalition is a casebook example of why we do not want power used without democratic control. The people can choose to act in any way they want, requiring that their representatives follow their choices and, sometimes, those choices, those policies, ape the policies and goals that are implemented also under mafia-style regimes. But they are not the same thing. The policies resulting from democratic choice can be ended by the people while the policies pursued by criminal, inter-personal governance cannot.

The Berlusconi-led coalition is already falling apart under democratic pressures, as the personal/mafia connection diverges ever further from what the people choose and is frustrated by constitutional and democratic controls. Berlusconi may be addolorato by what is happening to Gadaffi , his bunga-bunga best friend and co-exploiter of the resources of their respective countries, but he will behave according to the rules and the wishes of the people, no matter how much he cries out against a politicized judiciary and personal persecution by the institutions of the democratic state.

The poor Libyans are being criminally ruled: criminally intimidated (in Tripoli) and massacred (in Misurata). They face much of what the people of the German Democratic Republic faced - the same 'socialist' elite, the same extensive culture of spies and apparatchik control, the same menace of interests and powers well beyond their own concerns to achieving some freedom in their lives. There may be pros and cons for the extent of intervention in Libya by Allied forces. There are no pros for fudging clear political and institutional democratically controlled lines of authority and responsibility in the actions we are taking, and everything against pretending there is confusion.

Nato Rules. OK

2011-03-22T20:52:00.000Z

Everyone is agreed that the command structure of the Allied implementation of Resolution 1973 will be that of Nato according to the Italian media. President Napolitano had stated that Nato command was essential and appropriate. Italy was otherwise considering setting up its own command over its bases.

President Obama has squared the Turks, the French have backed down, the UK was in favour all along. Germany has withdrawn its forces from Nato Mediterranean operations said the Ministry of Defence in Berlin - that's two frigates and 550 men plus another two ships. The Note didn't say if they would leave the Mediterranean.

Libyan Interests

2011-03-22T08:24:00.001Z

'Gaddafi threatened to replace western oil firms with companies from India and China in a March 2 speech and more than 10 days later discussed possible investments with the ambassadors of the two countries and Russia, state-run television reported.' Bloomberg notes that as well as Rome-based Eni, foreign oil producers in Libya include France’s Total SA, Austria’s OMV AG and Spain’s Repsoi YPF SA. The U.K.’s largest oil companies Royal Dutch Shell and BP were exploring for oil and gas before suspending operations when the anti-government uprising started in the east of the country in mid-February. ' (Bloomberg)

Well he won't be acting on the outcome of any of those discussions now, will he?

Meanwhile the hyped-up 'row' about who commands the Allied intervention to protect civilians from the Regime's military is dressed in Nato/not Nato clothes but is really about the administration of post-'No-Fly' Libya. Clearly humanitarian assistance is badly needed to restore electricity and water supplies, restock the hospitals, rebuild damaged settlements and continue to hold off resurgent aggression at petty levels by Gadaffisti while the Transitional National Government establishes itself, and elections at national and local levels are held.

Humanitarian assistance comes armed and usually from military structures. Of necessity, warfare consisting in destroying humans and human support infrastructures, humanitarian assistance has to be equal to coping with it. And Gadaffi promises to wage war on his people (and on the rest of us) for as long as he can. Italy, from where what humanitarian assistance that has been supplied has come, not unnaturally sees itself as a main provider, and recipient of the profits from all that provision of infrastructure and goods. But now that the regime's international and local aggression and defence capabilities have been taken out (apart from terrorist attacks on their own and other state's civilians) the rest of the Alliance would like to offer humanitarian assistance as well, and for the same reasons as Italy.

In the meantime we can rely on the United States continuing to run the show until the humanitarian assistance allocations are sorted out. After all, the No-Fly zone has now been extended enormously to the south and west; who knows what might be lurking, out there in the desert, that demands further aerial intervention.

Italy Demands Nato Command for Next Phase. Italian Ship Still Sequestered

2011-03-21T16:11:00.000Z

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .

Article 6 (1)

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France (2), on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Russia Divided

2011-03-21T15:45:00.003Z

It's not just the Italian government that is creaking under the strain of events in Libya. In Russia claims by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that some of the requirements of United Nations Resolution 1973 read like a Crusader call to arms have been rejected by President Medvedev. Medvedev has declared that the Resolution reflects the Russian understanding of the situation in Libya and its provisions are reasonable, and have been put into effect reasonably. (Tass reports)

In the meantime the Russian Foreign Secretary Lavrov still has steam coming out of his ears about the Allied expression of their understanding of Resolution 1973, as he visits Egypt and continues (on Tuesday) to Algeria. Expect more Allied interventions tonight, before he gets there.

Stalin Lives!

2011-03-21T13:27:00.002Z

'Representatives of youth movements have staged pickets outside the embassies of the United States, Great Britain, France and the NATO mission in Moscow in [sic] Monday, demanding to end the encroachments on Libya’s sovereignty and end a military operation against that country. The pickets were holding slogans demanding to [sic] end bomb strikes on Libya.

Maria Kislitsina, the leader of the Nashi youth organization, told Itar-Tass that “in Libya we see a vivid manifestation of ‘humanistic’ aspirations of the western leaders who launched a military operation against the peaceful population. Formally, the aim of the troops’ campaign against Gaddafi is to defend the civilian population, while in reality they aim to overthrow the legitimate government of the still independent state,” Kislitsina said.

“We do not come out in support of ['the' for heaven's sake; get some decent English-speaking copy editors! ed.] Gaddafi regime, but we want to remind everyone of the fact that those [sic; 'that', 'those' take your pick, how about 'some'? ed.] peaceful civilians have already fallen victim to this massacre. We demand to end ['the end of' and delete the spurious 'the' before 'encroachments'. Pull your professional editing selves together, ed.] the encroachments on Libyan sovereignty and ['an end to' (you'd all be sacked if you worked for me) ed.] end strikes on its citizens,” Oleg Sokolov, the leader of the Stal (Steel) youth movement told Itar-Tass.

Ryanair Flights Transferred to Palermo Airport

2011-03-21T11:49:00.000Z

Ryanair's passengers are noted for their stoicism but even they must have been alarmed in recent days as they disembarked at Trapani Airport. However from midnight this morning all Ryanair flights have been transferred to the airport at Palermo. Otherwise they might well have found themselves on missions along the Libyan coast.

One of Gadaffi's Sons Assassinated?

2011-03-21T11:26:00.001Z

It is rumoured that Khamis Gadaffi, in charge of organising African mercenaries (who are particularly resented by the Libyan people) was killed by an aircraft pilot who had changed sides in the hostilities. He opened fire on Gadaffi's son in the Bab al-Aziziya bunker. Fatto Quotidiano states the rumours, while persistent and widespread, have not been confirmed.

UPDATE

Italian media are showing videos of a man said to be Khamis Gadaffi meeting and greeting. They say he may not be dead.

Communications Cease With Italian Ship

2011-03-21T09:02:00.001Z

The Italian seagoing tug that was boarded by armed men in the harbour at Tripoli and then forced out to sea towards one of the oil platforms was met by an Alliance helicopter and has now turned back towards Tripoli. Crewed by 8 Italians, 2 Ukranians and an Indian, the fate of both crew and ship are being closely monitored by the Italian government.

In March 2009 the Asso 22, which supplies the oil rigs, rescued 350 refugees off the Libyan coast from a grossly over-loaded boat in serious difficulties; the crew are nominated for the award of the Medaglia al Valor Civile.

The Italian Foreign Ministry has said that all communication with the ship has been broken off; there are fears that the action may be part of the threatened retaliations against civilian Italian targets by Gadaffi.

UPDATE

The Asso 22 has arrived in the harbour at Tripoli. Communications with family members of the crew have been allowed; the crew have stated to their families that they are well.

Counted Back

2011-03-21T08:19:00.001Z

"Mission completed and all our planes returned safely," said Colonel Gabetta , commander of the 37th Stormo at Trapani; the Tornado Ecr of the 50th Stormo di Piacenza are back safely too, as well as the refuelling planes from the 6/o Stormo di Ghedi.

Watching the military spokesperson for the British forces engaged in instituting the No-Fly zone and inhibiting military attacks on civilians in Libya, I was quite struck by the lack of reaction on the part of the BBC interviewer when assured that all British planes had returned safely. He just turned to a frowning woman in a bad coat and plastic necklace who tried to tell us what could have been explained so much better by the properly-qualified, and properly dressed, Major-General.

Off They Go

2011-03-20T20:04:00.000Z

Sunday over (seeing as we are Christian forces, according to Gadaffi, that seems noteworthy) it's all kicked-off again. The Italian and Danish jets have set out, together with United Kingdom, French, and US forces, on the next stage of the suppression of attacks by Gadaffi's mercenaries on the people of Libya.

The Cypriots have been tapped sharply on the snout by Mr Cameron when trying to refuse the use of Cypriot bases, for UK planes are flying from Gioia del Colle when they aren't flying from Norfolk, and were told we didn't need them anyway.

Russia is acting like a goad (or knout, I suppose would be a more appropriate Russian utensil) to further Allied action. Every time the Russians get up to speed the Allies are already taking out the next means of Gadaffian oppression. One wonders what action the Russians will precipitate next with their complaints and objections.

The Pope has told us all to pray for Libya, but he's a German and not on our side, so we're not sure what outcome he's asking us to pray for. And the Arab Leagues have just had a sharp lesson in being careful what they ask for.

Mare Nostrum

2011-03-20T10:58:00.000Z

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov leaves for Egypt today. The focus of the talks he will have in Egypt, and then Algeria, will be the military operations in Libya to protect civilians against Gadaffi's regime.

Egypt is a long-standing partner of Russia. After the ousting of former-President Mubarak, Lavrov would like to see what is happening now in Egypt and to establish contacts with the new leadership there. During the visit to Cairo, "there will be meetings with the chairman of the Supreme Council of the armed forces, Hussein Tantawi, and consultations with the Foreign Minister of Egypt, Nabil al-Arabi", according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

In what might be regarded as an understatement rather than a statement, he continued:

"....Focus will be [on] the recent developments in the Middle East and North African countries... The ministers will compare assessments and are likely to work out some common approaches to this situation... In this context, of course, issues of international assistance to Egypt will be discussed".

Egypt wants to talk about tourism, on which the national economy and employment are largely dependent. 'The Egyptian Minister of Tourism recently held a large scale campaign in Moscow to attract Russians to Egyptian resorts. Observers hope that ... during Lavrov's visit the Foreign Ministry will announce that its advice to tourists not to visit Egypt is lifted.'

In Cairo Lavrov will also meet with the secretary-general of the League of Arab States 'to address key international and regional agenda issues' [that's one way of putting it, ed.] Russia has condemned the military operation undertaken by a number of NATO countries, and called for 'a dialogue of Libyans themselves to ensure a democratic future for the country.'

Lavrov will then go on to Algeria where he is scheduled to meet President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Mourad Medelci, the Algerian Foreign Minister.

"Algeria is one of three countries, the others are India and China, with which Russia seriously develops military-technical cooperation... We intend to continue to coordinate with Algeria on our approaches to key international problems. ... as well as co-operation in the areas of energy, infrastructure construction and advanced technologies. Algeria for the past several years has been among the three major partners of Russia on the African continent", the Russian Foreign Ministry ended. (Tass)

Not for nothing, and since the time of the Roman Empire, has the Mediterranean been Mare Nostrum. There have been wars over Russia trying to muscle in.

Paying for Threatening the Mediterranean

2011-03-20T09:50:00.001Z

The race is on to prevent the only real threat that the Gadaffi regime can proffer (other than the terroristic menaces to civilians in the Mediterranean already vomited once more by Gadaffi in person - "the Mediterranean is now a battlefield") : burning the oil fields and causing an ecological catastrophe in the Mediterranean.

Objectives of attack from sea and air in an unremitting, night and day series of rolling assaults are: radar installations, command centres, fortifications and bunkers, barracks, coastal defences, mechanised and armoured units, missile-launch sites, fuel dumps, airfields. As the chain of command, already strung-out and fragile, collapses there will be defections by Libyan troops, and many mercenaries will leave.

Although, as often pointed out, Gadaffi has had forty years to build his client state of supporters and the society is poisonously warped, and riddled with apparatchiks, self-servers, and creeps generally, the morality that animates them will readily serve to encourage a shift in allegiance to the Transition national government and hurry Gadaffi's isolation. Nevertheless, it is the fanatics who make the terrorists: prefects throughout Italy have been ensuring a raising of the livello di guardia against terrorist infiltration and actions.

As for the fears played on by Bossi and his despicable Northern Leagues of mass immigration, arrangements can be made as well with a transitional government as with a monster who uses the desperation of the poor of Africa to ensure his continued acceptance as a partner of our governments.

Turkish Support

2011-03-19T22:40:00.000Z

The Turkish Foreign ministry has announced that Turkey is assessing and preparing actions, both civilian and military, in support of the UN Resolution 1973 and the states acting on its implementation.

German Support

2011-03-19T22:25:00.000Z

The Allied air-strikes on the Gadaffi regime have been co-ordinated from an American base in Germany according to an anonymous French official. (reported in Fatto Quotidiano)

"This is a multilateral operation under the American command for American forces in Europe, based in Stuttgart ...which co-ordinates French air operations based in Lyons and the British base in Norwood."

So now we know what the German Chancellor meant when she stated that abstaining on the UN Resolution 1973 didn't mean that Germany did not support it.

Tomahawks for Gadaffi

2011-03-19T21:01:00.000Z

(Corriere della Sera)

He Would Say That Wouldn't He

2011-03-19T20:32:00.003Z

"Moscow regrets the armed action undertaken in Libya by a number of countries with reference to a hastily adopted U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973,” a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign minister Lavrov said on Saturday 19 March.

“We strongly urge both all [sic] Libyan sides and the parties involved in the military operation to do everything possible in order to prevent the suffering of the civilian population and stop fire and violence as soon as possible...

....We demand that exhaustive measures be taken in order to ensure the safety of foreign diplomatic missions and their personnel. We especially insist on the inviolability of the Russian Embassy in Tripoli and of the Russian citizens in Libya,” he said.

“We are still convinced that it is necessary to stop the bloodshed immediately and begin a dialogue between the Libyans themselves in order to achieve an effective settlement of the Libyan conflict in the interests of stability and democratic future of that country."

Angels expects Germany regrets as well. And Poland, even if they did say they would offer 'logistic support'.

Defence Shields Moved in Italy

2011-03-19T17:31:00.001Z

Elements of the ground-to-air missile system Spada have been moved from Udine to Trapani where the Italian Tornado and Eurofighter jets have been flown from Brescia, Grosseto, and Piacenza. Spada is designed to respond to airborne threats in Italian airspace.

UPDATE

The aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is to sail tomorrow from Toulon. There won't be room to move in the Mediterranean with all these aircraft carriers soon.

Cruise Missiles to be Used

2011-03-19T15:12:00.000Z

Military action may start with the use of Cruise missiles against sites in Libya, Italian reports suggest. Danish jets have arrived at Sigonella. Turkey is reported to have stated its support for the action against Gadaffi though it is not clear what form the support will take.

Headlines in the Italian press are the single word 'Guerra' [war].

United States Commands the Operations Against Gadaffi

2011-03-19T15:02:00.000Z

Command of the operations against the Gadaffi regime is to be by the United States from their base in Naples, Italian media have reported.

Who is Commanding the Resolution Forces?

2011-03-19T09:57:00.000Z

The threat to Italy from the Gadaffi regime in Libya is so great that effectively military action against it has already begun. Should Regime fighters or missiles be launched outside Libyan territory there will be instant Italian response. The Italian navy is patrolling the Mediterranean, the US aircraft carrier Enterprise (wow) is no longer reporting its position nor has been for days and Italian media speculate it is her firepower that will be turned on the regime. The Andrea Doria is in the Canale di Sicilia together with the Etna which currently holds the command of the Standing Nato Maritime Group. The Garibaldi, which sailed yesterday, has on board men 'specialised in assault and anti-sabotage' from the reggimento San Marco. (perhaps 'short of occupation' in the UN Resolution doesn't exclude the use of ground troops?)

At Gioia del Colle, in Puglia, Eurofighter pilots are on stand by. At Trapani, apart from the F16s and the Awacs, the Sikorsky helicopter search and rescue teams are also on stand by. As are the anti-submarine forces stationed at Sigonella. Decimomannu, where the Nato Air Weapon Training Installation is based will probably be used by the English and the Americans, as well as Pantelleria.
Amendola, the base in Foggia, will provide the Predator drones.

(For a further, detailed breakdown of what is up and ready and what is being prepared see Corriere della Sera )

So who commands all this (and whatever else has been mobilised but not publicised)? At the moment Italy and the United States. There's no going back. Leaving Gadaffi, any Gadaffi in power in Libya is far too dangerous for Italy first, and for the Mediterranean and Europe next. And for shame those in England who say it's nothing to do with them, not worth a single soldier. Command of the Mediterranean always has been central to the British Navy: not now, of course, but only because the Navy's been dismembered.

No-fly zone Violated by Regime in Libya

2011-03-19T08:54:00.000Z

From Corriere della Sera

Taking On Gadaffi, Not just Providing Bases

2011-03-18T17:26:00.000Z

The bases at Amendola, Gioia del Colle, Sigonella, Aviano, Trapani, Decimomannu and Pantelleria have been put at the service of the allied imposition of a reinforced no-fly zone in Libya. The Minister of Defence has also stated that Italy is making available men and military resources as well as the bases in conjunction with other countries acting to implement the United Nations Resolution on Libya. The announcement was made after the emergency cabinet meeting this afternoon and in consultation with the Head of State.

A second Italian ship carrying relief supplies, medicines and other humanitarian aid is expected to arrive in Benghazi tomorrow morning.

According to the Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, the cease fire declared by the Gadaffi regime is not being observed and attacks are continuing on positions held by the Provisional Government forces. He also stated that the Treaty of Friendship between Italy and Libya is no longer in force and its undertakings are now void.

The aircraft carrier Garibaldi sailed from Taranto at 2 o'clock this afternoon for Siracusa with aboard vertical and short take-off jets ready for the defence of the naval operations required in the Libyan crisis. So it's not just providing bases, then.

While France calls for no involvement by Nato in dealing with Libya, Italy is demanding a Nato shield against Gadaffi attacks, given its geopolitical role and position. Both Frattini and D'Alema (PD opposition ) are concerned at Italy's vulnerability to the Gadaffi regime's arms.

How Many More...

2011-03-18T14:55:00.000Z

...before he is brought to justice?

Who Governs Libya?

2011-03-18T13:32:00.000Z

The failing Gadaffi regime has attempted to call a cease-fire, a halt to all military action 'in accordance with the UN Resolution' and to protect civilians. The Provisional Government of Libya in Benghazi has welcomed the UN Resolution and the imposition of a reinforced no-fly zone.

While the Libyans sort themselves out, it is clear that no member of the Gadaffi family can be treated as representative of anything but themselves and barbarity. Whoever speaks for Libya it can never be them again.

Spain Joins Anti-Gadaffi UN Action

2011-03-18T12:27:00.000Z

Always useful to know where you are:

The Spanish parliament has agreed that Spain should provide forces to support the United Nations Resolution on a reinforced no-fly zone in Libya. Norway is joining in too. Meanwhile Italian media report the WSJ story that Egypt has been supplying arms to the Libyan rebels over the last few days, mainly small arms and military resources other than arms.

Into the Blue

2011-03-18T10:14:00.002Z

The military resources that are being discussed in the Italian media are astonishing for those of us who think of Italy as somewhere that power has passed-by - beautiful, rich, infinitely diverting, but not bellicose or interventionist.

The bases, particularly in Sicily, were always on offer for humanitarian use, but are now up for fighting. The Defence Minister has said:

"Italy planned always to have a front line role", and repeated, "We will not withdraw from our duty."

Military advisors are explaining that a no-fly zone requires "first the destruction of all means of enemy anti aircraft defence, that is radar and missile sites. We have this capacity, the so-called SEAD, to suppress enemy air defences..:we did it in Kosovo, using Tornados, with the Germans and after three days no Serbian planes were flying. " (former head of the Italian airforce Leonardo Tricarico).

Naturally, the military continue, it's yet to be decided which air assets will be put at the disposition of effecting the UN Resolution together with the F16 fighters and the Eurofighters, which are ideal for patrolling and surveillance. The Av8, aboard the aircraft carrier Cavour are also available, and the bases of the centre-south will be available too for aircraft from other countries. There's Awacs at Trapani which is specifically designed for those type of aircraft, but all bases are ideal for fighters: from Grazzanise to Gioia del Colle. Even Lampedusa or Pantelleria, if necesssary.

Then there's the Cosmo-Skymed satellite surveillance system which provides excellent intelligence and high definition photographs; and the drones, of course, for later interdiction - the Predators which can be used from their base in Puglia.

They're armed to the teeth! And this is just what they're discussing in the papers. What are they not mentioning?

The cloud sitting on our hilltop is lifting now. As the fog retreats leaving only the fluff delineating the Arno in the distance and the tops of the mountains reappear above the hills of oak and olives I'll be able to go onto the big terrace to watch the vapour trails, sharp white lines on blue, on their way to do their stuff.

War Zone

2011-03-18T08:47:00.000Z

It all feels very close. Here is the text of the United Nations resolution. It seems to cover much more than a no-fly zone in Libya: overflying of adjacent states; stopping and searching of ships at sea and in ports; co-ordination of plans by various states and their notification to the UN; seizure of all Libyan resources considered to be those of the Libyan people, no matter in whose name they are held (as well as assets of the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, and the Libyan National Oil Company, according to Fatto Quotidiano) to mention just the most immediately noteworthy matters.

Close because Gadaffi has declared any flight in the Mediterranean, civil or military, a legitimate target, as well as the countries providing military action, or bases, or other facilities. Italy has offered its bases and other facilities for the implementation of the Resolution. No wonder the Italian government is in urgent, immediate and ongoing meetings with military leaders. The Head of State met with the Minister of Defence and senior military last night - they were all at the gala performance of Nabucco in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy - which was both handy for an immediate get together the moment the resolution was passed, and somehow very appropriate.

Homes by Heroes

2011-03-16T13:49:00.000Z

"I could buy this," excitedly.

"Why might you want it?"

"He's a Hero! It's his own house!"

"And what would you do in Welwyn Garden City? I don't want to live in Welwyn Garden City much as I admire it."

Long pause:

"I could grow up."

Precisely.

Sardinia for Italian Nuclear Power Stations

2011-03-15T20:21:00.000Z

As any fule kno, if the criminals governing Italy insist on their wages of sin, then all nuclear power stations should be on Sardinia.

- low seismic threat.

- high levels of unemployment.

- high electricity consumption levels - all those showers and hair dryers creating extraordinary demand peaks at 7 in the evening. The rest of us can surely manage on what's left over from the requirements for the presentation of self in summer.

And they can bury their stolen sheep underground and cook them whole with radioactive fall-out!

Drunk and Entitled and Weird

2011-03-15T14:49:00.000Z

'Kathryn Emily Andrews, 26, the daughter of QC Bob Marshall-Andrews, was held by police early yesterday after a disturbance at the four-star Hotel Madison in Milan. ... Police were put through to the Foreign Office in London as the consulate was closed. In the meantime, she phoned her father who called the Foreign Office. It confirmed that his daughter had been held but said there was nothing it could do and it was a matter for local police. A police source said:

"She was in a pretty bad way and had certainly been drinking when we were called to the hotel because of a disturbance. ...We took her to the police station as she was swearing and shouting and she was there for about three hours. While there she said that she was a British Cabinet minister's daughter and that we had no idea what we were doing. She was processed and checked and then released without charge as she had a valid identity document. The matter is still under investigation and the prosecutor will decide if to press charges.' (Evening Standard).

What comes over people when they get to the Peninsula? The best account, of course, is by Morgan Forster in Where Angels Fear to Tread, but story after story displays a sort of mental collapse by the English (indeed northern Europeans in general - the Germans tear off all their clothes and dig huge, defended pits and earthworks in every beach they set foot on)) in Italy. It is as if there is a false image of Italians, generating an attitude contemptuous and patronising that runs, inevitably, into a reality of great wealth and imperturbable security of being. And as the heirs of one of the greatest of Earthly empires, the collision is most marked with those heirs of other great empires who have more recently lost their standing and position. There is also the embodiment of the advice in my 1909 Baedeker which suggests speaking loudly and slowly at Italians who do not understand English in a northern accent.

Often have I been rousted from sleep by telephones with 'situations' on the other end.

"Pronto,"

"Signora, mi dispiace l'ora" (it's always the middle of the night) "I am the maresciallo of .....".

"Good Morning, Maresciallo" (never dis the Carabinieri)

"I have a black man here with wild hair who says he is a friend of your family and that his wife has been kidnapped."

"An Indian?"

"Quite possibly, Signora, he's not from Africa. Will you speak to him?" Pause,

"Hello..... where are you? Pisa. Why aren't you in Florence, asleep in your hotel? I see, ..... has probably been kidnapped as you can't find her. How did you lose her? She was supposed to be at the station after going to see some place of miracles or something. Which station? There are two. You didn't know that, mmmm. You are at Pisa Centrale now? Look, take the next train to Florence and go to your hotel, she's probably there having missed you. No, kidnap is very unlikely. Why? Well, forgive me but have you any money, do you look as if you have any money? In India you would look as if you have money. I see. Well, as beastly as it may seem, here you haven't and you don't. And even if you did, you still would not be kidnapped in Pisa.

You called the hotel and they said she isn't there. Perhaps she had gone out for her dinner? What exactly did they say? They said it in Italian but it meant she wasn't there. Right. No, I won't drive to Pisa, I have children to get to school in the - actually this morning - in clean pinafores, clean teeth, brushed hair, and with breakfast inside them and their correct textbooks and exercise books in their satchels, not to mention any gym kit, musical instruments, notes about missing bits of homework and begging letters to be allowed Saturday morning off. By 8.05, sharp. You are at the station. Get a train, any train, but for heavens' sake get out of the Maresciallo's office or he'll arrest you. For reporting a kidnap in his city, that's why. Can you imagine what level of paperwork that's able to produce? At the very least you will share in his pain. Nothing till 4 o'clock. Well read a book, it's not cold, and stamp your ticket before you get on or you'll get fined. Have you local currency? Travellers' cheques, for a taxi? No, they won't. Cash. Don't get into a taxi without the money they tell you it will cost to Florence. Just don't; they probably will want it before setting off but if not and it's not there when you arrive you'll be in the police station - again. No, everyone is a professor here; yes, everyone is even an LSE professor here. Give me back the maresciallo and I'll persuade him to let you go and sit quietly at the station till the train comes. Goodnight.

Never saw him again, not in person, thanks be. What's with the sense of entitlement and all?

Perhaps the Cradle of Western Civilisation Should be Saved from Nuclear Power

2011-03-14T22:38:00.000Z

Here is a map of Italian earthquake zones. The Italian government, led by the Beast of Arcore, hand-kisser of Libyan tyrants and depraved sexual partner of minors (according to his wife and assorted Milanese prosecutors) has declared that nothing that has occurred after the Japanese earthquakes can be regarded as indicative of anything that might happen in Italy when its nuclear-fuelled power option is fully up and running.

Somehow, as we're all going to be blown into outer space yet looking good while it happens, when the earthquakes come, this seems so appropriate.

Standing Up to be Counted

2011-03-13T19:55:00.000Z

The comments "were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today's challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values." P.J.Crowley after resigning, speaking of the 'no touch' torture being inflicted on Bradley Manning.

Once your formerly rock-solid staff start resigning in disgust, you're at the start of an unstoppable landslide.

Against Berlusconi and Criminal Governance

2011-03-13T13:16:00.000Z

The second enormous demonstration in Italy against the corruption of the country's political system took place yesterday. Over a million people descended into their beautiful streets and piazzas to declare their allegiance to their Constitution. No political banners, no trades union placards, no partisan declarations from any of the corrupt of 'left' and 'right': what was carried was the Tricolore and what was played was the Inno di Mameli (and bits of Nabucco, of course, complete with singing that would have put the Welsh to shame) accompanied by the orchestras of regions, opera houses, conservatori (except for the Maggio, who are caught in Japan).

The great advantage of a written constitution is that it can be carried (rather like the ten commandments though not carved on tablets of stone) in its entirety, section by section, or by individual article, in the hands, on the person, and on the banners of the people as they demonstrate their support for what it says, and for the institutions of the state that give it life and force.

Article 3 - “All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of gender, race, language, belief, political opinion, personal and social status.", was particularly popular, worn on tee shirts, and banners. As was
Article 34 - "The school is open to all capable and those worthy even though they be without means may reach the highest levels of study". But everyone had their pet article, Angels were for the freedom of the press, but some were quite erudite and rarified.

Meanwhile the Beast of Arcore continues to rail against 'the dictatorship of the judiciary' as he is slowly penned in and driven back towards the cage that will contain his attempt to use the powers of the people for his personal and private debauchery of democracy.

Australia Isn't Sweden

2011-03-12T20:22:00.000Z

Turning to the Sydney Morning Herald to check the tsunami hadn't arrived I read there the most incorrect story since correctness became the vogue. And surely size 12 jeans are vast.

Dates

2011-03-10T18:52:00.000Z

Underage? Easy - change the date of birth! Who knows how inaccurate these underdeveloped countries' registry of births, marriages and deaths can be. Pity the official refused to discuss the 'accuracy' of the records.

As the leader of the 'Clean Hands' group in Parliament remarked:

"Changing the date of birth of 'Mubarak's grandaughter' is useful to only one Italian, quite well known and accused of exploitation of minors in prostitution."

Berlusconi's lawyers have filed a complaint against Italian media for bringing his name into disrepute in reporting stories of approaches to Moroccan officials by Italian-speaking negotiators.

Guns or Words?

2011-03-10T10:30:00.000Z

William Hague and Guido Westerwelle have written to Catherine Ashton calling for 'a series of EU responses tailor-made for the circumstances of each country currently going through popular uprisings.'

There, that trio and their action should sort things out in Libya.

Or perhaps the Berlusconi method is more effective?

Sold to Tripoli at the end of 2009 after Berlusconi welcomed the man whose hands he publicly kissed (shades of Andreotti) to Rome: made by Beretta, "7.500 pistole, 1.900 carabine e 1.800 fucili" (Fatto Quotidiano) all in the hands of the head of Public Security of the Comitato Popolare - ie., in the hands of Ghadaffi's janissaries. Of course they were exported under licences for 'arms not specifically for military use ' together with 11,000 other weapons including hundreds and hundreds of M4 Super 80 - a weapon designed for use in war, produced in Urbino by Berretta.

Fatto Quotidiano reports too that included in the arms consignment were 'le pistole PX4 calibro 9 semiautomatiche, con un peso ridotto di soli 800 grammi e un caricatore di 10 colpi che con un elemento supplementare può arrivare a 15. E poi le carabine CX4, anche queste calibro 9, su cui possono essere montati sistemi di puntamento ottico e laser .' [you can all read that for yourselves, not what you'd call hunting rifles are they? ed.]