Tag Archives: Prime Minister

Suarez and Son

coup, Politics, PP, Spain, , ,

It’s sad when anyone is on their last lap. A deeply personal time which families normally spend together.

Which makes Adolfo hijo’s announcement of his dad’s impending demise feel more than a little weird to me.

But hey, I’ve never quite understood the praise for Suarez either. That he was ‘important‘ is obvious: he was the first elected PM since the 1930s. Anyone in that position would have been ‘important’. But as with Juanca, I feel he gets a bit too much praise for doing what he had to do. Had he failed to promote the democratic transition, something else would have happened. He was a weak leader and his weakness helped trigger the 1981 coup attempt / reality TV show (depending whether you could be bothered to watch the end of Salvados the other day). In a way, he is the template for poor leadership that Spain has been hobbled with ever since.

A Congressional Gold Medal Don’t Come For Free

PP, Spain, ,

Now, this is just hilarious: former Spanish PM (and generally, like, my #1 favourite guy), José María Aznar, is under investigation after a group of lawyers alleged that his government spent public money lobbying for him to be awarded the USA Congress’s Gold Medal. The allegation has been around for about four years but only now is the Spanish judiciary really looking into it.

Aznar’s quest for gold failed, incidentally. He did, however, manage to arrange for the Spanish people to pay for his daughter’s wedding. Well, someone had to, I suppose.

Is Israel exempt from international law?

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This week has seen a startling series of events redefine the way the UK acts on international law, and the way British governments understand the power of the courts. Under the principal of Universal Jurisdiction, an arrest warrant was issued by Westminster magistrates court for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, accused of war crimes during the most recent invasion of Gaza. As soon as this information reached the Israel, its government reacted furiously (which was to be expected). Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, said in a statement:

“The current situation is absurd and unacceptable in equal measure. Israelis cannot continually be held hostage by fringe groups of anti-Israel extremists, preventing politicians, businessmen and officers from visiting the UK.”

While Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu described the situation as an “absurdity”.

What happened next was that the British government leaped into action, apologising to Israel and promising to better control the way international law is applied to Israeli officials in Britain. Gordon Brown and David Miliband both rushed to condemn the warrant, assuring Israel that it’ll never happen again.

So why is it that a senior Israeli politician can’t be arrested in the UK for alleged war crimes? The answer, as usual, is that British government ministers have acted entirely out of personal self interest. The precedent that would be set by arresting Livni would make it far more likely that British officials could be arrested for their own war crimes. And that just wouldn’t do.

The way international law is applied currently suggests that the only people who can ever face it are either (a) a few of the operators in the Yugoslavian war of the 90s and (b) Africans. Israeli and British and other ‘western’ government officers are effectively exempt not because of any weakness in the law, but because every single time an arrest warrant is issued, or an arrest is attempted, the move will be swiftly quashed by politicians. Who aren’t supposed to have that much sway when it comes to the courts.

One of Livni’s statements was particularly telling:

“I have no problem with the world wanting to judge Israel. A problem arises the moment [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are compared to terrorists.”

By ‘terrorists’, she’s obviously referring to Hamas (the political organisation of which, the UK does not designate to be a terrorist group). Well I don’t have such a problem with that comparison, Ms. Livni. But it seems that as ever, uniformed soldiers are seen by Britain as being naturally better than rag-tag freedom fighters. Unless they’re our rag-tag freedom fighters, of course.

Less than 30% turnout in today’s Catalan independence ‘consultations’

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, , ,

TV3 is reporting that of the 700,000 people eligible to vote in today’s referendum/consultations, 200,000 voted. If that number is correct, the turnout stands at just under 30%.

What does this mean for Catalonia? There are several points to take into consideration (which affect any interpretation of events in various ways):

  • The consultations were non-official and therefore certainly not taken as seriously as an official referendum would be. This means that the approx. 30% who did take part probably come from more politicised parts of Catalan society. I suspect that pro-independence elements will have voted more strongly (based on the fact that only the pro-independence movements seemed to be drumming up any support for the ballots). The other 70% of the population would likely include far more anti-independence voters than today’s result will indicate.
  • The consultations were carried out in largely rural towns and villages, which traditionally demonstrate a much stronger level of support for Catalan independence. Barcelona and its suburbs, along with Tarragona and environs have large numbers of voters, including many with a more Spain-centric (and sometimes right-wing nationalist) point of view than will likely be seen in today’s results.
  • The consultations seemed to go without mention at all on TVE 1 this morning. For an official referendum, we can imagine that their coverage would have been different.
  • The consultations allowed votes from anyone over 16 and registered in the municipality concerned. An official referendum would likely follow Spanish/European electoral law and limit the electorate to Spanish citizens aged over 18. I’ll add that I’d like it if 16-18 year olds, and non-Spanish citizens were allowed to vote in elections. But they’re not.
  • The consultations have happened at a time when general support for Spanish PM Zapatero is very low (as was possibly intended). A PM from the Partido Popular would likely increase the pro-independence vote. A more popular Zapatero (or alternative) might well reduce it.

It remains to be seen what effect these consultations in the form of a referendum will have on Catalonia’s political future. My bet is that whatever the result, ERC, CUP and the CdC will claim it as a vote in favour for an official referendum within the next two or three years.

Barcelona, if it ever manages to hold a similar consultation, will always be the decider.

Is Thailand on the brink of revolution?

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The prime minister of Thailand declared that the country is in a state of emergency today, in response to widespread (and at times humiliating) protests against the current government (the third, if I recall correctly, since the military coup d’etat in 2007). Former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, who the protestors apparently claim to see as their leader, has suggested that this might be the beginning of a revolution in Thailand.

When Shinawatra refers to a ‘revolution’, he probably means another coup, and though I lean towards Shinawatra’s version of Thai democracy rather than that of the urban middle classes, I feel that Thailand needs to achieve a revolution which no one talks about: abolishing the monarchy. A truly socialist anti-king revolution in Bangkok would probably fix a lot of the problems that Thailand now faces or some travel agencies like koh samui villas.

Chances of that happening: ZERO

McCain: them Spanish names all sound the damn same!

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Poor old John McCain. Yes, he of the strange shape. Yes, he of the hilarious “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” song. I’m not writing about the US presidential elections for various reasons, but given that this is a Spain-related story, I couldn’t resist.

Republican presidential candidate, John McCain was being interviewed recently about how he’d manage relations with the various leaders of Latin American countries upon which the US wreaks havoc at will who don’t have great relations with the United States. As if in training for another GenericOff, McCain muttered about standing up to America’s enemies etc…. But when the interviewer asked him about Spanish PM, Zapatero, McCain allegedly went blank and blustered for a bit, clearly clueless about exactly who this Zapatero guy is.

Now there will be some out there who see this as a surefire sign that Zapatero’s a loser who has taken Spain ‘off the world stage’ where it was put by prince Ansar. That’s the wrong tack, I reckon. The truth is that these days, politicians (and especially presidential candidates) have to answer so many questions about so many things that all they can really do is bluster banal generalities, hoping that they don’t mess it up. McCain’s an old man (which makes this sort of thing that much harder) and clearly suffers from some psychological problems, along with cancer, so I think people should just cut the man some slack and leave him be.

Yes, he’s a dangerous fool; yes, he probably will be president (and potentially an even worse one than GWB); yes, he called his own wife a cunt; yes, he will probably die in office, leaving the the “ugliest hottie ever” to manage the world’s only superpower in the style of a hockey mom…. but you know, there are a hell of a lot of things that McCain doesn’t know, many of them far more important than the PM of Spain’s name.

Shock, horror: UK government uses state broadcaster to broadcast propaganda

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This story, which The Guardian broke yesterday, whill no doubt fill all freedom lovers with fear. Could it really be true that the British government, the PM of which has openly called for more resources to be dedicated to ‘propaganda’ in the media, the same government which sacked the entire board of directors of the BBC after the Corporation had the temerity to suggest they’d misled the public, would really use the state broadcasting service to broadcast specifically anti-Al Qaeda propaganda? Surely not!?!

As any fule know, the BBC has been used for this purpose for decades (since forever, basically). In many ways, there’s not much wrong with it: anti-Al Qaeda messages are hardly harmful. But intentionally misleading people (like when they promoted the idea of Al Qaeda as some sort of cogent, identifiable enemy), is.

The BBC deny that this edition of Analysis was influenced by the government. So where, exactly, does ‘security correspondent’ Frank Gardner get his information from? I bet you a tenner that when he’s talking about people as difficult to meet and assess as Al Qaeda, his mates at SIS or FCO give him a pretty good briefing. And why not? It’s not like he’s going to go to Waziristan himself to ask Osama if he’s on hist last legs.

But it’s not just the ‘war on terror’ which the British government operates via the BBC. Most official foreign policy positions are mirrored in BBC coverage. While it is fashionable to call the BBC ‘biased’ (normally because they report the deaths of Palestininan women and children, the bloody Trots!), in fact the Corporation is inherently tied to the establishment, and particularly when it comes to foreign policy. This is why the headline on Radio 4’s PM programme yesterday wasn’t “Is Russia redrawing the world map?” but “Russia redraws the world map” – exactly the UK’s official line, and a far stronger headline than employed by The Guardian or Channel 4.

That anyone at the BBC or the UK government would try to deny what is an obvious, even understandable, state of affairs is hilarious. Almost as much as anyone thinking this is news.

UPDATED: Zapatero wins Spanish election

Catalonia, Politics, PP, Spain, , , , , ,

UPDATED 0001 hrs

PSOE win with  169 seats – the original projection was overly optimistic. PP: 154

CiU: 10

PNV: 6

IU:2

ERC: 3

To me, this looks like a victory for the right in Spain. The PSOE have maintained their government but IU have practically disappeared, as have ERC.

Information about the political parties contending these elections.

So Zapatero is returned as PM. It’s unlikely that they’ll have the 176 they’re hoping for.

ERC have dropped by half. I was asked the other day what was the cause of this drop and I answered: abstention and dissatisfaction. I’ll add that their posters were crap too.
Actually it’s looking like a rout for ERC.

PP: A poor result. Rajoy will probably be out. This will bring about the completion of the right-wing’s victory in the party. Esperanza Aguirre looks to be the PP’s new star in parliament.

__

Updated:

Ciudad Real goes from PSOE to PP

Balearic Islands go from PP to PSOE (… or maybe not)

Almería goes from PP to PSOE

Canary Islands  go from PP to PSOE

—  I couldn’t really keep up with this bit. Apparently, Andalucia has gone to the PSOE, again.

Zapatero and the PSOE have won the Spanish elections.

Rajoy has given his thank you speech.

Llamazares, leader of Izquierda Unida has resigned. What about Rajoy?

Izquierda Unida down to 2 seats.

A coup is a transition

Politics, UK, , , , ,

There’s a lot of interesting spin coming out of the PM’s office and the Treasury at the moment. Blair’s supporters are blaming Gordon Brown for orchestrating a ‘coup’ and have appeared on the BBC in their droves insisting that forcing Blair out now will be ‘damaging to the party’ and that Brown wouldn’t want to inherit that, now would he?

I take issue with the main argument here: that removing Blair ASAP will damage the Labour party, whereas allowing Blair to hang on for eight months will strengthen it. Is it not true that the single most unattractive thing about Labour is Tony Blair himself? Is it really worth hurting the party even more than it has been hurt over the last decade, just so that Blair can get his jubilee?

It looks to me as if Blair is now committed to preventing Gordon Brown from becoming leader. The eight month wait is ample time for John Reid or another loyal Blairite to establish himself as a successor to the great leader.

I wouldn’t say that Brown deserves to be PM in any way. But someone needs to take over pretty quickly if Labour is to slow – and reverse – its sliding in the polls. Besides, where’s the categorical difference between a coup and a transition? A coup is a transition… much quicker, of course, and sometimes bloodless.

(Oh, and by the way: anyone referring to Blair as ‘Bliar’ in these pages will have their IP address blocked.)

The legality of the war never mattered.

'Terror', Politics, UK, , , , , , , , , ,
Recent leaks and admissions over exactly what Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General said in his two bits of advice to the PM about war in Iraq has been generated by the Labour party to cloud our memories of why it is we opposed the war.

Legality was never the factor that bothered us. It was the only argument that could have been used to physically prevent our troops going into battle; but the argument against the war was always a moral one. And we were right. Today, Iraq still barely has a government, is under foreign occupation and suffers continual attacks from foreign insurgents. It seems trite to mention all this again, but there were no terrorists in Iraq until the US and the UK let them in. 21,000 civilians have died because of our greed. Half a million children died because of the hopelessly corrupt and inept UN Oil-for-Food programme and the allied air-strikes which went on for 10 years.

So now, Tony Blair says that he is happy to fight the election on trust, but at the same time, he makes the insupportable claim that if 10% of Labour voters stay at home, the Tories will get in “by the back door”.

We can trust Blair on some points: he’s committed to curtailing human rights in the UK; he’s willing to support the phoney wars started by the US; he will intentionally mislead the government and the electorate to pursue policies he believes are right; he cannot be trusted.

Of course, Michael Howard is no better.

So it makes sense to vote for smaller parties. England would benefit from an increase in the number of parties asking for support in the election. The Lib Dems might well still be interested in introducing proportional representation as a replacement for our current system.

Give Labour a bloody nose, but don’t let the Tories back in! Is what I think.