Spokesman Books

To Friendly Political Parties and Movements Athens, 29 June 2015 Dear Comrades and friends, As you know, following the historic victory of SYRIZA in our national elections on January 25 of this year, a government of social salvation was formed in Greece, headed by our Party President, now Prime Minister Mr Alexis Tsipras. The new government’s clear mandate from the Greek people was to end the policies of extreme austerity, to relieve the socially weaker strata and to resolve the intolerable public debt crisis through negotiations, thereby creating the conditions for economic recovery and growth. Negotiations have been going on since February between the new government and our EU partners, together with the other institutions involved in the Greek program. From the beginning, the government’s position has been that the Greek people’s mandate should be respected and that Greece should be treated as an equal partner in the EU and the Eurozone. The neg...

In late 2014, the US Navy awarded an $84 million cost-plus-fixed-fee modification contract for 'tactical missile tube manufacturing'. In total, according to the US Navy, 17 missile tubes will be manufactured: '12 for the UK Successor lead ship, four for the OR [Ohio class ballistic missile submarine Replacement] First Article Quad Pack and one for the Strategic Weapons System - Ashore (SWSA) test facility.' What is this arcane language telling us? The $84 millions is to fund 'joint United States and United Kingdom Common Missile Compartment (CMC) missile tube manufacturing'. According to Rob Edwards ( Sunday Herald , 23.11.14), 70 per cent of this cost is being paid by the UK. Curiously, 12 of the first 17 tubes are for the 'UK successor lead ship'. This is curious for two reasons. Firstly, the UK government has deferred until 2016 the 'main-gate' decision on Trident replacement. Secondly, the UK government has repeatedly claimed in publi...

Based in Athens, The Paragraph offers an informed and humorous perspective on Greek and Global affairs, born of a longstanding relationship with the Russell Foundation (the 'Northern Garrison'). It suggests some ways in which people outside Greece can help in the long struggle to reverse austerity and all its ills.   *** Hello dear Paragraph readers, We that hope all of you, here and abroad, are doing OK. We apologise for the delay in informing you about the atmosphere here in Athens after the recent election, the resounding SYRIZA victory, and the formation of the new patriotic coalition government in Greece. Why the delay? There were, as you shall see, many events taking place and also we were (as most of the Greeks, regardless of what they voted for) somehow overwhelmed by emotion. What would come out would be (very mediocre) poetry, but not a good report... In order to make our report more useful we decided to ...