Twenty Summers Of Division

It had been twenty summers since I had last experienced a late June and early July in England. They stressed that it had been hot the week before. I enjoyed the drizzle and the moderate temperatures. They were a surprisingly welcome change to Mallorca.

That last summer was 1997. The spring had heralded a new beginning. England and Britain had an optimism. The glorious weather of 1 May had taken the people to the polls. On 2 May, equally glorious, the people knew that Tony Blair was prime minister. There was joy in the land. Oh how it was to evaporate. The about turn on freedom of information, an early victim of Blairism, was an indication that a pup may have been sold to the public.

Blair, the consummate actor, was to overplay his hand during the service, but he had previously captured the mood. Late in that summer, I had put on Five Live as I habitually did in the morning. Peter Allen was presenting, when Peter Allen wouldn't normally have been. It soon became apparent why. Blair did at least appreciate what Diana meant to the people.

That was twenty years ago. In fact, the last time I was in England (in winter) was seven years ago. It was the last time I had actually left Mallorca. I realised this because of the expiry date on my European health card: the acquisition of a replacement was to prove to be less straightforward than I had remembered the process having been. I now have the replacement, but I travelled without it.

At the time I left England, there was a growing disappointment with Blair. The policies of David Blunkett had been making me uneasy as well. There were mutterings of police state. In my part of west London, there were the signs of some form of breakdown. This was heavily multicultural London. I knew Caribbeans, Asians, Irish, Poles, Lithuanians. There was occasional tension but generally there was harmony. Coexistence had been good. But by 1998, I had begun to wonder.

It was saddening. The Poles, for instance, were long embedded in local society. They had been since the Second World War. When Diana's body was brought to England, it was to RAF Northolt, the one-time base for Polish airmen, with the Polish War Memorial close by. It was a time, in the late 1990s, that predated the outright hysteria of the right in targeting other cultures. Yet one could feel the seeds of the discontent. I was to later discover, while in Germany three years later, how these seeds were being organised. Farage was just one name in a crafted strategic approach that was quite different to the blatant and simplistic thuggery of the National Front or BNP.

I returned, albeit briefly, to the green fields and woods of the northern Home Counties. This is an area where rock musicians live in discreet tranquility, unmolested by neighbours or prying eyes. Everyone seems to drive an Audi, including the twentysomethings. Apparently it's all due to highly favourable leasing arrangements. It is an area largely unaffected by the sickness of England.

Before going, there had been a radio discussion. A German journalist, resident in England for years who works for a German paper, had used the word sickness. She had suggested that there aren't quite the same extreme societal divisions in Germany as there are in England. It was Grenfell to which she was referring and not to terrorism, of which Germany has had its own sickening fill.

Theresa May isn't Blair. She failed to capture the public mood. Grenfell was and is symptomatic of social failure, hastened - it has to be admitted - by the over ambitions of the European project. This ambitiousness - so much expansion, so rapidly - was the root cause of Brexit. Immigration was just one element, but one that lay at the heart of the far-right's strategy that had initially been developed in the late 1990s: a time when it was not paid sufficient attention in exposing. The egghead fascists, Holocaust deniers and others of the late '90s were the progenitors of Steve Bannon: all they lacked then was the technology.

It was, in a way, reassuring to, for instance, be served at the easyJet check-in at Luton Airport by a lady wearing a hijab. What has happened in recent years is a denial of the one-time harmony of west London and of other parts of England. This denial is understandable, but to fully understand it, one has to make reference to the process initiated in the late '90s. The far-right was in it for the long-term.

There was an almost reluctance to talk about Brexit. There were those who had voted to leave but who now questioned why they had done so. The frightening wealth of the northern Home Counties notwithstanding, there was nevertheless an underlying sense of uncertainties. Brexit is only cause. But then, the thinking would be very different elsewhere, including North Kensington. Division. It has been twenty summers in the making.

The B-Word And Brits on Holiday

Brexit. Aaargh! There you are, it's been forced out of me. I took a vow under oath to never mention it. So much for vows. So much for hoping that the B-word is all a charade dreamt up by fake news. There is no B-word. The B-exit will not happen. There never was a referendum. There never was a European Union. Can Donald Trump confirm any of this? Paul Mason, he who was responsible for the excellent Panorama thing about Spanish profligacy and the economic crisis, recently described Trump as a lying fantasist. Sounds good to me. Come on, Donald, tell us that the B-word is fake after all.

In the absence of such confirmation, we have to suppose that the B-word exists and that the B-exit will come to pass. For those who have devoted so many words to dissecting and analysing the B-word, this will come as a relief. What would they have otherwise been doing for the past ... past, how long is it now?

Experts. So many experts. So many inexpert experts. Let's take one strand of expertise or inexpertise, shall we? How about tourism? The impact of the B-word on tourism, British tourism. You do know, don't you, that when the process that trigger-happy Theresa will article-ate is completed, there won't be any more British tourists. You didn't know?

This is a conclusion at the extreme wing of expertise; otherwise known as complete nonsense. The navel of post-exit British tourism has been gazed into on a regular basis, as has the same navel of pre-exit. Why should things change dramatically or have been changing? The only matter of any significance thus far has been the exchange rate. Yet even that isn't highly significant. British tourists have known poor exchange rate days in the past. They come anyway.

Iago Negueruela is the Balearic minister for employment, trade and industry. He strikes me as one of the more sensible people who govern the islands. Regarding tourism and the B-word, he has said that there will "still be tourists". Iago is a sort of expert, though not as much as his boffin economic affairs adviser, Llorenç Pou, but his simple analysis and the use of "still" cuts through the nonsense. Of course there will still be tourists, and their numbers may not substantially differ to what they are at present.

As others have observed, Mallorca is a convenient hop of a couple of hours by plane. Despite hotelier avarice and all that, despite exchange rates, holidaymakers value time as much as money. They can't wait to get on the beach, to get by the poolside, to get out the claim form for a fake bout of gastroenteritis. Someone noted the other day, apropos the so-called tourist resort bus services (so-called, because they aren't), that holidaymakers have no great desire to be taken on mystery trips of the Mallorcan countryside when they should be steaming towards Cala Millor or Alcudia. Time is holiday money. The quicker the better.

Ah, but in the post-exit universe there will be difficulties with travel. Really? Will Spain come up with an arrangement as daft as it has managed to with Russian travellers? A new contract with an Indian company that sorts out visas has reduced the number of cities in Russia to less than a handful where visas can be obtained. But why any talk of visas? They won't be required. Besides, if travel is currently so difficult to destinations outside the EU, why are all those British tourists heading to Turkey. Or were heading there before they took fright at the prospect of terrorism.

Negueruela might be slightly more alarmed by what experts are suggesting could happen with European funding. This in itself has an impact on tourism, as European funds help with certain projects. When the UK closes its Brussels account, the funds will be deprived of however many billions currently flow into the account. Regions of Spain will therefore lose out. If this is the case, then they'd better ensure they get the hurry-up with restoring Inca's theatre: it's a Euro theatre, half of it anyway and vital for future cultural tourism. Possibly.

More damaging potentially would be the impact on Palma. It's a Euro city, such are the demands made on Brussels. Will it sink into the sea when the (British) money dries up? Unlikely.  

Nevertheless, it is probably wise to have some contingency. Experts suggest that the Balearic economy could contract by as much (?) as 0.6% because of the ultimate impact of the B-word. Tourism markets therefore need to be diversified. Very sensible, but has there not been a process of diversification for some time? Ask Magalluf, for instance.

There you are then. If you want to know more, consult an expert. I promise not to mention the B-word again.

Pipers At The Gates Of Doom

I was on holiday for a fortnight. Sort of. So long had it been that I had quite forgotten what it meant. Not having to do things? Impossible. Not having to take note of great events? Likewise inconceivable.

I had been around for Brexit, much though I attempted to ignore the referendum, as I had for the many months leading up to it. When it happened, it was like a bereavement. However much you tried to shut it out, it would come back, constantly nagging away. Mind you, that only lasted a day. The replacement feeling was a mixture of anger and great amusement. The UK had taken a momentous decision courtesy of the naked ambitions of two Conservative politicians, the Murdoch and Desmond press, the unremitting ranting and racism of social media, and a whole bunch of lunatics who, having voted one way, then said sorry we were only having a laugh, can we do it again.

Johnson was gone, his inner buffoon laid bare for all to despise. Gove stepped up, his two brains cancelling themselves out. A man for change? No one believed him. Opportunistic did not do justice to his motives. A plague on both his and Johnson's houses, of which there are doubtless more than one apiece. Then there was Farage, Falstaffian Farage - vain, boastful, drunken and ultimately the architect of his own repudiation, having led the Prince Hal of the nation astray: a pied piper of distant Huguenotism, the piper at the gates of dawn of some new and ill-defined era.

Dave went as Dave had to go, falling on the sword of a trap that Falstaff had set for him. Dave's Europeanism will now extend merely to his holidays in the Balearics. No more, though, will we see the photo opps of him and Sam in relaxed holiday mode, sipping a cortado, Dave forever in that absurd blue sensible shirt he has reserved for holidaying in hot climes. Instead, we may catch a glimpse of Theresa's kitten heels. Theresa with an "h". What does it represent? A more drunken, all but dissolute-appearing Ken Clarke was caught by Sky saying she had spent too long at the Home Office. "Knows nothing about foreign affairs." God forbid.

"The Sun" had previously boiled it down to a two-horse race: one between a stallion heading for the knacker's yard and a sprightly filly coming up on the rails. "It's bonking Boris versus kitten-heeled Theresa," it announced, neglecting the eggheadedness of gruesome Gove. How long in the planning had been the Boris denouement? A useful idiot used to foster a personal end. Boris was not for bonking. Boris was bonked. Zap! Pow! Only Gove can save the Gotham City of post-Brexit Britain. How wrong he was to be.

Amidst this carnage came Chilcot. The Blair Witch Project was finally revealed for what it was. His desert adventuring with George W and the irrelevant "little friend" Aznar was an exercise of dubious legitimacy, imbued with the machismo of Bush's insane tendency to go running in the Arizona desert when the mercury struck 100F. How analogous it was. Politicians lead and take decisions predicated on dissembling; even lying. Momentous moves are made with nary a clue as to the outcome. Plan B? What Plan B? More tellingly, Plan A. What Plan A? Still, that's democracy for you.

Ah yes, democracy. Remember that? The Spanish were exercising their democratic rights once more. Yet again they failed to announce a winner. Not for one moment that this was the fault of the electorate. A four-way split. Spain split four ways, not knowing which way to turn. By default ending up where it had been in all likelihood, with Mariano determined to go on and on for all time.

Within this unpalatable smörgasbord of rejection were the little local battles: those of Balearic, small-islands' politicians. And what did the buffet offer? If one looks closely, one discovers that the eco-nationalists Més were annihilated. Bonked. Their vote disappeared, evaporated by a power-grabbing Podemos whim of electoral alliance. Its main face, Biel Barceló, the man with the old light-blue suit that seemed to have frayed even more overnight, was chastened. Or should have been. There again, he had matters of import to attend to. The tourist tax arrived and in the scheme of things was a minor sideshow, glossed over by Barceló's ridiculous mantras of 1.4% and others. Mere pennies as the pound slid. He hadn't seen that coming. More fool the politician who fails to plan for the worst-case scenario.

Through all this were the connections and threads. They make Brexit the more unconscionable. Brexit impacts tourists and trade, impacts the introduction of a petty local tax. And for Spain, there is the thread from Aznar's siding with Blair. It begat the Madrid bombs and his electoral defenestration in 2004. No one saw that coming either.

Failure Of Tourism Planning: Brexit

Scenario planning is not necessarily a complex process. It may need some imagination to attempt to come up with all possible scenarios, but even then some will not dreamt up. There are, though, ones which are relatively easy to consider. A decision to leave the European Union by the people of the United Kingdom is one of them. That possibility doesn't even require the complexity of scenario planning. It is something inherent to Business Studies 101 - the SWOT analysis - and it comes under the T, i.e. threats. It is so basic a tool that any business or government should have no difficulty in working up a SWOT.

For the Balearics, the threat of Brexit should have been abundantly clear. It was of course a decision totally beyond Balearic control. But that is the point. You seek to manage events beyond your control. You plan, you make decisions based on probability. How probable did Balearic businesses or government rate Brexit? At all?

The government made a decision some months ago to introduce the tourist tax a week after the result of the referendum would be known. Perhaps it did consider the probability. Indeed, perhaps it believes that it planned for the probability. At least there will be some tax revenue to compensate for losses through other revenue generation, it might believe.

The tourism advisory council is to meet this week. It comprises President Armengol, the tourism minister Biel Barceló, representatives of town halls, island councils, business associations, unions, plus "prestigious professionals" from the tourism sector. Its meeting is expressly to consider Brexit. It's about the closest the Balearics get to a sort of war council. The islands have got an emergency on their hands.

A sensible emergency measure, on account of the size of the British tourism market, would be to stall the tourist tax. With the pound going through the floor, spending power will be greatly reduced, and yet of course so much has been bet on tourist spend this year. The government's four per cent growth figure for 2016 is now looking unattainable. Its revenues will not be what they were - the tax from property sales will be just one lost stream. The tourist tax revenue, modest by comparison with other sources, will not compensate, but take it out of the equation and spending might, just might, not plummet as much as it would otherwise do.

The government won't do this. Or you would think not. If it did, it would be proof that it hadn't factored Brexit into the equations, when it should have done. Furthermore, while there is chaos all round because of Brexit, there is the chaos which surrounds the regional government. At least this has not yet been heightened, given that the election did not give Podemos what it (and Més) had sought - a third seat in Congress. Nevertheless, while Armengol might want to move in one direction, others would prevent her.

No one seems to have seen this coming. Take the hotels and tour operators. They announce that there will be price rises for 2017 of up to 15% at the very time the referendum is taking place. British tour operators are already asking for discounts.

What a complete and utter mess. Yes, it was out of anyone's control, but a modicum of planning and awareness of the T-threat might have helped to limit the damage.

Let's Play Risk

"Let's play Twister, let's play Risk." I don't for one moment imagine that Michael Stipe and REM entered the thoughts of protagonists debating you know what, but they should have. Let's play Risk. Or initially, let's play a simple card game involving risk. One option is the known (or as known as can possibly be known). The other is unknown. Stick or twist? Let's play Twister, moving into precarious positions and then falling.

The British, though imbued with a streak of entrepreneurial risk-taking, are generally a conservative people (small c). They are a middle-of-the-road society with middle thoughts who more or less invented middle class. Down the middle. But then that's what happened. Right down the middle. Split apart. One half has opted not to stick. Let's play Risk. If you are given those options, and be truthful, which would you take? Status quo or the mould-breaking twist of punk raging against the machine? How very contrary the British can also be.

Let's play Risk. It's not about occupying every territory on the board, more about retreat. Ah yes, but it's a game of strategic conquest. Victory! All hail the risk-takers. And now what? The Risk map could be re-drawn. London, the Scots, the people of Ulster forming a union, declaring a separate nation. Don't be daft, that wouldn't happen. But who knows what will happen? Really happen. Down the line. Back to the Risk board, and the dotted armies of populists who roam the hinterlands of the European continent.

Drawing up a post-European map was the easy part. Predicated on hypothesis for the obvious reason that waters are not charted. Lack of precedence. Though one could say the same for European union, wherein lies the rub. They forgot to make people love it - union, that is. Middle-of-the-road societies still need to express love and to feel that they are being loved. Let's play Risk. But what remains because of leave? What do the conjurors, the magicians, the illusionists of leave have? Michael Stipe again: "If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve."

Expatophobia And Schadenfreude

It was a nice day on Tuesday. A very nice day. A public holiday. The sky was clear and the sun was shining. Some were working. I was. More on that below. But in an idle moment ... . There are few better ways to be idle and indulge the idleness of moments than being idle on Facebook. 'Tis the habitat of the idle. Where do people find time? I know. They don't work. I was glad they weren't on Tuesday. They had posted lots of nice photos. Pictures of blue skies. Blue seas. Sandy sand. Mountains with blue skies. Pools with blue in the background. Not a cloud to be seen. Right moment for a beer. Right moment for a cheeky sunbathe. Right moment for a touch of tapas. And there were the tapas. On a table set against a blue background.

As I stared into this wallpaper of blueness, I thought of some imaginary character in, oh I don't know, let's say it was Macclesfield. Nothing against Macclesfield. It was a place. Could have been anywhere. This character was labouring over some tedious spreadsheet calculations in a tedious office in a tedious street with the rain lashing down. Let's call him, I don't know, Bob. In an idle moment, Bob logged onto Facebook. Bob has a friend who goes to Mallorca. The friend had been sharing. Bob was looking at a wallpaper of blueness. Later, right on five o'clock, Bob grabbed his coat and braced himself for the rain that was still lashing down. An evening of pie and chips and "Eastenders" for Bob. An evening like most others. He watched the news. There was this report. From sunny Spain. In my imaginary Bob world, Bob was hearing about the plight of British foreign residents who might, some time later this year, be about to be turfed out of Spain. Bob watched with keen interest. Then he started to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Before going to bed, Bob went on Facebook. He found one of those photos of blueness. He didn't like. Instead, he fired off a comment. "Not for much longer. Ha ha ha. (Smiley emoticon)."

You could understand Bob being like this. All those photos taken by people doing nothing. Blue, blue and more blue. Serves 'em right. They turned their backs on lashing rain and tedium. Now it's going to be payback time. Here's my vote. Leave, leave, leave. Ha ha ha. That's stuffed you.

Britain. Land of birth and all that. Holder of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Passport. "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary." Pass freely. Atop the bit on the front in gold lettering are the words "European Union". Here's something else they might not have thought about.

It seems like a war. A nation divided. A nation that is hostage to its past. Caught up, unwittingly, unwillingly and uncertainly, are the nation's foreign legion. So, it doesn't have the vote (some of it). Tough luck, sucker. You made the choice. The foreign legion is on the end of indifference allied with Expatophobia, an intense dislike of those who had escaped Macclesfield on a filthy day in March. The attitudes, the vitriol, the contempt expressed by some who appear content for the foreign legion to be the victims of war. Refugees. Where is the spirit of British tolerance, once famed and admired by those from Europe who sought their own refuge over many, many years, escaping the persecutions of religious and political wars and hatreds on the continent? Disappearing with the new-age era of hysterical intolerance fired from across the twenty miles that kept the nation safe but also enabled those fleeing intolerance to find safe haven. But amidst this intolerance is envy. That is what the Bobs feel, if they were to admit it. As they cannot, they delight in schadenfreude. An ironic sentiment, given that it is borrowed from another nation who some can never forgive for having supplanted the once great nation as a world industrial power and for having been the creators of the monster that grew to be Brussels. What's more they did it in collaboration with the French. How could they, the French? After all that was done for them.

But for Bob and the other Bobs, just to let you know. The foreign legion comes in different guises. There's blue and there's blue. Yes, I can look out at the blue and be thankful I can, but I work. Every single day. Just as others work every single day. And those who don't. Why should their retirements or lifestyles be denied them? Schadenfreude is a German word.