I was confused by the piece I copied from Facebook this morning (22nd January 2016). While the story relates to actions by a gang of Muslim rapists in Norway, the picture appeared to be taken in the UK and the credit for the picture is ‘South Beds News Agency’. I discovered that the pictured used is not related to the Norwegian crime and the men have not since moved to the UK. There is no actual image of the guilty men in the article, one of whom rather appropriately, I thought, has the first name ‘Bile’, while the others have names we are more familiar with, such as Mohamed and Abdul.

Of course their crime was only rape and their victim survived her ordeal so the men, sentenced by one of the many do-gooders that seem to rise like scum to the surface, received little more than a telling off. Men such as these come from a culture that looks on rape as acceptable; just the slightest flash of ankle or hint that a woman has stepped out of line has men pouncing on her remorselessly. To add insult to injury such acts seem to have the backing of Imams that say Allah would approve their actions to punish the woman for her crimes. Wow!

It doesn’t take too much imagination to picture a sex-crazed gang lying in wait to spot a woman’s ankle revealed by a sudden gust of wind and then to punish her for air disturbed by Allah. That though, is in ‘their’ own countries isn’t it? Well it was, but no more; we have allowed this immorality to be imported to Europe and excuse the perpetrators of such serious crimes by blaming it on their ‘culture’. What rubbish, apart from being devoid of anything approximating to culture, their actions are nothing but opportunistic, knowing that some do-gooder will let them off.

Until we strengthen our resolve and have our politicians do likewise, the situation will get worse. There must be a policy of arrest, sentencing and deportation for these thugs that sends a message to those already in Europe and those seeking to come that we are not the tolerant twerps they take us for. If we don’t, quite soon we will find ourselves enslaved by a foreign ‘culture’.

Poor Jeremy Corbyn...now you expect a punch-line, don’t you? Although I will never vote for the man (unless he treads a different path) I do not feel as hateful towards him as many others. In fact I quite respect him; he is virtually the same age as me and I cannot imagine the stress he is going to subject himself to, in what should be his twilight years, feet up in front of the telly. In fact, unless he is very lucky he won’t even have enough time left to write his memoirs, that’s if dementia doesn’t set in before he starts.

He was late throwing his hat into the ring and even struggled to get enough signatories on his nomination paper, I understand he believes those that did support him did so more out of pity than conviction.

Despite everything, he is a man of principle and even though many of his principles sound a warning bell for me, I cannot deny that he has the courage to stand up and say what he believes. While I am a strident monarchist I had to admire him for standing by his guns and not singing the royalist-inspired National Anthem. I guess that if our Anthem were Jerusalem, he might have sung it, except that he probably thinks it pays homage to Israel, which has annexed much of that once-Palestinian city.

Anyway, unlike John Redwood wearing his Welsh hat (the Secretary for State for Wales’ one, not a pointy black witch’s thing), he did not pretend that he was singing and that needed principle and courage because it was obvious the media’s opinion would be vitriolic.

Will he make a good leader of his party? Who knows? I expect that he will listen to his people and develop policies to suit them, whereas at least one of his foreblairs only paid lip service. However, before he can propose anything radical, he will have to examine the constraints imposed upon him by EU rules. Even renationalising the railways is not permitted, so he will have to decide quickly if he is going to opt for withdrawal, which Diane Abbott might claim he did once (at least), or be hamstrung in his wildest ideals.

Will he make a good leader of the opposition? I think he will. Not least because he is not afraid of  getting it wrong: he clearly prefers persistence to performance. I am sure he will be a constant thorn in Cameron’s side...a constant prick of conscience.

Will he make a good prime minister? We shall never know; the 2020 election will see Labour decimated and UKIP could even come in the first two. By 2025 he will be 77 and ill-equipped for the role, even with Merkel or her successor there to tell him what to do, if we don’t vote ourselves out first. I reckon he will be sacrificed long before then with the Labour Party opting for a woman, having tried every other option. Just think, the other half of the odd couple could get her chance.

One point of interest, although he wouldn’t shout about it: Corbyn represents the end of a decaying bloodline. He follows Gordon Brown, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, Ted Heath, James Callaghan, and Harold Wilson as party leaders that had the benefit of a selective education, a Grammar or High school, after an 11 plus exam. His predecessors all went on to become prime minister...will he or won’t he represent selective education’s last stand in the face of the ubiquitous public (private) school hegemony?

In the meantime, I salute him, especially when he knew that all his ill-considered past activities would catch up with him and lay him as bare as he was that day with...yes, you know who...in a Cotswold field, one hot summer.

Politics...yes politics; I have stayed away from writing about this subject for a while because I lost my biggest single number of ‘likes’ from my Facebook Author Page after posting something about the Greek situation. My editor seems to have forgotten the perils of the Trojan Horse and has asked me to write a blog considering which is better, the American system or the British.

It sounds like a simple request, no minefield...no risk of being ‘un-liked’. Mmmm, on her head be it, for the non-contentious is not for me.

I read many blogs and Facebook comments on how historical events have shaped our lives, but most of these are emotive assertions that, generally speaking, stray significantly from the truth in order to support the writers' arguments. So let me join the ranks of those that would rewrite history for a moment and say that if I were writing about the two countries’ political system before the early days of the 20th century, I would find it easier to be objective.

It is my belief that men of principle (yes, it was invariably ‘men’...and this fact could spawn yet another blog) were once at the helm of government...men who saw it as their duty to resign if they made a mistake. Although smoking was prevalent back then, I don’t believe that quite so many fundamental decisions were taken in the secrecy of ‘smoke-filled rooms’. I also believe that those we elected to make decisions on our behalf were those that substantively made the decisions albeit, particularly in the UK, they came from a quite narrow social class.

Today though, politics seems to be the province of the moneyed-set...we are ruled by millionaires or aspiring ones rather than conviction politicians. The last real conviction-leader of Great Britain was Margaret Thatcher and the last president of that ilk was...well, I am skating on very thin ice, so I shall plump for Theodore Roosevelt, who many have heard of but few can fault.

In the UK we have a public-school-educated prime minister ('public', oddly, is what we call private schools). Before him Gordon Brown (the man who told us he saved the world) was the last of a long-line of prime ministers educated in a now defunct though prime minister-spawning selective state system. Previously, the transient Labour success story had been the ‘public school’ educated Tony Blair, who nowadays has no friends but is richer than a chocolate cake. There was a brief flirtation with the well-meaning socialist Edward Miliband but the British people rejected him as being too left-wing. Recently the Labour party has replaced him with the even more socialist, though impoverished dinosaur, Jeremy Corbyn. The British people will never elect him, even though he is undoubtedly a man of principle because his principles are the wrong ones.

In the States, apart from the Obama aberration that has been a costly failed experiment in political correctness, past and putative presidents invariably seem to have much money and friends with disgusting amounts of filthy lucre. Without a dollar mountain or some special factor, becoming president is as likely as a Muslim being welcomed into heaven by Jesus H.

Why are we all in the hands of money and privilege rather than being led by politicians of principle? Therein lies a question that needs an answer and more importantly needs a resolution. Why do we seem to accept that those with money (or parents with money and able to send little David or wee Gideon for a private education) will be the best person for the job? I read that many US presidents were principled God-fearing men, but now their only fear is being found lacking, why should this be?  Do we really believe that George Dubyah made executive decisions? Of course we don’t, but perhaps it’s even more dangerous when faceless advisers make the decisions and the president is manipulated, muppet-like, to be seen to pontificate on some world-shattering event. Is it the same in the UK and elsewhere? Are our politicians ever in charge these days or has the system irrevocably made them hand over the reins of power to big business as the price of their election?

As I have become older, I have become more cynical and that cynicism reached a new peak when the newly elected and referendum bolstered Alexis Tsipras, the socialist Prime Minister of Greece, caved in to the demands of Fuhrerin Merkel. Like many before him, he took the thirty pieces of silver and defecated on his people.

So the question my editor asked me was: ‘Which is the better system, American or British?’ My answer, sadly, is neither; I think I’d rather go for benign dictatorship...at least the ultimate sanction, assassination and real change, remains open to a disappointed public. With democracy these days it’s the same old lies, by the same elite with big business pulling the strings. God help us, because if he doesn’t, Allah soon will!

A couple of weeks ago, I likened the EU to an old, warm overcoat in winter; totally flea and vermin infested but to throw it off might lead to the big freeze. It is widely recognised now that Greece should never have joined the Eurozone and it will not do to blame the Greeks' use of Goldman Sachs for their entry into the quagmire. Any of the other Eurozone States should have seen with both eyes closed that Greece could not properly qualify. It was only the political insistence of having as many countries as possible within the zone that caused them to let Greece sneak in.

For seven years Greece has suffered austerity and crisis and nothing they can do while constrained by the euro will improve matters significantly. In the next seven years, there will be votes, there will be changes of government, there will be strictures, there will be orders from the EU that must be followed for bailout cash, yet that is what it will be - bailout - just enough to stop the ship of state sinking but never enough to get it underway again. In those seven more years, the ship, if still afloat, will not have moved forward. 

The Greek people on the decks of the Olympic, threw Captain Samaras overboard and appointed midshipman Tsipras to take the helm. He offered hope that he would steer a new course and the people believed him. But the new chief engineer, Varoufakis failed to restart the engines of commerce, without which the helmsman could do nothing but cry and twiddle the wheel. As the water laps at the gun-whales of the stricken ship, the people's belief in their early-promoted midshipman is evaporating fast. Heading slowly for the sinking ship is an EU pilot-cutter, waiting for the people to throw Syriza overboard en bloc, so that an EU appointee can take charge. 

Salvation will come for the stricken ship when the EU jettisons those people deemed a burden and expendable. Then and only then, with much cash injected for new engines, will the ship get underway. With luck and continued benevolence from its EU masters, the ship of state should dock safely in Piraeus circa 2022 with people on board who had abandoned all hope.

Tsipras should not have offered to re-float the ship of state on the back of EU funds and demands. Far better to seek a commission from Thor Heyerdahl and build a modern day
Kon-tiki raft, but named The New Drachma. With this he could rescue the bulk of his people and sail slowly but surely along a new course to better times. Better times? Nothing could be worse than the slow, painful drowning this once-great nation currently faces.

The dust has not yet settled after the UK election. There will be arguments and recriminations, that’s for sure. At this moment, there are many people complaining that the result is not democratic, but it was and is. Perhaps the system of democracy used is outdated, but we all voted within the rules of that system...there was no mass boycott and on that basis it was democratic...the majority opinion prevailed.

England took the Greek notion of democracy, shook off the dust and started to mould it into a workable system more than five hundred years ago. The proven British model is used as a basis throughout the English-speaking world and elsewhere too.

Democracy is frequently held up as the ideal form of government. It is not, nor will it ever be ideal; yet in terms of being closest to what the majority of a nation’s people believe, there has never been anything better.

Many argue it is not right that the Conservatives have absolute power with only 37% of the vote. They say the ‘first past the post’ system is unfair, but forget that it was designed for a two Party system. The coming of the Labour Party in the 1920s made it worse. The Liberals became a perpetual third place Party where their seats never reflected their proportion of the vote.

Up until the last election in 2010, the two main Parties were quite happy with this and only the LibDems seriously backed electoral reform and proportional representation.

The 2015 election saw some eight different Parties in contention, which has resulted in the greatest disenfranchisement ever. The Scottish National Party is cock-a-hoop that it secured
a majority north of the border by gaining 56 seats for 1.8million votes. Yet the fervently 
Euro-sceptic UK Independence Party secured only 1 seat for 3.8million votes. There is little doubt that the British model is now broken. It cannot be cobbled back together and needs to
be changed.

However, if 37% brings forth a questionable democratic system, just ponder for a moment
that P.R. has its own perils. Think how a voter might feel if s/he had voted for the Noddy Party because it promised to ban bells on hats. Yet, the Noddy Party, with 40% of the vote, fails to secure a majority under P.R. and has to form a coalition with the Big-Ears Party, which with 11% of the vote is vehemently opposed to banning bells on hats. Thus 40% of the people wanting bells to be banned have to endure them because of the demands of a minority. Is this model more democratic?

My post, ‘The End of Democracy’, took a fearful look at the burgeoning power of the EU at a time when there was a real possibility of a Labour+SNP government. Neither Party supported the view that the British people should have any say on our membership. This may have been something that helped trounce Labour.

However, I am delighted with the result because the victors were the only ones (with any serious chance of winning) to promise a referendum on our evolving membership of what has become the European Union.

Achieving true democracy is such a daunting challenge that sometimes it is possible to see why the EU, with one foot in our door, seeks to avoid it. It seems to move inexorably toward benign dictatorship, which might be its perceived ideal. Some say the EU seeks to achieve totalitarianism without the furore of having a visible dictator at the helm.

Making democracy work so that it unites a nation is hard, but making it work to unite a confederation of nations is near to impossible. It is particularly so where those nations have differing priorities, different attitudes and different methods of doing things. It is no small wonder that the European Union formulators have adopted a system that is more dictatorship and less democracy.

Some argue this is exactly what is on offer and if you believe benign dictatorship is an acceptable method for the efficient organisation of human beings, rejoice because that is what the EU is.

If, on the other hand, you believe the people should have the right to dismiss those in power, a British referendum to exit the EU may serve as a clarion call to other nation states. An omen of the effects of unbridled power, controlled by big business, is clearly before us. Perhaps other countries will then hold referenda and so dismantle this monstrosity, which is the ill-conceived child of fascist parents.

However, as big business and sinister forces appear to be the power behind the EU throne – beware! They will spend a fortune on publicity and persuasion to frighten the British people into voting to stay. This will be the true challenge for those wanting democracy because it will be hard to slay those hidden behind the monster.

I have a vote in the UK election on the 7th of May.  I know how I will cast it. It is my democratic decision, but it has been a dilemma. In 1964, before I could vote, I asked a shopkeeper friend who he would be voting for. ‘Nobody, probably,’ was his answer. I persisted and eventually he confessed that he knew where he was putting his cross, but business considerations counselled him against revealing it.

I feel the same. As an aspiring author, I know that more than half my potential readers will not agree with my decision and I thus risk a large potential readership. Many people are afraid to stand up and be counted for similar reasons. This election, though, is like no other. Silence is a costly option; more costly than losing readers. This time our very freedom is at stake and once surrendered, like innocence, it cannot be restored. So I shall speak for my grandchildren and their children; I shall speak for my genes. I write because I am able to; I have no need of fame or fortune in my twilight years. If I have no readers, I shall not starve.

In 1975 I voted ‘YES’ to remaining in the Common Market. As a 27 year-old, I saw no reason to vote ‘NO’; it posed no threat. Yet forty years on, it seems to me it is the biggest threat to our traditional values and way of life ever posed...even greater than the Second World War.

I read once that it was not Hitler and his henchmen that made totalitarianism work, but all the little men and women that toiled to carry National Socialism forward; without the minions, the master race would have been stillborn. Now we have a burgeoning EU super state that seems to go its own way like one of those automatic vacuum cleaners, constantly avoiding difficult obstacles but continuing to sweep up all impediments before it.

There is much evidence to show that the European dream had its foundations in wartime Germany. It is said that Hitler pondered the governance of a conquered Europe where Germany would seem to be devolving power. The methodology was established, but when National Socialism was not victorious, the plan was wrapped in cotton wool until reopened seven years after the war when it was used to form the European Iron and Coal Federation. This has now mutated into the European Union, but The Federal States of Europe must still be the goal to bring those 70 year-old dreams and plans fully to realisation.

The question is though: Just whose dreams were they? Surely not Hitler’s – he was too busy directing a disastrous war. So who could have been whispering in his ear to cause his dream? Just who started an idea that was translated into a cohesive plan that survived the dreamer’s passing? Europe’s post war politicians couldn’t have carried a National Socialist goal forward – or could they? Just because we have been able to identify some of the architects of the EU as having been supporters of Hitler, does not necessarily mean that it was Hitler’s own grand plan. So whose grand plan is it that we are following?

Maybe the architects of the plan needed a Hitler to give it birth. After all, he must have had some quite powerful support to take over Germany. Yet immediately after the war, hardly anybody would admit to having supported him. How then does his dream survive?

Maybe we should be asking exactly who benefits from the success of the European project. Certainly not Hitler or his long-gone henchmen nor could any neo-Nazi cadre be sufficiently well organised or hidden to make it happen. It would be insane to suggest that our many politicians with Jewish antecedents could be kow-towing to a Nazi-planned takeover of their adoptive countries by a National Socialist inspired European Union.

Yet in all respects, we see the EU acting as a Fascist organisation with its directives, immunities and democracy-eroding policies. So who is behind it?

Nearly ten years ago I wrote a novel called ‘Assurance’, a period thriller looking at a microcosm of English society and speculated on the erosion of democracy. I wrote it as a tongue-in-cheek piece of fiction, yet now I wonder if there might be some truth in it. I invited readers to decide if such a takeover of a country was possible, but left it to them to ponder exactly who was behind it.

Each day something about the EU leaves a bad smell. I spend a lot of time in Greece and can see Brussels quietly destroying the elected government. I have no truck with Syriza, yet I am horrified to see how easily democracy is being trampled on. It has already been overturned in Ireland and I fear it will be overturned elsewhere until we all accept the new European order.

I hope Britain will be allowed a referendum on this overriding issue, which transcends the NHS, Taxation, Welfare, Trident and all the rest because, if we don’t have a chance to throw off this non-democratic yoke, nothing else will matter. We will have to do as we are told by the hidden power pulling the strings, or else! 

There is a serious air of concern here in Crete. It is hardly spoken about, but it must be similar to the feeling they had when the Ottoman Empire cast its eyes toward the island or when invasion from the sky threatened in May 1941. The Greeks here have always been optimists, which is just as well because, since ancient Greece was overrun by aggressors and fragmented, there has been little to be joyful about.

I was not here when Greece acceded to the EU nor was I here when it opted to join the euro and consigned its ancient currency, the drachma, to what it believed was the rubbish bin of perpetuity. I can imagine the celebrations and the optimism that swept through the people. They must have believed that the democracy they had brought to the world would spread throughout Europe and make for a safer, richer experience of life for all her children.

For nearly eight years, Greece has been in the grips of crisis; the favourite expression of resignation, ‘Ti na kanoume?’ or ‘What can we do?’ is heard almost as often in a kafenion these days as ‘Yeia sas’ or ‘Good Health’.

The previous administration under Adonis Samaras bent its knee to the Troika and undertook to tighten the belt of the nation, sell off national assets and change the laissez-faire way of life. The Greeks bore it stoically, but after years of austerity they sensed that things were getting worse, not better. A scapegoat was needed and, as is usually the case, because the Greeks resolutely refuse to believe that it is their own entire fault, blame was heaped upon outsiders, on foreigners. Fortunately, the blame was mostly directed onto Germany (which shoulders blame like Simon of Cyrene shouldered Jesus’ cross) rather than on some internal minority.

Contrary to the belief held in many other countries, the Greeks are not lazy. Many of them work from early morning until 6pm, admittedly with a three-hour afternoon break, but they often start another job in the evening. Tourists may see older men sitting around kafenions playing backgammon, smoking and drinking, but using this to assess a nation’s laziness is akin to judging a book by its cover.

After many years of austerity, quiet grumbling grew louder with the rise of fringe parties promising salvation. One such party Syriza, an amalgam of communist and left-wingers, saw an opportunity to seize power. Alexis Tsipras, their charismatic young leader promised an end to austerity and a better future. Greeks, not inherently wedded to his ideals, flocked to his banner in droves believing they had nothing to lose and at least he offered change with hope.

Naively believing in himself and the academic credentials of his Finance Minister Janis Varoufakis, a university theoretician, he went to Brussels as the new Prime Minister and insisted he execute the will of his people and austerity must be relaxed. He received little sympathy, but oodles of short shrift. Having been bitten, he rounded on his major creditor Germany. He suggested that, despite treaties and agreements having been signed to finalise the matter in 1990, Germany still owed Greece a Fuhrer’s ransom for all the wrong doings of a war that ended nearly three generations ago. This was a master plan in feckless diplomacy and guaranteed to fail.

In the meantime, thousands that did not vote for him, followed rapidly by many that did, started sending money abroad, making a run on Greek banks and a lack of capital inevitable. Faced with a deepening crisis, but still just about able to believe in his own powers of persuasion, Tsipras has had to modify his rhetoric.

He now demands early assistance from Brussels to enable him to pay an imminent IMF loan that falls due on 9th April followed closely by civil service salaries and pensions on 14th April. He cannot find the money for both.

His is a left-wing idealistic government, which perhaps would see Fidel Castro’s Cuba as Utopia. If he has to choose between paying Greek workers or repaying foreign bankers, it will not be a difficult decision. Brussels, of course, plays its usual game of hand-wringing concern, coupled to a stern ultimatum that Greece’s antiquated work practices must be brought under control.

Despite Syriza accepting conditional surrender terms, Brussels has dug its heels in still further. Could this be because it feels Greece must be held up as an example to other potential defaulters, or it is a crass attempt to cause the Syriza government to fall and force elections, which Brussels believes it can influence as it did the Ireland referendum.

In a game of astonishing brinkmanship, Alexis Tsipras meets with Russia’s President Putin on 8th April. On the face of it, Tsipras might be firing a warning shot over Brussels’ bows to remind them that, just as Putin can ride roughshod over Ukrainian democracy, he might be just the ally to help Greece fight Brussels’ diktats and international bankers. However, just as Tsipras has his agenda, so too does Putin who seeks vengeance for what he still sees as EU meddling in a Russian domestic issue.

The Greek PM goes like an Easter lamb to the slaughter at the hands of the cunning Russian wolf. Yes, he might be bailed out and yes, he might be able to cock-a-snook at Brussels. Yet it will be a fearful price if Brussels should shrug its shoulders. Once Tsipras accepts help from Russia, he will soon discover the consequences of his folly, which will be little short of all American/NATO bases in Greece and its islands being given their marching orders. The burgeoning Russian fleet with ships in every Greek port and Russian dominance in the Mediterranean would soon become the penalty he and Brussels would have to pay.

I am fearful that a country that brought the concept of democracy to the world should be about to have it sacrificed on the altar of expediency by a man still wet behind the ears. Does he really believe it is his destiny to save his people from Brussels’ petty tyranny by delivering them into the crushing hands of a man for whom democracy is a commodity to be purchased?

If you were sitting in a kafenion and Alexis Tsipras came wandering in, before he departs for Moscow, muttering ‘Ti na kanoume?’ What advice would you give him? 

I do not have a vote in the upcoming election in Greece. While I spend a good amount of time on the wonderful island of Crete, I have to accept what Greek voters decide. No, I don’t. If I don’t like what they decide, I can get out and leave them to their misery because that’s what it is and will continue to be indefinitely, unless...

The people are being squeezed but you do not drive the illness out of a dying patient by strangling him. True, once dead, the pain stops but it is a ‘drachstic’ remedy. The current Greek government has kow-towed to German diktat, believing there is no choice. There was no choice, but there is now, there must be now. Here in Crete tourists are as rare as crisp chips cooked in olive oil (another blog). Why should tourists come to Crete? It is no cheaper than Italy, Portugal or Spain (including the ever-sunny Canary Islands. For new visitors, the glaringly confusing language, with letters that are not even pronounced the same way most Europeans are used to causes amusement yet serves as a reminder of the thousands of years of democracy.

Why should tourists not just go to Turkey? The language is equally confusing, but because they are not in the euro, holidaying there is quite cheap whereas Crete (and Greece as a whole) cannot compete. Greece needs to leave the euro.

Do the Greek people have the stomach for a fight? Perhaps not, because nobody functions well on an empty stomach. Yet the Trojan horse of the euro and German governance is already amongst them and if they don’t fight today, they will have to fight tomorrow…unless this time around they are content to accept German rule and privations.

Antonis Samaras of New Democracy, the current Prime Minister, is an honourable man and this is his Achilles Heel. When he imposed austerity, he had little choice and it has done its job. Greece, many commentators say, could successfully leave the euro now and in a relatively short time the new drachma would see them flourishing again. However, Samaras gave his word to the troika that he would see it through and he cannot honourably change course. Yet he has brought competent, though painful government, to Greece when it was badly needed. What would Syriza, the ultra-left alternative, bring? Many of my Cretan friends answer ‘chaos’ yet still they will vote for Syriza.

My hope would be that Syriza and New Democracy achieve similar amounts of votes each and are forced into a coalition where Samaras continues as a competent and trustworthy PM but able to say, ‘Oh dear…terribly sorry, Deutschland but uber alles, above all, my coalition partners insist...’

Democracy is too powerful a tool to be placed in the hands of people that vote with their bellies and not their brains. Had Syriza (the Greek neo-Communist party now on the verge of being elected early next year) taken power at the last election, they would have plunged Greece into crisis and withdrawn from the eurozone. Things would now be improving (for some). After years of belt-tightening, stomachs listen to anybody offering food, even those whose food is rotten.

It's not something unique to Greece; in the UK there is a possibility that stomachs will vote for Labour next May. As before, the Party will spend what they don't have, borrow what they don't deserve and take a giant leap backwards. Four years later, rocked by crisis, they will go to the country and the Conservatives will be voted in by the brains of people that have had full bellies, but see that they haven't paid for the food. The cycle will start all over again.

Those that lead America have overcome the problem of democracy. The President appears to be democratically elected, but once in the White House he finds his advisors have tied his hands and gagged him. Periodically, on some high profile, but relatively minor issue, they slip the leash and let him have his say. Thus the people ... the voters believe their chosen leader is truly running the country and thus avoid searching questions, insurrection and an overthrow of the control the hidden men have wielded since they had Kennedy bumped off. They will 'allow' a 'token' woman in soon; maybe, just maybe they will thus overplay their hand when they discover how difficult it is to gag a woman.