Recent developments in Georgian politics have brought shame to the European community. These issues are not the result of the policies of the current government, which was recently applauded by former Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, but are the result of political moves made by the opposition. Indeed, the “Georgian Dream” party continues to rampage on after numerous misdemeanours, risking everything and anything to destabilize the Saakashvili administration. Vote buying, corruption, and xenophobic talks… welcome back to the olden days.
Travel back in time to 1980’s Tbilisi: still under Soviet domination, living in the Caucasian capital city is considered a “real pleasure.” Unemployment is on the rise, the black market is going from bad to worse, and corruption is rising at a startling rate.
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Winnie Johnson was an ordinary mother whose life became defined by the tragic death of her son, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, who was murdered by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in 1964. Despite her unrelenting quest to find him, she died not knowing where he had been buried – and not knowing about the existence of a letter that might reveal his whereabouts.
Winnie Johnson was born in 1933 in Ardwick, Manchester. Her mother was in service, her father a greengrocer. One of four children, she left school at the age of 15 and worked in a factory and as a cinema usherette. Her first son, Keith Bennett, was born in June 1952, when she was 18 and unmarried.
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It is a brave government that even considers shaking up its bureaucracy. Not only do the upper echelons of the Civil Service cultivate a very particular sense of self-esteem, but they are bound by an esprit de corps that ministers challenge at their peril. The very hint of an end to permanent appointments or a substantial increase in the number of political appointees will face resistance of the most single-minded and sophisticated kind.
Nor is it hard to defend the Civil Service as currently constituted. Since forever, or so it seems, it has been regarded as setting the gold standard for government administration around the world. Among the strands contributing to that reputation are unimpeachable integrity, utter discretion, and the social polish and breadth of knowledge associated with an elite – probably Oxbridge – education.
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The Leveson Inquiry has been a compelling show.
After eight months of testimony – from the parents of murder victims, from over-exposed celebrities, from once all-powerful and elusive newspaper proprietors, even from the Prime Minister himself – the panel has trawled through much that was well-known about the operations of the press, and much that was not. With the hearings drawing to a close, the question now is what happens next.
“This tournament’s always tough,” a tearful Andy Murray said, tears beginning to flow freely, only moments after losing the Wimbledon final yesterday to Roger Federer. It was the start of a gracious and surprisingly open-hearted tribute to his opponent, which, if nothing else, did for the legend of the dour, unsmiling Scot.
It was as if we had to wait for his defeat to be finally allowed a glimpse into Murray’s heart, and his display of emotional candour soothed at least some of the pain still coursing through a Centre Court crowd packed with Murray supporters, many of whom had obviously been hoping against hope right up to the end that he could turn things round. Of course the odds had always been stacked against his beating the player widely regarded as the greatest in tennis history, and amid the heartbreak home tennis fans must feel at this outcome, there is room surely for an acknowledgment of Federer’s supreme grace and brilliance.
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How do you go from a state close to bankruptcy to a model city, according to leading international agencies? This is a feat that has taken Georgia just a few years to achieve, thanks to liberal and proactive reforms.
Upon accession to power in 2003, Mikhail Saakashvili identified corruption as the main enemy his government had to face. This corresponded with the high expectations of the Georgian public, which took to the streets to overthrow Eduard Shevardnadze, Minister of Foreign Affairs of USSR from 1985 to 1990 and President of Georgia since 1992. One of the most corrupt organs of the state apparatus, the traffic police, was drastically reformed in July of 2004. The government instituted new measures, including the training of young officers with higher salaries, the establishment of inspectors of fronts, and the centralized electronic payment of fines. The effects of these new reforms were felt very quickly: in a 2010 study, the International Republican Institute showed that positive perception of work done by the traffic police increased to 84%, a massive leap up from a meager 10% in 2003.
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Filed under Georgia liberal revolution rest caucase Mikhail Saakashvili
If it were possible for bankers to become even more the social pariahs of the age, it might have been achieved by the decision to spend €100bn of the eurozone bailout fund to prop up a selection of submerged Spanish banks. Once again, two popular sentiments are given full expression. First: why should we pay to rescue these well-remunerated idiots from the consequences of their own foolishness? Second: isn’t it time for the banks, especially if we have part-nationalised them, to lend more to socially useful schemes rather than continue to feather their own corporate nests?
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Filed under Dominic Lawson banks politicians consequences nationalised remunerated
As if one insoluble problem were not enough, world leaders moved directly from discussing the woes of the eurozone at Camp David at the start of the weekend, to the equally intractable challenges of the Nato summit in Chicago at the end of it. Even without the thousands of protesters lining the streets, the meeting would not have been an easy one. And the issue at the top of the agenda is the most difficult of all: the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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Filed under blanks NATO Afghanistan intractable eurozone Camp David
Protesters will not be allowed to ruin the Olympics, organisers vowed after Trenton Oldfield’s Boat Race invasion. But the role of civil disobedience in British history could itself be hailed with a theatrical tribute to the suffragettes at the London Games’ opening ceremony.
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Filed under Olympic Games summer's protest ceremony opening London Games
