A damning report by IMF watchdog the Independent Evaluation Office has slammed a “culture of complacency” in Christine Lagarde’s organisation. Focusing on the IMF’s response to the Eurozone crisis, the report claims that the Fund was riven with “issues of accountability and transparency”, claiming Lagarde and senior management established “small, ad hoc staff task forces” to plan for the possibility of bailouts, rather than holding executive board meetings. The report slams the “lack of board involvement”, with management failing to discuss – sometimes despite direct requests – issues around the unfolding crisis. Preparations made by management lacked “analytical depth, rigor, or specificity”. Most damning of all, however, is the IMF’s “groupthink” and unquestioning links to European policy – particularly their irrational fervour for the Euro. The report concludes:

“At the euro area level, IMF staff’s position was often too close to the official line of European officials, and the IMF lost effectiveness as an independent assessor.”

So much for that independent report, eh Remainers?

Greek PM @tsipras_eu deletes tweets criticizing Turkey for airspace violations #EUTurkey pic.twitter.com/qc5E7IOss6

— kostas rossoglou (@kostasrossoglou) November 29, 2015

Greek leader Alex Tsipras has had a dig at the Turkish Prime Minister over the downing of Russia’s jet in a series of hastily deleted tweets. It appears the Greek premier, leader of a country that routinely suffers violations of its airspace by Turkey, was not too impressed at the shooting down of a plane that was only in Turkish airspace for a mere 17 seconds. Who would have thought a socialist would be prone to such sabre-rattling?

Get Britain Out have uncovered some rather unsanitary revelations about EU waste in the 2014 audit. In a section titled “Example of projects without added value”, the report mentions a scheme devised in 2006 in which millions were spent building a sewage plant and network for two Greek municipalities. There was one minor snag: unfortunately the genius EU technocrats forgot about the linking of households and businesses to the sewage network. A full 8 years later at the close of 2014 the proper plumbing had still not been put in place. The report states:

“Project delivered but remains unused: A CF project in Greece consisted of the construction of a sewage plant and of a sewerage network for two municipalities. The infrastructure works were completed in 2013. However, the project cannot be used until connections from private households and industry to the sewerage network are also constructed. From the initial announcement of the project (in 2006) the municipality had enough time to design and implement such connections to the sewerage network. However, at the end of 2014, our audit found that such connections were still not in place. The project of the private connections has been procured during 2015.”

The Telegraph and Mail have just pulled articles claiming that a Hellenic Air Force pilot made an unscheduled stop in Turkey in order circumvent cash withdrawal restrictions in Greece:

The hoax appears to have originated on French aviation blog RadioCocpit.fr. It managed to convince both the Telegraph and Mail that a pilot flying on patrol over the Greek island of Samos landed his plane on an abandoned Turkish airfield, hid it in a hangar, legged it to a hole in the wall, and withdrew €2,000 before scrambling his plane back into the sky.

Maybe he was just playing hide and Greek…

Guido has many times enjoyed Nigel Farage giving Guy Verhofstadt a tongue lashing. This time liberal Guy is the one doing the venting, demanding that Syriza implement actual reforms rather than just pay lip-service to them. Verhofstadt in “talking sense shocker”…