Postcard from Athens

Greece's new socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, did something very alarming on the day his cabinet was sworn into office. For the first time ever, the cabinet meeting was held in public, live on television.

How very un-Greek. It was like some horror movie out of Sweden, where Papandreou received part of his education. This isn't the way we do things in this country. We deliberate in private, then tell the Greek people what we are going to do. And they can like or lump it. What is all this public accountability nonsense? In Greece, we pay people to vote for us, either with real bribes or with the prospect of a job for life.

Everyone knows what the score is. We give your talentless son Stavros a civil service post in the ministry of public works, where he can drink coffee all day, obstruct the public and go home at two o'clock in the afternoon. The salary isn't great, but he'll have an index-linked pension. Another major perk is that every now and again, when a citizen is about to throw themself off the Acropolis in frustration, Stavros will be able to demand an envelope full of high denomination notes just to cut through the ministry's red tape. In return for this small favor, we do exactly what we like once we are in office.

Unfortunately, the old Ministry of Works, always a nice little earner, is history. Papandreou has streamlined the government and created some new ministries with very politically correct titles. For example, there's the ministry of environment, energy and climate change, which is right at the core of the prime minster's vision of creating a green economy.

I suppose the countryside is now going to be swarming with forest rangers stopping people from dumping their rubbish in the woods. How are you supposed to keep your car clean, if you can't toss your cigarette packet out of the window? This is just a knee-jerk reaction to a few little fires. Furthermore, this new ministry is planning to create electricity out of Greece's sun, wind and dormant volcanoes. Where's the money in that? What's wrong with good old lignite, or brown coal, which Greece also has in abundance? Nice handsome contracts to be had from all the mining equipment and then filling in the open cast pits afterwards.

This Papandreou is dangerous. He's threatening to destroy the status quo. Amazing when you consider he's part of a political dynasty. How are his children going to get on in the world if you get rid of nepotism and patronage? But what can you expect? Papandreou is not a proper Greek. He wasn't even born here. He was born in the United States. He's got an American mother. He's probably an agent for the CIA. Yes, of course he is. That's it.

Anyway back to that cabinet meeting. Do you know what Papandreou did? He invited the country's ombudsman to give a pep talk to the new ministers. For those of you who don't know our country very well, the ombudsman is Greece's Mr Clean and Unimpeachable. He does things like carry out investigations into how policemen shoot 15-year-old schoolboys. He tells the authorities not to be trigger happy in the future. We go, "yes, of course, you're absolutely right," and then totally ignore him and his recommendations.

Well, this ombudsman fellow had the audacity to tell the cabinet how important it is to be transparent and how corruption undermines the public's faith. What's more, Papandreou chips in and says every euro has to be accounted for. Well that's no fun is it? If he's true to his word, there'll be no more European funds spent on motorway bridges that end up in a sheer cliff and go nowhere. Or on subsidizing olive plantations that are a figment of the imagination. How's a politician supposed to survive?

It's our right to build luxury villas in protected forests. What's wrong with asking for the odd million for handing out ferry routes to the islands?

Didn't Papandreou learn anything from his old man Andreas? What a great Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou was. He survived a real corruption scandal. When he was about 300 hundred years old, he had a 30-year-old mistress who was a buxom air hostess. Every time Andreas was about to die from heart disease, the air hostess turned up and he got a new lease on life. Those were the days. A politician could start off with a donkey for transport and end up with a top of the range Mercedes. Papandreou seems to have got rid of his dad's old chums. No loyalty nowadays. Why can't George be more like his father? Mind you, the people I feel really sorry for are the journalists. If George turns Greece into Sweden, it'll be so boring, there'll be nothing to write about.


Author: Malcolm Brabant
Editor: Helen Seeney