Results seen as protest vote against Spain’s José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s handling of the Spanish economy since 2008This article titled “Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 23rd May 2011 17.28 UTCThe socialist party of Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is licking its wounds after defeat by the conservative opposition People’s party (PP) in municipal and regional elections.In what was widely seen as a protest vote against Zapatero himself and his handling of Spain’s economy, his party lost control of key city halls in places such as Barcelona and Seville while the PP took control of most of the country’s powerful regional governments.The central Castilla La Mancha region, Aragon and the Balearic islands all ejected socialist administrations.“We are aware of the situation that had distanced people from our party and caused them to criticise us with their vote or abstention,” party spokesman José Blanco said.The socialist drubbing came just 10 months before a general election and appeared to clear the way for PP leader Mariano Rajoy to take possession of the prime minister’s Moncloa Palace residence on his third attempt.The voting coincided with the eruption of numerous popular protests against established politics across Spain, with demonstrators camping out in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and in dozens of other cities. A backdrop of 21% unemployment and sluggish growth has spread pessimism throughout Spain as the country struggles to find its feet after the 2008 crash.The socialists lost one in five voters on Sunday, compared to the municipal elections of 2007. Not all those votes were picked up by other mainstream parties, however, and the number of spoilt ballots doubled. But overall turnout was a high 66%.Zapatero is blamed by some for mismanaging a debt crisis that saw Spain on the edge of disaster last year. Others dislike the austerity measures he has since imposed in order to avoid a Portuguese- or Greek-style debacle in Spain.His popularity has plunged since a U-turn last year saw him bring in a strict deficit-cutting plan, which he has pledged to stick to, along with labour and pensions reforms.Markets reacted nervously to the poll result on Monday, pushing up the price of Spanish bonds and pushing down Spanish share prices.The PP urged Zapatero to call a snap general election. “Zapatero and the whole socialist party must reflect on what has happened. Spain cannot waste another year like this,” said the party’s general secretary María Dolores de Cospedal.The one socialist leader to have survived Sunday’s debacle, the head of the Extramadura regional government Guillermo Fernández, also suggested that an early general election might be considered.The socialists must first choose a new leader to take them into those elections, with deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and defence minister Carme Chacón as favourites.Party officials said that a timetable for electing the new leader would be set on Saturday.With a general election due in Portugal on 5 June, and with opinion polls showing that socialist prime minister José Sócrates will struggle to hang on to power, the rolling back of leftwing politics that has already taken place in northern Europe now appears to have moved south. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogZapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional electionsRelated posts:Blair to go, now give back the Labour PartyCatalan independence boost after Barcelona voteZapatero says Spain safe from bailout
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Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections
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May 23 2011, 12:35pm | Comments »
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Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/21/spain-reveals-pain-over-cuts-and-unemployment
Spain protests: Young protesters in Madrid and beyond have many different demands, but they are united in opposing the Spanish governmentThis article titled “Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 21st May 2011 11.59 UTCThe arrival of the table, a battered piece of formica bashed on top of four rough, oversized legs raised a cry of joy. Never mind that anyone on a normal chair would barely be able to see over the top – here was another small triumph of the new Spanish revolution, the gathering of angry Spaniards of all colours, ages and persuasions that is sweeping across the country and beyond its borders.The table that arrived in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square was part of the swirl of creative chaos, naive enthusiasm and pent-up frustration that has transformed it into a makeshift camp for thousand of protesters who call themselves los indignados, the indignant ones.Tents and mattresses, armchairs and sofas, a canteen, portaloos and solar panels have sprung up in a remarkable display of organisational prowess. And the mass of people jostling around, each pursuing their own dream or demand, or just watching others doing the same, seemed more like something transported from the Arab spring in North Africa than from Europe.As the protests continued to swell on Friday, with 60,000 people defying authorities to obey the campaign’s “Take over the square!” slogan in dozens of Spanish cities, and with copycat demonstrations across Europe, the question was whether this was the new May 1968 – a youth-led popular revolt against an establishment deemed to have failed an entire generation.Esther Gutierréz, an elfin 26-year-old, wandered through the crowd with a battered shopping cart full of fruit.“We’ve got so much food we don’t know what to do with it. People just bring it to us for free and it’s wonderful stuff,” she said. “We want real democracy. Not just freedom for bankers. You’re not from the Spanish press, are you? We don’t speak to them.”Cynical and ingenuous by turns, the Madrid protesters and those who last week refused to obey orders to budge from the occupied city squares have torn up the rule book of Spanish public politics. The heavyweights of old – political parties, trade unions and media commentators – are not wanted here.“I was sacked when the Madrid regional government closed down a women’s centre last year when it imposed cuts,” explained Beatriz García as she bashed a small frying pan with a wooden spoon. “The unions didn’t even bother to turn up.”The political parties were worse, she said. “There is no renovation. There is nothing new or different, just two parties who take it in turn to govern because our electoral laws favour them.”Just a week ago Spain was known for the passivity of its citizens as they put up with one of the most depressing eras in recent history. Despite unemployment hitting 21%, widespread spending cuts and a socialist government bound to obey the diktats of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the financial markets, they had refused to show their pain. Marches, sit-ins or riots were for the French – or British students. The real drama, anyway, was in North Africa. Spaniards stayed at home.All that changed this week as demonstrations organised via Facebook and Twitter became static protests in city squares, mushrooming into something that caught politicians, unions and the media by surprise.While journalists were following the dull routine of campaigning for Sunday’s municipal and regional elections, the steam was beginning to escape from a pressure cooker of discontent.Many Spaniards had told pollsters they were tired of the same, well-known political faces – especially those who are due to be re-elected despite being mired in corruption scandals. Politicians have rarely been held in such disregard, with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and opposition leader, Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People’s party, rating lowest. Rajoy seems set to take over after a general election next March.When police forcibly evicted the Madrid demonstrators on Tuesday morning, they came back in even greater numbers later that day. By Friday night authorities had lost the battle to impose rules banning public politics on the day before elections. Police could only look on. “Join us, police officers!” the demonstrators shouted.By the early hours of Friday, it was already elbow-room only in the Puerta del Sol – the square which prides itself on being Spain’s “kilometre zero”, the spot from which all other distances are measured.On the statue of King Carlos III, somebody had pinned a sign that read: “We are anti-idiots, not anti-politicians.” Other placards read: “We aren’t against the system, we want to change it”, “Democracy, a daily fight”, and “Take your money out of the bank!”“We’ve brought tents, food and even Trivial Pursuit to keep us entertained,” said Pablo Cantó, a fresh-faced 23-year-old journalism student. Like many younger protesters, and the movement as a whole, he had trouble expressing exactly why he was here. “We want change,” he said. “Things just can’t carry on as they are.”The heavy clouds of cannabis smoke suggested others had brought their own form of entertainment.“I’ve been protesting for decades,” said 60-year-old school teacher Rosa Marín. “I’m glad to see so many young people here. The questions is this: Is this another May 1968, or are they just here for the party?”A gang of drunken skinheads, mindlessly chanting football terrace slogans, were there for the latter.But a neat, disciplined circle of people intently debating social reform showed many were here in earnest. They took turns to stand up and make their proposals, the audience listening and using the sign language applause of the deaf – by shaking their hands above their heads – to show approval without drowning the speakers out.The proposals, due to make their way through a laborious process of committees, working parties and general assemblies, varied from calls for less spending on the military to helping businesses. “Because it is not just money for the owners. They are the ones who give people like us jobs,” said one young man.For some younger protesters, it was a political baptism. “I don’t know what will come out of this, but it is enough just to show everyone how upset we are,” explained Javier de Coca by phone from the protest camp in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya, where there was a surprising absence of the nationalist or separatist symbols of protest movements in recent years.“It’s as if they’ve realised they have more serious problems to deal with,” said one protester. One of those problems is 45% youth unemployment.On a wall beside the tarpaulin-covered command centre in what some were calling Madrid’s “Republic of Sol” – home to a press office, an infirmary and a legal centre – a list of needs had been pinned up. Toilet paper and food were scratched off the list. Bookshelves, wood, rubber gloves and bottles of cooking gas were on it. Volunteers were needed for a creche.“We process the proposals and try to turn them into something that makes legal sense,” explained a volunteer at the legal centre.However, the open assemblies are painfully slow. Some last for hours, as everybody is given their turn to speak. After almost a week of protests, the demonstrators have failed to come up with a coherent set of demands.Electoral reform to end the two-party system and action to both punish corrupt politicians and limit their luxuries and privileges were the main areas of agreement.So is the Arab spring spreading to southern Europe? “You can’t really compare us to people who were risking their lives by protesting,” said 23-year-old computer engineer Jaime Viyuela. “But yes, you can say that we are inspired by the courage of the Arab spring.” guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSpain reveals pain over cuts and unemploymentRelated posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailoutProtest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square
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May 21 2011, 8:54am | Comments »
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Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/11/catalan-independence-boost-after-barcelona-vote
Nine out of 10 of voters in Barcelona backed independence for Catalonia.
This article titled “Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 11th April 2011 17.08 UTC Campaigners for Catalan independence claim they have made significant advances after one in five people in the region’s capital city, Barcelona, backed a call for a separate state in Sunday’s unofficial referendum. Although the vote was organised by volunteers and had no legal standing, organisers said it had pushed the issue of independence further into mainstream political debate in this wealthy and populous north-eastern Spanish region. Alfred Bosch, spokesman for the organising committee, was happy with the 21% turnout. “We could never, even in our wildest dreams, have imagined a turnout like this,” he said. Nine out of 10 of those who took part backed a separate state, reflecting an overall 20% support for independence seen in similar votes held in hundreds of Catalan towns and villages over the past 18 months. Among key politicians reported to have voted in favour of independence was the regional prime minister, Artur Mas, of the nationalist Convergence and Union coalition. “This marks a change in the political cycle,” Felip Puig, a senior member of Mas’s government, told the Catalan language newspaper Ara. Critics accused Mas of being a “Sunday separatist” as his party has indicated it would not back a vote calling for independence in the Catalan regional parliament on Wednesday. Some observers claimed Mas was using the referendum to put pressure on the central Spanish government of Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero amid a bruising battle over funding of the Catalan government. The regional government, which is in charge of major services such as education, health and policing, must cut spending to help Spain meet its deficit reduction targets this year. Mas has vowed to negotiate a new and exclusive fiscal deal with Madrid. Anti-Madrid sentiment has been on the increase in Catalonia ever since the constitutional court last year struck out parts of a new autonomy charter for the region that had been approved at a legal referendum. Non-separatists pointed out that the weekend referendum in Barcelona showed the vast majority of Catalans were not interested enough in independence to take part. Spain’s constitution does not allow for the independence of any of the 17 regions into which it is divided. Constitutional change requires the approval of two-thirds of the deputies in the Spanish parliament and two-thirds of the people at a national referendum. Both of Spain’s two largest parties, the governing socialists and the opposition People’s party, oppose the independence of Catalonia. They jointly account for 323 of the 350 votes in parliament.
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April 11 2011, 12:16pm | Comments »
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Spain staves off bailout – for now
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/08/spain-staves-off-bailout-for-now
As its neighbour Portugal succumbs to a bailout, Spain insists that it won’t follow despite holding €75bn of Portuguese debt
This article titled “Spain staves off bailout – for now” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Thursday 7th April 2011 19.43 UTC Spanish store fronts, jostling for space along a single block in Lisbon’s João II street, are a sign of just how deeply Spain – which accounts for a third of all Portuguese debt held in foreign banks – is linked to its neighbour. Spain’s two global banks, Santander and BBVA, both have branches on this block, along with another bank, a hotel, a travel agency, a dentistry chain, a pizza restaurant and a supermarket – all of them Spanish businesses. Some 8.5% of Spain’s exports are sent across its western border, meaning that Portuguese austerity measures and an expected return to recession will be also be felt there. But Spanish officials who have watched their bond yields improve even as Portugal headed towards a bailout insist there is no danger of it becoming the next eurozone domino to fall. “(The risk of contagion) is absolutely ruled out … it has been some time since the markets have known that our economy is much more competitive,” Elena Salgado, the finance minister, told the SER radio station. Spanish banks hold around €75bn (£65bn) of Portuguese debt, though only about 30% of this is public debt. Spain had about €25bn in foreign direct investment in Portugal in 2009. The prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has said he will not stand for a third term next year, told the Guardian last week that his socialist government would continue to meet its deficit targets. He said it would also keep introducing reforms to boost the current timid rate of growth and start bringing down a startling 20% unemployment rate. Salgado said on Wednesday that 2011 growth would be 1.3%. Spain’s economy is bigger than those of Portugal, Ireland and Greece put together. A bailout there could have disastrous consequences for the eurozone. “Portugal’s bailout request puts the likes of Spain under the spotlight, but we are of the opinion that Spain will not follow due to its improving fiscal situation and recovering economy,” Credit Agricole analysts said in a note to clients .
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April 8 2011, 5:33am | Comments »
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Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military
Noooooo, don’t accept it.Masses reject foreign intervention Western Intervention can only serve to try and derail the Region-wide revolution of the Arab people
This article titled “Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military” was written by Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, for The Guardian on Friday 4th March 2011 19.57 UTC Britain is to send a team of experts capable of giving military advice into eastern Libya to make contact with opposition leaders as the struggle for control of the country escalates. The move is a clear intervention on the ground to bolster the anti-Gaddafi uprising, learn more about its leadership and see what logistical support it needs. Whitehall sources said the diplomatic task force would not be providing arms to the rebels, as there is an international arms embargo. It came as Interpol issued a global alert against Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans, including his daughter and seven sons, in an effort to enforce sanctions. David Cameron has been determined to back the resistance partly because, following advice this week by experts and Libyans in the UK, he believes that it is neither simply tribal nor Islamist, but is built round democratic demands that could in the medium term mark a decline in anti-western mood in the Middle East. The foreign secretary, William Hague, has been in telephone contact with General Abdul Fattah Younis Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister, now based in Benghazi, who is seen as a likely successor to Gaddafi. Obaidi was placed in charge of military defences in the city in a sign that he is at the helm of the opposition. British officials know the identity of all the members of the broad-based Benghazi committee currently focused on keeping essential services and defences going. As the situation regarding international involvement developed rapidly , Nato commanders were instructed to draw up plans for a wide range of military options, including a no-fly zone. Cameron had earlier faced criticism – including from the Pentagon – for raising the idea of a Nato no-fly zone. The UK government believes the national council in Benghazi is focused on keeping essential services running, but where it can is “now thinking about how they can take the struggle forward to other parts of the country. They are not yet calling themselves a government in waiting and we have not yet seen a coherent programme”, one source said. The UK diplomatic task force is to assess humanitarian need and keep the opposition leaders in the east of the country better informed about diplomatic activity. The national council is focused most on what it can do to help the isolated rebel towns close to Tripoli. British diplomats quit Libya last week as the fighting escalated. They remain unable to access the largely pro-Gaddafi west of Libya, from which all aid agencies, including the Red Cross, have been barred. Ambassadors representing the 28 Nato countries instructed military commanders to start planning for what an alliance spokesperson described as “all eventualities”. However, the spokesperson added that “operational steps” had not yet been taken and that the UN security council had not authorised the use of force. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary general, has made it clear that in his view a no-fly zone would require a specific UN resolution. The decision to draw up contingency plans was not officially announced, because of the sensitivity surrounding an issue on which the alliance is far from united. The decision to task Nato commanders with contingency planning was taken despite serious reservations expressed by Robert Gates, shared by British military chiefs. “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down,” Gates said earlier this week. However, President Barak Obama subsequently said he was placing US military assets near Libya to ensure he had the “full capacity to act” if the situation deteriorated further. But the government has placed on alert air, sea, and ground forces that could quickly intervene in the conflict if ordered to do so. Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus, while 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland – the Black Watch – is on 24 hours’ notice to help in evacuation and humanitarian operations, defence officials said. An RAF airborne radar and early warning aircraft is based in Malta where the MoD has also set up a forward joint task force headquarters. Officials declined to say what intelligence they had gathered on the quality and number of pro-Gaddafi aircraft and armour. Meanwhile, a ship understood to contain £100m worth of Libyan dinars has been seized and escorted into Harwich docks in Essex by the UK Border Agency Vigilant, the Home Office said. The vessel had returned to the UK after failing to dock in Tripoli last weekend. She was tracked by British authorities and intercepted off the coast. The chancellor, George Osborne, froze Gaddafi’s £900m of UK-based assets last Sunday.
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March 4 2011, 2:12pm | Comments »
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Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest
Down with the interim coalition Government. The Tunisian mass movement is being emulated in the whole region. In the revolutionary process, the mass of workers, young people and poor are learning very quickly. Past illusions in the ‘benevolent’ and protective role of the army have been replaced by a much more defiant attitude. Egypt take note.
This article titled “Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest” was written by Kim Willsher, Paris, for The Guardian on Sunday 27th February 2011 19.58 UTC Tunisia was thrown into turmoil once more after Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned as prime minister of the post-revolution government amid further clashes between police and protestors. The interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, named the former government minister Beji Caid-Essebsi as Ghannouchi’s replacement. Ghannouchi said he felt forced to stand down “because I am not willing to be a person that takes decisions that would end up causing casualties”. He made the announcement after three people died on Saturday and nine others were injured during outbreaks of violence on the streets of the capital, Tunis. Tunisia’s interim coalition has struggled to assert its authority since a wave of protests that started in December sparked what was called the “jasmine revolution”, leading to the overthrow in January of president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled for 23 years. Protestors have targeted Ghannouchi, accusing him of being too close to the former government. They have also become frustrated over the slow pace of change since the revolution despite the interim government’s pledge to hold a general election by 15 July this year. Ghannouchi, 69, who since 1989 had held various ministerial posts under the old regime, told a news conference he had thought carefully about the decision. “I am not running away from responsibility,” he said. “This is to open the way for a new prime minister.” He added: “This resignation will serve Tunisia, and the revolution and the future of Tunisia.” On a third day of clashes, police fired tear gas and warning shots in an effort to disperse stone-throwing youths and protesters shouting anti-government slogans around Habib Bourguiba avenue in central Tunis. More than 100 people were arrested and accused of “acts of destruction and burning”, according to a statement by the Tunisian interior ministry put out by the state-run news agency Tunis Afrique Presse. Demonstrators want the interim government disbanded along with the current parliament. They also seek the suspension of the constitution and the formation of an elected assembly that can write another, organise elections and oversee the transition to democracy. Ghannouchi took power after Ben Ali fled on 14 January. He formed a new “national unity” government, including opposition party members and a blogger. Tunisia’s revolution was sparked by the death of a young street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, in December. In an act of desperation which sparked unrest in several other Arab countries in the region, Bouazizi set fire to himself after officials stopped him selling vegetables without permission.
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February 27 2011, 2:35pm | Comments »
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Fianna Fáil trounced as Fine Gael and Labour set to form coalition
Socialist Party candidates win seats in both Dublin North and Dublin West. Joe Higgins and Clare Daly (Socialist Party, CWI Ireland) elected to the Dail (Irish Parliament) along with up to 3 other candidates from the United Left Alliance. Ireland’s new government is headed for confrontation with Brussels after the country’s ruling party was wiped out on Saturday by voters in a huge popular backlash against a European-IMF austerity programme. Fianna Fail have paid the political price for the EU/IMF bail-out, the first of many ruling governments world wide during this crisis. Joe Higgins said: “We will now set our minds to that with our colleagues in the United Left Alliance and others about launching a new movement. We will be putting up the real opposition and the real alternative, not just inside the Dáil, but outside as well. I anticipate movements of people power, movements of workers, movements in communities in opposition to new attacks that will come – perhaps water charges, perhaps a home tax – that these new parties are committed to, which are all simply more burdens on working class people.” Joe Higgins
This article titled “Fianna Fáil trounced as Fine Gael and Labour set to form coalition” was written by Henry McDonald, for The Observer on Saturday 26th February 2011 21.38 UTC Ireland’s next government will be a coalition between Fine Gael and Labour, it has emerged, as initial results from the general election indicated a crushing defeat for the main ruling party, Fianna Fáil, and the best electoral performance from centre-right opposition party Fine Gael since 1982. Richard Bruton, enterprise spokesman for Fine Gael who will be on the incoming government’s front bench, told the Observer that, despite its successes at the polls, the party was heading towards a power-sharing arrangement after Labour made impressive gains in the capital, Dublin. Asked about the prospect of coalition with Labour, Bruton said: “Yes, I think that is the likely outcome. I know that there was a brief flirtation with the idea of an overall majority. I certainly see that the public didn’t want that. If it ever was likely, it is not happening now.” In an election dominated by fear and anger over the financial implosion that led to an €80bn bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, Ireland’s once most successful political party Fianna Fáil suffered a historic and devastating defeat, with its support estimated at only 15%. Just months after agreeing to the bank bailout it was on course to be beaten into fourth place by a slew of independent candidates – its worst performance since Eamon De Valera founded it in the 1920s. The disaster engulfing the party, until last month led by the outgoing Taoiseach Brian Cowen, is far greater than the Tories sustained in the 1997 Blair landslide and marks a sea change in Irish politics. For seven decades Fianna Fáil has been the dominant force in Irish political life and had enjoyed 14 years of unbroken rule until this humiliating general election result. Meanwhile, support for Sinn Féin was projected to have reached a record 10% in an RTE exit poll, with Gerry Adams, the party president, on course to be elected in the border constituency of Louth. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is set to be prime minister and will be tasked with persuading his fellow European leaders that the interest rates charged on loans to Ireland should be lowered to prevent the Republic from defaulting. Bruton issued an appeal to fellow EU nations to “cut Ireland some slack” in a crucial summit next month at which Europe will discuss Ireland and other debt-ridden nations’ finances. “There is no interest in Europe jeopardising the very genuine efforts the Irish people are willing to make to correct our economic problems. If Europe just loads up the camel too much the camel will collapse,” he said. One of the first candidates to be elected was in the politically significant constituency of Dublin Central – the home stronghold of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. In the last general election four years ago Ahern topped the poll with a huge surplus and his transfers under proportional representation brought another Fianna Fáil colleague into the Dail alongside him. But this time around, and for the first time in 14 years, Fine Gael not only won a seat but topped the poll in Dublin Central. Speaking outside the Royal Dublin Society counting centre in Dublin, Fine Gael’s newly elected TD for the area, Paschal Donohoe, said: “It is a great honour and I am very humbled with the support the people have given me. Now it’s time to rebuild the country and restore the nation’s reputation.” Donohoe said he believed the resurrection of Fine Gael demonstrated the people of Dublin and the whole of Ireland “desired stability above all else”. The scale of the Fianna Fáil losses across the country were so great that for the first time in history an outgoing deputy prime minister, Mary Coughlan, was on the verge of losing her seat. Coughlan’s outgoing ministerial colleague Mary Hanafin was also facing the prospect being unseated in her Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown constituency. The election also saw the end of one of the famous Irish political dynasties with the son of the late Taoiseach Charles J Haughey set to lose his Dail seat in Dublin North Central. According to an RTE exit poll published yesterday morning, Fine Gael took 36.1% of the vote, with Labour coming second with 20.5%. Independents and others got 15.5% of the vote – a high figure which was thought to have pushed Fianna Fail into fourth place. Where those independent votes are transferred could be crucial to the final outcome of counts across 43 constituencies. The last RTE exit poll in 2007 proved to be 99% accurate when compared to the actual number of votes cast.
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February 26 2011, 5:54pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Can Scandinavian crime fiction teach socialism?
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/24/can-scandinavian-crime-fiction-teach-socialism
I don’t know if it teaches anything at all, but DI Lund and co do make compulsive viewing over 20 episodes shown in ten weeks on BBC 4. Great stuff.
This article titled “Can Scandinavian crime fiction teach socialism?” was written by Deborah Orr, for The Guardian on Thursday 24th February 2011 09.00 UTC Who killed Nanna Birk Larsen? The question grips the relatively small, but avid, band of people who are following The Killing, a Danish crime series being screened on BBC4. The Killing throws up plenty of other questions, too. One even feels a strange tug of interest in Copenhagen’s local political scene because the abduction, rape, torture and murder of a 19-year-old student seems inextricably linked to a number of people fighting a city election. Alliances between various political parties ebb and flow, as the turns of the plot hurl suspicion at different candidates. One of the many things The Killing asks is this: are political coalitions really healthy? It is no doubt coincidence that the query is so particularly pertinent in Britain right now. But there is a definite reason why a slice of Scandinavian crime fiction should be actively concerned with framing socio-political debate. It is part of what is expected of the genre in this part of the world, and has been since Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö started publishing what came to be known as the Martin Beck series, in 1965. The couple, former journalists, conceived 10 crime novels that would provide a deliberate critique of what they viewed as the degeneration of Sweden. Marxists themselves, they intended to use the crime genre to illustrate the advantages of socialistic approaches to social problems. That sounds unbearably didactic and worthy. But the tremendous thing is that the books work first and foremost as crime fiction. In fact, they are reckoned by the cognoscenti to be among the finest and most influential crime novels ever written. Essentially, the pair challenged the convention of the lone genius private detective, replacing him with a group of police officers, led by the low-key Beck, who depended on each other to solve cases – and also, as a matter of course, put up with, or worked round, colleagues who were not so gifted. Maverick individualism was out, patient and humane people management was in. Thus, the ever-shifting group ploughed through many and varied crime scenes – crime scenes that usually in some way or other questioned the permissive values espoused by the liberal left so successfully at that time. It seems to me that in the pages of these Swedish police procedurals, all those years ago, Sjöwall and Wahlöö were examining contradictions that the British left even now refuses properly to acknowledge. The socialist left and the liberal left have little in common, with Blairism a shining example of how difficult it is to “triangulate” them. Hard work and compromise is needed before social freedom and state welfare can be shackled together. Even then, perhaps, the resulting beast is an impossible chimera. Is it too much to speculate that the current huge vogue for Scandinavian crime fiction is somehow a tacit acknowledgement of the need to have this debate, and the fear of what conclusions it might draw? Henning Mankell, in his Wallander series, now televised in two versions in Britain, makes no bones about the fact that he is continuing in the Martin Beck tradition. Stieg Larsson, who meant his phenomenally successful Millennium trilogy to be a 10-part work when he first started writing it, has succeeded in igniting exactly the sort of debate, among feminists anyway, that Sjöwall and Wahlöö expected. Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, with 5m sales worldwide and film deals in the works, similarly uses sexual crime as an expression of the extremes of discord among men and women. This “metaphor” is somewhat unanswerable, on the face of it. But the details are quite controversial. The women who are killed in his novel The Snowman, for example, stand accused of denying men their paternal roles, and messing up their children in the process. Discuss that thesis in sexually and politically mixed company, and passions can run high quite fast. Nesbo is not a reactionary, despite the “traditional family values” cast that can be placed on his bestselling novel’s storyline. Like his peers and predecessors, he deals with problems inherent in social democracy, problems that are not that usefully divided between “left” and “right”. It is often said now that the two opposing terms have become “meaningless”, since both left and right contain a range of values from libertarian to authoritarian. In truth, the political tension is between freedom and regulation, often between whether the social realm should be regulated in order to benefit the economic realm, or the other way round. Social democracy, if it is about anything, surely, is about constantly striving to get that tricky balance right. The British are used to believing that the Scandinavians, especially the Swedes, have social democracy cracked, while Britain is far from being a socially democratic country. The truth, however, is much more nuanced. Britain shares many of the values and difficulties of the Scandinavian states, and of other European states that Britain tends to view as being much more socially democratic than we are. That was emphasised in a depressing report yesterday from risk analyst Maplecroft, which ranked Britain the 10th most likely country of 163 to undergo another economic crisis. Sweden is fourth, and Japan is the only non-European country to make it into the top 10, at nine. The shared challenges are “ageing populations, substantial levels of debt and high public spending on health and pensions”. Each of these, of course, is already high on the national agenda, the subject of raucous, sometimes hysterical debate. The logical solution – if there is a solution at all – is for everyone to live very healthy and disciplined lives, expecting to look after more vulnerable members of the family whenever necessary, and seeking only specialist or temporary help from a well-ordered state as a last resort. It is a vision that unites authoritarian left and right, but scares the bejesus out of free-marketeers and social liberals. All of these groups, however, can probably find something compelling in a chunk of Scandinavian crime fiction, which possibly owes its great popularity to its ability to offer sensationalist escape, but of a kind that is grounded all too recognisably in the real world.
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February 24 2011, 4:41am | Comments »
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