Sunday 22 April 2012

Holland and Hollande

Well, finally! Give Praise to whatever higher power you worship, dear reader! After a boring dry white season and the long barren winter of our discontentment, things are finally getting interesting!


In The Netherlands, the right-wing Europhilic government came down yesterday when one of the coalition partners, the much reviled and censured PVV Freedom Party, decided to call it a day and rejected the crippling Brussels Austerity Diktat. New elections are expected in October (they’re not always the fastest up there, are they? But then them Dutchmen have to wade through all that mud which makes up most of their country, so I guess we have to be understanding of their sluggishness). Meanwhile it is amusing to see that the country which most insisted on the strict observance of the arbitrary 3 % budget deficit ceiling, is unable to live by its own rules (for others) and, in deeds if not in words, requests budgetary flexibility (for itself). Where have we seen this one before? Oh yeah, right: back in 2003, when the northern countries themselves mowed down the Euro Stability Pact when it was convenient to them! History repeats itself once again! Boy, are they in an ugly fix!

Of course, what Europe (I mean the continent and its inhabitants) needs most right now, and is loudly clamouring for, is one single leader of vision and courage who dares to say No to Europe (here I mean the Brussels Beurocratic Oligarchy who pretend they represent something more than themselves and their grandmothers-cum-personal-secretaries). So far, only Mr Camaron did so once (and we haven’t heard from him since) and – somewhat unexpectedly - Mr Rajoy of Spain, when he came out with the brazen declaration that he’d cut the Spanish 2012 budget deficit not to 3 % but to 5.8. Never mind that he later had to swallow a compromise 5.3 %. I have the impression that this was a calculated concession. So praise where it belongs: so far, Don Mariano’s minor success is the only victory of a sovereign state over ‘Haiku’ Herman’s Herrenvolk.

It so happens, that Mr François Hollande, Socialist candidate in today’s presidential elections in France, has promised with so many words to stand up to Brussels if he gains the Elysée Palace. We shall see how that turns out. Don’t ask me to make predictions. Today, April 22, is only the first round of the presidential elections, and much as Mr Hollande is absolutely bound to win according to all electoral experts and other Cassandras, my French compatriots are famously fickle and unpredictable in their voting habits. So anything may happen, and we will not know until May 6th, when the second round of the elections will be held.

In any case, that merry month of May – called, as we all know, after mankind’s greatest culinary discovery: the Golden Sauce – promises to be a most decisive and fascinating period, a month in which Sage History will stamp its true wishes upon our future. The things that lie ahead of us in the coming five weeks! On the 6th we will not only have the presidential elections in France, but also the general elections in Greece! On the 23rd, the presidential elections in Egypt will be unleashed, and boy, will that be a triumph of freedom! On the 30th Ireland will have its referendum on the EU Austerity Treaty, which may well blow up the whole of the Alcatraz prison into which Ali Babarroso and his fourty thousand goalers hope to immure the European nations.

And last, but certainly not least significant, on May 26, in Baku, Azerbaijan, we will be treated to the Eurovision Song Contest, in which, for the first time in its inane history, a band of Deserving Dames will compete with the spoiled, young, vain, interchangeable and exhibitionist, for an insignificant trophy and the prize money with which they plan to build a church in their village! A CHURCH! Have you ever heard of such a thing?!

So no matter your political preferences, no matter where you live, never mind your class or your income, your skin colour or your sexual inclinations: do old Al a favour. Tune in to that bombastic Eurovision Bash on the 26th of May, and simply to honour age and celebrate this most unheard-of occasion, which will not come around again in your lifetime

Vote the Buranova Babushkas!!


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