Cameron is leading possibly the worst UK government...ever!

Governments in Britain have been responsible for a lot of cock-ups. But in less than two years the current government seems to have managed the impossible - to appear simultaneously nasty, corrupt, uncaring, arrogant, irresponsible and incompetent all at the same time.

It was meant to have been so different. 2010 was meant to have been the year that "Dave" Cameron (of aristocratic lineage and distant relative to the royals) had demonstrated his de-toxicification of the Conservative party. It was famously said by Theresa May (seems ironic now...) that the Tories were seen as the "Nasty Party".
The Conservatives in 2010 failed to win an outright majority (to Cameron's private astonishment); evidently, the British people were not yet fully convinced that the Conservatives had purged the "nasty" element from their blood. And so the last two years have evidently proven.
Not that many Conservatives seemed to have noticed, or cared. Once they have managed to convince (connive) the LibDems into making a grand bargain (which the Tories could use to their own ends when convenient), the Conservatives tended to act as though they had won the 2010 election outright. The likes of Cameron and his semi-aristocratic chums saw their place in government as a "natural right". Never to be spoken publicly, of course, but it was always privately thought that it was "their turn" to govern; even though they had never been in a position of real authority, they naturally assumed that they had the "in-built" ability to govern.

This confidence trick worked, for a while. The public bought into to argument that "there is no alternative" to cuts as the way to repair the economy; yet the government failed to admit that their package of public service "reforms" were not in any way related to the state of the deficit, but simply a change they wanted to make for its own sake. Even though no-one had voted for it, and that much of it was not even in their pre-election manifesto. In other words, much of the public sector reforms were imposed undemocratically. They were ripping the heart out of the nation's institutions simply for the sake of it.

"Same Old Tories?"

But all the while, charming, gregarious Cameron would be genuinely hurt and surprised to find that people thought he and his could be doing anything undemocratic or dishonest. His motives were purer than pure, surely.

But by the spring of 2012, the aftermath of the government's budget, and a series of other blunders and scandals showed the Conservative government's true face. The economy was not getting better due to the government's programme; it was getting worse. The government denied it; blamed it on other factors, anything but their fault. And even when the government could deny the truth no longer, they still claimed "there is no alternative".
Meanwhile, "honest" Dave's ministers continued to make cock-ups, then blame them on someone else. The government was making it a habit of desperately wanting to give the impression of being in total control, except when they had to accept responsibility. Like the Home Secretary, Theresa May (she of the "nasty party" epithet), who refused to accept responsibility for two high-profile cock-ups; and like the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who was clearly in breach of the rules when dealing carelessly with a corporate merger. And these ministers remained in their posts as they were close allies of the Prime Minister. "Honest" Dave Cameron (baronet) seems to charmingly think that it's honourable and better to protect your friends to the hilt. Charming perhaps, but an attitude that belongs in the 18th century rather than the hard-headed 21st, and adds even more to the impression that he and his chums are out-of-touch.

So the impression of the Prime Minister and Chancellor, as "two arrogant posh boys" seemed to sum the whole thing up - even better when said by an MP from the Tories' own side. So, I'm sure that Dave Cameron is a really lovely guy - expect that the country doesn't need a lovely guy as Prime Minister. It needs someone who takes things a little more seriously. And I'm sure "honest" Dave would be hurt to hear that.

Vince Cable, now the Business Secretary, once said of former PM Gordon Brown that he had "gone from Stalin to Mr Bean".
Cameron's transformation is even worse - from a charming, self-confident managerial statesman to presiding over an omni-shambolic, heartless government. Cameron's "soft-touch" approach to government was meant to give ministers the freedom to reform and improve their ministries; to give the likes of the Education and Health minister, as well as the Work and Pensions minster, the freedom to reform. The result, not surprisingly, has been virtual chaos, as well as causing fury at the grass-roots.

Cameron, for all his supposed charm and self-confidence, does not govern; he presides. The Chancellor has no plan for the economy; he has a financial suicide note. The Health and Education ministers do not have a plan for public sector "reform", they have a plan for demolition. What makes it worse is that the government are too obdurate and close-minded to admit it. They would rather attack their critics, deny reality and blame it on someone else.

This is why this government is possibly the worst ever. Gordon Brown, for his mistakes, was at least never obviously heartless towards the fate of the country; he may have contributed to getting the UK into a financial mess, but he also had the brains and leadership to find a way out of it. Tony Blair may have been wrong on Iraq and his gusto over the War On Terror, but he still did many great things to improve the UK as a whole during his decade in power. John Major, although he presided over a failing and discredited government, (like President Gerald Ford) was not a fundamentally bad person. Margaret Thatcher, as a grocer's daughter, in spite of huge the polarisation and inequality she caused, was in some ways at least aware of the limits to what changes she could make to the UK, made those changes gradually, and seemed essentially down-to-earth. Jim Callaghan, her Labour predecessor, did his honourable best with a broken economy. Ted Heath, Thatcher's Conservative predecessor, although broken by the unions, tried to do what was practicable in the economy at the time, and was single-handedly responsible for the UK joining the EU. The likes of Wilson and Macmillan, Eden (undone by the Suez crisis), Churchill and Atlee (responsible for the welfare state we take for granted today), all gave something to improve the UK somehow.

What has this government done? Brought about a long-term slump in the British economy through sheer inflexibility; encouraged a generation of over-educated young people without long-term career prospects; set about dismantling the state sector that many people rely on; done nothing to give confidence to the private sector; and given just cause to make people think that the government is essentially corrupt, incompetent and dishonest.

A record to be proud of, no doubt.

Conversation with a Conservative (2)

Interviewer: Minister, I'd like to talk briefly about the economy, and in particular, the government's strategy. In a few words, could you summarise what the government's strategy is.
Minister: Look, we inherited a real mess from Labour, with our budget deficit in a huge hole. Our economy was in recession. We decided, after looking at all the options, and based in the advice of financial experts, that the first priority was to cut the deficit. This would restore confidence in our economy. And the best way to cut the deficit was by cutting public finances. This would then give the private sector the ability to take the country out of the recession by not having the public sector acting as a drag on the economy.
I: Well, you've mentioned several things there that I'd like to focus on. As you know, a large portion of the deficit that you inherited from Labour was also due to bailing out the banks. This is one point that Labour are keen to stress. Another point they like to highlight is that the economy was slowly improving from the recession of 2008/09 - the OFS figures support this - and that the economy lost its way once your government introduced its policy of cuts.  What do you say to that?
M: Look, we can't have a government that doesn't pay its way. Yes, it was a difficult decision to implement the cuts, but it was something that we had to do; we can't go on increasing the deficit forever. Our financial reputation would be cut to pieces...
I: (Wryly) So the government has to cut the country to pieces instead?
M: We live in a real world where markets matter. Yes, it's difficult, but there is no alternative.
I: Well, minister, Labour, and some other financial experts would disagree with you there. Some say that cutting too far and too fast is in fact damaging our international reputation rather than enhancing it. By cutting the state sector so much, it is killing off any encouragement for the private sector to invest because of the sheer uncertainty your government has created. Indeed, to rely solely on the private sector to help rescue the economy, some would say, is living in a fantasy land. Private companies are focused on taking risks they are sure of a positive return, and with consumers so unwilling to spend money, it gives companies little reason to take a risk. A vicious circle of the government's own making.
M: We have to give the private sector the time and confidence to want to invest. The public sector alone cannot implement a recovery. We cannot spend even more money and add to our deficit further; that's just madness.
I: Minister, if we look at the USA, it has a national debt of trillions of dollars, but the American economy, due to a government stimulus, is slowly heading in the right direction. In other words, deficits are secondary when it comes to confidence in the country as a whole. No-one expects the USA to collapse tomorrow because of its deficit, and that's why the deficit is something that should be dealt with more sensibly, over a longer time scale. One analogy to the government's strategy here is a man who takes out a mortgage but insists on paying it off in only five years rather than ten, even though it would financially cripple him. What would be your response to that?
M: I think that man should seek advice on his repayments.
I: Thank you, minister.

Conversation with a Conservative (1)

Interviewer: Minister, I'd like to talk about the state of housing. There's concern about some London councils being forced to send low income families to other, cheaper parts of the country. What is your response to this problem?
Minister: Well, you see we live in a free market. If people cannot afford to live somewhere, they are free to move somewhere more suitable to their means.
I: Yes, but minister, some critics say this is a form of social cleansing. What is your response to this accusation?
M: This is pure nonsense. We all live in a free country. There's freedom of movement. We didn't create this problem; it was created by the overspending of the previous government, which means that now councils have to take some serious steps.
I: But how does encouraging poor people to move to areas with fewer jobs help improve growth, for example?
M: As I say, we live in a free market. Obviously, people have to be flexible; that's how we promote dynamism in our economy. Rome wasn't built in day; we should all look long and hard at the sacrifices that we'll all making. We're all in this together, you know!
I: "In this together"? In what way are you making sacrifices, minister?
M:......er......well......I mean, I've had to cut down on the number of servants I use at my pad in the country. But we're getting off the point. Remember that it was the Conservatives who started the "right to buy" which helped give freedom to thousands of families to buy their council houses and put them on the road to prosperity.
I: Yes, the "right to buy", minister, that's true. And how did the Conservatives replenish the housing stock of those thousands of council houses they sold off?
M: (confused)....I'm sorry, I don't quite see what you're getting at.
I: I mean the "right to buy" reduced significantly the number of houses available to those at the lowest rungs of society, and the government has yet to replace them. This is also, is it not, a contributing factor to the rising cost of rents in those deprived areas where councils are no longer afford to pay for their council tenants. If you decrease the supply of housing, minister, you naturally increase the price.
M: Well, the government doesn't set the prices for the housing markets; we live in a free market, after all.
I: So who does?
M: Erm, no-one, really.
I: Thank you for your time, minister.

Morality in the 21st century is an optional extra

In the year 2012, who can we say are humanity's role models? Our politicians? Hollywood celebrities? Religious leaders? Writers? Musicians?

Until the middle of the 19th century, the answer for most of humanity was a simple one: God, Allah, Buddha, or whatever divine figures were relevant to your culture. After a moment's thought, a person may have thought of a living religious figure (priest, imam, or whatever), and then they may have thought about secular humanity, and the leading figures of the time: in the 19th century, where the vast majority of humanity did not experience democracy or free thought, so the moral role that a politician had, even less a "celebrity" was of little relevance to most people's lives.

In 2012, the only parts of the world where religion still holds a significant role in morality are the Middle East/the Muslim world, Africa, India and "Middle America". In all other parts of the world ("liberal" USA, Europe and the rest of the "developed world", China, Russia and South America), humanity is either indifferent about religion's role in morality or ignorant.

So, where does the agnostic rest of humanity get its morality from?

As China is the most populous of these "agnostic" parts of humanity, it makes sense to talk about them first. China gets its morality from Confucius. While Chinese people are atheists and their government officially Communist, their moral philosophy still is based on principles established more than two thousand years ago. The basic premise is "know your place": to conform with the rest of society; see yourself as one part of the seething mass of society as a whole; respect and listen to your elders; maintain the system and hierarchy. These key principles have been used to maintain social and moral order in China ever since, and are a key part of the Chinese mindset. When Westerners go to China and feel like they are in Mars, there is a good reason for this: because the people have maintained an ancient conservatism. They are not interested in democracy (or most of them) because they see it as dangerous; part of this is government-speak, but part of it is also genuine truth.

The morality of the rest of the "agnostic world" could be summarised, for the most part, as an extension of the morality of modified versions of the Capitalist free market. Some parts of the world are more concerned about "society" (such as Europe), whereas others are more concerned about the morality of the "individual" (such as the USA and Russia), but they all broadly adhere to an obedience to moral principles of Capitalism.

You might wonder why I rank Russia and the USA as morally equivalent. It is because since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has replaced its "social" morals with "individual" morals, to such an extent that there is effectively no real safety net against poverty in Russia; as is the same in the USA. Furthermore, this "morality of the individual", in both the USA and Russia, has resulted in a ruthless corruption of society.

In Russia, that corruption permeates almost every level of society, from the top to the bottom. In some parts of Russia it is worse than others (as is the same for much of the rest of the former Soviet Union), but this corruption means that "individual morality" becomes a moral black hole: if no-one follows the rules, then individuals have no incentive to have a "moral code": the only rule is "me".

Many Russians have fled to the USA, which they see as an ideal market-place to put into practise the "dog-eat-dog" psychology they have honed in corrupt-individualist Russia. Although corruption is not as endemic in the USA as Russia, USA has corruption of its own kind, just by another name. It is true that Russians move to the USA because there are objectively fewer hurdles to opportunity (such as low-level corruption), but the USA has its own atrophied elite as it Russia; it is simply older and a little more diverse, including dozens or hundreds of established families that have the real power in the country - the medieval Republic of Venice operated on a similar level for hundreds of years. The fact that a black man with a Kenyan father can become the American President may be an inspiration to others, but it is also worth noting that for all Barack Obama's good intentions, he had to gain the financial support of the elite in order to become a viable candidate. In other words, it suited many of the elite's plans that an articulate, smart black man become President. Why this is, is worth thinking about.

I'll return to the question I asked at the start: who are humanity's role models? Apart from China (which I've already discussed), the average human being in the developed world has very few real role models. I've just mentioned Barack Obama: as it happens, I am quite a big fan of his, but there are important things to remember about his time in office. Apart from restoring some of America's lost respect around the world, at home his achievements have either been stymied by his political enemies (supported by those in the elite who are against him), if not blocked entirely, as well as him receiving continual insults and slurs. It's fair to feel sorry for him in that way, and I do. And yet, because of all this, the financial crisis has gone by with few real lessons being learned, as well as the banks responsible effectively getting away with mass fraud, while at the same time, the average person suffers more than at any time since the Depression in order to pay for it. It's enough to make a decent person's blood boil.

The living role model that most people in the world would agree gives humanity the most inspiration is probably Nelson Mandela. It's worth remembering the reason he was imprisoned for nearly forty years: because he was promoting civil disobedience and strikes by the black population to get equal rights. In other words, he was following the same strategy as Gandhi. Thus when he was released from prison and became President of a free South Africa, the black population expected everything would become better. But it didn't happen, and still hasn't, really. Yes, they have equal rights under law as the whites, but their decades of poverty through lack of opportunity still mean that most of them are effectively second-class citizens, through circumstance if not by law. And also, when Mandela took power, the white elite pressurized him not to do anything else too radical that would frighten away the rich whites from South Africa, so another opportunity was lost. I wonder what kind of conversation Mandela and Obama would have about these types of harsh lessons in political reality.

And forgetting politicians, what about others, the celebrities, who have taken the place of role models? The problem here is that the media are wont to build up celebrities for their own ends, and then when celebrities demonstrate that they are (shock, horror) all too human, knock them back down. In other words, the necessarily symbiotic link between the media and celebrities feeds a selfish, amoral cycle that is fed into our senses on a daily basis.

So if the media are amoral, and most famous people are amoral, and the capitalist elite are amoral, where are the moral guardians?

A footnote here worth mentioning is that the European court just gave the green light to "kettling" by British police. It is also worth remembering that in the UK, as I understand it, you should ask permission from the police to have an organised protest. So in the UK, people can be detained in the open air without human rights for hours on end without charge; at the same time, there no automatic right to freedom of protest.

That's just worth remembering what Syrians are dying for: the same rights that the UK took away. Hypocrisy? Who would have thought it?

The Republic Of North Azerbaijan

In the parliament of Azerbaijan not long ago, an MP proposed changing the name of their nation to "North Azerbaijan".

To those not familiar with the nuances of this etymology and the history, they might well want to know what the reason given for the proposed name change was, and where was "South Azerbaijan", for that matter?

The nation state called Azerbaijan was created in 1992. However, the historical area known as "Azerbaijan" (also called "Atropatene") roughly corresponds with contemporary Azerbaijan (capital: Baku) and north-west Iran (major cities: Tabriz, Ardabil). This geographical area had been populated with ethnic Azeris (and a number of Kurds) for around a thousand years or so.

This historical "Azerbaijan" had been part of, and divided by, various empires over the centuries; arguably reaching its cultural zenith during the times of the Safavid empire around 500 years ago, ruling for more than two hundred years; the Safavids ruled from Ardabil and controlled the area of contemporary Iran, as well as parts of the Caucasus, Pakistan and Afghanistan, making it arguably the greatest of the dynasties of Persia. They were also the first dynasty to make Shi'ism the state religion. As Azeri was the main language of the Safavids, it could therefore be said that the apogee of the Persian empire was when it was, in effect, a greater Azeri empire.

After the fall of the Safavid dynasty in the middle of the 18th century, the nadir of Azeri fortunes was the treaty of 1821 between Russia and Persia. This carved up the area of "Azerbaijan" between the two warring states, the northern portion going to Russia, while the rest remained part of Persia. This northern portion is what the Republic of Azerbaijan is today.

Two hundred years is a long time for people to be apart. Since the re-establishment of an independent Azeri state twenty years ago, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have, understandably, been strained. Thousands of ethnic Azeri Iranians have relatives in "the north", and even more of them take regular trips to Baku. But although the people of the north and south may still be technically the same, there is much to separate them.

Since becoming part of Russia, the Azeris in the north (I'll use this term from now on to describe people from the Republic, and those in "the south" being those in Iran) naturally became Russified. However, since independence, the northerners have increasingly rediscovered their faith. While the culture of "the north" has been increasingly influenced by the West, there is more and more anecdotal evidence to suggest a kind of "culture war" in Baku; those who still want to look to Russia, those who look to Europe and the West; and increasingly, those who look to their conservative culture, Shi'ism and the religious influence of Iran.

This "culture war" can be seen in the media, where judgemental journalists (who look like they're competing with the sanctimony of the UK's "Daily Mail" -ha, ha) harangue minor celebrities for their uncouth dress sense, women on the length of their skirts, couples kissing in public, women who smoke, and so on. This confusing cultural mess goes on every day in Baku. Turkey has similar issues, to be sure; but in Turkey, no-one is saying that the country is so clearly pulled three ways at once.

The Azeris in the south have had to contend with thirty years of Islamic fundamentalism. Ethnic Azeris make up fully a third of the population of Iran; ethnic Persians are not even a majority in their "own" country; they just happen to be the largest minority. So Persians have been extremely diligent in their oppression of other minorities; as Azeris are the largest minority after the Persians, it is they who are the most oppressed.

This "oppression" includes the active discouragement of Azeri being accepted officially. In response, Azeris in Iran react by ignoring it. It should be remembered that Ayatollah Khameinei is an ethnic Azeri; Iranian Azeris, however, have been taking their religion less and less seriously since the Islamic revolution. More and more, they take their inspiration from the West.

So the Azeris in the south have been growing gradually more and more conscious and vocal in asserting their identity; there is a South Azerbaijan movement that demands a breakaway from Iran, much as there is one for the Kurds in Turkey, minus the conspicuous terrorism.

When Southerners come to "the North", it is not difficult to spot them. They look obviously more Westernised than Northerners, the women wearing stylish dresses and the men smart suits. By comparison, except for those conspicuously showing-off in the top-class Baku cafes or on the "Bulvar", average Northerners wear very simple clothing. This is the paradox: that many of those in "the north" are slowly becoming more "Iranian", at the same time as those in "the south" are becoming more and more Westernised.

In an odd reversal of the 1821 treaty, whereas many Azeris in "the south" want to be an independent, Westernised nation-state, many Azeris in "the north" would like to be a virtual satellite of Iran.

I wonder what the Ayatollah would think of that. Or the West, for that matter. No wonder the powers that be in Baku are twitchy about their own population. They have a fair right to be on the current evidence.

The psychological state of the Conservative government

The Conservative party, led by David Cameron, have been in government in the UK (with their Lib Dem coalition partners) for nearly two years now.

Politically, if you ignore Cameron's involvement in the war with Libya, the Conservative government's time has been dominated by a series of controversies, so much so that they have defined their time in office: the austerity cuts; student fees; health and education reform; the Liam Fox resignation; the UKBA controversy (fresh in the news today); and the future status of Scotland.

That's a pretty long list for a party that's less than two years into government. And let's not forget, that's a government led by a party than didn't win an overall majority; the two main "left-of-centre" parties have more MPs in parliament put together than the UK's sole "centre-right" party. Only by the grace of the Lib Dems do the Conservatives earn the right to govern.

By comparison, when the Labour government came to power in 1997 with a majority of more than 170, its main priority was to avoid controversy at almost every turn, so that its first two years in power were virtually empty of bad headlines. The only exception was over the introduction of tuition fees. The major changes it did bring about in the first two years - on things like the minimum wage, and devolution to Scotland and Wales (and later, following the success of the peace process, Northern Ireland) - it did with broad public support.

It is obvious to say that circumstances in the UK have changed since then. Yes, the financial crisis, partly brought about through the Labour government's reluctance to regulate the financial industry, has changed things. But that does not explain, even less justify, the mentality of the Conservatives.

Depending on the issue, the Conservatives' attitude to government has varied.

On the austerity cuts, government has shown a myopic narrow-mindedness (what they call "determination to see things through"), even in the face of evidence of the folly of their approach and the clear plight being caused as a result.

On the health reforms and education reforms, the relevant Conservative ministers have shown a disregard for others (failing to ignore the concerns of professionals, let alone the principles of democracy, given that they have no mandate for "reform").

On student fees, the same behavioural pattern was shown - intransigence and lack of empathy in the face of criticism and the needs of young people.

The Liam Fox resignation displayed the arrogance and casual disregard to proper behaviour, favouritism and cronyism that many Conservatives are habitually guilty of. In other words, behaving as though they were above reproach.

Meanwhile, the way that the Prime Minister and his ministers have been dealing with the constitutional wishes of the Scots (independence or otherwise), is with a similar bloody-minded unwillingness intransigence and narrow-mindedness. Given the fact that the Conservatives' natural political support in Scotland is negligible, this attitude is even more unfathomable. The Conservatives have no moral voice in Scotland; they rule the nation as though it is a virtual colony. Thus they indirectly generate support for the policy that they say they totally oppose.

Lastly, and most recently, is the UKBA controversy. This was a border fiasco that a report has shown was at least indirectly the result of governmental confusion and ministerial incompetence; yet the minister responsible, Theresa May vents only scorn at the border officials who were trying to do their best under confusing governmental advice, while failing to take any responsibility on her part.

So, taken as a whole picture, the Conservatives' approach to government can be summed up as having the following characteristics: lack of empathy to others' misfortune, intransigence, narrow-mindedness, arrogance, failure to accept responsibility, and incompetence.

There was a documentary some years ago about the psychological behaviour of corporations, coming to the conclusion that if corporations were psychologically analysed as people, they would be considered psychopaths.

One wonders, looking at the behavioural traits mentioned above, what conclusions would be reached if the Conservative government as a whole were measured in the same way.

Greece's collective nervous breakdown

Greece is a country and civilisation with a long history, the longest in Europe. But in its four thousand years of history, what it is going through now must rank as being one of the most humiliating episodes in its national history.

We'll forget about some of the ancient past for the sake of brevity; the 300 Spartans, the wars with the Persians, and so on. We'll forget Greece's occupation by the Romans for four hundred years. Moving on, we'll forget (for the moment) about the Fourth Crusade; that moment when Constantinople, Christendom's richest and most populous city at the time, as well as it's intellectual heart, was looted bare and half burned to the ground by fellow Christians. We'll forget about the Byzantine's long and painful decline after the Fourth Crusade until its eventual overthrow by the Ottoman Turks. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Turks for nearly four hundred years. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Nazis during the Second World War, and the bloody civil war afterwards. And we'll forget about the time when Greece was ruled by a brutal military junta, backed by the CIA during the middle of the Cold War.

We'll forget all that for now. It's worth remembering that words like "trauma"and "psyche", as well as pretty much most words to describe government, such as "democracy", "tyranny"

and "anarchy", are Greek. These could all be applied to describe in different ways the state of Greece today.

Greece as a nation-state is in collective meltdown. It just hasn't realised it yet. For decades (since the fall of the military junta, but moreso in recent decades), successive governments gave generous salaries and benefits to their population, in order to satisfy their wants and to garner popularity. At the same time, Greeks, from politicians down to hairdressers, were doing what they could to defraud the system, subsequently draining the government's revenue while at the same time the government was doing what it could to spend even more of it.

So it's no surprise that Greece would eventually find itself in a state of virtual bankruptcy. The question was what to do when the government eventually was forced to admit the truth to itself and to the public.

What it did do, considering that Greece was in the Euro, along with sixteen other countries, was ask for help. And because of the collective nature of the Euro (that when one country is screwed, the rest may well follow) the European Central Bank (mostly bankrolled by Germany, the Eurozone's strongest country) was obliged to provide it.

But Germany and the ECB were not in a sympathetic frame of mind, and in order to give Greece the money it needed to keep functioning, it asked for a lot in return, and (as the Greeks did not have trustworthy history of keeping to commitments) in a fairly short space of time. The result of that? The Greek government is forced to tear the guts out of its own institutions: government assets sold off to (foreign) privatisation; massive government lay-offs, salaries and pensions cut and cut again; meanwhile taxes are increased again and again. The consequence? Fury on the streets; 100,000 homeless in Athens; middle-class workers forced to queue for church handouts - a population and a country of modern Europeans, reduced to virtual poverty to pay off a loan.

Greece, in other words, is no longer in control of its own fate. The government, paralysed by the fear of being kicked out of the Eurozone and having to fend for itself under its own currency on one hand, and a fury at being a virtual hostage to a foreign power on the other, is stuck in a death-spiral trajectory. But this death-spiral of poverty is due to last for several more years at least, if Greece is to pay back its debts to the ECB/Germany. Meanwhile, in the real Greece, outside the parliament, it is clear the people cannot tolerate this forever. Already there has been looting and burning of buildings.

Greeks have been here before, though a long time ago. The Fourth Crusade of 1204 occurred when Crusaders were sent to Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine (Greek) Empire, in order to replace one emperor with his nephew on the throne. The nephew had promised a large financial reward to the Crusaders for this service. However, the empire at this time was practically bankrupt due to governmental mismanagement. The Crusaders forced the nephew, once installed on the throne, to raise taxes and loot the churches of gold and valuables. Riots were not long in coming, and within a matter of months the nephew was forced from the throne and replaced by a Greek who was not a pawn of the Crusaders. As a result of this, the Crusaders attacked the city a second time; this time, when they entered the city, it was looted bare of valuables and partially burned to the ground.

Greece these days is in a similar bind of its own making; only now, instead of being held hostage to Crusaders, it is held hostage to bankers in Frankfurt.

It's not Germany's or the ECB's fault that Greece is a financial colony. Greece could have decided that the best thing to do, given the kind of strict conditions that the ECB offered, was to choose to leave the Euro and fend for itself, using its own strategy. Some German politicians, secretly would prefer that; it would make it easier for them, and easier on the stability of the Eurozone.

There is to be an election in Greece in a couple of months, and I guess the question that most Greeks will be asking when the make their vote will be "Who runs Greece?". It is up to them to decide.