Taki’s recipe for the survival of the Greek nation

The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst posing — just as Fidel did 56 years ago — as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’d take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels gang anytime. The problem is Tsipras, a vulgar-sounding name if ever there was one. Add to it the fact that he has two sons, one named after Che Guevara, the other after Carlos, the murdering Venezuelan terrorist at present languishing in a French jail. Does that tell you anything about the person the Greeks voted for to lead them out of their misery? It tells me plenty.

Athens was very quiet the night of Syriza’s victory. Most of my friends were obviously appalled at the size of Tsipras’s win. I asked them what they expected after four years of austerity. A Samaras victory? A good friend expostulated, ‘But Samaras is a cousin of mine…’ As if that made it OK. They’re funny, the Greeks. The Brussels gang inserts a Trojan Horse, Samaras, to do its bidding, the middle class disappears — 6,000 doctors go west — and my Greek friends are surprised when a Castro appears and wins big.

The losing centre-right and centre-left made mistakes big time. The first was not to leave, or threaten to leave, the euro when the crisis first broke. The Brussels gang was running very scared in 2010. No longer. Another was to turn all the power of government against Golden Dawn, a so-called neo-Nazi party, something Golden Dawn is not.