COMMISSAR presidente took Whitehall by storm on Thursday as he swaggered into 10 Downing Street with the air of a statesman from a G8 nation.
It was a triumphant visit to our “bad demon’s den”, which produced a Memorandum of Understanding between Britain and the People’s Republic not even the most fanatical anti-Brits could criticise, which was bitterly disappointing.
What is the world coming to when we cannot rely on our two-faced, back-stabbing, bad demon to provide us with something to protest and shout about? A Memorandum of Understanding without a single phrase that could be interpreted as a sign of the continuing British hostility and duplicity towards us by Phil, Simerini, Lazarus or Perdikis is unprecedented.
Of course nobody, apart from the whingeing Turkish Cypriots (more below) was entirely convinced that a few words on a piece of paper would signal a change of London’s pro-Turkish stance in Kyproulla, which dates back to the Stone Age.
As Simerini observed in its editorial on Friday, “we do not believe in the transformation of demons to angels, nor in the modifications of English policy. But we will not dismiss it.” The paper would wait to see if the memorandum was put into practice.
Phil was not convinced with words either and was waiting to see actions, but, against its better judgment, it made a small concession. “We want to believe that the British side will honour its signature and accept its responsibilities, at least with regard to the substance of the Cyprus problem.”
It also gave an explanation for the change of stance. “On their part, the British are attempting, for their own reasons, to change the negative climate against them.”
Why, it did not say, but presumably a positive climate and pandering to our insecurities would make it easier for the Brits to impose an unfair, unjust, pro-Turkish settlement, that would allow them to commercially exploit the rich oil reserves off our coast and keep the bases in perpetuity.
ONLY ONE bash-patriotic politician remained sceptical about the memorandum – Ethnarch junior, Nicholas, who was adamant that the pro-Turkish policy of two-faced Brits had not changed and that the memorandum was a meaningless piece of paper.
Speaking on Logos Radio on Friday, Junior, illustrating that he shared his dad’s hatred and distrust of the Brits, warned that “we are dealing here with the English”. Challenged to say what part of the memorandum he had objections to, he said that the text was not that important. “What matters is what the English have in mind,” he said, but avoided illustrating his psychic powers by telling us what it was the back-stabbers really had in mind.
THE MOST emphatic proof of the mega-success of our comrade presidente’s London visit was the hysterical reaction of the Turkish Cypriots, who have been throwing tantrums and sulking ever since the text of the memorandum was released.
The papers have been ranting and raving against the memorandum, outraged political parties have been slamming Talat’s misguided policies, Talat’s indignant spokesman has been disparaging Christofias and the Brits, while Talat’s flunkeys have been moaning to foreign diplomats that the future of the talks was in jeopardy.
These are the tantrums thrown by a spoilt kid, who has always been pandered to and cannot accept not getting its own way. It just cannot accept that its mother would sometimes have to give a bit of attention to its older brother. The Turkish Cypriots have been pandered to, lavishly praised and offered unlimited sympathy and support by the whole world in the four years since the referendum.
They relished their internationally-recognised role as victims of injustice which turned them into insufferable moaners, permanently perched on the moral high ground, demanding special treatment from the world. What they never understood was that they owed the special treatment to the Ethnarch, whom the international community believed it was punishing by favouring the Turkish Cypriots.
But now the Ethnarch has gone, they should start coming to terms with the grim reality that the victim-hood, honeymoon period might be over.
APART from the Turkish Cypriots, many high-ranking officials at our foreign ministry, a den of Ethnarch-supporting hardliners, have been longing for a return to the glory days of Tassos’ rule. Some diplomats operate as if he is still the Ethnarch by embracing his Fawlty Towers-type diplomatic behaviour.
The Swedish government, with which Tassos had fallen out after his public attack on Carl Bild, appears to have remained at the top of the foreign ministry’s ‘most hated foreign governments’ league table, one place below Britain. This was made obvious to the Director-General for Political Affairs of Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bjorn Lyrvall, during a visit to Kyproulla last week.
The Swedish embassy had informed Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Alecos Zenonos and the head of the Cyprus Desk, Minas Hadjimichael, that Lyrvall intended to visit the north, and they immediately expressed strong objections. They insisted that he should not cross over, as the government disapproved any contacts in the north by foreign dignitaries on official visits to the People’s Republic.
But is this still the official policy? It does not seem to be because the Swedes subsequently contacted the palazzo, which immediately gave its approval for Lyrval to cross north.
THE SLOWDOWN of the world economy, combined with soaring energy and food prices has dealt a big blow to our comrade presidente’s noble plans to build a fairer society.
With government revenue taking a nosedive because of the slowing down of the property market and its expenditure rising thanks to big pay increases being given to the public sector, boosted by a high Cost of Living Allowance, there is very little dosh left over for the social spending Christofias promised in his election manifesto.
As for development projects, not even fraction of them can be undertaken, given the state of government finances. Like its predecessor, the Christofias government tried to get its hand on the gold reserves of the Central Bank in order to finance its spending, but the Governor would not hear of it, which is probably part of the reason for his lack of popularity with Akelites.
Hopefully, Governor Orphanides will stand firm, because it would be insane to take our gold reserves so that the government can give handouts to everyone who has the begging bowl out and finance the building of roads we do not need.
If the government wants to help the needy, it should reduce its public sector pay-roll, which takes up half the state’s annual expenditure. The public sector pay-roll and pensions absorb 70 per cent of state spending. If the government wants to build a fairer society it should start by cutting 10,000 public sector jobs and reducing public sector wages across the board by 20 per cent.
Not only will we have a fairer society by reducing the inequality between the public and state sector, but there will also be money left over to give single mothers, students, the disabled, big families, coup resistance fighters, farmers and Turkish Cypriots.
As for our gold reserves, we should save them for the day when not even a hundred per cent of the annual state expenditure will be enough to pay the wages of our public parasites.
“THE LACK of money does not justify delaying the start of work on the new Limassol-Saittas road,” said AKEL deputy Yiannakis Thoma. The building of the road “is a matter of life and death”, said the mukhtar of Pelendri at the same House committee meeting, which tried to persuade the government to release the funds it does not have for the project.
There is a perfectly good road from Limassol to Saittas and there is no need for another one, especially when there is no money in the kitty. The only reason villagers want a new road is because it would increase the price of their land by 10 to 20 per cent. We will pay for a road we do not need, with money we do not have so that a couple of hundred villagers can sell their land at a higher price. It makes perfect economic sense.
Exactly the same reasoning is behind the calls for the construction of a Paphos-Polis road, which will cost the taxpayer some €300 million. The number of people using the existing road over the year would not justify €50 million being spent on it.
ALTHOUGH he often plays the humble man of the people, our comrade presidente is capable of being incredibly arrogant, as European Public Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou discovered on Wednesday.
Mrs Vassiliou had complained about the government’s failure to inform the EU, as it had to do, about the aflatoxins saga. A week had passed without Kyproulla giving any information to Androulla. The government spokesman put the onus on Androulla, saying that she should have asked to be briefed by the government before accusing it of mishandling the crisis.
As for Christofias, he condescendingly announced: “The assorted commissariats should become informed before taking a final position.” Correct point, so why did his minions fail to inform the Commissar.
FRAPPE drinkers at our establishment no longer ask for their drink to have milk. They ask either for a “frappe with a few aflatoxins” or an “aflatoxin frappe” if they are accustomed to an all-milk frappe.
Not everyone took seriously this media-created problem, which was blown out of all proportion; you needed to drink a couple of gallons of milk to absorb enough aflatoxin M1 to harm yourself, given the levels of the substance found in milk.
The real scandal was the way the agriculture ministry officials were protecting the importers of animal feed, which had caused the problem to the cows, obdurately refusing to name them. Only after Politis named the two importers did the ministry officially release the names of the two companies.
When the yoghurt produced by two small units was found to have contained aflatoxin, the authorities immediately released the names, probably destroying the businesses as well. It was not even as if they had done anything wrong – they were supplied with contaminated milk by someone whose name never made the papers.
The small guys are always given to the media lynch mob by government officials, who always protect the big boys that give them the expensive presents.
ENVIRONMENT Commissioner and professional global warming worrier, Charalambos Theopemptou was in the media spotlight last Thursday, World Environment Day, warning us about the need to reduce CO2 emissions.
On one radio show he was lamenting the disappearance of the seasons and rising climates. If only these sensitive tree-huggers did not exaggerate so much in order to drive home their doom and gloom message.
Theopemptou insisted that he remembered the time when the CTO was advertising the fact that you could go skiing in Troodos and a couple of hours later go for a swim in the sea. You can still that today, despite the global warming, as long as you are prepared to go for a swim in February.
But was there ever a time when you could go skiing in the mountains and then go for a swim in the seas without your cojones being reduced to marbles? It may have happened once in the last 50 years, but it is doubtful it was ever a theme of CTO advertising.
BUT IT was not only the God-sent Commissioner who was worried about global warming. EDEK chief Yiannakis Omirou wrote a passionate article urging us all to help save the planet and listed a series of measures that should be taken. Yiannakis is worrying too much of late and we are concerned.
He was worried about the text of the joint communiqué issued after the Talat Christofias meeting; then he was worried about the intellectual terror exercised against those who express different view on the Cyprob; he was also worried about the hostile reaction to comments made by his mentor and spiritual father Dr Faustus. And now he is worried about the future of the planet as well.
The guy needs to chill out, lighten up before all this worrying affects his health. If he can’t relax, he should have a few drinks, or a couple of valiums, or light up a joint or all three at once.
