Who belongs where?

We recently attended the wedding of a son of parents with whom we have  been friends since the early 1970s, when I met them in Mexico. All three of us were students living in Mexico City. The parents of the groom are a Filipina mother and a Scottish father. The parents of the bride are a Swiss-German mother and a British father.

The cultural resonances of the ceremony were varied. The groom wore a kilt in his family tartan. Many of the male guests likewise wore kilts or tartan trousers. The bride arrived accompanied by a piper in full Scottish attire, although I discovered later that he is Irish, and thus shares Celtic traditions across borders. A Filipina cousin of the groom had brought from the Philippines 13 gold “aris” coins, in the Philippines traditionally presented to the bride by her new husband. Then came a piece of Swiss-German tradition: the presentation of two piglets to the couple as a symbol of good fortune. Next came a chimney sweep, considered to be a symbol of good luck in Britain and other European countries. The ceremony ended with a Celtic blessing delivered by the groom’s father in the broadest Scots he could manage.

I thought about this wedding as I read reports of Mr Trump’s speech to the United Nations. It seems that he espouses an idea, which also motivates politicians in some European countries, that a country’s culture is defined by its rightful inhabitants and that patriots must defend this culture against dilution by people from other national cultures. The definition of the rightful inhabitant and the patriot is left usefully vague.

In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a number of steps to reduce the legal protections of those who enter or attempt to enter the USA, whether as undocumented individuals, refugees fleeing economic hardship or violence, or asylum seekers escaping from direct threats to their lives. When Mr Trump threatened Mexico with ruinous trade tariffs if the Mexican government did not take steps that he considers adequate  to prevent such people from entering the USA. Mexico was forced to do as Mr Trump demanded, and further agreed that it could be considered a safe country in which to apply for asylum or another protected refugee status. This is a rather empty promise, since Mexico lacks a developed asylum infrastructure. An application for asylum in Mexico is now considered a reason to deny asylum in the USA. The USA likewise pressured Guatemala to agree to a similar arrangement. Those seeking entry into the USA now have to wait in Mexico until they are assigned a date for their case to be heard in the USA according to a system managed by the US authorities. Those caught on the US side of the border without authorisation are returned to Mexico.

The result of this is that, on the Mexican side of the border, there are now ever larger encampments of people from Central America, but also from South America, Cuba and some African countries. These people have no means of sustaining themselves and are easy prey for people traffickers, kidnappers (if they have relatives already in the USA as demonstrated by the call history on their phones) and other criminals. The Mexican government has attempted to prevent those heading towards the USA from entering Mexico from Guatemala, a difficult task for a country with limited law enforcement facilities, attempting to close a border in some very remote regions difficult of access. Mexico also tries to intercept undocumented travellers heading north throughout its territory. Those of us who live in Europe saw how difficult it was for much wealthier European countries to control large numbers of refugees fleeing the Syrian and other conflicts. Imagine a country that cannot yet provide adequate housing, health care and security for its own population, having to bear the costs of doing the nasty work of a bigger, wealthier, domineering country to the north.

All of this has some very unfair and undesirable consequences for Mexico. In essence, it converts the entire apparatus of the Mexican state into border guards working at the bidding of the USA at Mexico’s expense. The Mexicans may not have paid to build Mr Trump’s wall but they are certainly paying to police his southern border. In particular, a newly-formed National Guard (created by bringing the federal police under the command of the Mexican army), intended to combat organized crime and its related violence, is now burdened with a large additional task. This makes the reduction of crime and violence in Mexico a much more difficult challenge. Mr Trump’s policy passes the financial and human costs of controlling the border to a Mexican state that lacks the economic and human resources to do so effectively and humanely.

Among the more serious undesirable consequences is the incentivisation of people trafficking, kidnapping and other horrific crimes. Desperate people accumulated in the border regions, with no legal sources of income and without access to health care, education for their children, and so on,  and, in many cases, unable to return to home countries that they fled to escape danger, are easy prey to crooks. Moreover, in so far as US policy is intended to prevent criminals entering the USA, it is myopic in the extreme. Well-funded narco-criminals are not living in tent cities on the border waiting for US authorities to give them a hearing. They have other means of crossing the border and transporting their merchandise across it. While the focus of the US Customs and Border Protection is occupied with great numbers of desperate, vulnerable people, of whom very few will be criminals, the powerful and sophisticated narco-criminals can operate while the attention of the US is directed at others. Indeed, since the drug cartels have very diversified “businesses”, Mr Trump has provided them with a large captive market for their people trafficking and extorsion enterprises.

Which brings us back to the question of who deservres to be in the USA – who are Mr Trump’s patriots to be? By and large, the modern descendants of North America’s indigenous people (or rather, the earliest arrivals, since they came from Asia) live as federally defined tribes, most in reservations under the direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I suspect they are not frequently in Mr Trump’s thoughts. Then, about 150 years ago, quite a number of Mexican citizens found themselves on the US side of a new border. They antedated more “Anglo-Saxon” residents of states such as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. How should people fleeing persecution, violence, exploitation and other dangers be defined and accommodated? Of course, the USA has to control its borders, but blanket exclusion at the expense of a poorer neighbour is not likely to be a wise or sustainable solution. It is certainly not humane.

For more than two decades I had an office in New York where people of many backgrounds worked. I recall that in the 1980s one colleague was a young blonde, fair-skinned woman, a daughter of a prominent lawyer, and a graduate of a good university. During one visit my colleagues consulted me about the completion of a declaration of the backgrounds of our staff so that the city or state (I forget which) of New York could assess diversity in the workplace. Our young colleague was able to document descent from a native American tribe, so we were able to declare her as a native American employee. Identity and patriotism do not always come in the nice neat packages that Mr Trump wants us to envision.

Hot Brexit News

I spent my student days at Downing College, Cambridge, which was particularly renowned as a lawyer’s college. There I met a young law student from Wales. We were not particularly friends, but we met occasionally for lunch when we both ended up working in London in the 1980s. If I remember right, he was at the time an international shipping specialist. I have not seen him in decades, but was briefly in touch two years ago when I  saw his photo on the cover of my college newsletter. He had just been appointed a justice of the UK’s Supreme Court.

If you are wondering what this preamble has to do with Brexit, he was one of eleven judges who today ruled on two cases related to the prorogation of Parliament by the current government.

The Supreme Court ruled today concerning the lawfulness of the government’s prorogation of Parliament. The maximum number of eleven justices heard  the case. The ruling was unanimous, which is quite remarkable. The ruling was read by justice Lady Hale with admirable clarity and precision. If you were to meet Lady Hale in your local supermarket, she might seem to be anybody’s grandmother, but she has a razor-sharp mind.

My non-lawyer’s understanding of the ruling is as follows:

1.     The court ruled that the prorogation is justiciable. The government had argued that it is not.

2.     The court then ruled that the power of prorogation has limits (a 17^th-century precedent was cited), and that therefore the court had to rule as to whether the limits of the power of prorogation had been exceeded. The government had argued that the court has no power to rule as to the limits of the “prerogative power” of prorogation.

3.     The court distinguished between recess and prorogation. When Parliament is in recess it does not sit for its day-to-day business but Parliamentary business can and does continue. Committees can scrutinize government actions, and other business proceeds as normal. Prorogation is quite different: it stops all Parliamentary business, any laws that have not received Royal Assent lapse. At this time of year Parliament would normally be in recess so that MPs can attend the annual conferences of their parties (Liberal Democrat last week, Labour this week, Conservative next week).

4.     The court further ruled that prorogation is not a procedure in Parliament. This is a rather technical point. In effect it means that prorogation was not simply a normal procedure of Parliament but was, rather, imposed on Parliament by the government.

5.     The court then ruled as to whether the prorogation exceeded legal limits. The government had argued that it needed to prorogue Parliament to prepare for a Queen’s Speech to start a new session of Parliament, and that this was a perfectly normal procedure. The court ruled that the prorogation was clearly excessive: prorogation is normally a matter of four to six days, not five weeks.

6.     The court pointed out that the timing of the prorogation was significant. By 31 October Parliament must decide whether or not our nation embarks on a constitutional change of great significance. The prorogation clearly denied Parliament the time and ability to discuss and scrutinize this important matter. In short, this prorogation, made in exceptional circumstances, was an extreme act with no justification. It had substantial effects on Parliamentary democracy. The government had argued the contrary.

7.     The Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen was unlawful. The prorogation is “void and of no effect”. That is to say that Parliament has not been prorogued and can resume sitting when called by the Speaker of the House, not by the government.

8.     The court emphasized that the only justification for prorogation that it had been given by the government was a memo from the Director of Legislative Affairs in 10 Downing Street. This memo did not justify the extent of the prorogation.

There was not a hint of uncertainty or nuance in the judgement. The ruling clearly stated that the Prime Minister unlawfully advised the Queen to prorogue parliament, and in doing so breached the fundamental constitutional principle of Parliamentary sovereignty, and the ability of Parliament to hold the government to account.

I cannot tell you what will happen next – except that I expect Parliament to resume sitting promptly. It is clear that the Prime minister has over-reached himself. To be elected as leader of the Conservative Party he promised to leave the EU by 31 October come what may, with no legislative authority to do so. He lost every vote in Parliament during the few days that he allowed it to sit. He tried to prevent Parliament opposing his plans by simply suspending it until it was too late to act. He failed to consider those who might oppose his actions. One opponent is a Scottish National Party MP, Joanna Cherry. She brought a case in the Scottish Court of Session. The other is a business woman, Gina Miller, who brought her case at the UK High Court. She previously challenged Prime Minister May’s plan to deny Parliament a vote as to whether to give notice of the UK’s intention to leave the EU. I am afraid  to say that she should probably have a bodyguard for the near future.

Prorogation and humble addresses

The former Black Rod with his rod

In the early hours of this morning (10 September) an official read to the leader of the House of Lords the following words: “My Lords, it not being convenient for Her Majesty personally to be present here this day, she has been pleased to cause a Commission under the Great Seal to be prepared for proroguing this present Parliament.” 

The current Black Rod

An official called Black Rod is then despatched to summon the members of the House of Commons to the House of Lords. There, representatives of the Lords greet the members of the House by doffing their caps (or in the case of female Lords, nodding). A list of bills that are to receive the Royal Assent before Parliament is prorogued is read out, and after each bill the Clerk of Parliament declares in Norman French “La Reyne le veult”. (Remember that the Normans invaded us in 1066).

 

Lords doffing

Many opposition MPs remained in the House of Commons singing The Red Flag and other songs. A small group of MPs tried to prevent the Speaker of the House leaving to go to the House of Lords, but were unsuccessful.

Yesterday was a busy day. The House passed a bill that requires the Prime Minister to request an extension of EU membership if he is unable to negotiate an exit agreement by 19 October. This is designed to prevent a “no deal” Brexit, in preparation for which the government has spent billions of pounds, and almost all its time in recent weeks. The Prime Minister has declared that he will not request an extension. There are apparently 20 or more ways that he could achieve this. The most obvious, is to reach an agreement with the EU. Another proposed plan is to threaten to disrupt EU business so severely that the EU cannot tolerate our membership any longer. A drastic alternative would be to resign, in which case the opposition might form a government and be blamed (or congratulated, depending on your view) for not leaving the EU on 31 October. A radical alternative would be to send two letters to the EU on 19 October: one requesting an extension and one declaring that the government does not really want one. This is probably illegal. A still more radical procedure would be simply to ignore the law. It is possible that the EU will refuse an extension on the grounds that the UK is a thorough nuisance. The French President is known to have lost patience with us. I cannot criticize him for feeling so. In sum, nobody knows what will happen.

There were two humble addresses. These are non-government motions, formally structured as a request to the monarch, used by the opposition to propose motions without government approval. The Speaker has to allow such addresses. Speaker Bercow did just this and also announced his resignation by 31 October, timed to ensure that the current Parliament elects his successor. Given the Parliamentary arithmetic, this means that the Conservative Party cannot choose its favoured candidate for Speaker. The Conservative Party loathes the current Speaker because he has made several important rulings that the government does not like.

Dominic Grieve, MP (left), giving the first humble address

The first humble address, requires the government to deliver to the Commons all communications made by a list of named government advisers concerning prorogation and planning for a “no deal” Brexit. In addition, it requires the government to disclose its assessment (a document known as Yellowhammer) of the effects of a “no deal” Brexit. This motion was passed.

The second, moved by the leader of the opposition, prohibits the government from ignoring an Act of Parliament (in particular the bill concerning extension of EU membership mentioned above). The motion passed.

Before the end of business yesterday the government made one final attempt to call an election on 14 October. However, the motion failed to receive the necessary majority.

Parliament is now prorogued from 10 September until 14 October. Except for the option of reaching an agreement with the EU, the government’s room for manoeuvre appears to be severely limited, unless somebody has a very cunning plan indeed. It is now too late to hold an election before the end of October. The big question for the moment, therefore, is whether or not the government reaches an agreement with the EU, and if not whether it agrees to request an extension of membership.

NOTE: because I did not post them on my blog previously, I am copying below two notes I sent earlier this month concerning the current political embroglio.

WRITTEN 5 September 2019:

First of all, the basic facts. The House of Commons passed both the first reading and the second reading of a bill that obliges the Prime Minister to seek a delay of Brexit in order to avoid a non-deal exit. The combined opposition had a majority of 28 out of 627 MPs who voted. As these things go that is a large margin by which to lose. The second reading means that the bill now goes to the House of Lords.

The government then moved a motion to call a general election under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. This was lost by 298 for to 56 against (the Labour Party abstained). The government needed 424 votes to carry the motion. You can do the math.

In theory, therefore, the government is legally obliged to do something it has vowed not to do (delay Brexit beyond 31 October) and cannot call a general election, which is the usual way the government would escape from this trap, because it cannot get enough votes to call one. The government has these remaining options:

·      To instruct its peers in the House of Lords to filibuster the bill obliging the government to seek a delay. At 01:30 this morning the government decided not to do this. Thus, the bill will pass. There must have been an undeclared motive for failing to obstruct the bill’s progress.

·      Pass a new bill designed solely to call a general election. This would override the Fixed Term Parliament Act and would require a majority of one vote. The government now has fewer MPs than it did on Monday because of defections and withdrawing the whip from 21 Conservatives who voted against the government, and one defection. Thus, the Conservatives have 289 MPs. They can count on 10 DUP MPs from Northern Ireland: total 299. If my maths are right, the Labour Party plus other parties absolutely opposed to the government have 273 votes. If the MPs expelled from the Conservative Party vote with the opposition, the total would be 294. Leaving aside a few odds and ends (Sinn Fein who do not attend the House of Commons and a few others). This means that the Scottish National Party has the votes to decide the matter: 289 Conservatives + 35 SNP = 324, a majority of perhaps 25. The government may now try to split the SNP from the rest of the opposition.

·      Resign, in which case the Labour Party might try to form a coalition government. This would end Mr Johnson’s career

·      Act on the instructions of the bill currently before Parliament and seek an extension to Brexit. This would wreak great damage on the Conservative Party and would likewise probably end Mr Johnson’s career.

I have been considering whether Mr Johnson has miscalculated, or whether all of these events are going to plan. His behaviour indicates that from the beginning his plan was to have a general election, in which Brexit would be the key issue so that he could portray his opponents as surrendering to Brussels. Conservatives now include the work “surrender” in every utterance. He prorogued Parliament in order to reduce the time available to Parliament to challenge his plans. He then deployed a mixture of aggression (threats to end the careers of opponents in his own party) and cajoling (trying to persuade pliable MPs to wait until 17 October to debate a new arrangement that he claims he can negotiate). If he had succeeded in achieving Brexit on 31 October he could have campaigned in an election as the hero who rescued us from Brussels. If he were to be frustrated by the opposition, he could call an election and campaign to save us from the “chickens”, or “great girls’ blouses”, who passed the “Brussels surrender bill” (all these insults have been used in the last day or two).

The Prime minister’s problem is that his own actions have deprived him of a majority in Parliament. His other problem, is that Mr Corbyn, the Labour Leader has not been goaded into an election until he is ready (i.e. until a no-deal Brexit has been prevented and possibly until after 31 October). To call an election by passing a new law through Parliament he needs the support of a party big enough to give him a majority. The only option is the SNP. Now, the SNP oppose Brexit entirely and loathe Mr Johnson. However, the party exists to call a referendum on Scottish Independence, and its leaders may calculate that Mr Johnson is so unpopular in Scotland, that in an early election they can win more seats in parliament and achieve their referendum.

Finally, the Prime Minister’s behaviour has appalled a large element of his party and there have been protests about his handling of the government’s business this week. Indeed, Jo Johnson, the Prime Minister’s brother and a cabinet minister, has resigned from the government and will not stand for election again because he disapproves of Mr Johnson’s behaviour. He will have to work very hard to avoid more defections.

WRITTEN 4 September 2019:

Parliament returned from its summer recess yesterday at 2:30pm. A lot happened that afternoon.

As you will recall, the Prime Minister had already asked for the Queen’s consent to prorogue Parliament at the end of this week, so time for those opposed to his Brexit plans was very short indeed.

In order to get his way, Mr Johnson did the following before Parliament resumed:

·      He claimed that negotiations with the EU are progressing well and that to vote against him would undermine those negotiations and make a no-deal Brexit more likely. MPs should therefore do nothing to obstruct his negotiations, and in any case would be able to debate the results of negotiations after the meeting of EU heads of government on 17 October. The problems with this line of argument were:

o   His opponents do not believe that Mr Johnson is negotiating at all and is preparing for a no-deal Brexit while pretending the opposite. In sum, their argument is that he cannot be trusted. There is plenty in Mr Johnson’s past to support that judgement of his character and veracity.

o   The EU is not aware that Mr Johnson is negotiating with them and has said so publicly.

o   A debate on 17 October is too late to take an effective action.

·      The government “whips” (who instruct MPs how to vote) told Conservative MPs opposed to the Prime Minister’s strategy that if they vote against the government they would have the “whip withdrawn” (i.e. be expelled from the party) and be “deselected” (not chosen as a candidate) at the next election. In effect, this is a threat to end the political career of the rebels, including those who a few weeks ago were government ministers and Winston Churchill’s grandson, Nicholas Soames.

·      He met many of the “rebels” for an hour yesterday morning to press them to vote for him. The meeting was by all accounts rancorous and a failure.

·      Declared that a vote against him would be considered  a vote of no confidence and that he would move a motion to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. However, under the Fixed Term Parliament Act two thirds of MPs must vote to call an election. The question is whether the other parties will decide to fight an election on a date and on terms decided by Mr Johnson.

In short, the Prime Minister used all the tools at his disposal to prevent defeat in Parliament.

The government lost the vote 328-301. During the debate one Conservative MP theatrically crossed the chamber to join the Liberal Democrat Party as Mr Johnson was speaking. A further 21 voted against him. Mr Johnson then declared his intention to call an election. The leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, who alone has enough MPs to provide the necessary majority, stated that he would not agree to an election until legislation is passed to rule out a no-deal Brexit and instruct the government to seek further time to negotiate with the EU.

Parliament will debate a bill to prevent a no-deal Brexit today.

I suspect that Mr Johnson began the day thinking he had all, or almost all, of the cards in his hand. This morning he has few cards left unless the opposition gives him an electoral card. He does have one card left. The legislation must pass the House of Lords. In theory, Conservative peers could filibuster to talk the bill out of time, but I understand that the leader of the Lords intends to try to prevent this.

Is AMLO’s bite worse than his bark?

If you were to translate for a Mexican friend the phrase “his bark is worse than his bite”, your friend might interpret it quite differently than you do. In Mexico the bite (la mordida) is a bribe. Now, although Mexico has a deserved reputation for corruption, other nations are also plagued by public dishonesty. When I lived in Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s the governor of Maryland was

Senator Huey Long

convicted of taking bribes and sentenced to jail. When he and his wife left the governor’s mansion they took with them some of the official furniture. A Mexican who reads Robert Penn Warren’s brilliant book All the King’s Men, about Huey Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928-1932 and a US Senator until his assassination in 1935, would instantly recognize Long’s style of politics. In the UK, a publishing company that employed me for 27 years was found to have bribed an African politician to win a World Bank contract. And it is generally accepted that the City of London's lawyers, banks and financial advisers help to process transactions on behalf of individuals whose sources of wealth may not be entirely honest.

We often take holidays in Sagunto, in the

The Trama Gürtel spread across Spain

province of Valencia, Spain. For many years, I followed in my holiday newspapers the gradual unfolding of a nationwide corruption scandal known as the trama Gürtel (“Gürtel conspiracy”). Valencia was the heart of the racket. The President of the province of Valencia was found to have received a considerable number of very expensive suits from a tailor in Madrid. He had no credit card receipts, he explained, because he had paid in cash. The mayor of Valencia acquired large numbers of designer handbags which she was fond of carrying at her public appearances. The nonchalant sense of entitlement reminded me of stories of corrupt Mexican politicians. The scandal and the associated investigations spread and carried on for years, eventually reaching the highest levels of government and forcing the resignation of the Presidente de Gobierno (Prime Minister) of Spain.

However, although Mexico is not uniquely familiar with corruption, bribery is uncomfortably common, and high level corruption is generally practiced with impunity unless it becomes too brazen. I once met at a party the wife of the police officer in charge of the Mexico City car pound. He had just been jailed for systematic theft of car parts, which had been exposed in a newspaper. His wife was indignant: he had done nothing wrong! Arturo “EL Negro” Durazo, chief of Mexico City police 1976-1982 was found to own several expensive homes, including one in Los Angeles. When asked how he could afford these homes on his modest salary he replied “I am thrifty”. All was well until his patron, president José López Portillo, left office. In 1984 Arturo was arrested in Puerto Rico, extradited to Mexico, tried and jailed and his properties confiscated.

 

Arturo "El Negro" Durazo, centre

Retribution does sometimes reach even those at the highest levels of power. The brother of former

President Luis Echeverría Álvarez in the 1970s

president Carlos Salinas de Gortari was jailed (but not until after his brother left office) for arranging the murder of a politician and money laundering, possibly linked to drug cartels. The hand of Mexican justice even once threatened to put a former president on trial. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, was president from 1970-1976. In the previous administration, Luis had been Secretario de Gobernación, in charge of public order. He is generally suspected to have ordered the massacre of students in Tlatelolco in 1968, and the killing of more students, known as the Corpus Christi massacre, during his presidential term. In 2006 a court ordered his arrest and imprisonment on charges of murder, but he was freed by a federal court before he suffered the indignity of imprisonment.

Echeverría’s near-arrest caused a sensation because tradition dictates that no president allows the prosecution of a predecessor. That tradition may be about to change under AMLO. The administration of his direct predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto (known as EPN), is reputed to have been notoriously corrupt. Indeed, accusations of personal corruption were made quite early in his presidency (this in itself is very unusual). It was discovered that one of his homes (known as the White House) was built by a contractor to whom he had given contracts while he was governor of the State of Mexico. EPN appointed an official to investigate. The conclusion was that the cost of $6 million was paid entirely by EPN’s wife, a wealthy soap opera actress, from her earnings. Now, it is true that soap operas are a huge business in Mexico, but $6 million is an awful lot of Mexican pesos.

 

EPN and his wife (they are now separated)

In the first year or so of AMLO’s administration, several high-ranking officials of EPN’s government have been arrested and accused of corruption. Some of those charged have claimed that EPN knew all about their activities. One example, of corruption under EPN’s administration is the Estafa Maestra (“Education Racket”). The estafa involved the award of contracts to assorted universities to carry out work on behalf of the federal government. The universities then set up companies to carry out the work but none was carried out. Nobody quite knows where the money paid for work not done ended up. The question now is whether AMLO allows, or at least fails to prevent, EPN being called to testify. If he does, he will have created an important precedent. Indeed, the precedent could be applied to him by his successor should he stray from the straight and narrow.

AMLO at his daily press conference known as la manañera (morning event)

AMLO was elected with a landslide because he promised to reduce violent crime (so far it has increased), to do more for the poor (he has put more money into social programmes) and to end corruption. Whether EPN is to some degree called to account will be a key test of the last promise.

AMLO (left) and Manuel Bartlett (right)

Like many political promises, AMLO's commitment to end corruption is not as simple or clear cut as it seems at first sight. Mexican democracy is relatively new: the first freely elected president (Vicente Fox) took office only in 2000. A large number of senior political figures began their careers under the old system of "managed democracy". Indeed, AMLO himself began his career in the official party, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), in his home state of Tabasco. He first campaigned to be elected president in 2006. One of his supporters was Manuel Bartlett Díaz, former Secretario de Gobernación (1982-1988), one of the most powerful cabinet posts, under PRI president Miguel de la Madrid. AMLO appointed his old political friend Manuel as CEO of the Federal Electricity Commission. According to a recent newspaper opinion piece, Mr Bartlett has 23 houses in desirable locations in Mexico worth "nearly 8 million pesos" (some £33 million). In February he accused former officials of the Commission of signing contratos leoninos ("unfair contracts") and proposed international arbitration to examine them. One of the contracts was signed by a company owned by Carlos Slim Helú, Mexico's wealthiest, and immensely powerful, man. A row ensued. AMLO then intervened to reach an agreement and Mr Slim appeared at the president's morning press conference. 

Men and women with skeletons in their closets abound in Mexican politics, and it is almost certain that some member of AMLO's administration have pasts that they would prefer not to be examined closely.

Reading recommendation: those intrigued by Huey Long are recommended to read Robert Penn Warren's book, which brilliantly captures the political flavour of Louisiana at the time.

“Super Mac’s” finger on the UK’s nuclear button

I have just read a review of Peter Hennessy’s latest book, Winds of Change: Britain in the Early Sixties. Hennessy is perhaps the most acute historian of modern Britain of our times. During the period in which his book is set the Prime Minister was Harold Macmillan. The title of his book is taken from a phrase used in Macmillan’s speech in South Africa in 1960, in which “Super Mac” acknowledged that Britain would have to allow its colonies in Africa to become independent states.

I worked with Macmillan in 1980. I was a Vice President of a tiny publishing company, Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, Inc, incorporated in Delaware, with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Headquarters” is a rather grandiose term: we were four people in a room on the 12^th floor of the National Press Building at 14^th and F streets. Maryse Rhein, a Swiss national, had worked with me since 1977. Rose Ann Nichols joined us later. She had a military background: her husband Bob was a US army colonel, a psychiatrist by trade. Linda Kraynak was our young office assistant, possessed of a charming southern accent which charmed our male customers.

Pinchas Zuckerman

Macmillan came to the USA in November 1980 to launch The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians at a glamorous event in the Starlight Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. Our guests heard Pinchas Zuckerman play and listened to speeches by the composers Virgil Thomson and Leonard Bernstein. And, of course, Super Mac.

Macmillan with JFK at the White House

When he was Prime Minister, Macmillan was responsible for ordering a nuclear attack in the event of war. In 1962, civil servants had to decide how the Prime Minister could issue the order to launch if he were in his official car when the four minute warning was issued. This was, of course, long before mobile phones. It was decided to give Macmillan’s diver the kind of radio used by the Automobile Association to contact its motorbike mechanics. The driver was then to find the closest public phone box:

Perhaps the kind of phone box the Prime Minister would have used

one of the famous red boxes seen in many tourist photos. Super Mac was then to call his office and give instructions. The civil servants spotted a flaw in this plan: what if neither the driver nor the Prime Minister had the correct change to pay for a call? The solution was to instruct Mr Macmillan to reverse the charges. One suspects that the time taken to radio the driver, for the driver to find the phone box and  for the Prime Minister to reverse the charges might have taken more than the allotted four minutes of warning.

An AA motorbike mechanic in action

By the time I met him, Macmillan’s eyesight was failing and eventually he became almost blind. My friend and colleague, Richard Garnett, who was Macmillan’s editor, told a story of visiting Macmillan at his country estate during the shooting season. He found the former Prime Minister alone with his driver pointing his gun skyward. Richard asked the driver how Super Mac knew when to pull the trigger. The driver explained that he had learned to judge the exact moment to pull the trigger. As the driver told Richard, “I shout fire, he shoots and hits the bugger”.

Slightly mad as the story about the phone box and reversing the charges might seem, I recall paying a visit to an expert in civil defence at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. He told me that the first thing that would happen after a nuclear strike on the USA would be that the Mexicans would loot the country. I left our meeting with an image of vast numbers of Mexicans waiting at the border with their running shoes on ready to start looting.

Suffolk Pirates and a Raid on the Manila Galleon

During a recent walk along the River Alde, at Snape in my native Suffolk, a sailing barge passed by. Such barges were once a common sight on the coast and rivers of Suffolk. My grandfather Harry Lucas captained a barge called the Raybel and his son Arthur sailed on the Thalatta. In the bookshop at Snape Maltings I picked up a book (Robert Malster, Maritime Suffolk), which, to my surprise, includes a few pages about a piratical escapade off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, in 1587.

 

A sailing barge on the River Alde

It might seem a rather long leap to go from the contemporary backwaters of Suffolk to the Pacific, but in the 16^th-century the east coast ports were among the most important in England. Dunwich, most of which was long ago swallowed by the North Sea, supplied a large part of the fleet that defeated the Armada of Felipe II, king of Spain. While his compatriots battled the Spanish, Thomas Cavendish, a gentleman adventurer from Trimley, Suffolk, set out to raid the Spanish empire in the Americas for profit with a privately-financed fleet of three ships. A number of other Suffolk men were on board, among them Francis Petty of Eye, who chronicled the voyage, the Ipswich merchant Thomas Eldred, and Thomas Fuller also of Ipswich. Eldred was famous enough to have a pub named after him in Ipswich.

 

Left to right: Drake, Cavendish, Hawkins, British School 17th century

Navigation was a dangerous business in those days. In early 1587, the fleet spent seven weeks passing through the Straits of Magellan at the foot of South America. The smallest of the ships, the Hugh Gallant, was so damaged that it nearly sank. The other two, Desire and Content, had rounded the Cape earlier and put ashore to look for water, only to be attacked by Indians, who mistook the English sailors for Spaniards. Schoolboys of my generation learned of famous sailors such as Cavendish, Drake and Hawkins as English heroes. To the Spanish, they were, of course, murderous pirates. Cavendish was certainly piratical as he made his way up the coast of South America, engaging in occasional combat with Spanish forces and burning settlements. By the time the ships reached the coast of Ecuador, the complement of men was so reduced that Cavendish decided to sink the Hugh Gallant and distribute its crew among the remaining two ships.

Off the coast of Mexico Cavendish seized a large Spanish ship. A captured Frenchman had enticing news: the merchants of Mexico were expecting a galleon from Manila with a rich cargo. Cavendish sailed north to the coast of Baja California until he sighted the Santa Ana. The Spanish galleon was much larger than the English ships, but it was heavily laden and had no cannon. Its only defences were Spanish soldiers armed with pikes and arquebuses. The smaller but more manoeuvrable Desire and Content’s cannon bombarded the Santa Ana until the crew were forced to surrender. Cavendish loaded gold and precious textiles on to his ships, set the Spanish crew ashore and set light to the Santa Ana. Then he continued his voyage across the Pacific, around the Cape of Good Hope, and returned home with a handsome profit and the fame of circumnavigating the globe.

 

A map of Cavendish's circumnavigation

The journey from Acapulco to Manila was a perilous and unpleasant undertaking, especially the return from the Philippines, which could take from three to six months. Space on board was limited, so much so that in 1620 the King issued an order limiting passengers to one slave per person to conserve supplies. Rats, cockroaches and other bugs were endemic, food rotted and became worm-ridden, water could become foul or simply run out. Scurvy, bubonic plague, typhoid and dysentery were common. The risk of death was such that all passengers were obliged to confess and take communion at Manila before leaving for Acapulco. A royal decree ordered that there should be two pilots on each galleon, since pilots frequently died en route.

 

Model of a Manila galleon

A Japanese fall front cabinet, 16th or 17th century

In June 1624 a Catalan scribe by the name of Gaspar Pagés de Moncada boarded a galleon in Manila. Gaspar took some precautions against the privations of the voyage. He took on board a barrel of chocolate, known to keep when other foods had rotted, and four amphorae of wine, so that he did not have to depend on the ship’s limited water supply. He also took with him a range of exotic Asian silk and cotton fabrics, items made of marble, a Japanese writing desk, two Chinese porcelain plates (broken) and a salt cellar. The fabrics included two pairs of Chinese silk stockings (one silver coloured, the other white).  Gaspar planned to sell his modest treasure of Asian goods in Mexico to make a quick profit. He hoped to return to the two houses and the vineyards he had left behind in Cataluña, but he would never see them again. He fell ill on the journey and was set ashore in January 1625. His final resting place was historic, since he was buried in February in the church of the town of Colima, now the cathedral, built 1525-1540, less than 20 years after the Conquest of Mexico.

 

Colima cathedral

Just as Gaspar would never again see his native Cataluña, Thomas Cavendish would eventually die far from the estuaries and marshes of Suffolk. The Content disappeared from view soon after the looting the Santa Ana, and Cavendish set out alone in the Desire across the Pacific to complete his circumnavigation of the globe. He sank his profits from the Santa Ana in a fleet of five new ships and in 1591 set out once again to raid the Pacific coast of the Americas. This expedition was an utter disaster and Cavendish died in May or June 1592, probably near Ascension Island in the south Atlantic.

These connections between far-flung places, are a reminder to those of us who now travel with ease from Europe to the Americas and to Asia, that our global world has its roots in events some five centuries ago. Gaspar and Thomas were, no doubt, driven by dreams of riches, but they also had a capacity to tolerate privations and death in ways that we would hardly imagine if historical documents did not reveal them to us.