Child care, disability and poverty in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Our son Chris continues his work supporting Pasitos de Luz, a charity that offers day care for children with disabilities whose families lack the resources to care for them during the day. We met a young mother who had applied for day care for her son Héctor. Héctor’s mother has been struggling against the impossible challenge of earning a salary while caring for her son. The young mother was thrilled that Héctor had been accepted.

Pasitos provides a safe environment, good food and therapy for children whose conditions range from Downs syndrome or cerebral palsy to learning difficulties. One little boy was born without eyes, is on the autism spectrum and had to be taught to walk. Jan and I helped with feeding at breakfast and lunch and with play for children who cannot participate in classroom programmes.

Here are some photos from our day. The first two are the charity's current list of needs:

Breakfast with Mia:

  César after eating his banana:

Manuel in the air-conditioned playroom. Air-conditioning is expensive and beyond the means of many parents:

Enrique, aged six, after a hearty lunch. Enrique loves his food and dances in his seat to a tune with a good beat:

Xochi, aged five on the left. She has three siblings. Xochi loves to talk, ask questions, and can be quite bossy in a way that is impossible to resist. She has palsy so her mobility is very restricted. To the right are Manuel and Mateo:

Lunch for (left to right) Axel, César and Kaleb. Axel and Kaleb are twins:

In the classroom with new books donated by Thames & Hudson. More are needed as are other learning materials:

In the footsteps of presidents

When General Lázaro Cárdenas was elected President of Mexico in 1934-1940, he decided that the country’s leader needed a suitable residence. A landowner gave to the government an estate on the edge of Chapultepec Park called Rancho de las Hormigas (Ranch of the Ants). Lázaro preferred to name the new residence after the farm of his wife’s family, Los Pinos ("The Pines".

For more than eight decades, Los Pinos was the private space from which the most powerful men (no women yet) governed their people, who were never allowed a glimpse of the  whitewashed buildings and carefully kept gardens. A Mexican president governs for six years (his sexenio). Under the regime forged from the struggles of the 1910-1920 revolution the president was not quite all powerful, but he received absolute deference and lived in splendour in a large private retreat sheltered from the bustle and near-chaos of the capital city.

No more. One of the first acts of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”) was to open the gates of Los Pinos to the public. This was in part a populist gesture to show Mexicans how their rulers had lived. The longer term objective is to create a cultural centre with exhibition spaces, a concert hall and a theatre. AMLO now lives in an apartment in the National Palace in the centre of the city.

Casa Lázaro Cárdenas

There are four residences in Los Pinos. The first is the Casa Lázaro Cárdenas, a large art deco-style structure. Since the building was converted to offices after Cárdenas left office, very few traces of the president remain except for his office, a room for receiving guests and a meeting room. The next residence, that of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-1958), is now a children’s reading centre: we were not allowed in without a child.

In 1946 President Miguel Alemán ordered the construction of a residence that he considered fitting for a president to receive other heads of state.

Casa Miguel Alemán

The building, said to be in a French style which I found hard to detect, was not finished until the end of his term, so Alemán never occupied it. However, all but three of his successors have spent their six-year terms there. The information panel outside promises the visitor “French furniture, Bohemian lighting and other examples of luxury popular in the middle of the last century”. However, there is  no furniture except for a library and the presidential office.

Casa Miguel Alemán: main stairs

I was told that each president brings his own furniture and takes it away at the end of his term. Our driver, Jorge, hinted that the furniture was stolen by the incumbent. The residence now functions as an exhibition space for a collection of modern Mexican painting specially commissioned in 1993.

The Presidential football pitch

There are several other structures: for example, a conference room now used as a theatre at weekends, and a large building in which concerts are now held. There is also a five aside football pitch, converted from a horse-riding area, complete with a small stand for spectators, complete with a large presidential seal. A stage for musical performances now occupies a manicured lawn.

The extensive gardens are divided into thematic areas in which to display busts and statues of important men (alas, all men) in Mexican history.

Bust of Luis Donaldo Colosio

Themes included Democracy (for example a bust of Luis Donaldo Colosio, a presidential candidate assassinated in 1994, shortly before his expected election); the 19^th-century Liberal Reform (busts of Melchor Ocampo, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, and, in pride of place, Benito Juárez); heroes of the 1910-1920 revolution (Francisco I. Madero, the “Apostle of Democracy”, the peasant leader Emiliano Zapata); heroes of the War of Independence (Father Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos).

Bust of Francisco I. Madero

From 1934 onwards, each president is marked by a statue, clearly designed to project what he considered to be his significance or major achievement.

Statue of Lázaro Cárdenas

Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) strikes a fatherly pose.

Statue of José López Portillo

José López Portillo (2976-1982), who promised to “defend the peso like a dog” and then devalued it, ever after to be greeted in public by the sound of barking, strikes a dignified pose, his hand resting on a book.

Statue of Carlos Salinas de Gortari

Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), whose promise to make Mexico a modern global economic powerhouse came to grief, holds a copy of the Free Trade Treaty signed with the USA and Canada, and recently torn up by Mr Trump.

Statue of Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox (2000-2006), the first president of an opposition party to be elected since 1920, gives a Churchillian victory sign, and stands next to a young girl with long braided hair who clutches a book (the only presidential statue to include a second figure).

Statue of Enrique Peña Nieto

Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), possibly the last president to be commemorated at Los Pinos, stands out because he alone holds the national flag. his left hand on his chest as a salute. His plinth announces that “My commitment is Mexico”, an ironic slogan for a president notorious for presiding over notorious corruption.

Students protesting in 1968

Perhaps the highlight of our visit was an exhibition to commemorate the student movement of 1968. On 2 October, the students were ambushed in the Square of the Three Cultures, in the district of Tlatelolco, by the Mexican army. An unknown number died that night, hundreds were arrested, and many (including my late friend Alfonso Landera) were forced into hiding.

Students arrested on 2 October 1968

The exhibition looks at antecedents (railway strike, tram workers’ strike, strident anticommunism, relations with the USA and the tacit approval of the American ambassador) and subsequent events (attacks on student groups by government thugs (halcones: “falcons”) in 1971; the insurgency of the schoolteacher Genaro Vázquez in the mountains of Guerrero, where I would arrive a few years later) . The narrative of the exhibition is taken from the writings of the Mexican intellectual Carlos Monsiváis. Illustrations are contemporary photographs, propaganda posters, artworks, video of an address to Congress by President Díaz Ordaz who ordered the attack, graphic designs for the 1968 Olympic games and a video of the opening ceremony. The games were intended to announce Mexico as a modern international power. Instead, Mexicans remember 1968 for the dreadful “Night of Tlatelolco”.

The optimism of the ceremony, culminating in the lighting of the Olympic flame by a female Mexican athlete, contrasted with the tragedy of the massacre ten days earlier. In 1968 I was probably hardly aware of where to find Mexico on a map, but I remember clearly a BBC broadcast during the student movement. The famous sports broadcaster Harry Carpenter commented that it was so sad that the students were disrupting preparations for the games.

Rius: Special Number about the Cocolazos ("Banging of Heads")

Particularly nostalgic for me was the liberal use of artwork of the political comic author Rius (the pseudonym of Eduardo Humberto del Río García: 1934-2017). I was an avid reader in the late 70s of his weekly Los Agachados (The Downtrodden). His witty, biting satire and evocative drawings, poked fun at the government and the USA. Rius also used his comic as a platform for educational messages. He paid a price for his work in 1968. Government agents kidnapped him, took him to a rural location and subjected him to a mock execution. He continued to draw and write.

Rius: What the Devil is Homeopathy?

"Isn't it a great sacrifice to be mayor? Hic!" "Of course: it's not even good business...I have been mayor for 20 years for the love of my people..."

 

Mexicans have had a complicated relationship with their modern presidents. At one level, they are revered and accorded enormous respect as the holders of the greatest office in the land. At another, most Mexican believe, not entirely without foundation, that presidents use their office to enrich themselves, their family and cronies. Nevertheless, some are admired, or at least given some credit, for some achievement or other: Lázaro Cárdenas for distributing land to the peasants and nationalising the petroleum companies, Ernesto Zedillo for managing the crisis caused by the murder of Colosio and managing the final transition to a greater degree of democracy, Fox for winning that election (but achieving little else, alas). On the other hand, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), and his Secretary of Government and successor as president, Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1970-1976), are generally reviled as authors of the 1968 massacre. As one tours Los Pinos, one understands how six years as the most powerful man within Mexico’s borders (but inevitably bowing more often than not to American demands), living on a luxurious estate, his every wish met with a “Yes, Mr President”, was an intoxicating episode in a president’s life. Those six years defined one man and gave each term of office (the sexenio) a very personal character.

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.