Fifteen-minute rule

The cabinet office minister, Francis Maude, has suggested that public sector workers protesting against cuts in their pensions should confine their proposed strike to fifteen minutes' duration.

This is an idea that should spread. I propose:

fifteen-minute jail terms for fraud and malfeasance in public office;

fifteen-minute jobs for the unemployed;

fifteen-minute mortgages for first-time house-buyers;

a fifteen-minute nuclear exchange between the United States and Iran;

fifteen minutes of fame for Mr Abramovich;

fifteen minutes of silence from John Cage

I might add to the list later.

Clochemerle-Babylon

The Church needs a firm hierachy and is forced to distrust such of her underlings as show a tendency to become too holy. It would be no less disquieting for a bishop to see his clergy setting themselves seriously to live in the imitation of Jesus Christ, than for a general to see his corporals drawing the inspiration of their behaviour directly from Napoleon. Virtue, merit and talent must be kept within decent limits.

Gabriel Chevallier, 1954

Addison and Steele and the gentlemen in the coffee house (and I expect Lord Digby, as he maintained the port of his quality) would have thoroughly approved.

From eighteenth-century barrels to Global

James Man (1755–1823) was the founder of Man Group, the United Kingdom's largest alternative investment management business and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Born in Whitechapel and apprenticed to a William Humphrey as a barrel maker, James Man decided to establish his own business as a sugar-broker in 1783. In 1784 he secured a contract to supply the Royal Navy with rum. This business grew into Man Group, one of the largest investment management businesses in the world. He retired in 1819 and moved to Dartmouth, Devon where he died in 1823.


'MF Global a US-based futures broker that can trace its roots back to 18th-century London, yesterday [30 October] became the first major US casualty of the eurozone debt crisis by filing for bankruptcy protection, putting 3,000 jobs at risk after a rescue takeover failed to materialise.

'As Barclays did with Lehman in 2008, potential bidders may emerge to cherry-pick the best operations out of bankruptcy from a business that can trace its roots back to 1783 when sugar broker James Man – who provides the M in the firm's name – set up in the City of London. He also provided the name for Man Group, the hedge fund listed in London which spun off what was then Man Financial - later MF Global - in 2007 and sold out entirely in 2009. Man Group stressed yesterday that it no connection to the firm or any exposure.'

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau ... Olli Rehn

According to Wikipedia, 'The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm. Social contract theory played an important historical role in the emergence of the idea that political authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.'

Olli Rehn, well-known as a philosopher in his spare time from his role as European Union economic and monetary affairs commissioner, has developed the theory a little further:

Olli Rehn said that Papandreou's unexpected decision to call a referendum over the bailout agreement had been a "breach of confidence" that had thrown Greece's commitment to its fiscal adjustment programme into question.


"We now have to repair the social contract between Greece and the euro area which should be done in writing," he said, insisting that without written confirmation a critical €8bn aid instalment would not be released.

Demos

Until recently comment on the steady growth of non-democratic decision-making groups and practices in the handling of the European debt crisis has been mostly confined to free-lance comment such as that found on David Malone's blog. It is interesting to find the point now being argued very forthrightly by Larry Elliott in the Guardian

My debt is bigger than your debt

Promethean

Michael Roth, Europe spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats in Berlin, said Papandreou's move showed courage but he was "playing with fire".

By which he meant the exercise of democracy in times of financial crisis.