An adventure

The first radical left-wing government to be elected in 50 years has just been installed in Greece. After five years of austerity and savage cuts imposed by the EU as part of the deal agreed to bail the country out, the Greek people have used the ballot box to voice their feelings. This outcome is made all the more momentous when one considers that, only a scant few yeas ago, it looked as if Greece was going to respond to the situation it found itself in by heading down the road the fascism: Golden Dawn, an extreme right wing party, was the fastest growing grouping in Greece. Instead, from almost nowhere, Syriza and Alexis Tsipras came within a hair's breadth of winning an outright majority. A remarkable volte-face.

In reality, it is probably unlikely that Mr Tsipras will be able to do all or even many of the things he has said he will: he is, after all, in deep debt with a powerful group of countries and, if they agree to allow Greece to default on all or part of that debt, then what is to stop Spain and Ireland demanding "Well, what about us?". What he can do, however, and, in some ways, he has done this already is to give the Greek people some hope and restore a little dignity to a wounded national pride. Being humiliated by having to go cap in hand to one's neighbours is bad enough but when those neighbours demand all sorts of restrictions and actions - in effect, taking over control of your country - then it smarts. Just look at Germany at the end of the Great War to see what can happen when national pride is dented and a country is ground down by reparations that destroy the economy. I do not wish to compare Mr Tsipras with Hitler - far from it - but big backlashes can arise in countries that have feel they have been treated unfairly.

Which brings me to home. Here, the current government blames the need for austerity on the last Labour government. But where is the narrative about having to bail out the banking system because greedy bastards in the Square Mile and other financial centres - the friends of the current government - played fast and loose with OUR money and lost the lot? This seems to have been completely Tippex-ed out of history and no-one is banging on about it. We are allowing ourselves to be sold a set of doctored facts about the causes of the current 'need ' for austerity just as we seem to be meekly accepting that the only valid way forward is to slash the welfare state, screw the most vulnerable in society and pull up the ladder on the social support systems that have served us well over nearly a century. Why are we regaled on a daily basis with stories of economic recovery (i.e. businesses) while more and more families rely on foodbanks? It is depressing that the main opposition can only offer a similar plan while Farage's Fools want to blame all our woes on the EU and immigrants: it's Johnny Foreigner that's to blame!

Where is our Alexis Tsipras, someone here who is going to offer a vision, some hope, some way forward that promises an adventure that may fail gloriously rather than a long, grey route march to the mirage of "Jam Tomorrow' promised by those who already have all the jam they could possibly need.