Why the EU isn't working for ordinary people (Italian version)...

Tim Parks writes about Italy and the problems with its tanking economy and grumpy electorate - and, in doing so, he bashes the EU nail firmly on the head:

There are two logical ways out of this impasse and the irresponsibility and frustration it breeds. One is a move to a genuine political and fiscal union of Europe; the other is a return to increased national autonomy outside the Euro. Present animosities make the first solution unthinkable. There is no appetite for it. Yet the economic power of the markets to punish any move to leave the Euro makes the second solution suicidal; as Greece has shown.

What we can expect, then, is more and more empty rhetoric and clownish behaviour at a national level; more and more people voting in a spirit of defiance, while tacitly accepting that their vote means nothing. It is a system in which you vote for someone because of what they say they would like to do, not what they can actually do. In short, if you don’t rule your country you can’t expect a viable ruling class.

I keep banging on about how the reason for leaving the EU is to allow us - in most areas of life - to govern ourselves, to give us the chance to do the opposite to how Tim Parks describes Italy and elect people because of what they are going to do not for their chasing of rhetorical unicorns.

Earlier today I took part in a brexit debate at Bradford College - my opening remarks were:

I voted to leave because the EU is distant, unaccountable and fundamentally undemocratic. For all the trappings of democracy – flags, anthems, parliaments, five presidents and periodic elections – there’s no way for us – “we the people” as it were – to change who rules us. For me, if we were simply a member of a trade pact, the sort of thing we joined in 1973 (before I could vote), then I’d be arguing to remain a member. But we’re not a member of “just a trade pact” – the EU wants to have a say in how much tax we pay, in consumer choice, in what is taught in schools, and in the organisation of transport, health and welfare. This is not simply a trade pact.

There are down sides to leaving probably including a short-term economic hit but the big gain is that we can begin the long job of restoring trust in government, in saying to those millions who, for probably the first time in their lives, cast a meaningful vote that we hear them and will give them back the some of the control over government that elites in Westminster and Brussels took away.

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Sell it off cheaply? More desperation in depopulating villages

We've seen a variety of creative approaches used by villages and small towns in Italy (plus Switzerland and Germany) to try and stem decline and abandonment. From 'recruiting' immigrants through cash incentives for families local authorities have sought to stem depopulation. In the end, this is about money and access - how cheaply (even negative rents) can we make living in a place that's far removed from the places where the jobs, social activities and culture live. Here, from Sardinia, is a pretty blunt approach:

On the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, the old village of Ollolai is at risk of turning into a ghost town.

Over the past half-century, the town's population has declined from 2,250 people to just 1,300. And now, there are hundreds of abandoned homes.

In an effort to lure new residents, Ollolai's government is selling 200 of these homes for $1.25 each.

That's one Euro for a house (although you'll need to spend some money refurbishing that house) which is great if you can run your life and business from what can only be described as the 'back of beyond' - Ollolai is bang in the centre of Sardinia, off the main road, with the nearest airport at least an hour away. And this is the problem with these offers, for all that we look at a delightful stone cottage in an ancient hill top village, we shortly after ask questions about schools, hospitals, airports, ferries, theatres, trains, supermarkets and shopping malls. With the result that, despite the financial offer and its appeal, we opt for a more expensive place that means we can reach some or all of that list with some ease.

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Self-employed remote workers should check out Italian negative rents

 
Italy has a load of problems - banking crises, unsustainable immigration, corrupt government - but one of its biggest is depopulation:

FOR ALL THE ANCIENT Italian hill towns and villages that delight the traveler — the San Gimignanos, Montepulcianos and Fiesoles — there are scores of others (many equally or more beautiful) where few venture and in which very few reside today. According to a 2016 Italian environmental association report, there are nearly 2,500 rural Italian villages that are perilously depopulated, some semi-abandoned and others virtual ghost towns.

One of these towns is Candela in Puglia - and the result is what amounts to negative rents with the town paying you to live there:

The mayor of Candela wants to reverse the declining fortunes of his town, once known as "Little Naples" for its crowded streets, which has seen its population plummet from more than 8,000 to just 2,700 today.

The town is offering €800 [£716] for singles, €1,200 [£1,075] for couples, €1,500 [£1,344] to €1,800 [£1,613] for three-member families, and over €2,000 for families of four to five people who are willing to up sticks and embrace la dolce vita, CNN Travel reports.

There are a few caveats (such as having at least €7,500 in annual income and a job) but it's clear that if you've a portable skill or can work remotely this is a great little offer. And it's Italy's south - so wine, weather and history in spades.

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Bars, birth rates and gentle decline - Europe's left behind places

Every Italy village has one of these. This one, Bar Centrale, is in Fontanelice a village in the Bolognese Appenines and it's pretty typical. Go inside and there's a bar (and a barman or waitress) dominated by the obligtory coffee machine and, sitting on the cheap plastic chairs around rickedy tables are a bunch of old men. They probably won't be drinking, it's not an Italian thing really, but may be playing cards, reading Corriere dello Sport or one of the seemingly endless local papers Italy enjoys, and talking in that 'putting the world to rights' way loved of men in bars everywhere.

The wall behind the bar will feature a large poster, maybe framed, of a football team - usually from some victorious season long, long ago rather than the current team. In Fontanelice it was a black and white framed photograph of a Juventus squad from (judging from the hairstyles) some time in the 1970s. I'm guessing that, like bar decor everywhere, it's just there not causing offence but gradually losing both definition and relevance as the years pass by.

Just as for us in England, the pub was the heart of the world, these bars represent that old Italy of community, the shared experience of the place we live. It's true that little Italian towns and villages also have trattoria and even full blown restaurants but the bar, its decor and regulars slowly fading, is the common factor, the thing that every little place has. And I guess that, just like the English pub, these bars are finding times tough. I'd note that the slightly posher place we stayed - Dozza just outside Imola - didn't have a bar of this sort in the old town (an osteria served this function in the evening but during the day there was just the cafe and gelateria in the public park).

There are lots of demographic factors driving this decline - the bars may still be there but for how much longer? The most important though, like a lot of other places in Europe, is that Italians are quite literally dying out:

Italy’s birth rate has more halved since the ‘baby boom’ of the 1960s, with the number of births falling to 488,000 in 2015 – fewer than in any other years since the modern state was formed in 1861.

“If we carry on as we are and fail to reverse the trend, there will be fewer than 350,000 births a year in 10 years’ time, 40 percent less than in 2010 — an apocalypse,” the minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, said in an interview with La Repubblica on Sunday.

“In five years we have lost more than 66,000 births (per year) — that is the equivalent of a city the size of Siena,” the minister added. “If we link this to the increasing number of old and chronically ill people, we have a picture of a moribund country.”

Italy has Western Europe's lowest birth rate - just 1.39 well below the accepted replacement level of 2.1 - which is why you see so few children in these little towns and villages. The wonderful culture of these places - relaxed, welcoming - that us visitors want to celebrate is threatened by this low birth rate. And the result - just as we've seen in Japan - is that villages and small towns depopulate and are eventually abandoned:

The phenomenon is happening across the country, from mountain-top villages in the Alps and the Apennines to tiny terracotta-roofed hamlets in the sun-baked valleys of Sicily and Sardinia.

Nearly 2,500 villages are at risk of turning into ghost communities, with a startling two million homes abandoned or left empty by their owners, according to the report, which was compiled with the help of the National Association of Italian Councils.

We will see this process repeated elsewhere in Europe, at least in places that either don't attract or don't welcome immigrants. And, as we know, the problem with those immigrants is that they arrive without the cultural legacy that might sustain the bar, the cafe and the pub. Moreover they're not heading to those deep rural areas of Europe but to the towns, resorts and cities that provide the work they came here for. In France it's clear:

The visible decline of so many historic city centers is intertwined with these anxieties. Losing the ancient French provincial capital is another blow to Frenchness — tangible evidence of a disappearing way of life that resonates in France in the same way that the hollowing out of main streets did in the United States decades ago. A survey of French towns found that commercial vacancies have almost doubled to 10.4 percent in the past 15 years. As these towns have declined, voters have often turned sharply rightward. Albi is traditionally centrist, but the same conditions of decline and political anxiety are present, too.

Politics aside (although this sense of decline is an important factor in the kick-back against the Great City of the West and its denizens) we're seeing the same problems. A glance at the people walking the high street - older, wearier, less content - in an English provincial town will be matched in France, Spain and in that lovely little bar in Fontanelice. We tend to talk of these people as 'left behind' which is unkind and largely untrue. What we should talk about is how the places themselves are left behind, victims of the ageing population, too few young people, out-of-town shops and the World Wide Web.

In Italy, with a sclerotic economy, high unemployment and Europe's lowest female participation rate (just 37%), the problems are reflected everywhere - in the deathly quiet daytime streets of small towns, in the industrial zones littered with empty factories, rotting teeth in the once mighty bite of Italian manufacturing, and it the desperation of a government offering payments of eighty Euros a month as a 'Baby Bonus' for new mums.

If we're seeking Europe's problems we shouldn't be looking at immigrant ghettoes in Montpelier or Rotterdam, nor should we be screeching about house prices in Central London or Barcelona, rather we should be turning our attention to the left behind provincial places where the things we treasure in our cuture are at their most profound. The slow death of the English pub, the struggles of the French provincial high street, and the decline of the Italian village's cafe-bar - these are what people see and don't understand even if, as we know, they are partly to blame.

International 'anywhere' people - Flat Earthers as geographer Harm de Blij called them - may be right about global trade and business (and my head tells me they are) but when I look at those quiet, backwater places once comfortable and thriving my heart tells me we've got something wrong. And worse that the only people talking about that feeling in my heart are those blaming others - immigrants, foreigners, Muslims, bankers - for the problem rather than looking for a way forward. If this doesn't change, if the Flat Earthers continue to see the Great City of the West as the answer, then Europe and America's political divisions will only worsen and deepen.

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Friday Fungus: We can do with out Barolo - but a world without truffles?

The New York Times reports on the problem created by the clash between fine wine and one of the most wonderful things on the planet - the white truffle:

Not only does this land produce some of Italy’s best, and most expensive, wines. It is also home to the famed Italian white truffle, which can run 200 to 500 euros (about $225 to $560) for a good-size knob that will sit in the palm of your hand.

But what happens when those resources compete? Vines require clear hillsides, and truffles need thick and damp yet clean woods. Today, hillside after hillside of Barolo is planted in neat rows of well-groomed vines more valuable than anything else that could be put on them. The forests, on the other hand, have been shrinking.

The result is that, not only are there fewer places where truffles can grow, but the loss of forest impacts the wine growers and especially those using organic methods. And the truth is that there a plenty of places where fine wines can be made but vanishingly few where "trifola d'Alba Madonna" is found - truffles are altogether too fickle for cultivation.

The result is 'save the truffle':

Save the Truffle wants to protect what has been to this day one of the most outstanding and internationally recognised products of Piedmont. Its fame has been connected to the city of Alba and the surrounding area, the Langhe and Roero, for more than eighty years.

In an area which has become a world heritage Unesco site, in which the truffle, together with the outstanding red wines, are the driving force for international tourism, Carlo and Edmondo believe that this precious fruit of the territory must be approached from an alternative point of view, without mentioning marketing and sales.

This is in the wonderful and conservative traditional of italian food campaigns - perfected by the Slow Food movement that spread across the world (although sadly has become a shadow of its origins by becoming a locavore lobby rather than a celebration of waiting for dinner and using the finest ingredients).

And we can all help - there's a crowdfunding initiative 'Breathe the Truffle' that's helping these people develop and protect the environment in which this magical, exceptional fungus thrives.

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Scribblings III: Star Wars, flags, skateboarding, free speech and not blaming smoking

Worse than smoking!

We begin with the weird as Grandad encounters reports of the Star Wars obsessive - this my friends is in a space beyond geekdom or nerdism:

daoku began watching star wars at different playback rates in order to do this but again it only lasted a while.
He then purchased the exact cinema seats that were there in 1977 and placed them in his living room.He purchased 40 shop floor dummies, dressed them in 1970's clothes, placed them on the seats and watched star wars until the small hours.

That is just the tiniest of flavours...

It is good to know that, when you need one, you can find someone who has fine details of flag history and etiquette at his fingertip. James Higham is one such:

The ship is right, the three masts are right and the artist may well have been right in 1776 on the flags, though it seems not.

And, as anyone who has been to Parkhead will tell you, getting the flags (and songs right) is important!

Meanwhile Raedwald, from his eyrie in the Alps, comments on risk (and skateboarding):

Some years ago, skateboarders old enough to buy cheap airfares would gather informally in small groups, take postbuses to the high places and board down the mostly empty mountain roads. Much fun. In the UK, the official reaction would be one of horror; the bansturbationists would emerge in force, the Chief Constable would appear on TV, MPs would demand new laws to ban boarders and local councils would deploy wardens to patrol all the steep roads with powers to seize boards. After all, the UK is a nation where it is now forbidden to roll a round cheese down a grass hill because of 'elf-n-safety.

Here's a couple of those skateboarders.

Among all this frivolity there is seriousness. And nothing is more serious that protecting free speech. The Churchmouse reminds us that there appears to be something of an inconsistency in attacks on speech:

Despite recently supporting a European Commission code promising to take down online hate speech within 24-hours of posting, Facebook has failed remove a group titled “I Want to F**king Kill Donald Trump” to the ire of his supporters.

The group was created on May 14 with a post reading “Donald Trumps Hair Looks Like A Bleached Mop – Gordon Ramsey 2016.” The most recent post is, “What Is Your Weapon Of Choice?” Asking what weapon people would use to kill Trump if given the chance.

Me, I liked Facebook and Twitter better when they defended free speech rather than allowing government and the progressive mob to beat them into submission.

Finally - for this week - Leg iron asked where it all went wrong:

As a smoker, I’m feeling neglected. All the things we used to cause have moved on. We were the Grim Reapers who brought death and decay everywhere we went. Every disease, every illness was our doing. I was having fun with that.

As our intrepid freethinker observes - the fussbuckets are now obsessed with food.

There's still hope - as this outcry reminds us.

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Vexatious vexillology

The Snail. Its coat of arms shows the contrada’s colors – red, yellow and turquoise, with a snail on a white shield. Underneath, there’s a tile motif in red and yellow. It’s allied with the Porcupine, the Panther and the Forest, while its enemy is the Tortoise – their rivalry is probably the most ancient and deep rooted! 

Flags are a source of great debate dispute and disagreement. We proudly wave them, bury dead soldiers draped in them, and engage in complicated occult examination of what they symbolise. For some people another's flag is a source of offence - the "Butcher's Apron", a bloodied rag or a statement of oppression. People burn them, states pass laws preventing this and supreme courts spend hours discussing whether this is allowed or whether flag-burning is an act of free expression. In Northern Ireland a whole industry grew up around the matter of flags (and associated parades).

Flags embody a history, they are not merely a decorative banner available for successful athletes to drape round their shoulders as they do their lap of honour. And the colours or style of the flag isn't the issue but rather the importance of the banner to the place and the moment. It's true that flags grew up as a feudal statement, they were waved by kings, dukes and barons to signal their presence (and self-importance):

It is generally accepted that the banner and the pennon were both derived from the gonfanon, the war cloth, which was originally a flag fixed laterally to the staff. The gonfanon was in origin a lance flag, but already in the Bayeaux Tapestry some are larger and more ornate than others. It was natural for size to be indicative of the rank of the bearer. Hence in the 13th Century, after the development of that system of personal devices which we term armoury or heraldry, the larger flag, the banner, was the privilege of the barons and greater knights while other knights carried pennons, The significant point about the banner and the pennon is that they were personal flags: they identified not a military unit, but the baron or the knight as an individuals.

Some of these associations still remain - not just the pomp of heraldry or the cherishing of coats of arms but in the way footballers kiss the badge on their shirt to demonstrate their allegiance to the team (and in the importance of those symbols of the team - badges, banners, songs and slogans - to the fans).

So just as the flag was a means of identifying friends and allies, it was equally a way to see the enemy - armies weren't uniformed so the flags, colours and pennons were the essential identifier. As feudalism matured and the modern state began to emerge, the flags were adopted by those cities as symbols of their independent identity. With the birth of revolutionary governments - born as secular states from violent uprising - the importance of the flag became more pronounced. Citizens of the United State salute the flag - not as an act of worship but as a celebration of liberty. But this sanctification of the flag makes it an easy target for those who wish to oppose the USA.

In recent times we've seen various eruptions of anger, offence and self-righteous bleating around different flags - most notably the persistence of the flag (or one of the flags to be precise) of the Confederate States. But the acme of vexatious vexillology remains Northern Ireland birthplace of the 1954 Flags and Emblems Display Act and where the agreement dragged by John Major and Tony Blair from the bigots in Sinn Fein and the DUP included a reference to those flags and symbols. The Agreement recognised the:

“...sensitivity of the use of symbols and emblems for public purposes, and the need in particular in creating new institutions to ensure that such symbols and emblems are used in a manner which promotes mutual respect rather than division”

So the debate about flags became a core debate in Ulster politics featuring such things as the Flags (Northern Ireland) Order 2000 and statements like this:

“While it is legitimate for organizations and individuals to seek to celebrate cultural or sporting events in the public space, this needs to be time limited. If left on public display after a reasonable time, they cease to be an expression of celebration and can become a threatening attempt to mark territory”

All this reminds us that - however attached we are to that flag we love - these things are divisive. Sometimes this is deliberate and planned such as the recent 'online petition' from Scottish Nationalists over the union flag appearing on driving licences but often it is genuine. In my city of Bradford we have a flags policy that came about because of disputes about requests to fly flags to mark some event, anniversary or other occasion. Even then, there's the possibility of dispute as we discovered during the recent Israeli operations in Gaza - the Council flew the Palestinian flag (in the square not from City Hall) but refused a request to fly the Israeli flag. And across the year we have a cycle of flags flown - from the Pakistan flag on that nation's independence day through to the Welsh dragon on St David's Day.

All this takes us to the latest flag-related matter - or rather an absence of flag matter:

Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford says not having a union jack on Great Britain's World Championships kit is a "terrible choice".

The Briton, 28, tweeted a picture of his vest for the championships in Beijing, showing a British Athletics logo instead of the union jack flag.

Scot Eilish McColgan replied by saying "it looks like you're representing British Athletics instead of GB".

Rutherford agreed with the steeplechase star and said the change was "stupid".

Coming at a time of rampant Scottish nationalism (despite the majority of Scots voting to stay in the union) some will see the exclusion of the Union Flag as an act of cowardice while other will see the corporate nature of international professional sport as being at fault. Indeed the response from British athletics shows this (and that they miss the point entirely):

‘We discussed it with a number of people and athletes who thought it was a good idea. Remember England football have the three lions, England rugby the red rose, everyone has a distinctive logo except us. It’s not about rejecting the Union Jack — that’s why it’s still on the shorts and socks. And of course red, white and blue are still on the kit too.’

Referencing England rugby and England football is, to be kind, not exactly helpful to the debate! The point the athletes are making is that the flag symbolises what they are competing for at the world championships - when they set out as athletes their daydream will have been to run, throw or jump for their country.

It won't come as a surprise however that others have leapt into this discussion, taking issue with Greg Rutherford over the kit (and the flag):

Look at it, if you can bear to. With its cluttered burst of both right-angled and diagonal radiating lines, the British flag is heavy and overbearing, forceful and strident. On a battlefield it would make sense. Sure, this virulent standard served to rally regiments at the Battle of Waterloo. But today? At sporting events? It looks crap. Instead of suggesting unity, its sharp-angled divisions imply fragmentation. In fact, the relentless dynamism of its design evokes the shock and shatter of a cannon ball smashing into a French ship at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Discussing the aesthetics of the Union Flag is a fine matter (and yes there are some better looking flags) but that completely misses the point - our association and attraction to that flag isn't about its looks but about what it means to us. It is the symbol of our place, our nation. It is the banner under which millions of our ancestors fought and it is a representation of what we stand for as a nation and of our history. It is true that some are vexed by its presence but that remains, in part at least, the purpose of the flag - it symbolises a successful, free and united nation. And some people - whether quasi-republicans like the author of that last quote or chip-balancing Scots separatists - simply don't like this fact.

The quote at the top is from a tourist guide to Siena and is one of that city's contrade. What is reflects is that the use of symbols to mark a place is ancient and not a bad thing. The bad thing is when people want to take down those symbols because they've decided they are offended by them. For a long time - thankfully no longer - England's Cross of St George was banished as a racist symbol only to be seen waved by the violent and extreme. While there are still people who don't understand how we've recovered England's flag (and we've sport to thank for that), it is welcome that we can now fly it with pride and enthusiasm.

When flags and symbols are pushed aside - or worse still banned or abandoned - we succumb to those who see the flag as a problem or worse see the contest of symbols as a matter of little victories against the enemy. Those athletes heading to Beijing will be representing the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - it's welcome that they are proud of this fact and that they want to display the symbol of that pride, the Union Flag.

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God gave us small hearts - the rebirth of nationalism

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For most of my life the 'direction of travel' (as the trendy term goes) has been towards supranationalism, towards the idea of economic blocs and even the merger of states to produce a still bigger state. In some ways this was an understandable reaction to forty years of 'cold war', to a geopolitical contest between giant states - the USSR and the USA.

So we created our own union - just as did nations in South East Asia and South America. Pushing aside all the fine words and grand statements, these blocs were comfort blankets for smaller nations in a world of power bloc politics. The politicians would point out that the EU 'prevented' another war in Europe (it's all right folks, I know this is a pretty drastic rewriting of history but that's what politicians do) and allowed us to 'compete' with the USA, with the old Warsaw Pact and with China.

Petty nationalisms - the grumbles of Catalans, Venetians, Scots and Flemings about being subsumed into a larger identity - were disparaged. Either dismissed as rose-tinted nostalgia, indulged as sweet romanticism or condemned as fascism. The great future was deeper and closer union, an inevitable journey towards a New Europe free from the old tyranny of nationalism. Only a few nationalisms, the violent ones in Ireland and the Basque country, stirred us into action but this was simply to police the problem rather than find a solution.

Today Venetians are heading to the polls to decide whether to pursue secession from Italy, to recreate the old Venetian Republic (or at least the bits of it that still remain in Italy - we forget that a fair old chunk is now in Slovenia and Croatia). Although today's vote isn't binding on the Italian government, it would be hard to see how greater autonomy cannot follow if the vote matches the opinion polls showing 65% support for the idea across the Veneto.

We are approaching a vote on Scottish independence, there will be a similar poll in Catalonia and probably one in Galicia. And places like Corsica and Sardinia have active independence movements. At its recent conference, the UK's Liberal Democrats came out in support of devolved powers - the first step on the road to independence - for Cornwall.

Those petty nationalisms that the grand Europeans sneered at have become a new politics in Europe. One that threatens not just the EU but the nations that make up the EU - Spain, Italy, the UK, Belgium. And we can no longer simply dismiss the politics of nationalism as the work of a few lunatics.

For me there are two things driving these changes - the first one is economic, expressed here by a Venetian:

"Venetians not only want out of Italy, but we also want out of the euro, the EU and Nato," said Raffaele Serafini, another pro-independence activist

The EU - and most of all, the Euro - has completely failed places like Italy. The hope that Europe would free Italy from the corrupt institutions it inherited from Fascism was dashed as those institutions - the creatures of the corporate state - became the vehicles of the commission's control.

But there's also a romantic notion here, the idea that those old and smaller places are places with which we can identify, that we can love. And that, as Venice did before and small nations - Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Iceland - do today, such love engenders success through trade, through business rather than through the idea of the big stick implied by the economics of the power bloc.

Above all it's about the size of our hearts:

GOD gave all men all earth to love,
But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Belovèd over all;
That, as He watched Creation’s birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good. 

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More protectionism with a foodie spin...

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Prosecco - lovely stuff and, as appears to be the case with almost every sort of food and drink subject to protectionism:

EU Common Market Organisation reforms take effect on August 1, 2009, and the inter-regional Prosecco DOC and the Prosecco DOCG will be folded into the new PDO Protected Designation of Origin appellation system.

That's right, if you're not in North East Italy they're going to go for you if you have the cheek to use the term "Prosecco" - despite the fact that "prosecco" is the name of the grape it's made from and has nothing specific to do with the Veneto. Just as the Cornish Pasty is just a recipe and champagne is just a process, prosecco is just a type of grape.

All this is a bit tough on the Croatians who have been using the grape - 'prosek' - for just as long as the Italians but to make a sweet dessert wine rather than a light fizz:

In a vaulted cellar on the pine-clad island of Hvar, Andro Tomic pops a cork on a bottle of his beloved prosek wine and pours a generous glass.

The amber-coloured dessert wine holds a special place in the hearts of Croats, particularly those along the Dalmatian coast, but it is about to face the full wrath of the Brussels bureaucracy.

The European Union has ruled that prosek is too similar in name to Italy's prosecco and that after July 1, when Croatia realises a decade-old ambition of joining the EU, it can no longer be sold as such. 

So much for protecting traditional local produce! The EU justify is like this:

They say there is a danger that consumers could be "misled" and could inadvertently buy a bottle of Croatian prosek when in fact they were looking for light, fizzy prosecco. 

Of course, it's not about this really at all, the Croats have been making prosek for 500 years alongside that sparkling prosecco without the need for special protections. And, I'm prepared to guess that the number of people who've confused the two is pretty low - somewhere close to zero.

The beneficiaries of these rules aren't artisan producers, they are large industrial concerns - the prosecco equivalent of Ginsters - that can secure higher profits through securing a PDO.

It's just protectionism given a foodie spin.

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A story...

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I knew a bloke who set up an erboristoria in Ragusa - or rather his wife did and Dave helped. Now, as you'll know, to set up any shop in Italy requires a licence and, in this case, there was a further licence because of the medical nature of a herbalist.

Now in Sicily there are three ways to get a licence.

The first way is to go to the municipio queue up and collect the requisite form, complete the form, attach the requisite payment and submit it to the appropriate official. And wait. And wait. There is a chance that, at some point in the future, that official (or someone on his staff) will not be at important meetings, at lunch or otherwise engaged. And will deign to look at the completed form, apply the stamp of approval and place it in the tray for the licence to be sent. There is even a chance that the licence is actually posted back.

The second way to get a licence is to get your neighbours cousin - the one with the nice car who never seems to work - to get his business associates to speak to the official in question. Shortly after this the license will be issued. However, each Wednesday friends of the cousin call in and politely ask for a small consideration for their efforts. Not paying this consideration is, I believe, foolish.

The third way to secure that license involves the most expensive espresso you've ever bought. You speak to the local mayor and he tells you he can help and can you meet him at his brother's caffetteria perhaps for a late morning caffè. You agree and on arriving you buy the mayor a coffee, hand him the completed form. He drinks the coffee (it being Italy this takes little more than a minute), says he's happy to help and leaves. The brother brings the bill across. Your eyes pop out but you pay secure in the knowledge that tomorrow your licence will arrive.

Quite which option Dave and his wife used I don't know.

It may all be a myth, of course!

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The price of bad government..

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A price Italians are paying:

Italians born in 1970, who are about 43 now, will pay 50% more in taxes as a percentage of their lifetime income than those born in 1952, according to research from the Bank of Italy and the University of Verona. The research also found they will receive half the pension benefits that Italy's 60-somethings are getting or are poised to get. 

Sadly, we in Britain - so used to sneering at Italians and their revolving door government - will be paying a similar price. Paying more and getting less - that is the lesson of modern government everywhere.

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These EU placemen don't like democracy do they?

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We know that the European Union has only the most vestigial of connections to democracy. A bit like the old East Germany, the word is bandied around willy-nilly by assorted leaders while they support the suppression of the democratic will by repeating referendums, imposing national leaderships and working to sideline (many would like to ban) political opinions that reject the cosy corporatist technocratic EU status quo.

And this assault on democracy continues. Here's EU placeman and anti-democrat Mario Monti bemoaning that people don't always toe the line:

"There are many manifestations of populism that are aimed at disunity in nearly all the member states," Monti said in a joint news conference with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy at an economic conference in northern Italy.

So Mario wants to hold a meeting in Rome to 'discuss' this dreadful populism (which can be defined as "people voting for candidates the EU disapproves of") and in doing so "foster European integration". I guess it's only a short step to elections being just window dressing rather than the means by which we choose our governments. Or has that already arrived? In which case the 'populism' is understandable and has my support.

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To the new Corporate State - "Ave!"

In a fit of bizarre historical blindness some of my Conservative colleagues - led by a right Jesse -  down in the big city are proposing that members of the House of Lords be elected by institutions - corporations if you will:

The seven point plan includes a proposal to allow mass membership organisations – such as the CBI, TUC, General Medical Council or even the RSPB – to elect their own peers. 

Connoisseurs of fascism will note that this proposals echoes the very essence of Mussolini's 'Corporate State' - the spirit of Gabriele d'Annunzio's Charter of Carnaro:
 

Whatever be the kind of work a man does, whether of hand or brain, art or industry, design or execution, he must he a member of one of the ten Corporations who receive from the commune a general direction as to the scope of their activities, but are free to develop them in their own way and to decide among themselves as to their mutual duties and responsibilities.

What has possessed these politicians god alone knows. Invoking the idea of corporatism as superior to democracy is not just crass but a direct attack on the principles of personal autonomy - individual freedom - that us Conservatives cherish.

Reforming the Lords to give a bunch of national institutions - unions, guilds, special interest groups - the power to appoint legislators would hand to those organisations (not remotely to their members) a power not justified by the UK being a democracy.

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Whatever be the kind of work a man does, whether of hand or brain, art or industry, design or execution, he must he a member of one of the ten Corporations who receive from the commune a general direction as to the scope of their activities, hut are free to develop them in their own way and to decide among themselves as to their mutual duties and responsibilities.

 

Forza La Tecnocrazia?

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The new Prime Minister of Italy remarks:

The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support for the government in the parliament and political parties because it will remove one ground for disagreement

It worries me - as does this:

He added that he had received “many signals of encouragement from our European partners and the international world,” for the new administration.

And we should take note of this comment - from a real, elected politician:

“We salute the Franco-German directorate before it officially takes control of the country...Maybe they'll let us speak Italian for a bit longer but the decisions are going to be taken elsewhere."

Forza La Tecnocrazia!

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All hail our new philosopher kings!

The governance model du jour appears to be “technocracy”:

Another response involves the surgical removal of elected leaders in Greece and Italy and their replacement with technocratic experts, trusted within the EU to pass economic reforms deemed appropriate by policymakers in Berlin, the bloc’s top paymaster, and at EU headquarters in Brussels. Europe this week prised open the lid of the dustbin of history to accommodate Mr Papandreou, Greece’s Socialist prime minister since October 2009, and Mr Berlusconi, the billionaire who has dominated Italian politics since 1994.

As we saw with the bureaucratic fury at Mr Papandreou’s plan for a referendum, Europe’s leaders have lost confidence in the choices that the people might make – democratic solutions are rejected something even the pro-Europe FT sees as momentous:

The sidelining of elected politicians in the continent that exported democracy to the world was, in its way, as momentous a development as this week’s debt market turmoil. In effect, eurozone policymakers have decided to suspend politics as normal in two countries because they judge it to be a mortal threat to Europe’s monetary union.

Yet the appeal to the expert in times of crisis is not new – indeed, the manner in which we are governed increasingly reflects a mistrust of the elected official (and an abject loathing of the idea of popular democracy through referendums or other participatory models). The ‘Man in Whitehall’ – or his equivalent in Brussels and in your local town hall – really does know best.

Technocracy’s origins lie – like so many of the slightly scary and mostly illiberal ideas of government – in the years between the two great wars of the twentieth century. At first it was a slightly cranky idea promoted by a self-educated engineer called Howard Scott that drew on the ideas of Thorstein Veblen (who is most remembered for coining the term “conspicuous consumption”). Veblen proposed a society and economy managed by a ‘soviet of engineers’:

As a matter of course, the powers and duties of the incoming directorate will be of a technological nature, in the main if not altogether; inasmuch as the purpose of its coming into control is the care of the community's material welfare by a more competent management of the country's industrial system.

In the US technocracy was swept away by the ‘New Deal’ and FDR’s National Recovery Administration – those almost fascist institutions of American recovery. Yet the idea of government by expert has never departed, we remain captivated by the idea that we can with the help of the wisest and brightest plan a better society. Here Naomi Klein advocates planning as the way to address an identified environmental crisis:

In addition to reversing the thirty-year privatization trend, a serious response to the climate threat involves recovering an art that has been relentlessly vilified during these decades of market fundamentalism: planning. Lots and lots of planning.

Once again we turn to the philosopher kings:

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

Great men can solve our problems but only if they are freed from having to pander to the demos – to the rabble, the swinish multitude, to ordinary men and women. Such is the mission of Europe today – government by central banker, administration by academic economist and rule by the bureaucrat. We have rediscovered the District Commissioner – no longer florid of face, swagger stick under the arm but now besuited by Armani, trained in the great institutions of governance, silver-haired, multi-lingual and international in perspective.

Twenty-first Century technocracy is government by such men – unelected, disdainful of democracy and charming of manner. We the people watch helpless as they slide smoothly from commission to cabinet, from governor’s mansion to state house and from academic sinecure to mahogany boardroom table. These are our philosopher kings riding to save us from the disaster of the market’s chaos and democracy’s failure.

At some point we will get a say – the new philosopher kings will permit this. But will it be the exercise of power or a sop to the idea of democracy, a fig leaf to cover the triumph of the technocrat?

And do these people really know better? Were they not in charge before it all went wrong?

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Punt e mes - the bittersweet route to a Negroni (and what a web site!)

This arrived. I shall have a happy wife - after all what could be better than the makings for a negroni*, indeed for the classic negroni, one that was superceded by the blandishments of martini rosso.

And who could resist when Punt e mes - point and a half in Piedmontese - have such a truly awesome website. Go there and enjoy the music and the wonderful Italian cheesiness!

*We'll be needing some fine London Gin and a little Campari, of course to complete these makings!

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Friday Fungus: Chicken with lemon and capers (but no mushrooms)

This is a mushroom blog about capers. OK so I’ve pulled you into this in the anticipation of a juicy porcini recipe and now you find me writing about capers – but bear with me and it will become clear!

Capers are:

...the unripened flower buds of Capparis spinosa, a prickly, perennial plant which is native to the Mediterranean and some parts of Asia. Their use dates back to more than 3000 B.C. where they are mentioned as a food in the Sumerian cuneiform Gilgamesh, an ancient retelling of a great flood and ark legend.

This of course makes capers quite unusual since we normally don’t eat flower buds but fruit or leaves. Now my interest in capers – other than as something tangy to eat – came from something I read ages ago about Pantelleria, an Italian island that is rather nearer to Tunisia than it is to Italy. Now the French like to say that the best capers are nonpareil capers – the tiny ones from Provence – but they would be wrong. The capers from Pantelleria – and from the other Italian islands between Sicily and Tunisia such as Lampedusa – are the best.

The classic caper dish is pasta alla puttanesca – literally whore’s pasta – which is made with capers, garlic and anchovies (and often, as with this recipe, chillies). However, I tend to think this can lose the capers’ flavour a little when it’s matched with those other strong tastes. But staying with the Sicilian theme, I like to use lemons with the capers to cook a great chicken dish.

Chicken with lemon and capers

Two chicken breasts with their skin intact

Seasoned flour to coat the chicken

Olive oil & 1oz butter – heated in a heavy frying pan

Juice of one good sized lemon

Good big table spoon of capers (if salted wash first)

Black pepper

Coat the chicken breasts in the seasoned flour and cook in the frying pan until golden brown (depending on the size of the breasts this can take up to 15 minutes – if they’re very plump, I will put into a moderate oven - 180° - for long enough to cook some rice, say 20 minutes, which ensures the chicken is cooked right through.

When the chicken is cooked and set to one side, add the lemon juice and capers to the pan and deglaze – you should have a slight thickened sauce (not too much as this is just to ‘wet’ the chicken not swamp it) with capers in. Pour this over the chicken and serve – just with boiled rice.

And, at the right time of the year, of course, a couple of sliced, grilled porcini would go very nicely too!

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