The Quiet Road

Over in the UK the government has just thrown their weight behind a High Speed Rail (HSR) project to connect London and Birmingham. The project is backed not only by the Tory government (including their sycophantic whipping-boys the Liberal Democrats) but also by the opposition Labour Party. Indeed, with the exception of a few rebellious members of the main parties (mostly from constituencies through which the new rail line will run, but who don’t get any obvious benefits because trains won’t actually stop there) along with parties on the fringe, this HSR project has universal political support.

This contrasts with the striking lack of support from people living in those aforementioned constituencies which will be negatively impacted (some in reality, some perhaps just in perception) by the scheme. Homes will be torn down, the countryside will be cut through (despite parts of the route going underground, there will still be plenty of trees felled and habitats destroyed – 160 important wildlife sites according to unnamed “wildlife groups” in the BBC report) and idyllic rural villages will find their peace and quiet periodically shattered by the thunderous whoosh of a high speed train passing through.

The government, as has become de rigeur with these kinds of project, held a “public consultation” on the matter. These public consultations are one of the most annoying developments in modern political theatre. Basically the government of the day makes a decision, asks the people affected by the decision to agree with it – in the hope of sharing the responsibility if something goes wrong – and then completely ignores the results of the consultation if it turns out that people don’t agree with the decision. It’s the sort of craven and cowardly strategy that shouldn’t surprise anyone, given how craven and cowardly our political classes have become, but still manages to frustrate and annoy because of the magnanimous manner in which these consultations are generally announced. “Why yes, we will let you little people have your say on this matter… just don’t expect us to actually listen.”

In the case of the London to Birmingham HSR project (known as ‘HS2′; ‘HS1′ being the Channel Tunnel link) almost 90% of the 55,000 responses to the public consultation objected to it. Whether you agree with the project or not, this surely demonstrates that the actual consultation was a waste of time and money carried out in the vain hope it would provide positive PR. It makes no sense whatsoever for there to be a legal requirement to hold a public consultation unless there is also a legal requirement to actually listen to the results.

Of course, just because a majority of people along the route of a rail line object to it, does not itself make the project A Bad Thing. The concerns of those directly affected by any infrastructure project must be factored into the decision making process. But they should not – necessarily – over-ride all other factors. Major projects like HS2 have an impact far beyond the route itself. They provide economic benefits that radiate out from the project for quite a distance. And they may offer environmental benefits should the trains reduce the use of more damaging transportation. So it may often be the case – as with wind farms, for instance – that the objections of local residents must unfortunately be over-ruled in the knowledge that the wider benefits to society outweigh those objections. The impact on local residents should be minimised as far as is practical, and compensation should be offered where necessary.

The Question

So the question becomes: Does HS2 provide sufficient benefits to outweigh the negative impact on those directly affected and upon the countryside through which the line will run? Over on twitter, John Band made his position pretty clear when he wrote: “I think HS2 has now officially joined bendy buses on my List Of Transport Things Where It’s Fair To Assume An Opponent Is A Dick.” Now, I like John. Even if he is calling me a dick.

Because, frankly, I think the HS2 project is a ridiculous and damaging waste of resources.

Don’t get me wrong, investing UK£33 billion (almost €40 billion) in rail infrastructure is a bloody marvellous idea [UPDATE: As John points out in the comments, the 33bn covers the entire HSR network rather than just the London-Birmingham line, though this doesn't affect my basic position]. It’s exactly the kind of thing that governments should be doing right now (and it’s a crying shame that our government here in Ireland is pouring money into zombie banks; money that could be upgrading our public transport network… or building hospitals… or employing teachers… hell, spend the billions on beer and pies if you must, it would still be a better use of the cash than pouring it into Anglo-Irish Bank). But investing money in the rail network is not necessarily synonymous with spending a massive lump-sum on a vanity project.

And that’s what it is. A vanity project. Railways are a great idea. High Speed Rail is a terrible one. A recent US study (High Speed Rail and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the U.S.*) of the carbon emissions of various modes of transport suggests that travelling on HSR produces 20% more emissions than going by conventional rail, and almost double that of coaches. And that’s without factoring in the environmental costs of the actual infrastructure (which are high thanks to the large amounts of concrete and steel used).

And it’s not as if it’s providing a massive time saving either. HS2 won’t be teleportation. It’ll be more expensive than conventional rail and will reduce journey times by a shade over 40%. So the average saving between London and Birmingham will be roughly half an hour. Are the Tories really spending a fortune to cut up the countryside, screw up the lives of local residents and increase the cost of train travel, all to save a half hour? With WiFi available on UK intercity trains these days, it’s not like it even needs to be a half-hour “away from the office” for a lot of people.

Yes, from an emissions standpoint HSR beats cars and planes – by a considerable margin it should be said – but it’s really not in competition with them. Most people who make the journey by car are unlikely to switch to train without a major incentive. That incentive is on the way, of course, in the form of peak oil. But because HSR carries far less passengers than conventional rail, it makes much more sense to absorb any large switch from car to train using conventional rail [UPDATE: In the comments John points out that this is not the case... which invalidates one of my objections to HSR, though I still think that conventional rail - albeit on an upgraded system with a few billion invested in it - is far better than HSR in the face of Climate Change and resource depletion. So I still say that British rail investment should be going into upgrading the current rail network... increase platform lengths, buy some extra carriages and develop a new signalling system].

In fact, it makes even more sense to absorb the migration from private car into a new, integrated coach network. You want to travel from London to Birmingham? Simple. Build a large new coach station in Brent Cross, North London (i.e. within sight of the M1 on-ramp). Link it directly to the tube either via the Northern Line or the Jubilee Line (it would require a new branch of no more than a few hundred metres in either case). Then dedicate an entire lane of the M1 to express-coach traffic only. This will reduce journey times for coaches while providing an additional incentive for drivers to ditch their cars.

Yes, yes, Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of the motoring lobby will hate the idea… but frankly they will become increasingly irrelevant as oil price rises start to make private car use a luxury – long before HS2 is due to start running in 2026. Motorways will be half-empty by that stage anyway. No, an integrated coach network may not as sexy as HSR, but it makes a damn sight more sense environmentally, is a fraction of the cost to set up, makes use of existing infrastructure that will soon be significantly under-employed and will cost far less for the end user.

So… by objecting to HS2 I’m objecting to a massive infrastructure project that will damage the environment, will cost a lot more than it needs to, will be a dreadfully inefficient use of resources, will inconvenience more people than is necessary and will be more expensive to the end-user than the alternatives. If that makes me “a dick”, then so be it. Better that than flush money down the toilet and screw up the planet because I like shiny things that go fast. Which I do, but I’m not so idiotic as to want to base public policy on that fact.

And so 2011 slips behind us and into the pages of history. While ahead looms 2012. And it looms ominously I’m sorry to say. Not because of Mayan prophecies or the mutating neutrinos of Roland Emmerich, but because the problems of 2011 – despite seemingly endless summits and photo-ops attended by our political class – have not been solved. In fact, the problems of 2011 were often little more than the ones we failed to address in 2010. As for the problems of 2010? By and large they were unfinished business from 2009. And the problems of 2009? Well, I’m sure you can see the emerging pattern.

In South Africa the governments of the world met for a few days and cobbled together a strategy for dealing with Climate Change. In Belgium (and elsewhere) the governments of Europe met for longer periods of time and cobbled together a strategy for dealing with the debt crisis. What unites both strategies is the bizarrely transparent manner in which they fail to achieve their stated aims. I’d always heard that if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing well, but apparently that’s not a philosophy shared by those in power. Had the Durban conference concluded with a joint statement from participants to the effect that they would insist upon compulsory piano lessons for all giraffes, it would have had roughly the same chance of halting Climate Change.

As Kurt Vonnegut pointed out, “We could have saved it but we were too damned cheap.”

Never forget that the reason the big issues facing the world are not being addressed is because the people in charge don’t believe we’re willing to put in the necessary money and effort. And never forget that we put them in charge precisely because that’s what they believe. They promise us easy solutions to problems we know are difficult, and in return we elect them.

Even our more manageable problems, such as the European debt crisis, are left to fester until they threaten to visit catastrophic social collapse upon entire nations. And why is this? Well part of it, and this is really quite depressing, is because our political leaders are completely incapable of admitting that they might be wrong about anything. I really do think it’s a psychological disorder. I’m not sure if it’s something they succumb to as a result of a proximity to power, or whether something about politics attracts those who already suffer from the condition. Either way, it is one of the greatest obstacles to progress.

The austerity policies in place around Europe are just plain wrong. We have created a society that imposes poverty and suffering on the general population unless it is experiencing economic growth. And at the same time we are implementing policies that are guaranteed to prevent growth. Personally I think we need to restructure society so that it no longer relies on growth, but until we do that, economic policies that prevent growth are nothing less than deliberate, calculated attacks on the citizenry by those in power.

The trouble is; even as this becomes clear, even as the failure of austerity slowly sinks in, those in power are pathologically incapable of admitting it. The very fact they supported a policy must mean the policy is the right one. The alternative is unthinkable… that they publicly accept they are fallible. These people should not be running countries, banks or large institutions. They should be heavily medicated, under supervision and kept away from sharp objects let alone the levers of power. They are mid-level bureaucrats of modest ability who have been accidentally elevated to positions of power by a runaway ambition-gland. And it’s broken them; made them delusional. We should not permit them to inflict their delusion on the rest of us.

Ireland, January 25th 2012

In two weeks time, assuming Europe lasts that long, that delusion will once again be inflicted upon the people of Ireland. In what is the ultimate ongoing demonstration that our government represents the interests of casino-capitalism above that of the citizenry, the next of the Anglo-Irish Bank payments will be made. On that day, the Fine Gael / Labour coalition will hand over €1.25 billion of public money to unsecured, unguaranteed bond-holders. It’s mind-blowing really. There is no legal requirement for the government to do this. It is not a condition of the IMF/EU “bail-out”. The payment is not part of the disastrous 2008 Bank Guarantee. Let me repeat; there is no legal requirement to pay this money. Indeed I would argue there is a moral imperative to not pay it.

So why are we paying this money, despite there being no requirement? Because our leaders don’t want to upset the markets. Oh, they’re happy to upset the people they were elected to represent. Happy to cut child benefit and disability benefit. Happy to slash the incomes of the already poverty-stricken. But they don’t want to upset the markets. Markets, remember, that Ireland has been effectively excluded from by crippling interest rates (hence our need for the IMF/EU “bail-out”). The markets will screw us alright, but heaven forbid we Irish upset them.

To a nation the size of Ireland, a payment of €1.25 billion is massive. It represents more than half the spending cuts made in our recent budget. As a letter to the Irish Times recently put it, “the proposed payment is equivalent to the salaries of 5,000 extra nurses for five years”. But it’s only the tip of the iceberg. By the end of this year, the Irish people will have paid roughly €2 billion of unsecured, unguaranteed bonds. On top of that, we’ll also be paying more than €3.7 billion of bonds covered by our insane Bank Guarantee. And that’s for Anglo-Irish Bank alone. Yes, that’s right, more than €5.7 billion of public money is being handed over to investors in a single (now defunct) bank in a single year. It’s beyond nonsense and into the realm of criminally insane.

We’re constantly being told that we must live within our means, while those doing the preaching are throwing our money away. It’s time we put an end to this idiocy.

It started in New York in July 2011 with a group of angry and disillusioned people, though it has roots going back much further. They descended on Wall Street to protest the ongoing decimation of American society by the institutions who lurked within those imposing skyscrapers. But it wasn’t just American society being decimated by those institutions. It was happening everywhere. It didn’t matter if it was Goldman Sachs in New York, Barclays in London, Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt or the similar institutions that had made their home in every city in the world; the process was the same… wealth and resources were being transferred away from the wider population and into the coffers of these institutions, and from there into the pockets of those who ran them. And it was happening at such a rate and to such an extent that it was completely destroying the lives of millions of ordinary people.

And to make matters worse, this process was being sanctioned – indeed facilitated – by the governments who had been elected to represent the interests of those ordinary people. Most of those who initially gathered on Wall Street to protest had voted for Barack Obama. They had elected him for many reasons, but his explicit promises to “bail out Main Street, not Wall Street” and to build a healthcare system that placed the interests of the people ahead of the interests of healthcare and insurance corporations were surely high among those reasons. But with a political system that offers a choice every four years between two parties who promise slightly different things but act identically; a system that marginalises alternative political parties and has convinced even the most fervent critics of the status quo that a vote for a third-party candidate is a shameful waste of the franchise; with that system firmly in place, the only option that remained was to take to the streets.

This is why the often expressed criticism (in the media and around the dinner table) that “the Occupy Movement doesn’t have a coherent alternative plan” rather misses the point. What is happening on the streets of New York, London, Dublin and elsewhere is a protest against the unholy alliance of corporations and government that has left the vast majority of us without any representation. Over time we can hope that an alternative to the status quo will emerge from these movements, but the initial instinct of the protesters was to raise their voice in opposition to a terrible injustice being perpetrated on the world.

That’s not enough of course. But it is a place to start. The only logical first step.

In fact, it goes beyond even the corporations and governments. In London the Occupy Movement took up residence in the grounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Traditionally the church was a place of sanctuary for the persecuted. Or at least, that was romantic myth carefully cultivated by the church. Was it ever true? Perhaps, though I have my doubts. Is it true now? Well, how’s this for a list…

• Lloyds TSB Group plc
• Goldman Sachs International
• UBS Investment Bank
• N M Rothschild & Sons Ltd
• J.P. Morgan
• American Express
• The London Stock Exchange

All appear on the website of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London as “financial supporters” of the Cathedral. Lloyds plc and the London Stock Exchange are also listed as “Corporate Partners” of St. Paul’s along with four other financial services companies. It seems clear that however many deans or canons resign, if the Occupy London Movement has demonstrated anything at all, it’s that those who run St. Paul’s Cathedral have not only allied themselves with the enemies of the people; they have quite consciously and explicitly abandoned the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Matthew 21:12-13 | King James Version

Having said all that, I must admit to being a little ambivalent about the Occupy Movement. I don’t expect a detailed manifesto of action or a complete, coherent new political philosophy to emerge from such a disparate movement within a few short months. But I do find many of the statements emerging from the movement (and here I shift specifically to the Occupy Dame Street Movement in Dublin, for that is the one I’ve paid most attention to – though from what I can tell it is not hugely dissimilar to the others) to be over-cautious, and occasionally even self-contradictory. And that’s a problem in my view.

It’s my honest opinion that we need massive change; far greater than that being called for by Occupy. We need a wholesale rejection of the profit motive and an end to private corporations. We need to radically reconsider our relationship with material consumption and to come to terms with the reality that greater consumption does not equate to greater happiness; indeed it appears to produce an epidemic of psychological and physical health problems… from cancer to depression and beyond. I believe that economic growth must be abandoned, even demonised – for that is what it has become, metaphorically speaking. I believe we need to renew Nietzsche’s call for a “re-evaluation of all values”, though not necessarily in precisely the manner he envisioned.

Most of all, I believe we need to re-imagine the world from an ecological perspective… and I mean “ecological” in the broadest sense of the word… and to place physical sustainability at the heart of every social and economic policy. And all this extreme upheaval must be done in such a way as to cause a minimum of suffering and degradation, because the whole reason for doing it is precisely because we seek to minimise suffering and degradation. We are not doing this to “save the world”; the world will be just fine and will recover from pretty much anything we throw at it. No, we are doing this to save ourselves.

Unfortunately the Occupy Movement, by making demands they feel are reasonable and achievable, run the risk of having their demands met and yet achieving nothing. Leastways nothing of substance.

And now let me leave you with an interview with the inspirational Chris Hedges. He’s a supporter of the Occupy Movement, though he too sees it as potential fertile ground from which a more radical movement may spring. The interview is almost three hours long which is probably about 2 hours and 58 minutes longer than the average modern attention span. Nonetheless, I urge you to watch as much as you can. He speaks more sense than pretty much anyone else I’ve encountered on the internet (yes, yes, that’s a low bar, but he clears it by some margin).

Today I was reading an article (There is Another Way) on David McWilliams‘ website and I found myself mentally stumbling over a particular line. It’s about halfway through the piece… “economies grow because of the human capital of the societies”, he says.

Now, I like David McWilliams. He’s probably the most famous of Ireland’s celebrity economists, but don’t let that put you off. I certainly don’t agree with everything he has to say. And if, for example, we were to reduce things to the simplistic left/right dialectic that I generally try to avoid on this blog, then it’s safe to say that I’d be a good deal to the left of McWilliams. Beyond that, although he is currently one of the most vocal opponents of the current austerity orthodoxy, he still retains far too much of the dogma of mainstream free-market economic theory for my liking. Nonetheless, he was one of the very few economists to publicly warn of the financial crisis quite a while before it hit… a fact that – along with his likeable media persona – has garnered him the celebrity status he currently enjoys. He also organises the Kilkenomics Fesital which, although I’ve not been to it myself, sounds like a splendid idea (high-profile economists and well known stand-up comedians are invited to take part in performances, public interviews and conferences… a most appropriate combination of participants).

Earlier this year, at a conference called European Zeitgeist 2011, McWilliams was asked about the “bail-outs” that have been received by three (so far) EU members. His response succinctly sums up the sensible position on the subject…

However, regardless of his likeability and sensible views on the current financial crisis, David McWilliams still falls into the great trap that pretty much every economist of note succumbs to… to use the language of Systems Theory, he confuses the map with the territory. That is, he tends to see economic analysis as descriptive of the real world as opposed to merely being a model of it… and a flawed one at that. The distinction may be a subtle one, but it is massively important.

A couple of months ago, McWilliams hosted an online seminar (or “webinar” to use the parlance of our times) in which he gave a short lecture on the European crisis and then responded to questions from the disembodied audience. I put my question to him. Now, regular readers of this blog could probably guess what I asked with a fair degree of accuracy, but for the rest of you, it went something like this… “David, while acknowledging that the current financial and economic crisis is a real problem, what do you say to people who suggest it is but the tip of the iceberg; that a far more serious issue is that of resource depletion – in particular, but not limited to, peak oil – and that this will result in a near-term crisis that will make the current one look positively modest in comparison?”

To his credit (and my surprise), his response essentially acknowledged that there was a lot of truth in my suggestion and that the global economy may well experience very serious shocks as a result of resource depletion in the not too distant future. The reason for my surprise was not simply the fact that most economists fail to make that map / territory distinction and therefore completely forget that economics is no more than a conceptual model of a physical world and that economic laws and theories are only accurate insofar as they tally with the laws of physics. That they are essentially descriptions of past events and cease being at all relevant when the physical conditions of the world they describe change radically. No, I was also surprised because McWilliams makes little or no reference to the notion of resource depletion in anything he writes.

This is why I get frustrated when I read statements like “economies grow because of the human capital of the societies”. McWilliams is a very smart man and appears to acknowledge the near-term possibility of a radical change in the physical conditions within which human society – and therefore economics – must exist. The depletion of oil and other petroleum products is a complete game changer. And it makes statements such as the one about human capital completely redundant. While the statement may be (indeed, is) relevant in a world where the availability of cheap energy is a given, it is nonsense in a world of diminishing energy supply. In that world, economic growth is entirely dependent upon access to that diminishing supply of energy.

This is because an economy is – in very rough terms – the amount of work occurring within a society. Some would insist that should be restated as “the amount of productive work occurring within a society”, but that’s not the case because, in practice, many people are paid for unproductive work and that money is still part of the economy. But what is “work”? Well, a definition from a Business Studies course might claim that work is “paid employment at a job or a trade, occupation, or profession”. And that’s all well and good for passing your end of term exam, but if economies are built on physical systems (which in the final analysis, they are) then it’s really the physical definition of work that’s important. And while the most mathematical of definitions is the somewhat abstract “work is the product of a force times the distance through which it acts”, we only have to wander as far as the First Law of Thermodynamics to find work equated with energy. Indeed energy is defined as “the ability to do work”. Therefore, with decreasing energy resources comes decreasing work.

This is something that cannot be avoided and something we desperately need to start facing up to. Every available piece of data seems to point towards the fact that we have already passed peak oil (2006 seems to be the agreed year for a peak in conventional crude oil). Indeed, this is playing a not insignificant role in our current economic problems, and yet we are still at the very beginning of the resource depletion crisis. Each moment we continue to wilfully ignore this issue is a moment spent making the problem worse. Which is why people like David McWilliams; intelligent people with a public platform who are apparently aware of the looming crisis; should be talking about it. They should be shouting it from the rooftops until they’re hoarse.

What they shouldn’t be doing is insisting that despite the current downturn, despite the currency problems and despite the issue of unsustainable debt, the underlying structure of the world is the same as it ever was, and that a return to growth is just around the corner if we simply make better economic and financial decisions. Because ultimately that is what “economies grow because of the human capital of the societies” translates into. It is a statement that reflects a deep economic orthodoxy and that’s something we just can’t afford right now.

I’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the negotiations, tantrums, pratfalls and other shenanigans that go to make up European politics of late. My mind has been well and truly boggled by the cavalier fashion in which politicians from across the political spectrum (though mostly on the centre-right, for it is they who hold the balance of power in Europe these days) have relegated the interests of the people below the interests of financial institutions and other corporations.

Of course, it has become part of the standard rhetoric of the left (and I’m just as guilty of it as anyone) to suggest that our political establishment has effectively ceased representing those who elected them and now focus exclusively upon representing the rich and powerful. It’s a line that’s gotten old through constant use. But rarely has this claim been so self-evidently true as during the past few months.

Now, there are those who would argue that there’s no reason why the interests of financial institutions and other corporations should necessarily conflict with those of the population at large. And I’m more than willing to concede that. There are all manner of hypothetical scenarios (and even a few historical ones) in which the interests of the rich and powerful complement the interests of the rest of us. However it is only the irredeemably partisan or the unfortunately half-witted who would claim our current situation qualifies as such a scenario.

We have allowed ourselves to be manoeuvred into a position where the very people we elect to represent our interests are gleefully handing our collective wealth over to the already super-rich. Where hospitals and schools are being closed in order to funnel public money into banks. Where croneyism and outright corruption have become the basic modus operandus of government. And where those who are already poverty-stricken – or in danger of becoming so – are expected to tighten their belts so that the wealthy may accumulate ever more obscene fortunes.

Both politics and finance are supposed to serve the wider population. We elect politicians to represent our interests directly. The financial institutions that make up modern Market Capitalism are, theoretically at least, permitted to exist by society in order to make the distribution of wealth an efficient process. Certainly there is nothing written into the rules of the Free Market system that says the wealth much be distributed equitably, but there should be a basic fairness to the system… one that, at the very least, allows the vast majority of people to live comfortably. If the Market does not achieve this aim then it is failing society as a whole and needs to be replaced with something else. After all, it’s supposed to be The People who ultimately call the shots and decide how society is structured. Not a handful of bond traders, political insiders and bankers.

Right now, however, we have arrived at a situation where politics and finance have united against the wider population. For several decades they have been united in self-interest and marginal cranks such as myself have been decrying this and warning against the inevitable tragedy that would result. However, at the same time, this unholy cabal was careful to provide a half-decent standard of living for the wider population (yes, yes, largely at the expense of the billions of poor in the so-called “developing” world, but I’m talking specifically about the people, governments and institutions of Europe). This staved off revolution and also effectively muted much of the criticism from the marginal cranks in the anti-capitalist brigade. It’s difficult to convince someone that they’re being screwed-over by the wealthy elite when they are flush with endorphins from their purchase of a 42-inch HD LED-backlit flat screen TV. We’re all monkeys after all, and easily distracted by shiny toys (me as much as anyone… a recent gift of an iPad2 has left me cooing and swiping the touch-screen like any other monkey – and I don’t even like Apple!)

But the past couple of years have seen the beginnings of a shift… we are leaving the world of Huxley and rejoining that of Orwell. No longer are the financial and political elites willing to share even the crumbs of the great wealth they are accumulating. They have become so self-assured in their positions of power that their rapacious appetites extend now even to those crumbs. Public services are slashed to the bone, yet increased taxation on the rich cannot even be considered. In nations without jobs, welfare benefits are cut and then grudgingly distributed, yet corporate tax rates are sacrosanct. The few remaining assets of a demoralised populace are flogged to ultra-rich investors at rock-bottom prices in order to pay off debts run up by those self-same ultra-rich investors.

Last Friday this wealth-grab by the powerful played out in an odd fashion in the theatre of European politics when David Cameron (the right-wing British Prime Minister) threw a strop and stormed out of negotiations supposedly designed to solve the European debt crisis and save the euro. Well, he “used his veto”, which amounts to the same thing in Brussels. His stated reason for this break with the rest of Europe was his desire to protect the City of London… in other words, the UK’s financial sector.

There was much that was odd about this whole process. Firstly, Cameron’s veto doesn’t really protect the City of London… I could write a whole post on why this is the case (and may yet do), but in reality he may actually have exposed The City to significant harm should the other 26 EU members draw up a treaty that covers financial services. It’s also worth pointing out that while about 10% of Britain’s GDP is generated by the financial sector, a whopping 40% is generated by exports to the EU… his veto doesn’t affect Britain’s position in the Common Market, but it may well foreshadow a serious strain in the relationship between the UK and Europe; a strain that places the 40% at risk despite doing little to protect the 10%. He was effectively attempting to place the interests of his City Chums ahead of the interests of the general populace and may simply have succeeded in shafting both.

Also, by playing to the rabid euro-sceptic wing of the Tory Party, he has driven a massive wedge down the middle of his coalition government which may or may not turn out to be a political disaster. Incidentally, every time I see that over-fed jubilant Tory MP call Cameron’s strategy a triumph for Britain’s “bulldog spirit” I can’t help but think, “yeah, you waddle around shitting where it’s inappropriate, only pausing briefly to lick your own balls… truly an appropriate image for the modern Tory”.

Increasing the oddness of the Cameron sulk, though, is the fact that the draft treaty on which he has turned his back is a right-wing financial-political-elite wet dream. What’s being proposed by the Franco-German alliance and eagerly lapped up by the rest of the nations involved is a terrible betrayal of the people of Europe. It runs the risk of legally restricting future national governments from adopting left-wing economic policies. It runs the risk of setting back the power of labour unions by a hundred years. It runs the risk of permanently transferring sovereignty from national populaces towards international financial institutions. And all the while it – bizarrely – completely fails to address the current European debt crisis or do anything to stabilise the euro.

Last week’s summit can be summarised as an attempt by the European elite to use the current crisis as cover for imposing a permanent state of austerity on the wider public without even trying to solve that crisis. It’s the kind of thing that Cameron should have eagerly embraced, but was too beholden to his own marginal cranks to do so. And by being the only nation outside the proposed treaty, Britain may end up being damaged as a whole, despite the treaty being a betrayal. It’s all very odd.

What Europe needs right now is a couple of socialist revolutions followed by mass nationalisations. I can only hope that the Irish government, for one, is quietly printing new banknotes and making plans – however provisional – to exit the common currency. I have my doubts they’re smart enough for that, but we may well find out in the coming months.

Here in Ireland we have just been subjected to the latest in a line of “austerity budgets”. I thought I was beyond being astonished at how craven our government – in their willing complicity with the diktats of The Market – could be. How wrong I was. The brutal cynicism of the Fine Gael / Labour coalition has dropped even my jaw (personally I think the Labour Party should be forced to change their name under trades description legislation). It was a budget bordering on the wilfully evil.

There were savage cuts to disability benefits, child benefit, the winter fuel allowance, community employment schemes, the back-to-school allowance and much more… some of which will save a few million at most while making life unbearable for those already at breaking point. Despite the steadfast refusal to even discuss raising taxes on the wealthiest and the highest earners, we saw an enthusiastic embrace of VAT increases, a flat-tax household charge and other indirect taxes that will hit the most vulnerable hardest. And to add insult to injury, we were forced to endure the obscene spectacle of ministers earning a small fortune appearing on TV to tell us just how difficult it was for them to inflict such pain on the nation. How they’d done all they could do in order to ensure that the burden of austerity was being shared equally. Orwell’s observation that “some are more equal than others” may as well be the slogan for this government. Poor dears, in their ministerial cars, with their gilt-edged pensions, generous expense accounts and salaries of over 5 times the national average.

Vincent Browne, one of the few remaining voices of sanity in Irish public life, perfectly illustrated this rank hypocrisy when he cornered Brian Hayes – a Fine Gael minister – on his show. The politician bristled with indignation when Browne suggested he was on a salary of €150,000… it was only €130,000 he protested. That’s still a “mega-salary” insisted Browne (quite rightly) and went on to wonder… “compared with the people you have afflicted in this budget, isn’t there something grotesque about you people sitting around and commiserating with yourselves about the hard decisions you have to take when all the pain of those hard decisions is on somebody else?” The blustering arrogance as Hayes tried to wriggle out of the question was cringe-inducing. “The pain is throughout our society”, he stated (almost as though he believed it). Browne rounded on him… “No it’s not! How is it on you? You get away scot-free!” Hayes eventually resorted to plaintively pointing out that the VAT increase would affect him too. He then tried to make the issue about just how sincere Vincent Browne’s outrage was… this contempt for the public is gut-churning, and I desperately hope that the people of Dublin South West consign him to the dustbin of history at the next election.

You can see the exchange here:

Alternatively you can watch the entire programme, for a limited time here, though that may not be available outside Ireland.

The assertion that a 2% VAT increase will affect someone on 130 grand in anything like the same way it will affect someone on welfare, or even someone on the average national wage… that “the pain” is truly being felt “throughout society”… indicates one of the following; (a) that Brian Hayes is an idiot, (b) that he’s utterly out of touch with reality, or (c) that he’s a bare-faced liar of the worst kind. I won’t say which one I think it is, but I will say that all of those are terrible traits for someone in a position of power. That he then tried to change the subject and discuss the attitude of the interviewer, the day on which such a devastating budget had been announced, just made him seem even more pathetic. I know I lambaste politicians on a regular basis, but Brian Hayes managed to plumb new depths last week. Though I suspect it won’t be long before someone from Labour or Fine Gael discovers yet deeper waters of iniquity in which to swim.

A few months after the United States invaded Iraq, Dubya Bush sent Condoleeza Rice on a whistle-stop tour of US allies. Presumably her job was to gauge how much support was out there and to shore up whatever there was. I was living in the UK at the time and I recall the protests that greeted Rice’s arrival in London. A few days later she touched down in Athens and the news reported a huge demonstration that ended with petrol bombs being thrown at the US Embassy. It occurred to me that there was an important cultural difference on display there. It’s not about which response was right… whether Rice’s visit merited placards or petrol bombs. It’s that it takes far less provocation to get the Greeks to reach for the petrol bombs than it does to get the British.

This is something that I’ve constantly borne in mind during the Greek protests. The austerity measures being forced upon the Greek citizenry aren’t that much worse than those being forced upon us here in Ireland. But Occupy Dame Street notwithstanding, the Irish citizenry is a long long way from general strikes and petrol bombs. Which isn’t to say that we can’t be pushed to it. Our history of armed uprisings is quite emphatic about that. But we appear to be slower to be roused to such action.

Why that should be, and whether it’s for the better or the worse is beyond the brief of this short post, but it’s worthwhile to place the Greek protests in that context. Which is to say… if relatively limited austerity measures will provoke the protests we’ve seen, then the potential for a populist movement toppling the government is very real indeed when you consider the far more draconian measures coming down the line as a result of the “bail out”. Something akin to revolution has been brewing in South-eastern Europe over the past few days. And lest you think I’m guilty of hyperbole, I present two pieces of evidence. One you already know about. Another that’s just been announced and which may or may not catch the attention of the global press.

The one you know about is, obviously, the referendum announcement. I was incredulous when I first heard it on the news yesterday. Papandreou couldn’t have created more chaos if he’d started chucking live grenades around the Head of State meeting. First he agrees to the terms of the “bail-out”, then – after every other EU leader holds a press-conference in which they speak of their relief at the deal being finalised and how it would have been disaster for Europe if they’d failed – he goes on TV and retracts his pledge and instead tells Europe he’s going to consult the Greek people. The same people whose response to the current deal includes general strikes and rioting.

It seems pretty clear to me that Papandreou arrived back in Athens, fresh from agreeing to the European “bail-out”, only to be met by grim faces. And he was told… “If you do this, your government will fall. And whatever replaces it will not implement that deal anyway”. He was backed into a corner and did the only thing he could; he bought some time for Europe to come up with a way of easing Greece out of the euro as gracefully as possible.

How do we know he was backed into a corner? Well, that’ll be the other piece of evidence. A few hours ago the Greek government surprised a lot of people (including those in the military) by announcing a wholesale change of the entire military top brass. The Heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Defence Force were all replaced earlier today. On a day where the Prime Minister is clinging to power by his fingertips, where his government’s majority has been whittled down even further by defections and prominent members of his own party are calling on him to resign. On a day where global markets are plunging as a result of Papandreou’s referendum announcement and European politicians are – not to put too fine a point on it – completely freaking out, does anyone think the Greek government has anything at all on its agenda that isn’t extremely urgent? And there’s not a lot of reasons why the replacement of the military high command becomes urgent.

Papandreou has played his final cards. The referendum might turn out to be a slice of political genius (opposition to the “bail out” is running at 62% according to the latest poll I saw… that’s not insurmountable) and the current government may somehow survive within the Eurozone by gaining a public mandate. But in my view, the odds of that happening are significantly worse than those poll figures suggest. With internal pressures beginning to fracture the government and something very strange going on with the military, it seems unlikely that Papandreou will be in power long enough to hold the referendum. And there’s no guarantee that his successor will feel the need to honour Papandreou’s commitment to a public vote.

One thing I am looking forward to though, is just what Vincent Browne will have to say about this all on his show tonight. I can almost hear his apoplectic spluttering as he confronts whatever lamb the government have sent to the slaughter… “But wha… wha… why are the Greeks getting a vote on this vital issue but the Irish are not? Does the government believe Irish citizens are not to be trusted? Or maybe that we’re all too stupid to understand what’s going on?”

The dream of a united Europe is one I share. Hell, I’d extend it further… a world without borders would be a glorious thing. Imagine there’s no countries.

But sadly that original European dream, first envisioned after two world wars had ravaged the continent, has been hijacked by financial institutions and the forces of the free market. It has become simply a mechanism by which the rich and powerful use the sweat and blood of the masses to lubricate the machinery of capitalism and further entrench their wealth and power. Some have said that it was ever thus. That the European dream was always just a way for the few to prosper at the expense of the many. But I don’t believe that. The remnants of my erstwhile idealism still provide enough of a reminder that sometimes we people do things for the right reasons. That it’s not always craven and manipulative self-interest that drives us.

But who today can still place their faith in the European dream? As our governments collude with private capital to heap unearned debt onto the shoulders of the masses, who can now believe that this once great project still has The People at heart?

Which is why I do not lament the first fractures appearing in our continental unity. The past few days have heard furious denials from Athens that the Greek government is considering withdrawing from the single currency. Our political classes don’t seem to realise that we have become familiar with the pattern… first the denials (that there’s a problem, that the banks are in trouble, that we need an IMF bailout) and then the reluctant embrace of that which was denied.

The Greeks deny any such idea is being considered or has been discussed. Others suggest that it has been discussed but that it’s merely a negotiating ploy to put pressure on the IMF and ECB to soften the terms of the bail-out. Either way, it’s causing problems for the single currency and we’re hearing rumours of frantic secret talks aimed at holding the Euro Zone together.

I know people who will gleefully cry “I told you so!” And hey, let them have their whoop. Those who predicted the single currency would fail look like being right. Though the sad thing is… it wasn’t inevitable. Just as with the European dream as a whole, I kind of like the single currency idea. I think it would work better in tandem with ultra-local currencies built on a date-limited model, just as I think government works best as a combination of the ultra-local and supranational with little need for the middle tier. But sadly, although it was not inevitable, it looks as though we are fast approaching the fragmentation of the euro. I imagine it will be retained by a smaller “inner circle” of nations, but those of us on the periphery (Greece, Portugal and Ireland to start with) will find ourselves forced to withdraw unless an agreement to write-off the vast majority of our debt is reached. And while that’s still a possibility, I’m not holding my breath.

Put simply, the repayment of our debt (especially when you chuck in the massive bank debts run up here in Ireland that have been immorally thrust onto the public) will be impossible without massive economic growth, akin to that experienced in the late nineties / early noughties. And that’s not coming back. In fact, we are entering a period of long-term economic contraction which will be caused by resource depletion. By 2015 (and probably a lot sooner) economic growth in Portugal, Greece and Ireland will be at an end for the foreseeable future. The only possible way to repay our debt at that point will be to withdraw from the single currency and rapidly devalue our local currency.

This need not lead to massive social problems in itself (if done right) though the root cause of the trouble – resource depletion (particularly but not limited to peak oil) – inevitably will. I still see Ireland as a better place to weather the coming storm than most other places… but only if we grasp the bull by the horns and begin a massive peak oil mitigation strategy in the near future. Our current government don’t possess the vision or the competence to journey that particular road, but I don’t expect them to last the full term. We may have another roll of the dice sooner than we think.