David Bennett

Macron Wins But So Does Le Pen

Macron won the second round of the presidential election in France, as expected. Of course, with the upset over Brexit and the US presidential race, ‘expected’ has taken on a meaning tinged with an understanding that nothing is expected to definitely be ‘as expected’ any longer.

A lot of voters entered a null vote, indicating that they didn’t like either candidate. That is not an invalid vote as in UK elections, but a positive vote indicating a preference.

That aside, Marine Le Pen got 10,644,118 votes (33.9% of the vote) against Macron’s 20,753,797 votes (66.1% of the vote).

In the 2002 election, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front took 4,804,713 votes in the first round.

In the run-off Jacques Chirac took 25,537,956 votes, representing 82.21% of the votes cast and Jean-Marie Le Pen took 5,525,032 votes, representing 17.79% of the votes.

So Marine Le Pen has doubled the votes and the percentage. Well yes, she might have gained a lower percentage if those null votes had gone to Macron.

But the raw numbers would still show that between 2002 and today, Le Pen the daughter – leader of the National Front – got twice as many votes as her father did fifteen years ago.

And that is a bad result for France and for the world.

What They Really Mean About Obama’s Wall Street Speech

What they really mean about Obama’s Wall Street speech is that it is tainted by the suspicion of an agreement that when he resigned, certain people would pay to hear him speak in return for favours given.

You can’t bribe a president in office or before he gets into office. You can’t bribe a prime minister, or a first minister, or any leader in a relatively open society. You can’t because sooner or later they will be found out. The money can be paid to an offshore account behind a wall of secrecy – but sooner or later it will be found out.

Or if it isn’t found out, then the tension of worrying that it might be found out will drain all the joy out of the money.

There is a simpler way. Just promise that when the president or the prime minister, etc., resigns – that he or she can give speeches at $10,000 a plate or whatever. And the speech can be deadly dull and not worth the cost of attending. But those who promised to attend will attend – and the money will be paid and nothing can be proved – and that is how people get away with it.

Not that anyone thinks Obama has done this – the problem is that he is tainted by the whiff of suspicion on those who wouldn’t think twice and perhaps haven’t thought twice about doing it.

Every Landowner Had An Obligation To Give A Tithe

There is a story told in the Talmud to emphasise and explain how the tone in which something is said is often critical in understanding what is meant by what is said.

The background to the story is that the Talmud mandated that every landowner had an obligation to give a tithe to the priests (the Cohanim). But there was a lot that was left to the discretion of the landowner – which priest or priests, and what quality the tithe should actually comprise.

Now on this particular occasion the landowner needed to be absent for a few days. He appointed a manager who he left in charge of gathering in the figs and grading them into three qualities – best, middle, and poor.

Now it so happened that when the manager was in the middle of doing this, a priest passed by. The manager knew he should give a tithe, he knew that every landowner had an obligation to give a tithe – but which quality? He opted for the safe bet and gave from the middle quality.

When the landowner returned, the manager told him he had given a tithe to the priest, to which the landowner replied ‘Why didn’t you give him the best quality?’

Now you tell me what the landowner meant. You cannot and I cannot without hearing the tone of his voice.

Did he mean that the priest was such a worthy person and the landowner considered the obligation to tithe so important that the manager should have given the best quality figs?

Or did the landowner use an ironic tone because he begrudged giving the figs for the tithe or to this particular priest?

Did he mean ‘Why stop halfway – why didn’t you make an even worse decision than you did, and give the priest my best figs?

It’s all in the tone of voice – and that is what the story is intended to illustrate.

If Le Pen Wins It Will Affect The UK General Election

Just a thought – but there’s a degree to which the UK general election on 8th June will be decided in the French Presidential election. If Macron wins, then it’s one up for Europe and the future of a united Europe.

And the Liberal Democrats in the UK can point to that and ask the British public to vote to reestablish Britain’s relationship with the EU.

But if Le Pen wins, then the Liberal Democrats are finished because no one in the UK will want to get back into bed with a Europe that includes an extreme right wing French President.