Damp and grey

Thursday was damp and grey and stayed so most of the day. I rather like such weather. With my folding bicycle, cleaned and oiled, I walked it a hundred yards down the narrow path below our house to the bus stop on the lower road. Just after 9 the bus arrived. Someone at the bus stop had already counted out the €1.70 from small change in my palm. Another reminded the driver to load my bicycle in the hold.

After these typical small kindnesses I just sat back and read up the Kallicrates Plan for Hellenic local government reorganisation in Athens News and in 20 minutes we were in town from where I cycled to the Liston, after getting a few good photographs of the magnificent Kapodistrias statue. Jim Potts had kindly agreed to let me run by him, my chat about the Lord High Commissioners next week. We met at Zisimos on the Liston, a delectable bar of old wood, mirrors and glass with a high ceiling that had looked a bit too exclusive. Just before 11-o-clock I entered hesitantly, parking my Brompton by the umbrella stand, then chose a table amid conversation among older people and no piped music. Jim arrived within minutes.

We enjoyed coffee, chocolate, mezes and a long and fascinating chat about his new book – the first recent well sourced popular history of the Ionian Islands and Epirus that I’ve come across, and due out in a few weeks. Jim had copied me a chapter on ‘The Lord High Commissioners’ (pp.201-209) from a 1969 book by Arthur Foss on the Ionian islands – very encouraging and helpful.

We had ouzos, met other regulars and were then, to my delight joined by Jim’s wife, Maria Strani whose writing includes the apocalyptic story of The Pimping of Panorea. When I praised her for it, she remarked gently that it made no difference, reminding, even as I mentioned many recent concerns about the environment in Greece, of the saying that “Knocking at the door of someone dead brings no response.”

Thoroughly content with further introductions to English and Greek customers, one of whom – Dr Spyros Giourgas – gave me his card and promises to gain me access to the old Ionian Parliament building, I left for the Green Bus station, caught the smaller 2-o-clock bus to Sokraki, since the one to Ano Korakiana didn’t leave until until four. Again my bicycle was loaded and unloaded for me. In just under 40 minutes - my fare €3.40 - we were past Ipsos and Pirgi, heading up 30 hairpin bends below Pantocrator and in the mists beyond Spartillas at the left hand turn down to Zygos where another bus awaited us. Everyone but me and the driver got off in Zygos and, with me as a lone passenger, the bus headed slowly up into deeper mist, dropping me by stretch of road in Sokraki just above the twenty nine hairpin bends that led down to Ano Korakiana.

In the quiet an eagle mewed. Muffled by mist, I could hear children playing somewhere in Sokraki. I freewheeled contentedly down the finely constructed serpentine route to Ano Korakiana, bend by bend by bend, until abruptly dropping below cloud cover above little Agios Isadoras, I saw sunlight on a patch of green far below. I could even make out the city I’d left an hour earlier. I was home for tea in Ano Korakiana a few minutes later.

** ** **

Ionian radicalism during the British Protectorate 1815-1864

Inequality unexpressed is accepted as the way of things. Good masters can even make good servants. Oppression, until it is perceived and named, is endured, sometimes evident in madness. Thus it seems to have been on the Ionian islands - dull unrecorded animosity until the emergence of the rizospastai gave voice to a philosophy of criticism and eventually direct resistance, through armed action, futile and easily dealt with by the soldiery, and then effective political activity - overt opposition in rhetoric and text, satire, cartoon, and more covert acts of subversive impoliteness – refusing to observe public rituals to celebrate the status quo, absenting from ceremonies of government, mutterings and murmurings.

The soil for radicalism in the Ionian Islands was fertilised by the socio-economic structures of the Venetian era, beginning to dissolve with the decline of Venice, then abruptly disrupted at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries by the occupying forces of French revolutionary republicanism under Napoleon, but partly recovered under the British, whose Protectorate extended first to protecting the pre-revolutionary status quo, though the British disappointed those prominent families who hoped this included preserving their exclusive powers.

The British, in Corfu and London were concerned about maintaining control of one of their possessions in the face of the jealous interests of co-signatories – Russia, Prussia and Austria – of the Treaty of Paris which had agreed Britain’s accession to the Ionian Protectorate. They did this in what was then the normal way, through conferring patronage on different groups within the Ionian polity, at the same giving sometimes more, sometimes less, support for the emergence of a gradual form of liberal parliamentary franchise to replace what had decayed into an archaically exclusive aristocracy of Venetian landowners in a caste society where the upper classes spoke Italian and lived off a peasant majority who did not.

On Corfu, the Grand Assembly of the cittadini had once been open to all prosperous members of island society. Eleni Calligas’ 1994 thesis reports how this body gradually lost its ‘demotic element’:

Increasingly specific qualifications were required for membership. Each island Assembly elected a smaller Council to conduct the business of government and appoint officials, it was composed of 150 members in Corfu and, eventually, Zante which, although a smaller community, was very prosperous, and limited to thirty in Cerigo. To protect the power that such exclusive franchise conferred, the Corfiot cittadini began closing their ranks, constituting themselves into a separate social class of signorini [nobles], limiting the families allowed to participate in the Assembly and, to avoid confusion, introducing the Libro d'oro in 1572.

Via representations to Venice the Corfiot nobility refined its privileges. By 1641 those who did not own city homes were excluded from the Assembly. Although being an apothecary, goldsmith or mercier (σωποπωλης) was viewed as compatible with nobility in Venice, the land owning Corfiot signorini:

...looked upon any form of mercantile activity with unrestrained aristocratic contempt. Citizenship…involved furnishing proof that a particular individual, as well as his father and forefather, were the issue of a legitimate marriage, inhabitants of their own city residence and not contaminated by the practice of any menial occupation. [Eleni Calligas pp 9-10 whose rich references on this alone include G.Mavrogiannis, 1889, History of the lonian Islands 1797-1815, 2 Vols., Athens (Ιστορία των Ιονίων Νήσων αρχομένη η Ενωση της Επτανησου) and L. Zois 1955, History of Zakinthos (Ιστορία τως Ζακυθνου)]

It may have been expressed nationalistically as a British-Hellenic issue, but the strongest source of animosity towards the British, as a small number of High Commissioner’s, especially John Colborne Lord Seaton, but also Lord Nugent and Gladstone, recognised, lay in perceptions among the poor majority of the islands that the British were allies of the landed aristocracy, their successors and allies among the middle classes; that they worked through them and encouraged them through patronage. Such opinions were realistic. On those occasions when the poor reacted - sometimes violently - against those who effectively owned them, British were seen to apply justice in the interests of the propertied. Thus were the rizopastai, given further encouragement by the ideas of 1848 and the success on the mainland of the Hellenic Revolution against Turkey, able to turn class injustice into a philosophy part nationalistic, part revolutionary, against the British ‘occupiers’.

Over half a century, some British governors resisted this process vehemently, others sought to channel it into their own vision of a mature democracy, some pragmatically, some idealistically, until wider events focused their attention on achieving a dignified abandonment of the Protectorate.

** ** **

The Kallicrates Plan for the reform of local government ~ 2010

Greece is divided administratively into nomes, which are further separated into eparchies. Lefkas and Zante are nomes; the nome of Cephalonia includes Ithaca as an eparchy. Kithira is now attached to a non-Ionian nome, and the eparchy of Paxos is part of the nome of Corfu.

This is an extract from a short description of local government in our area of Greece. All this seems to be about to change. What will happen to Demos Faiakon and the other island municipalities including Demos Kerkyron and the Ionian Eparchies under PASOK’s recently proposed Kallikrates Plan for reforming Greek local government? These measures, are, like the local government reorganisations set in motion by our Redcliffe-Maud Report in 1974, based on a managerial philosophy, not so much antagonistic towards local democracy as distrustful of its claims to be democratic.

Kallikrates seems designed to address the suspicions of the already powerful in Greece that many of its smaller units of local government, far from being local democracies – efficient, transparent, representative and accountable to the local population - provide havens for self-interested factions habituated to dipping into the purses of that local population to feather the nests of those able to buy influence over local decisions. We see, as a consequence, contempt for government – as much among its corrupting beneficiaries as among those excluded. We see the resentment caused by local government officials who ignore complaints about a noisy neighbour who won’t control his dogs, a business that plays illegally loud music at anti-social hours, a householder who let’s rubbish accumulate and spread from his property, a developer who pours concrete, bulldozes trees and builds despite planning prohibitions.

This isn’t just a Greek problem, though Greece may have recognised it later than some other European countries. It’s a problem of modernity – where the definition of community is no longer self-evident and where the idea of local councils which can assess local needs in a professional way and formulate, through debate and participation, the voice of the communities they are meant to govern, is a novel idea, requiring new methods of measurement and new sets of values about the meaning of local democracy.

In our fragmented mobile world it isn’t easy to define ‘community’, measure ‘need’ and express a unique local ‘voice’ and so, as in the UK, it has proved easier to resort to rational centralised solutions that rely on market forces and privately provided services to a more individualised population of consumers rather than voters.

Across Europe there seems to be a slow retreat from representative democracy. Policy develops away from centres of elected political authority. Even the most senior politicians are constrained by decisions being made by shadowy figures whose relationship to democratic government has altered from being agents of government to being its principals - to steal a quote from my colleague Prof Chris Skelcher - an expert on the subject of democratic deficit.

Most of us have little idea how this works. We struggle to find ways to research the process - avoiding conspiracy theory for its one tenth accurate silliness. The Kallikrates Plan is presented for public consultation on the web with a view to creating blueprint that can be voted into law by MPs in May 2010, and implemented over six months, in time for municipal elections in November. It involves abolishing Greece’s 54 Prefectures and 22 other administrative units including eparchies. In their place will be 7 regional unelected agencies, their chiefs appointed by central government. These new regions will be responsible for policies on immigration, waste disposal (not collection), public works and highways as well as land use in town and country and the management of EU funding in each region - referred to as ESPA infrastructure development funds. The regional chiefs will appoint deputy regional chiefs with authority similar to current prefects. 1034 existing municipalities will be reduced by two thirds -1034 to 370 - responsible for civil protection, welfare, public health inspections and building permits. There will be something equivalent to our Audit Commission, checking regularly on local expenditure – the State Auditor’s Council - and something that looks like a scrutiny function based in Athens to maintain oversight of local policies – measures aimed at increasing public understanding of things are being done, what is often called ‘transparency’.

No names of specific councils are mentioned in the consultation document, - an obvious and sensible move to avoid contention during consultation - so I’m not sure just when the actual Kalliktrates plan will be presented for Parliament. What a tremendous test of the political will and weight of Papandreou’s still new government.

** ** **

Corfucius keeps me in touch with all I want to know of our previous PM and his encounter with the Chilcot and the Thomas Cook Corfu case.

Democracy - 'only another form of government'

Henry Maine, my great great grandfather, wrote in 1876:

'To one small people, covering in its original seat no more than a hands breadth of territory, it was given to create the principle of Progress, of movement onwards and not backwards or downwards, of destruction tending to construction. That people was the Greek. Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin. A ferment spreading from that source has vitalised all the great progressive races of mankind, penetrating from one to another, and producing results accordant with its hidden and latent genius, and results of course often far greater than any exhibited in Greece itself.' p.238, 'The effects of observation of India on modern European thought' in Village Communities in the East and West (New York:Henry Holt 1876) That sting in the tale of his paean for 'the Greek' absolves Maine from the reproach of having added to the Greek 'misfortune' that Nikos Dimou describes so eloquently. Maine's approach is anthropological not classical. He challenged uncritical faith in democracy. In Popular Government - four essays published in 1885 - saying 'democracy is only another form of government', noting how the flattering rhetoric lavished on kings had been transferred uncritically to 'the people'. He was criticised as conservative, even reactionary, for questioning widely accepted justifications for 'popular government' - Rousseau's natural law, Benthamite utilitarianism, the idealism of John Stuart Mill. In fact he was not dismissing democracy in a Platonic way but providing astute cautions, matched by the Churchillian quip that democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others. Democracy is not in itself more stable than other forms of government. There is no essential connection between democracy and progress. [On Greek origins see alternative views e.g. Hindu]

Maine's lecture, The Rede Lecture for 1875, delivered before the University of Cambridge, was titled 'The Effects of observation of India on Modern European Thought'. It was aimed at impressing upon a British audience the undiscovered richness of India's contribution to world thought, through drama, comparative philo­logy and mythology and the possibility that 'it may yet give us a new science not less valuable than the sciences of language and of folk-lore.

I hesitate to call it Com­parative Jurisprudence because if it ever exists, its area will be so much wider than the field of law. F­or India not only contains (or to speak more accurately, did contain) an Aryan language older than any other descendant of the common mother-tongue, and a variety of names of natural objects less per­fectly crystallised than elsewhere into fabulous per­sonages, but it includes a whole world of Aryan institutions, Aryan customs, Aryan laws, Aryan ideas, Aryan beliefs, in a far earlier stage of growth and development than any which survive beyond its borders. (pp.210-211)

My impression is that Maine was seeking to draw his potentially sceptical audience into a recognition that here in a sort of Hindu wilderness - though he does not say that - is a treasure house of information on the roots of Western civilisation. Whereas no-one would have doubted the connection of British or European culture to those of Greece and Rome, the thought of such connection with our India was novel. So when later in the lecture Maine makes his, often quoted, reference to all things Greek in origin, I surmise an intention that was less about praising Greece (the way his quote is used) and more about using an intellectual and emotional connection, familiar to all his listeners, about us serving India's progress as Greece had served ours.

It is this principle of progress which we Englishmen are communicating to India. We did not create it. We deserve no special credit for it. It came to us filtered through many different media. But we have received it; and as we have received it, so we pass it on. There is no reason why, if it has time to work, it should not develope* in India effects as wonderful as in any other of the societies of mankind.

Maine's finale is less a fanfare for Greece, more an astutely placed douceur, to attract the attention and curiosity of his classically educated audience to India's intellectual archeology, drawing upon his posting in India as Darwin drew upon his voyage to the Galapagos. [*'develope', tho' now archaic, is not a misspelling] * * * Lin wrote to Corfu:

Hi George, Glad to hear that the money arrived safely. It was quicker than I thought it might be. Thanks for the update on work and the photos. The roof pictures look good, but I'm not sure about the bit in the bottom right corner of the 'slope looking at Lefteris' garden'. Is this before it was quite finished? The 'lower terrace' looks great. Not sure what you mean about covering the drain with plaka, though. Do you mean permanently or temporarily? I thought we were going with the idea of a reed bed in the drain? That's what we'd prefer if possible. It's great to see that wall out. Can't wait to see it with the door gone as well! I hope the top of the arch is going to be curved, as discussed with Martin before we left - look at arches on buildings near the house for reference - I looked at them with Martin and we talked about how much curve would be possible...I've attached photos of the arch in our kitchen here which might be helpful. It's much wider and therefore quite flat - I'd think there should be a bit more curve on the new arch. (Don't look at the mess! I haven't caught up with housework since our return and I'm in the middle of a major clearout at the moment, so there's lots of junk around, waiting to be moved to various places.) I looked on the internet and found information about sealing wood floors. I think we'll go with the polyurethane! We want a satin or matt finish - not shiny gloss. I'm pretty sure Squeak is a girl, so she probably is pregnant. it's a shame, 'cause she's only a kitten herself. More biscuits and sandwiches will be required! Good luck with the stairwell-widening next week. Looking forward to seeing more photos. All the best, Lin and Simon

The authors of the essays in the book Mazower edited are conscientious in their methodologies. They explain how they have striven to make the subjective objective, aware of the challenge - even now - of making space for debate about so fragmented a time. The writers tread carefully recording impressions that have become currency, observing the reconstruction of the family, nation and state but also aiding that process in their thinking and writing. They exemplify an alert approach to gentler ideas of truth built on teasing out many subjectivities, privileging none over others, describing their own part in their conclusions. These authors are not detached from their findings, yet nor are they opinionated. Each describes and argues for the truths they've uncovered. Sweet unsleeping reason.

[back to the future - from a Greek friend via Flickr on 17 Aug: Except the blind forces of nature, Εκτός από τισ τυφλέσ δυνάμεισ τησ φύσησ, nothing moves on this world τίποτα δε κινείται σε αυτον τον κόσμο which is not Greek in its origin το οποιο δεν είναι Ελληνικά στην καταγωγη The phrase "in its origin" is freely translated "apo ta genofaskia tou - από τα γενοφάσκια του" - that is commonly used in the villages in folk language and in slug Greek. It is a "warmer" expression. Genofaskia means early age or ancestors or family origin.]

Αγαπητέ Καγκελάριος

Letter sent prior to a meeting in Berlin today between Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel

Dear Chancellor 

I am writing to you to express my deep concern about developments since the 20th February 2015 Eurogroup agreement, which was preceded two days earlier by a letter from our Minister of Finance* outlining a number of issues that the Eurogroup ought to resolve, issues which I consider to be important, including the need:

(a) To agree the mutually acceptable financial and administrative terms the implementation of which, in collaboration with the institutions, will stabilise Greece’s financial position, attain appropriate fiscal surpluses, guarantee debt stability and assist in the attainment of fiscal targets for 2015 that take into account the present economic situation. 

(b) To allow the European Central Bank to re-introduce the waiver in accordance with its procedures and regulations. 

(c) To commence work between technical teams on a possible new Contract for Recovery and Development that the Greek authorities envisage between Greece, Europe and the International Monetary Fund, to follow the current Agreement. 

(d) To discuss means of enacting the November 2012 Eurogroup decision regarding possible further debt measures and assistance for implementation after the completion of the extended Agreement and as a part of the follow-up Contract.

Based on the in-principle acceptance of this letter and its content, the President of the Eurogroup convened the 20th February meeting which reached a unanimous decision expressed in a communiqué. The latter constitutes a new framework for the relationship between Greece, its partners, and its institutions.
More precisely, the 20th February Eurogroup agreement stipulated a number of points outlining this new framework and process, including:

(a) The Greek authorities will present a first list of reform measures, based on the current arrangement, by the end of Monday, February 23. The institutions will provide a first view whether this is sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of the review. This list will be further specified and then agreed with the institutions by the end of April. 

(b) The Greek authorities have expressed their strong commitment to a broader and deeper structural reform process aimed at durably improving growth and employment prospects, ensuring stability and resilience of the financial sector and enhancing social fairness. The authorities commit to implementing long overdue reforms to tackle corruption and tax evasion, and improving the efficiency of the public sector. In this context, the Greek authorities undertake to make best use of the continued provision of technical assistance. 

(c) We remain committed to provide adequate support to Greece until it has regained full market access as long as it honours its commitments within the legal framework. 

Based on this common ground, the Minister of Finance sent to the President of the Eurogroup a letter, dated 23rd February 2015, with the aforementioned “first list of reforms” [see (a) above] proposed by the government. On 24th February 2015 the said “first list” was accepted by the institutions as “sufficiently comprehensible to be a valid starting point for a successfully conclusion of the review” by 20th April 2015.
In order to expedite the process, the Ministry of Finance sent a letter to the President of the Eurogroup on 5th March 2015 urging that the process of technical discussions on specifying further the “first list of reforms” begin immediately. In the same letter the Minister of Finance attached seven examples of how the reforms in the “first list” could be developed and specified further. 

Following a positive reply by the President of the Eurogroup (dated 6th March 2015) and the subsequent Eurogroup meeting of 9th March 2015, the first round of discussions of the Brussels Group (comprising of the four institutions – EC-ECB-ESM-IMF – plus the technical team of the Greek government) took place, in Brussels, on Wednesday 11th March dealing with both political and technical issues. At that meeting it was also decided that technical teams of the institutions would travel to Athens on the following day for on-site fact-finding to assist the Brussels Group negotiations.In the context of the above, I feel it is critical to alert you to a number of developments which are either undermining the spirit of the agreement reached or making their fulfilment perilously difficult.

(a) On 4th February the European Central Bank lifted the waiver for minimum credit rating requirements for marketable instruments issued or guaranteed by the Hellenic Republic, while declaring that the waiver would be restored when an agreement was reached at the level of the Eurogroup. Moreover, even since the Greek banks were referred to the Bank of Greece’s ELA facility, the ECB has been raising the ELA’s ceiling at shorter intervals than normal and at rather small increments that incite speculation and spread uncertainty vis-à-vis Greece’s banking system. Additionally, the ECB determined that Greek banks cannot hold more T-bills than they did on 18th February 2015, thus restricting their participation to well below the T-bill cap. (Please note that, in the summer of 2012, when a new Athens government was in a similar situation to ours, ELA was being expanded generously, the T-bill issuance cap was lifted to allow the government to finance its debt repayments to our creditors, and banks were not restricted to any limit corresponding to a prior date’s holding. In that manner the government of the time and the Eurogroup were granted sufficient ‘space’ to reach an arrangement that allowed the Greek banks to move away from ELA and back to normal ECB financing methods.)  

(b) Following past failures (of the previous government) to complete the scheduled reviews, disbursements under the loan agreements with the ESM-EFSF were discontinued (while those of the IMF were similarly delayed), yielding a substantial financial gap in 2014 and 2015. This includes the profits from the ECB’s SMP-sourced bond redemptions, which the ECB distributes to member states on the understanding that they be passed onto the Greek government.

Given that Greece has no access to money markets, and also in view of the ‘spikes’ in our debt repayment obligations during the Spring and Summer of 2015 (primarily to the IMF), it ought to be clear that the ECB’s special restrictions [see (a) above] when combined with the disbursement delays [see (b) above] would make it impossible for any government to service its debt obligations. Servicing these repayments through internal resources alone would, indeed, lead to a sharp deterioration in the already depressed Greek social economy – a prospect that I will not countenance. 

Meanwhile, I also regret to report that little progress has been made in the negotiations between the technical teams in Brussels and Athens. The reason for the extremely slow progress is that the institutions’ technical teams, as well as some of the actors at a higher level, seem to show little regard for the 20th February Eurogroup agreement and are, instead, committed to proceeding along the lines of the Memorandum of Understanding that pre-dates both the 20th February agreement and 25th January 2015 – the date on which the Greek people elected a new government with a mandate to negotiating the new process established by the 20th February Eurogroup agreement. It is difficult to believe that our partners consider that a successful reform drive can be carried out under such restrictive and pressing constraints, including the financial squeeze that my government is currently labouring under. 

The Greek government remains steadfast in its commitment to fulfil its obligations to its partners within the framework of the 18th February letter and 20th February Eurogroup decision. However, I am also obliged to make clear to you that, in order to continue to fulfil our obligations, as we have done up to now, progress has to be made on a number of fronts:

(a) After 20th February Eurogroup agreement and the approval of the extension of the MFAFA by member states, and given that the technical discussions with the institutions are under way, the ECB should return the terms of finance of the Greek banks to their pre-4th February 2015 state. 

(b) The process by which the reforms proposed by the Greek government, and their evaluation, must be immediately clarified so as to make a successful conclusion of the review by the end of April 2015, as well as to specify the recommencement of disbursements with the progress of the negotiations. 

(c) The process must be specified (as well as the participants and timetable) by which further arrangements (which my government would like to take the form of a ‘Contract for Greece’s Recovery and Development’ – including provisions on Greece’s public debt in the spirit of the November 2012 Eurogroup agreement) will be agreed to before the end of June 2015.

In conclusion, Greece is committed to fulfilling its obligations in good faith and close cooperation with its partners. To this purpose we are committed fully to the process specified in the 20th Eurogroup agreement so as to begin immediately the work of implementing reforms crucial to our economy’s prospects of long term development within an inclusive Europe. With this letter, I am urging you not to allow a small cash flow issue, and a certain ‘institutional inertia’, to not turn into a large problem for Greece and for Europe.

*Letter sent by Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, on 18th Feb 2015, to Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the eurogroup, formally requesting an extension of the existing bailout, something Tsipras had resisted since his government's election. See also Yanis Varoufakis' blog entry for 20th March in which he picks up on the matter of a subversive video circulating on social media. 

Diplomacy in Berlin...

23rd March 2015: The German Chancellor and Prime Minister of Greece appear at 49.50 on this clip...

'the thistle for wheat'

'I have taught pale Artifice to spread his nets upon the morning' wrote William Blake in the 1800s - railing against the imperial impulse in men, rending the veil of Newtonian appearance with radical visions - the exquisite form of the house fly, the rat's civility, the lark's song - a shriek of protest at human cruelty. The distinction between Whigs and Tories in British political history had the Tories, their faith grounded in common-sense recognition of crown and nation, mocking their Whig opponents for their preoccupation with ideas and counter-intuitive statements of principal. For the Tories what was right was self-evidently lodged in faith and inherited trust. "I refute it thus" (the philosophy of Bishop Berkeley) said Samuel Johnson to Boswell, kicking a large stone on a Dover beach. Tory bedrock was Whig quicksand. This opposition is as familiar today. What for those of a Tory disposition is no-nonsense crime to be treated accordingly, is for the Whig a symptom. Blair tried to coin a middle ground phrase with his slogan "I'm tough on crime and on the causes of crime" but its success in bridging different ways of understanding the world was partial. Close linked to politics as this piece by Costas Douzinas shows, there's an enduring philosophical tussle over the nature of reality, emerging in the street in squabbles (see Brabant for BBC on arguments over the shooting of Diamantis Matzounis) about what can be seen by anyone with a pair of eyes in their head, and in current culture in the image of the choice between a red pill or a blue pill in that initially clever sequence of sci-fi films the Matrix Franchise - the red pill Whig, the blue Tory. Costas Douzinas, Law Professor and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, has written a piece 'What we can learn from the Greek riots' in this morning's Guardian. This interesting voice from the Greek diaspora comes to me, even as I sit in a lecture by my colleague Andrew C, on Local Area Agreements and external scrutiny. Andrew's running through a taxonomy of governance structures and the means by which they may be scrutinised. To understand why this article attracts my attention, especially during Andrew's talk, I need to explain my growing interest in arguments challenging the frameworks within which I've been understanding modern government.

Douzinas: Contemporary politics aims at marginal (re)distributions of benefits, rewards and positions without challenging the established order. In this sense, politics resembles the marketplace or a town hall debate where rational consensus about public goods can be reached. Conflict has been pronounced finished, passé, impossible. The convergence of political parties in the centre ground exemplifies this 'conflict-free' approach. But conflict does not disappear. Neo-liberal capitalism increases inequality and fuels conflict. When social conflict cannot be expressed politically, it becomes criminality and xenophobia, terrorism and intolerance. Or a reactive violence, the emotional response of those invisible to the political system. In the Greek case, antagonism resulted from the tension between the structured social body with its political representatives and groups, causes and interests radically excluded from the political order. Huge numbers of people cannot formulate their demands in the language of politics. The protesters do not say, "I want this or that" but simply, "Here we are, we stand against"...

We all see the world through theory that becomes common sense, becoming no more aware of the underpinning of that common sense than a snake of its skin - until its sloughed - or a fish of water - until its on the bank. Theory disappeared under the cloak of TINA. Discredited theories - Newtonian, Marxist, Keynesian - have remained visible and the efforts of creationists to get intelligent design into the science curriculum requires us to do more than rely on received wisdom about the probability of evolution. We must understand a theory to rebut its detractors. I don't understand current theories of government well enough to defend, refine or abandon what I've taken for granted.

Douzinas: No political organisation directed the insurrection, no single ideology motivated it, no overwhelming demand was put forward. The persistent question, "What do the kids want?" often led to the conclusion that the events were not political because they could not be integrated into existing analytical frameworks. What seemed to unite the protesters was a refusal: "No more, enough is enough." A stubborn negativity characterised the insurrection. Is this a new type of politics after the decay of democracy?

Jonathan Davies, Associate Professor (Reader) of Public Policy Public Management and Policy Group at Warwick Business School has been asking question about the ‘network orthodoxy’, developing and refining criticisms of the 'regime-theoretical conception' of governance. J sees matters of class being ignored or reduced to a taxonomy of types familiar to marketing analysts. He's been picking through what he sees as the dysfunctional dynamics of networked urban governance in the UK. He speaks of the almost triumphal way social theorists have celebrated the network society where hierarchy has been succeeded by heterarchy with power dispersed across interdependent agencies, and interests, rather than being held by a dominant class. In so far as anyone is left out of this social arrangement, they can be saved - it is perhaps far too casually assumed - by various assimilative measures. My comment on Douzinas' article:

"The possibility of changing the rules of what counts as political". This strikes me as the key point you are leading to - also changing our understanding of what we are seeing in Greece and if you are right, elsewhere. Comments shuttle between keyboard colonels and keyboard liberals, between vexation and venom and, as you observe, 'incredulity'. incomprehension and puzzlement as to what is demanded, wanted, desired? Where I've been asking are the politics? It looks too much like street therapy. You argue that 'these events were not political because they could not be integrated into existing analytical frameworks; and ask if "this (is) a new type of politics after the decay of democracy?". That intrigues me. Are you saying that the powers that be within our current polity have become so skilled at assimilating, diffusing, dispersing, tranquilising, co-opting, and suppressing demands that can't be met, that what we are seeing is a form of political expression that evades articulating demands that can be absorbed? This sounds counter-intuitive - but then most new ideas are. Please elaborate. Take us through your reasons for thinking democracy has 'decayed', rather than being the familiar flawed form of government that just about survives because we can't invent anything better. Perhaps, as recession familiarises more here with the enormous and widening rift between rich and poor in other places, the expressions we see in Greece will spread, a new spectre demonstrating your thesis that there's something rotten rather than merely flawed in our present condition. Are we struggling to manage the symptoms of a political illness current expertise has, as yet, failed to diagnose?

Professor Douzinas has also argued that human rights, rather than providing a moral and legal framework for challenging and regulating the actions of the powerful, have become their ideological tool. * * * The Birmingham Mainline was iced up completely. At Gas Street and along the Birmingham Worcester the ice was broken by a few narrow boats on the move, but I had the towpath to myself this morning. * * * Finally saw This is England just before Christmas - the most honourable film I've seen in the year, talented acting, intrepid plot, ghastly and cruel, yet worth all for its writer's and actors' integrity. At last people I recognise and Lin used to teach - and a document of the consequences of certain policies and attitudes in the 1980s; effects whose trajectory I experience and see every day - the pity and the waste.

‘Depravity in the oppressed is no apology for the oppressor; but rather an additional stigma to him, as being in large degree, the effect, and not the cause and justification of oppression’ Herman Melville, Chapter 14 White Jacket

[In a roundabout way I stumbled on this reaction to This is England as well as a link to a portal to more on urban food growing - thanks to Nick Booth, Podnosh]

Cheek

Μαγουλιά ...from the village website for Ano Korakiana

Ψαρόσουπα με λαχανικά «σβησμένα» με κρασί και «μαγουλιά» λυθρινιού, συνοδευόμενη από άσπρο κρασί και το Τριώδιο ακόμη δεν άρχισε…Στην τηλεόραση, τα τελευταία τηλεοπτικά σποτ των πολιτικών κομμμάτων, λίγο πριν την κάλπη...On TV, the latest TV spots for political parties just before the ballot in the village. They will be voting on Democracy Street today.

Polling on Democracy Street, Ano Korakiana ~ 25th Jan 2015

*** *** ***
My personal connections to beloved Greece means the matter intensifies my interest, but this turn of events - like many in Greece in modern times - has implications. Greece's connection to the EU and the Euro always had more to do with the symbolic significance of Hellenic membership, than economic logic. Alexis Tsipras is an attractive bright idealist, leader of Syriza with government-forming support in the polls.

He thinks there is an economic alternative to austerity. My neighbours in Ano Korakiana like this man's thinking. At previous elections they saw him as too young, even naive, lacking in experience. Inside the polling booths, they may yet have reverted to older politicians and parties, rather than support Tsipras' avowed policy to renegotiate the policies of austerity - conditions affecting Greece worse than other PIIGS. Syriza is about to form a government that will challenge the neo-liberal economic method and faith we've inhabited since Mrs Thatcher read Hayek's Road to Serfdom* in 1944 and took it to heart, and pursued its message with conviction for most of the free world.
Our trust in the power of markets is lessening these days but while many. including me, can explain our mistrust - especially the visible facts of market failure and its consequences, we tend to keep 'a-hold of Nurse For fear of finding something worse'.
Syriza's going to have a go. If it elects a workable government under Tsipras so is Greece! Tsipras without becoming a useless, and dangerous, populist (not impossible given the despair of so many in Greece) must, to succeed, sell to his fellow citizens and the rest of Europe 'the big idea' that there's something better for Greece than the horrid prescription of continuing austerity.
Those, who like me, don't trust, communism or the bureaucratic fumbling of state socialism, are attracted to Tsipras' more moderate nostrums - ones that focus on bringing government authority to ameliorating the toxic effects of market externalities.* We've heard the poetry. it stirs!

...Mario Cuomo's famous dictum that you campaign in poetry but govern in prose...The poetry of campaigning is lofty, gauzy, full of possibility, a world where problems are solved just because we want them to be and opposition melts away before us. The prose of governing is messy and maddening, full of compromises and half-victories that leave a sour taste in one's mouth.

But I hesitate to test my intuitions and hopes of alternatives to austerity to the rigorous prose of government - especially as I am quite comfortably off. especially as I'm alright.


It's a complicated case, hence Tsipras' vagueness - along with all aspiring political leaders - about what he will do as Prime Minister. He's been effective in opposition. I cannot see him being as effective in government. He wants to keep Greece in the euro. He wants Greece to withdraw from the bailout agreement. Samaras has given his main opponent little time to turn that popular adversarial vision ("the future begins today") into a reality that will get votes on polling day. But then I'd far rather have Tsipras than Golden Dawn. There's an easy opinion!
I am too far imbued with the painful principles of neo-liberalism to believe in practical alternatives to continued austerity. Is there one? Margaret T did well. "I can see no alternative - TINA!"; perhaps there are alternatives in those Scandinavian welfare states with small, still relatively homogeneous populations. Whether there's an alternative that can work for the rest of us, the rest of the world is asking.

*Hayek's case for free markets includes the view that where market activities damage third parties - negative externalities (corruption, harm to the environment, 'exploitation of ignorance') there's a place for the intervention of government. 

*** ***
Exit poll as promised around 19.30 in Greece, 17.30 here in UK

• French Tart What does it mean?

  59 mins · Like · 1
• 

  Heather Skinner it's the spread across the various exit polls "from %" on the left column "to %" on the right - IF Syriza actually has polled 39.5 % they MAY have enough seats (151) for an overall majority to make a government on their own, parties that poll 3% or over (which in this case includes the extreme right Golden Dawn) will also have seats. If Syriza cannot form a government on their own, they will have to form an alliance with one or more of the other parties

  37 mins · Like

*** *** ***

Syriza Rides Anti-Austerity Wave to Landslide Victory in Greece
by Eleni Chrepa & Marcus Bensasson
Bloomberg NewsJanuary 25, 2015

Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza brushed aside Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s party to record a landslide victory in Greece’s elections, after riding a public backlash against years of budget cuts demanded by international creditors, exit polls showed.
Tsipras’s Coalition of the Radical Left, known by its Greek acronym, took between 36% and 38% compared with 26% to 28% for Samaras’s New Democracy in Sunday’s election, according to an exit poll on state-run Nerit TV showed. To Potami, formed less than a year ago and a potential Syriza coalition partner, tied for third place with the far-right Golden Dawn on 6% to 7%.
The projected victory, by a wider margin than polls predicted, may be enough for Syriza to govern alone. It hands Tsipras, 40, an overwhelming mandate to confront Greece’s program of austerity imposed in return for pledges of €240 billion ($269 billion) in aid since May 2010. The challenge for him now is to strike a balance between keeping his election pledges including a writedown of Greek debt and avoiding what Samaras repeatedly warned was the risk of an accidental exit from the euro.
Syriza, in a statement read out by a party official, said the victory was “historic” and one that represented hope.

*** **** ***
From the poll in Ano Korakiana, above average support for Syriza:

Αποτελέσματα βουλευτικών εκλογών

Γράφει ο/η Κβκ

25.01.15

Αποτελέσματα βουλευτικών εκλογών 25ης Ιανουαρίου 2015, στο χωριό μας: Ψήφισαν: 735 Ακυρα-Λευκά: 13 Έγκυρα: 722 Έλαβαν: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ: 314 (43,5%) Ν.Δ.: 162 ΚΚΕ: 63 ΠΟΤΑΜΙ: 48 ΑΝ.ΕΛ.: 36 ΠΑΣΟΚ: 27 Χρυσή Αυγή: 27 ΚΙ.ΔΗ.ΣΟ: 16 ΛΑΟΣ: 6 ΑΝΤΑΡΣΙΑ: 5 ΛΟΙΠΑ: 18 New Corfu MPs: SYRIZA, Stefano Samoilis and Fotini Vaki for SYRIZA, Stefanos Gikas for ND

<Το Νησί των Συναισθημάτων>

Strolling with my mother

We've been on favourite walks - to Dunlichity, to the head of the Nairn near Dog Rose and along the shore of the Moray Firth, on the remains of the old Inverness to Aberdeen Road and to Cromarty in the rain

* * *

E-mail from my colleague Tony Bovaird re Paper on National Indicators for a Thriving Third Sector:

I'm delivering a paper at APPAM in November on some research we recently did on developing a national performance indicator for local authorities, which attempts to assess their contribution to the environment of local third sector organisations. It's a complex issue and I think it raises some important issues for those of us who work at the interface of public sector and third sector issues. I'm attaching a draft of the paper and would be delighted if you had any comments. I'm taking this chance to circulate you on the old School of Public Policy list server, as I notice that, peculiarly, it still lives on, after 1 August! Best, Tony

My reply:

Dear T. A bold piece of pioneering methodology. I wonder if it would pick up any of the diverse ways Birmingham City Council people have helped or hindered endeavours with which I've been associated as member or initiator over the past 30 years living in Handsworth? I see it as both a practitioner and as a part-anthropologist, part-historian, in terms of myriad incidents, some pivotal, and personalities, often near infathomable. The end results are measurable in cash for projects on the ground. Something happened because the LA or someone or some group in it exercised agency. I worry that the performance management approach keeps us, in this area, in the world of getting better at knowing the costs but no closer to knowing the values, better at assessing quantity but no closer to understanding let alone measuring things to do with quality. How would your method add to our understanding of what made the Good Friday Agreement look and feel like a success and other peace making initiatives not? Best S

Tony's reply:

Hi Simon. Interesting. I think that such indicators are not really very suitable for mega-authorities like Birmingham - they depend on a close relationship between the local authority and the local third sector (in general), which in a city of 1m is never going to happen. So, it's not a surprise that Birmingham has NOT chosen this to be one of its 35 target indicators! (Although it has chosen it to be one of its local priorities, which will feature much less strongly in the CAA judgement). You mention the influence of "myriad incidents, some pivotal, and personalities, often near infathomable" - that sounds very much like the kind of context in which complexity theory becomes an interesting approach - have you explored that? It's something I've been interested in for some time - it gives a very different flavour to evaluation activities! "The end results are measurable in cash for projects on the ground". In the case of Birmingham - but it's true of many, if not most LAs (though rarely so true as in Brum!) - the end results are MATCHED FUNDED projects on the ground but not normally major changes to mainstream budget allocations. This is one of the greatest puzzles - I think 'scandals' would be better - of modern UK local government. I'd love to find a way of exploring it further. "I worry that the performance management approach keeps us, in this area, in the world of getting better at knowing the costs but no closer to knowing the values, better at assessing quantity but no closer to understanding let alone measuring things to do with quality" I think this was true up to the 1990s but has long since not been the case. Actually, I think the opposite is now becoming a real worry - so many of our evaluations focus on quality, and few have any real handle on costs - this has been a major source of embarrassment for the 20 odd evaluations carried out in recent years for CLG under the LGMA Evaluation Partnership. I find it's less surprising to me now that the guy who first came to fame promoting Activity Based Costing is now the Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Bus School! "How would you method add to our understanding of what made the Good Friday Agreement look and feel like a success and other peace making initiatives not?" The approach outlined in this paper is not designed to do that, nor would I be very comfortable with a PI approach that looked at specific cases. The strength of PI-based approaches lies partly in the protection given by the 'law of large numbers' - major variations between 149 LAAs are generally unintended and therefore they are interesting to observe and explore. (Of course, when intended, that's fine - but then it's interesting to ask if they are generally as LARGE as was originally intended!). In exploring the narratives thrown up by such questioning, good explanations will often come emerge, from which we learn. But often it is a case of "fair cop, we should have been more careful/thoughtful/imaginative ... we will now attempt to influence the behaviour of our staff and partners to get this indicator back onto a more desirable trajectory". Looking at something like the Good Friday Agreement, we are dealing with specific cases and comparative performance indicators are of no interest. Of course, if we were to look at the ending of colonialism in Latin America in the 19th century or in Africa in the 1950s and1960s, there would be enough cases to make some comparisons interesting. Although I'm a bit sceptical of cliometrics (and I always regarded the Fogel-Fishlow dispute about pork barrels leaving New Orleans in the 1840s as the nearest Economic History ever gets to slapstick), I have been impressed by those historians who can use some statistics very tellingly - e.g. Braudel, Andre Gunder Frank, Putnam). Now, as far as quality goes, I'm enjoying reading Sennett's latest book - The Craftsman - but I'm a bit distressed that he never mentions Pirsig, whose ideas are so similar to his. What approach do you normally take to quality. Best from a sunny Tuebingen, after a super bike ride through the forest! Tony

Me:

This is a lovely reply. You touch on things I know and things I don't - and for the latter I'm grateful. Yes you reminded me of someone I did know of, but had not read for ages - Braudel. And yes, he does use loads of fascinating quantitative material to explain things about social and economic life that would have been passed over by narrative histories. I first came across this approach with Giedion's work 'Mechanisation takes Command'. I feel reproached that I had for a moment there suggested you put quantity before quality. You are way outside that old debate. Sorry. I have just come across - in Borders - amid biographies of Hitler and Kathy Price - a fascinating book about the work of the Audit Commission by Duncan Campbell-Smith. My mum had to drag me away to supper (I'm staying with her in the Highlands but we make forays into Tesco land for provendor). This isn't quite the scholarship we are discussing but it runs parallel to the efforts needed to sustain our understanding of what works and worked and what doesn't and didn't. Its esoteric unless you are in our area, but reading its last chapter (I have bought a cheaper used copy off the internet) I felt a buzz of excitement at the project of place shaping, of decentralisation and empowerment that went beyond the words and ideas sprinkled around so liberally by Hazel Blears and her people. Much of my early life my narrative histories taught me about the good that attaches to accruing power into the hands of competent government; the domesday book and Norman governance and the crowns control over wayward church courts, before that the Romans ('what have they ever done for us') with their great public projects, roads , aqueducts, city planning; the work of Henry VIII with Star Chamber, and then our (not yours?) Empire growing to protect our trade monopolies but accompanied by works even grander than the Romans. This is all from my Ladybird Books of history, right? Then I learned how often attempts to give away power were fraught with peril - among these was Gladstone's destruction of the Liberal Party over Home Rule and then - god help us - Partition. Against this we can balance rather poignant flag lowering ceremonies over numerous colonies that in many cases chose to remain in a Commonwealth, the spread of the franchise, and most recently the Scottish, Welsh and N.Irish Parliaments and Assembly - for which, but for Iraq - Blair would be most remembered. My point is that devolution and empowerment are projects fraught with hazard and risk. Delegation spares no delegator responsibility for its consequences. I now realise that allowing and encouraging greater choice at local level feels incredibly dangerous to our leaders. The Japanese taught me this when I was in Tokyo the other day and dared to give a talk (long planned) on 'England, its own last colony'. Of course Chris G had sensibly advised me not to use that title, so I spoke about the Challenge of Central-Local Relations in the UK, or something like this, and got a round of applause and lots of lovely chat after, from a group of high- flying civil servants. Of course decentralisation permeates modern democracies - but how do you prevent local choice exacerbating the gaps between rich and poor? I thought about depravity and deprivation and the US civil rights movement and the lurking 'folkish layer' that Thomas Mann describes underlying fascism, and the Balkans and the 'many headed monster', the mob. Is this something in my genes -this lack of trust in 'the people'? My great great grandfather Sir Henry Maine said 'Democracy is just another form of government', 'stop worshipping the people with the same fervour that royalists worship the king - as though they are the source of some divine right and have some innate wisdom'. He argued that democracy can only be made to work by the constant and ingenious application of well informed interventions to keep it working properly (Persig? Zen and the art of democracy maintenance?). 'Worst form of government - except for all the others' etc. Your research is in line with and supportive of the continuing work of the Audit Commission. It need not be the hammer of localism, but it can play a vital role in showing what works and what doesn't. It can hold the balance, especially when supported by endeavours like yours to measure the quality and quantity of support for third sector activity. These are methodologies for empowerment, inventions for the next stage of democracy. I sound like a Victorian believer in progress. Well yes I am! If that ex-market trader Lyons can come up with prescriptions for 'place shaping' he's a hero in this fragmented messy world! This is a fascinating journey and there's plenty of room for academics preoccupied with the minutiae. I guess this is why I subtitle my blog 'Democracy Street' - the banality of good (written in Greek). I'm back-referencing to Arendt's brilliant phrase for which she took so much flack - the banality of evil. I so want your research to pick up the gods of small things, small acts and connections, some recovery of Yeats' 'ceremonies of innocence', though we musn't - and can't - be innocent any more. Ceremonies of good governance at the level of the street, the neighbourhood, the village, the allotment, the bowling club, is what we need to invent. Peter W said everyone would have to work out their own Barnett Principle at local level before you could make a Local Income Tax work, and since we don't trust it at national level I do wonder ... Enjoy your holiday. Thanks for the chance to be confused aloud. Best, Simon (Scotland until 12 August)

Note: Much can be learned on the subject of giving away, receiving and taking power by study of the abandonment by Great Britain of the Corfu Protectorate in 1864. How I wish I could discuss this with Theotokis. or Gladstone.

[back to thr future: 1/01/09 I'm going to have to start digesting Jonathan Davies' thinking about hegemony vs. governance]