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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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of power
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/09/karl-marx-part-6-the-economics-of-power
Karl Marxand Marxist economics are often accused of reducing humans to mere expendable specks of matter within the greater economic scheme of things
This article titled “Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of power” was written by Peter Thompson, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 9th May 2011 09.00 UTC Having so far concentrated on philosophy and politics we now turn to what was the major part of Marx’s output, namely the economics. But it is in the economics where his political philosophy begins to take on real form. There is not space enough here to cover the enormous range of his economics but there are a few basics which need to be dealt with in this slightly longer piece and which can be fought out below the line as usual. Alan Budd, who was an economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s once made an interesting point about Marxist economic theory and government policy on the fight against inflation at the time:
“[People] did see that it would be a very, very good way to raise unemployment, and raising unemployment was an extremely desirable way of reducing the strength of the working classes – if you like, that what was engineered there in Marxist terms was a crisis of capitalism which re-created a reserve army of labour and has allowed the capitalists to make high profits ever since.”
Marx’s basic starting point was that in contrast to all previous historical epochs capitalism is a system of “generalised commodity production” in which the workers’ abstracted labour power itself became a commodity to be traded. In all previous epochs, human labour had been used to create a surplus product, usually subsistence farming and a surplus used for first bartering and then trading. Under the ancient mode and slavery through to feudalism, the product and the means of producing it was clear; food, clothing, the means of life. You worked for the master and you belonged to the master in one way or another. The German word for serf, for example, is Leibeigener; your body literally belongs to the master. Capitalism liberates you from that and turns you into a free agent, apparently able to enter into a free contract to sell your labour to whomsoever you see fit. You are cast out of your old existence and are set on the route to making your own. The second verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful – “the rich man in his castle/ the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly/ and ordered their estate” – no longer applies. Whereas before you were a bondsman, now you are a journeyman and you can set off to make your own fortune, as the fairy tales have it. In economic terms, what before was a tangible surplus product is now transformed into intangible surplus value. You enter into this apparently free contract with an employer but the wage you draw from that employment is only a part of the value you create. Just as before a portion of the cabbages and linen you made belonged to the master, now a proportion of the monetary value you make through the production process belongs to the employer and you will only be employed if a competitive rate of surplus value can be generated through your labour. This is at the root of Marx’s version of the labour theory of value. The employer will provide the machines or tools for the completion of the task (constant capital) while the worker provides the labour power (variable capital). The employer will always be trying to improve labour productivity and can do so in various ways, but all of them boil down to improving the gap between your wage and the amount of value created by your labour power. This means that for Marx the commodity labour power has a special character in that it is the only commodity which can be employed to increase value, while all the others are merely reified forms of dead human labour, useless without labour input. An advanced car-producing robot no more creates value than does a peasant’s shovel. In theory there is no difference here to previous epochs where we accept the labour theory of value because it is measured in tons of cabbages and yards of linen but now that it becomes a commodified and monetarised relationship it also becomes a quasi-mystical one, with value apparently emerging mysteriously out of all sorts of transactions and technologies and with market mechanisms and competition wiping out and obfuscating the distinction between what it costs to produce something and its price. On these threads, for example, a critique of Marx has emerged which posits a kind of paradoxical capitalist utopia in which we have reached 100% automation of production with no labour input at all anywhere by anyone. This reductio ad absurdum is of course as realistic as the world of Arnie’s Terminator or of Joh Fredersen’s Metropolis in which workers become surplus to requirements, but it does serve to illustrate a point because the further question then emerges as to how the goods produced are going to be purchased if no one is earning any wages through the productive process. Under capitalism labour productivity may improve massively, but it can never be reduced to zero because that would remove all demand for the goods produced. You would then have to distribute commodities or vouchers to the entire population based on some sort of criteria not linked to labour input and then where do we end up? Oh, of course, at communism, in which each gives according to their ability and receives according to their need. Capitalist competition over labour productivity thus not only produces its own gravediggers but also provides the shovels (or robots) to finish the job. Labour productivity can be increased in all sorts of traditional ways such as making workers work harder for less money, speeding up the production lines, extending the working day, getting people to work longer for the same or even less money, seeking out newer, cheaper labour sources through globalisation etc and, as Alan Budd points out, all of the above are regularly used, but for Marx they all only put off the dread day of collapse in which the workers realise that the harder and more productively they work, the smaller the proportion of the surplus value they create comes to them. Since the mid-1970s the common way to put this off has been through enormous levels of debt, either by the state or the private individual. It is that tendency which both brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union – which over-borrowed in order to maintain full employment as a political necessity without raising productivity – and the current crisis in the west where a debt-fuelled asset price bubble in order to artificially stimulate demand has created the greatest economic crisis in a century. But for Marx, at the root of it all is the question of how surplus value is created and distributed and, most of all, what this does to human relations and desires. The commodification of labour power also brings with it the commodification of humans and their alienation from both themselves and the products of their labour power. It is an accusation often aimed at Marx that he reduces human beings to mere expendable specks of matter within the greater economic scheme of things, but it could be argued that the opposite is the case and that the whole point of Marxist economic analysis is precisely about trying to bring about a recognition that it is generalised commodity production which has commodified people and that it doesn’t have to be like that. The final two columns in this series will go on to discuss how this process of economic alienation feeds through into religion and ideology and the means by which people manage to cope with being mere playthings of larger forces; how a sense of autonomy, faith and hope are maintained in an apparently constrained, rationalistic and futureless world. This will bring us right back to where we started: the land of Ideologiekritik.
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May 9 2011, 5:15am | Comments »
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Is the Olympics skills legacy on track?
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/05/is-the-olympics-skills-legacy-on-track
Voluntary sector organisations in the capital have expressed concerns about local peoples’ ability to secure jobs during and after the London 2012 Olympic Games
This article titled “Is the Olympics skills legacy on track?” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 5th May 2011 15.59 UTC I’ve been doing a bit of homework for a forthcoming Guardian podcast and found two things I’d like to share. First, the fun thing. That was from last September. The Games Makers programme is now at the selection phase, with successful applicants being measured up for different roles. But what will it contribute to the long term regeneration of East London which is, of course, the ultimate objective of the great Olympics adventure? How about the complementary London Ambassadors scheme and the Personal Best initiative, which was designed to prepare the long-term unemployed for securing some of the Games’s 70,000 volunteer roles and beyond that “encourage 20,000 people into work”? What about local peoples’ hopes of securing the new jobs in the pipeline at Stratford City? This brings me to the second thing. It’s less fun than Eddie Izzard but still deserves your attention. In February, the London Assembly’s economic development committee heard from guests who are closely involved with ensuring that East Londoners are equipped not only to take advantage of the employment and skills opportunities that the Games will provide, but also to use them to secure jobs and careers in the regeneration years to come. I’ve picked out a few quotes from the transcript of the meeting. First, a word of warning from Jonny Boux, the head of employment and training at the East London charity Community Links: [This] is a once in a lifetime opportunity for people in East London and I think there is a real danger that the focus, in terms of sustainability and longer term opportunity is lost…our experience tends to be, we are hearing a lot around the wonderful short-term opportunities…and the fact that people may find work for a month, but there are no guarantees beyond that.
Next up, Kerry Tweed, Director of Greater London Volunteering on the Personal Best scheme: The problem is that Personal Best is effectively finished now in London. I have not heard about any evaluation or any further work that might be possible to do with the around 4,000 people who have been through the programme to work with the training that they have been provided with to work with employers to see how that is transferable for them, to offer further support and training to move the participants closer towards work. The last stats that I had from Personal Best was that actually the biggest outcome for␣most people was they went on to further volunteering. Clearly, they need a bit more time to develop their skills, their confidence and their employability.
Committee chair Len Duvall asked about “barriers that may prevent long-term unemployed Londoners taking advantage of the Games Time opportunity.” Jonny Boux answered first: One of the main barriers is a lack of skills, particularly around some things you need for particular jobs, and also life skills is an important factor. One of the things that, particularly, our long-term unemployed people face is often a difficulty around reliability and low confidence. There is often a lack of motivation as well; it is what we call, broadly, life skills. Then, I guess, multiple barriers which can be anything from major housing issues to difficult family circumstances and financial pressures. Many people we support are heavily in debt.
Then, Lindsey Donoghue the Employment Manager of the Bromley-by-Bow Centre said: I would echo everything that Jonny said. Obviously some of the roles are quite short-term and that is an issue for some people in terms of them having been on benefits for quite a long time and feeling comfortable on those or perhaps feeling that coming off them might be a risk and feeling unwilling to do so for a short period of time. Also, doing roles like that they would need to arrange things like childcare; a lot of the people that we work with are parents. So, again, a short time role is difficult for them because they need to arrange childcare for that. Something that we have seen in our community is␣a␣sense of, “Well, it’s␣not really for me”. We have perhaps seen a limited number of people go into roles in the Olympics so far and because of that people sort of feel, “Well, maybe it is happening separately to me or it is not something that is necessarily part of our community”.
And here’s quite a striking speech by Roger Taylor, Director of the Olympic Host Boroughs Unit. If you asked anybody in the host boroughs what they felt about legacy, they would say that there is an ever-present danger that legacy becomes conflated exclusively with what happens during the Games and what happens on the comparatively limited, although very important, opportunities that will follow on on the Olympic Park. We feel it is terribly important to constantly remind somebody of what the bid promise was: the most enduring legacy of the Olympics will be the regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there, and also to link that with the sheer scale of the opportunity that inner East London has within its grasp over the next 20 years. We are not just talking about the Olympic Park, we are not just talking about Westfield and Stratford City, although we think that is actually a pretty successful model largely down to people like Newham and Westfield themselves. We are also talking about the already-given planning approval effectively to double the size of Canary Wharf, and the very, very significant developments that we still expect to take place in the Royal docks and on the Woolwich and Greenwich waterfronts. Essentially, if anything I think the Mayor’s promise about 70,000 jobs is an understatement of what over the next 20 years is likely to be an opportunity in East London. The question then is whether or not we have got a sufficiently strong and clear vision to be able to ensure how that opportunity relates to the people in the communities in East London. I think that is where the really challenging questions lie.
On this evidence, I’d say that there’s plenty of work still to be done if a really impressive skills and employment legacy is to be delivered for East London in particular. Something for the Mayor to get a good, firm grip on.
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May 5 2011, 12:56pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
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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Related posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout Portugal’s PM calls on EU for bailout Portugal admits it needs EU bailout
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April 8 2011, 5:33am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/zapatero-says-spain-safe-from-bailout
‘Socialist‘ prime minister Zapatero of Spain defends the deficit reduction programme as unemployment rate remains at 20%
This article titled “Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 20.00 UTC Spain’s beleaguered economy is out of the woods and will not need a Greek or Irish-style bailout despite the risk of contagion from troubled neighbour Portugal, according to its Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In an exclusive interview with the partner publications from the Guardian’s New Europe project, the continent’s most powerful leftwing prime minister insisted that reforms and an austerity programme designed to reverse a runaway deficit were bearing fruit. He refused to be drawn on his own plans, amid rumours that he will announce tomorrow that he will not stand for a third term at elections due early next year. His Socialist party currently trails the opposition conservative People’s party by 16 points in opinion polls. The comments, from a prime minister whom Spaniards describe as “anthropologically optimistic”, came as market pressure on the country’s sovereign debt showed signs of relaxing, despite growing problems in both Portugal and Ireland. “We now have economic growth. The debt risk has stabilised and is out of danger. And now we are close to creating jobs,” Zapatero said. Zapatero sees no conflict between being a deficit warrior and a socialist, but points to key differences between his cuts package and that of Britain’s coalition government. “There is a deep, deep difference between what our government has done on education during the crisis and what Cameron’s government has done,” he said, pointing to education spending that has risen to 15% of Spain’s GDP for the first time. “The fundamental difference between right and left is the capacity to redistribute spending and remove obstacles to equal opportunities,” he insisted. “We haven’t reduced spending on health. We’ve increased spending on unemployment. We’ve maintained spending on social care of the dependent. Why do we do it? To maintain social cohesion.” Instead Spain’s government had brought down its deficit by, among other things, cutting civil service pay and freezing pensions. Zapatero said that, having met last year’s deficit reduction target, Spain would also hit this year’s 6% goal. “Our priority measure is the strict meeting of the deficit target,” he said. Although he claimed jobs would be created soon, the timid growth that some critics blame precisely on spending cuts has had no impact on a startling 20% unemployment rate. “My main anguish is about those people who lose benefit payments but have trouble finding work,” he said. Reforms in the pipeline should bring more flexible collective bargaining, improved competitiveness and a law to limit deficit spending, he said. “It’s true that some reforms mean cuts, but others are simply changes,” he said. “No project can call itself leftwing unless it commits to a competitive economy … we are going to renew Spain’s economic structure.” He warned Portugal that if it wanted to escape a bailout it had no option but to adopt the austerity package that its parliament rejected last week, bringing down José Sócrates’ Socialist government and triggering a June election. “Carrying out the Sócrates austerity plan presented to parliament is fundamental,” Zapatero said. His comments came even before Portugal admitted that its 2010 deficit was €3bn (£2.6bn) higher than originally estimated. Zapatero, speaking before Ireland revealed that it needed a further €24bn to deal with its banks, said he favoured more aid to Greece and Ireland. “We should be ready to increase the aid if they need it,” he said. Like most Spanish politicians, he is an avowed pro-European and saw greater economic integration within the EU as an unexpected but welcome side-effect of the crisis. “Economic integration is being speeded up. That much is clear,” he said. “Integration in politics and security is going more slowly, but it will come. It may take five or 10 years, but the process is inevitable.” He admits that, like everyone else, he would have liked Europe to react faster to the economic crisis. “But it is obvious that, amongst democratic countries, there is something called a decision-making process,” he said. “The Spanish government is lucky because parliament is always very pro-European … but there are other parliaments in Europe that debate every last cent.” Even the Libya crisis was an example of Europe in action, he said. “Who brought a historic resolution to the [UN] security council to intervene in Libya? Two European countries: France and Britain,” he said. “It is Europe that has taken the lead.” The man who pulled Spain’s troops out of Iraq when first elected in 2004 said the UN resolution was a historic step for human rights. “It is the first time we have had a resolution based on a responsibility to protect people,” he said. “A huge amount of care and restraint is being exercised,” he said of the campaign. “We have not had that thing that is so heartrending – and which discredits these operations – which is civilian victims.” But Zapatero, who has sent aircraft and warships to join the Libya campaign, insisted that military means should not be used to oust Gadaffi. “The use of arms is for protecting the population,” he said. “For regime change we have our political and economic strength.” Europe’s task did not end, there, he insisted. “The north of Africa and the Mediterranean as a whole are going to look towards the north. They will look to Europe, and Europe must not look away.” Wind power became Spain’s biggest energy source for the first time in March, but events in Japan have not changed Zapatero’s policy of using nuclear energy, while refusing to build extra capacity. “When nuclear power stations come to the end of their lifespan they will be closed,” he said. “We don’t propose building new power stations and must guarantee the production of alternative sources to cover the closure of every nuclear power station.”
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April 2 2011, 11:31am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
March for the alternative – live updates
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/26/march-for-the-alternative-%E2%80%93%C2%A0live-updates
More than 250,000 people are expected to march against the governing coalition’s cuts. Protesters gather in London in the biggest demo for eight years. Organisers warn against infiltration by police provacateurs.
This article titled “March for the alternative – live updates” was written by David Batty and Rowenna Davis, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 26th March 2011 10.01 UTC
1.15pm: Tom Wills, a student journalist based in Brighton, has posted a set of photos from the march on Flickr, which give a sense of the mass turnout.
1.10pm: EastLondonLines, a news website run by the journalism department of Goldsmiths, has posted this Twitpic, which shows the protesters marching past police lines near Parliament.
1.04pm: Paul Lewis has sent through an update, describing the wide range of groups who have joined today’s protest. “Standing here watching hundreds of thousands of people stream past, you get a real sense of the broad coalition against the government. I noted down every banner that past through over a couple of minutes. “Somerset Teachers Association, Vulnerable Chinese Migrants Association, Society of Radiographers, Prison Officers Association, Don’t Cut Out The Disabled, Southend On Sea Unison Branch, Ipswich Labour Party, Cut Trident, Nurses Uncut, Met Police Group PCS Union, Calderdale Division of the NUT, Chelsea Anti Cuts Alliance, Colchester NHS SOS, South Ribble Children, The Bohemian Storm is Rising, Parents Alliance of Community Schools, Isle of Wight Uncut.”
1.02pm: Matthew Taylor says thousands of people are still joining the march, with the total number estimated at around 400,000. “I am now on a footbridge overlooking the Embankment and people have been streaming underneath us for about an hour. People are queuing as far back as I a can see and tens of thousands more are still arriving from side streets. Organisers are suggesting there could be as many as 400,000 here today. That is impossible to verify at this stage. But it is clear that this is a very big demo.”
1.00pm: While this photo from Mary shows crowds gathering at Embankment.
12.58pm: This photo by Mary Hamilton pokes fun at undercover police officers – whose activities have recently been investigated by the Guardian.
12.45pm: Journalist Mary Hamilton – aka newsmary – has been posting photos of the march on Twitpic.
12.35pm: The Public and Commercial Services Union has set up its own live blog of the march.
12.30pm: Here’s a map of the march route
12.20pm: PA news agency has been speaking to some of the protesters: Peter Keats, 54, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, who works for Jobcentre Plus, said: “We’re toasting the success as so many people have turned out. The press were saying 100,000 people but I think we have far exceeded that. I’m hoping for half a million. I’m hoping the government will start to listen with this many out. “Personally, I think it’s wrong the way we are hitting the poor. I’m not so much worried about myself but the customers I deal with are vulnerable and I’m worried about them and I’m worried about the kids of this country.” Alan Dowling, 40, who works for the UK Border Agency in Sheffield, said: “The other day the immigration minister was on TV saying we need to do more. How are we going to do more enforcement when we are cutting enforcement officers?”
12.17pm: Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, estimates there are half a million people taking part in the protest. He told PA: “This is an absolutely incredible turnout and display of anger which the government will have to take notice of.” Hundreds of police officers lined up outside parliament behind metal barriers as the marchers passed by and moved down Whitehall.
12.09pm: Matthew Taylor, who has been following the education feeder march, has now joined the main protest. In this audio report, he says the main march dwarfs the scale of the education protest: “The student block has suddenly become much quieter than it was now they see the scale of the TUC march.”
11.58am: Paul Lewis is on the Golden Jubilee Bridge near the Embankment, overlooking the march. He says the turnout is huge, stretching from the Houses of Parliament to St Paul’s Cathedral. He says the atmosphere is good natured. The only scuffle he’s seen was a protester heckling the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls.
10.49am: My colleague Matthew Taylor is with the education feeder march, which set off from the University of London in Mallet Street, Bloomsbury, around 20 minutes ago. Groups of Scottish students who set off at 11pm last night are leading the chanting. Student organisers had said ‘more than 10000′ people would meet here but so far there are probably month more than 2000 – although more are arriving all the time. Students and lecturers are being joined by various activist groups and so far the mood is vocal but pretty good natured. We’re at Russell Square now. There’s a small police presence. The police and the organisers don’t seem clear on the route but we’re on our way down to join the main march.
10.34am: My colleague Paul Lewis has just sent in his thoughts about the potential for trouble between protesters and the police. “I don’t think anyone doubts that the main march will be in large part good natured and peaceful. Most protesters will spend several hours marching through London, seeing little more than the placards in front of them, and finish with sandwiches in Hyde Park. But that isn’t to say there won’t be pockets of trouble, and if past experiences are anything to go by they could flare into some quite nasty confrontations with police. “Flashpoints could come when a handful of unofficial feeder marches, coming from across the capital, plan to join the main march. Will police let them? Many of the seasoned activists – those police like to call ‘trouble-makers’ – are likely to be on these fringe processions (watch out for delegations gathering right now in Kennington Park, Camden and Mallet Street) and the instinct of police, who at times exhibit an almost medieval vision of crowd psychology, is often to prevent groups mixing. That would spell trouble. “The other likely hotspots will be Oxford Street at 2pm, where UK Uncuts plan to close down shops, and Trafalgar Square late in the afternoon, which there are plans to occupy. Both of these locations, and others we don’t yet know about, are likely to be magnets for those intending to peel off from the slow procession through London in search of “direct action”. Coping sensibly with all these splinters from the main march will be a policing nightmare for Scotland Yard. It all comes down to how much coercion police use. Stop people from walking where they want and sparks fly.”
10.29am: Here’s some more comments from union leaders ahead of the march. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, will tell the demonstrators that every time the government votes through more cuts, they should hear the “angry voices” of public sector workers losing their jobs. He also warned it faced being wiped out in May’s elections. “Every day when they discuss squeezing NHS budgets I want them to remember the nurses here on the march, the paramedics – workers who keep our NHS going. Workers who see every day the effect of the cuts on patients who are having vital pain-relieving operations cut or delayed. “Workers who worry about patient care suffering, because job cuts mean there are not enough staff on the ward. NHS workers and the public fearful that the Health and Social Care Bill will mean the break-up of the NHS – the end of our much loved health service as we know it. A new dawn of privatisation for the Tories’ friends in big business. “Every month when a library closes, a care home shuts its doors, or services for struggling young people are withdrawn, I want them to feel the fear, and anger of the people who have come here today from every part of the UK to vent their frustration and to stand up for a fairer future.” Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said: “Cameron and Clegg have launched a war on working people and today’s demonstration is the start of the fightback. They expect us to suffer tax increases, pay cuts, unemployment and devastation of our pensions to pay for the crisis their friends in the City caused. They should expect the fight of their lives.” Len McCluskey, leader of Unite, said those taking part in the march were the “tip of the iceberg” because millions were opposed to the cuts. “There is growing anger, which will build and build as the impact of the cuts take effect.”
10.13am: Labour politicians will join the march and party leader Ed Miliband will address the rally in Hyde Park. He will use the speech to set out Labour’s alternative to the cuts and to accuse the coalition of fomenting the “politics of division” not seen since the “rotten” Thatcher era. Labour is calling the demonstration the “march of the mainstream”. But Gove told the Today programme there were “really big dangers” for Miliband in addressing the rally at the end of the march. “One is that people will say ‘You are calling for a plan B from the government, you don’t even have a plan A. More than that, you are associating yourself with a march which could, I’m afraid, move from being family event into being something darker.”
10.10am: Education secretary Michael Gove said today that he recognised the public concerns about the planned cuts. But he insisted that the government would not be deflected from its strategy. He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “Of course people will feel a sense of disquiet, in some cases anger, at what they see happening, but the difficulty we have as the government inheriting a terrible economic mess, is that we have to take steps to bring the public finances back into balance.”
10.02am: Barber will tell today’s rally that there is an alternative to the “brutal” spending cuts. Ahead of the march, he accused the coalition government of threatening the NHS and destroying communities with the scale of the job cuts. “No part of our public realm is to be protected. And don’t believe it when ministers say that the NHS is safe in their hands. With over 50,000 job cuts already in the pipeline – nurses, doctors, physios, midwives – in the name of so-called efficiency savings of £20 billion, the NHS as we know it, is already in intensive care. “With David Cameron talking about selling it off to any willing provider out to make a profit, the NHS is facing the gravest threat in its history. “Today let us say to him: we will not let you destroy what has taken generations to build. Let’s be brutally clear about these brutal cuts. They’re going to cost jobs on a huge scale – adding to the misery of the 2.5 million people already on the dole. “They’re going to hammer crucial services that bind our communities together, and they’re going to hit the poorest and the most vulnerable hardest. Anyone who tells you different is a bare-faced liar. “The government claims there is no alternative, but there is. Let’s keep people in work and get our economy growing. Let’s get tax revenues flowing and tackle the tax cheats, and let’s have a Robin Hood Tax on the banks, so they pay us back for the mess they caused.”
9.45am: A Guardian/ICM poll published today shows that the public are divided over the cuts, while two other polls last night put the balance more strongly against cuts. The Guardian/ICM poll of 1,014 found that 35% believe the cuts go too far, 28% think they strike the right balance and 29% think they don’t go far enough; 8% don’t know. A YouGov survey for Unison found that 56% believe the cuts are too harsh and a ComRes poll for ITV showed that two-thirds think the government should reconsider its planned spending cuts programme. Just one in five disagreed with that view. Speaking ahead of the march, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said of the Unison survey: “I’m sure that many of our critics will try to write us off today as a minority, vested interest. This poll nails that lie. “The thousands coming to London from across the country will be speaking for their communities when they call for a plan B that saves vital services, gets the jobless back to work and tackles the deficit through growth and fair tax.”
9.15am: Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the mass protest in London against the coalition government’s public sector cuts. Around 300,000 people are expected to join the March for the Alternative organised by the TUC, the biggest union-organised event for over 20 years and the largest in the country since the protest against the Iraq war in 2003. More than 800 coaches and 10 trains have been chartered to bring people to the capital from as far afield as Cornwall and Inverness. Union members are expected to be joined by a broad coalition, from pensioners to doctors, families and first-time protesters, to football supporters and anarchists. My colleague Matthew Taylor has written a guide to all the organisations – both official and unofficial – who will be taking part. The Metropolitan Police believe a small minority will try to hijack the anti-cuts march to stage violent attacks on property and the police. The TUC organisers of the event say they have organised a family-friendly demonstration with brass, jazz and Bollywood bands. But there are concerns that unofficial feeder marches, sit-down protests and a takeover of Trafalgar Square could turn from peaceful civil disobedience into stand-offs with the police. The march assembles on the Embankment from 11am but it will still be leaving at 2pm and possibly even later. The TUC has drawn up a set of tips for those planning to join the march. The protest will culminate in a rally in Hyde Park. Guardian reporters Matthew Taylor and Paul Lewis will be out on the streets covering the protest as it happens. If you’re at the demo and want to send me any comments – or share any pictures, audio clips and videos – you can contact me either on david.batty@guardian.co.uk or on Twitter – @David_Batty
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March 26 2011, 8:38am | Comments »
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