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What's happening in the world?

In my part of the UK, nothing much. It's too hot.

But in a more general sense we are seeing something Important. The end of an Idea.

Namely that government can grow indefinitely without consequences.

California has been trying to achieve this for years and has run out of road, declaring a 'fiscal emergency'.

Likewise in the UK. The government can not extract from taxes what it needs to pay for everything it wants to do. So it borrows, from people now alive and people one day to be born. Which carries on until someone runs the numbers and concludes that the sums the government wants to borrow can not be paid back in honest money, so lenders get nervous.

Not to mention the fact that there are going to be fewer earners and more claimants - hopeless.

This is a good article by Hamish McRae on how Economics and Politics are not in harmony:

I think I am even more concerned, though, about what might be called the burden on recovery: the extent to which resources will have to be switched out of consumption into paying back debt.

A point which leads fellow Indy commenter Deborah Orr to a bold and sensible conclusion:

Because, objectionable as it may seem to many social progressives, the task ahead now is to shrink the state wisely and well, in order to save it.

One to watch in the coming years is how far that philosophy will extend to the European Union too.

How many EU governments are going to be ready to increase national contributions to the EU pot in the next 'Financial Perspective' negotiations, when things are so tight in member states' own finances?

Not, I suspect, the UK.

And if the 'net contributors' are coy on increased EU spending, it won't happen.

An ever-alert reader picks up this curious sentence on the usually well written Samizdata, where Paul Marks is laying in to an Economist article (emphasis added):

Still the Economist does not let the truth stand in the way of its articles, so it then outlines its position.

"Starting from scratch their (sic) would be a good case for a mostly publicly funded system" even for a magazine "as economically liberal as this one".

This is a standard Economist trick - propose some form of statism and defend it by saying even we, the free market ones (the European meaning of "economically liberal"), are in favour of this statism. Of course the Economist never actually produces any evidence that it is pro-free market - but it is at (sic) trick it has been using since Walter Bagehot (the second editor, the first editor actually was a free market man) so I suppose it is a lie hollowed by history.

An eggcorn, a spelling mistake (for hallowed) or a deliberate but obscure pun?

Anyway, on the subject of words I like the long list of English words originating in Latin with the sense of 'of or pertaining to' the original noun, often an animal.

Thus bovine (cow), vulpine (fox), lupine (wolf), porcine (pig), equine (horse), canine (dog), feline (cat), piscine (fish).

Not to ignore ursine (bear), leonine (lion), serpentine (snake) and divine (god).

But not porcupine.

And to say that someone looked ovine does not necessarily mean that that person was sheepish.

First Craig Murray Candidate discovers that he does not exist in real life.

Then, worse, he discovers that he does not exist on the BBC, apart from a perfunctory mention as per the relevant rules.

The fact is that in a strange, unspoken, even unanalysable way the Story just Moves On.

What were fascinating if not compulsive issues just get ... boring.

Is it because we now have President Obama, so media railing against the hypocrisy of government does not have quite the same fierce moral urgency it had before?

Or just a fickle public mood and limited attention span?

Or just the hard fact that some things are more important than other things, and Craig's self-absorbed fight for righteousness is not one of them?

A reader writes re my posting on Locally Employed Embassy Staff:

Yes, but you are rather glossing over the fact that a brutal regime can be far more brutal to its own nationals than it can to foreign diplomats. Indeed protection from brutality is the origin of the convention of immunity.

In Iran also you have the levantine history of "capitulations" which makes the whole question of protection of local nationals even more politically sensitive. In these circumstances is it right that the UK should take on employees knowing the kind of risk to which they could be subjected?

My reply:

Let's leave it to Devil's Kitchen to tear to shreds the latest utterances of the government in its plans to spend money it does not have on even more profligate scales than now.

Let's instead focus on something missed by D's K in the offending Telegraph article.

A juicy eggcorn:

Mr Balls, the Children's Secretary, has defied suggestions from Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, that immediate action was required to check the levels of public borrowing.

He indicated increased spending on front line services such as schools and hospitals, and hinted for the first time that the police may also be protected from the cuts.

The disclosure that ministers have little intention of reigning back on spending in the short term came as the Centre for Economics and Business Research warned that public spending was set to rise to 50 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the next financial year.

Can you spot it?

Update: too easy! I'll try harder next time.

Mary Dejevsky (who should and I suspect does know better) has written about all the problems we create for ourselves by employing local staff in our Embassies.

Read it for yourself.

My reply as posted in a comment on the site:

I have written previously about the Slippery Slope metaphor:

The metaphor itself is so striking that it leads to confusion, giving a sense of momentum and inexorability which are not necessarily there.

Still, it captures the idea of one thing leading to another with no real way of staying Stop.

So, what if you are a country who sees its President scheming to extend his power and using illegal or at least legally dubious tricks to achieve that, such as trying to run an illicit referendum and shipping in ballot papers from another country known for playing fast and loose with democracy?

When do you stop him? And how?

What if he ignores court rulings and presses on anyway, hoping to use the power of the state machinery improperly to get his way?

Here's a plan. Just bundle him out of his office in disgrace.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem.

If there is one thing we can be sure of in our weary world, it is that it is safe to want an outcome which is the most unlike the one clamoured for by Chavez/Castro, as alas supported absurdly by President Obama.

Stick with it, Honduras. 

A pertinent comment from Spy Blog (Watching Them, Watching Us) on my posting below, asking about diplomatic gossip about expellees and asking whether the absence of names of expelled diplomats 'taints' others who might be leaving normally.

First, gossip. You can't and shouldn't and won't stop gossip. But it's not a problem. Partly because it is just that - idle and often ill-informed chatter.  

More importantly, because in real life people move in very different circles which are not so easy to penetrate by 'outsiders' - try being a journalist attempting to get alongside gossiping Iranian diplomatic wives in London, and you'll see what I mean. Even garrulous gossipers close ranks against Mr Nosey.

Second, diplomats don't mind if they are suspected of having been expelled when they have not been. It's rather exciting, helping them cultivate an air of mystery and importance. HQ will know the truth, which in practice is all that matters in next-move terms.

Spy Blog cites the London Diplomatic List as a source of possible detective work in the Iran Embassy case. But that List is only as up-to-date as an Embassy wants it to be, or as the compilers can ascertain.

The list as given by Spy Blog lists 25 Iranian accredited diplomats, although there will be others among technical/support staff who are not accredited and who also might be ripe for expelling. Even taking that 25, assuming a 'normal' three year posting cycle some eight of them could move in any one year anyway. So not much help there either for amateur sleuths.

The fact is, if the two governments concerned want to keep the names of the expelled diplomats quiet, they are likely to be pretty efficient at doing so.

Which is why the Russian approach in the 'dead drop' rock drama in 2006 was typically interesting and innovative - naming various UK diplomats as involved and leaving them to twist in the media wind.

The UK's diplomatic problems with Iran have featured mutual expulsions of diplomats:

Britain is to expel two Iranian diplomats as a tit-for-tat response after Iran forced the same number of British diplomats to leave, Gordon Brown revealed this afternoon.

"It is with regret that I should inform the House that Iran yesterday took the unjustified step of expelling two British diplomats over allegations which are absolutely without foundation," Mr Brown told MPs.

"In response to that action, we informed the Iranian ambassador today that we would expel two Iranian diplomats from their embassy in London. I am disappointed that Iran has placed us in this position."

But names of the expellees are not given.

Why not?

Tradition?

Spy Blog last year tried to use the Freedom of Information Act to get names of diplomats expelled in the UK/Russia tit-for-tat expulsions. But they failed:

Every foreign Embassy in London and in Moscow, and therefore every other Government and intelligence agency in the world, will have been informed, directly or indirectly which of their fellow accredited diplomats were expelled, if only for official protocol and seating arrangement purposes at formal functions and ceremonies

Actually, this is not correct. It would not be the custom in Moscow or London or anywhere else to spread around the diplomatic community the names of those concerned.

Partly because it's just not done that way. And partly because in fact when people are expelled there is often a process of oddly polite but private negotiation about how/when it happens.

See my own account of the expulsion of various UK diplomats from Moscow in 1996 and how the Brits responded (at page 29 or so). The expellee(s) may be allowed to leave in lesiurely time for personal reasons or when the posting concerned comes to its expected normal end, depending on how the whole business is being done.

Which is why amateur detective work as done by Spy Blog of comparing successive Diplomatic Lists to try to guess who might have been ejected does not really work.

That said, the reasons given to Spy Blog for not revealing the names are pretty feeble.

And in this UK/Iran case, once again the public may never know who has been heaved out from where...

Stephen Robinson in the Evening Standard looks at the Iranian Embassy in London and the capacious UK Embassy in Tehran, with a rather gloomy assessment of the current Iranian Ambassador:

Shortly after Ahmadinejad's electoral victory, Hossein Adeli was recalled and replaced with His Excellency Rasoul Movahedian Attar, who the Foreign Office have found largely useless in their dealings.

He is regarded in Whitehall as the dullest regime hack, who is unable to smooth things over because he is so absolutely in thrall to Tehran.

When summoned to the Foreign Office for ritual dressing downs, he takes his punishment but seems unable to offer any solutions.

Nor does he speak to the wider British public at this time of crisis in his homeland, possibly because, it is said, he has yet to master English three years into his tour. It is no surprise, therefore, that the embassy's annual party has become one of the coldest tickets on the diplomatic circuit, and not just because only tepid soft drinks are served.

Phone calls and emails to the embassy staff have gone unanswered since the crisis in Iran flared, and queries have been referred to a government website in Tehran.

We UK diplomats have never experienced the British government facing the sort of domestic protests which the ruling caste in Tehran now face. Nonetheless, when the domestic political situation gets difficult in our system the diplomatic machine tends to slow down as people at all levels wait for Ministers to resume concentration on their jobs, not on their own survival.

So I can imagine that the Iranian formal diplomatic machine will be close to grinding to a halt, with people back at HQ uncertain as to what instructions to send and people at their Embassies unwilling to use any initiative in case their moves are held against them by whoever comes out on top.

But the extremist secret police network will be alive and well, keeping an eye and reporting faithfully on colleagues within Iran's diplomatic missions and on what local Iranian ex-pat opinion is doing and saying.

The article also starts:

It was the sort of response that shows the other side holds all the cards. "Unacceptable," said the Foreign Secretary of the Iranian government's arrest over the weekend of up to nine locally hired Iranian staff working at the British embassy in Tehran.

Personally I dislike the sort of metaphor which says that in a case like this “the other side holds all the cards” This gives the impression that (a) we are in a game of some sort, (b) involving luck and/or skill.

In this case there are few rules, and it takes no skill on the part of some or other nasty creature in the Iranian system to beat up on some local Embassy employees to show just how tough they really are.