...and a liar. Ken Clarke in 2002:"We [the UK] should join [the euro] as soon as the economic conditions are right"Ken Clarke yesterday (circa 19mins in):
"I never advocated joining the exchange rate...(spot the backtrack moment)"The desperation to engage reverse gear is a joy to behold as the Tory Europhiles' precious project goes tits up.
Tick-tock, tick-tock
...there isn’t one interest rate that is right for Manchester and Marseilles, nor is there one exchange rate that is right for Lisbon and London. “You cannot have a single economic policy without a single budget”. “There will be endless disagreements about how much European government should spend and where.” “The poorer and richer regions are different. The poorer ones will lose out”. “There is no single political system to take decisions and explain them to electors”.Unfortunately the EU will cling onto their sacred currency for as long as practically possible, regardless of the economic consequences, but it's obvious where this is all going to end up.
Northern Ireland is particularly anti-European Union (having a much greater proportion of small businesses and fishing/farming areas than the mainland). It never ceases to amaze me how the Northern Ireland media actually reports on EU issues: if the European Union is bringing in a new Regulation/Directive that affects people, the media says so!
What a contrast to the mainland UK, where the media regularly do what they can to hide the EU dimension to any story. It was also a breath of fresh air to see just how fairly we were treated by the Northern Ireland media.
Ouch, but it's worth remembering that the so-called 'hero of the Eurosceptics' never got his whip withdrawn unlike other Tories:Bill Cash MP is a let-down. In the 1990s, he was a hero of Eurosceptics: a leading Tory critic of the Maastrict Treaty who founded the European Foundation to attack the excesses of the European Project and the endless demands for ever closer union.
Now he’s no better than a Europhile.
...his views haven’t changed – but the political debate has. In the 1990s, it was seen as loony to oppose EU membership, so it was perfectly normal for critics of the EU to argue merely for an “open Europe” and against “Brussels bureaucrats”. Nowadays, EU withdrawal has become a mainstream view and even the integrationists rail against Brussels’ waste.In other words it's taken nearly 20 years for the Tories to catch up and work it out for themselves:
In the conservative movement, it is no longer just the older Tory rank-and-file who want to leave the EU. Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome wants to leave. Wonks such as the 20-something Tom Clougherty, executive director of the Adam Smith Institute, hang out at the Better Off Out group’s drink receptions, and David Green, of Civitas, has published reports calling for withdrawal. Moreover, rising stars among Tory politicians, such as Philip Davies MP, Philip Hollobone MP, Douglas Carswell MP and Dan Hannan MEP are openly in favour of resigning EU membership.And they still won't do anything about it.
Yet Mr Cash has steadfastedly chosen not to join them, still apparently believing that Britain is better off in the European Union. In the politics of the 2010s, doesn’t that count as pro-European?Rather like David "out is not in Britain's interests" Cameron.
"I'm incredibly disappointed with the timing of what the BBC seem to be proposing with Panorama, to do it the week before the vote - I don't think think it's patriotic."He has a point. It's a truth universally acknowledged that FIFA is fundamentally corrupt, we don't need yet another documentary to tell us that. The only real surprise regarding the latest allegations is that they didn't involve Jack Warner.
MPs and their staff will be ordered to flee for their lives in the event of a Mumbai-style terrorist attack on Parliament, according to security advice.But we know already that MPs won't even do this, instead they react like the proverbial rabbit caught in headlights:
A major review of security is under way after condoms full of purple flour were thrown at Tony Blair as he faced MPs in the House of Commons.It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Government sources admitted that the politicians did not know what to do and expressed surprise that people were let out of the chamber.
The source said the MPs' response "did not go the way we expected". The attack would have been "incredibly serious" if the dyed flour had been anthrax or ricin.
Accelerated by the crisis, a new model of government without direct accountability to voters is being constructed. And the democratic consequences have been given very little thought other than by a hardened band of opponents.Pooling or sharing sovereignty has always been a nonsense idea. There's no such thing. It's akin to saying you're 'only a little pregnant'. You're either sovereign or you're not. Iain then asks the obvious question:
In reality, the political end of the European project is now being completed, having been parked because it was too difficult a subject when the common currency was founded.
So Ireland is not just "linked" to another currency—its independence is no more than notional. In return for its bailout it will lose control over its corporate tax rates, if not this time, then a little further down the line. There will be extraordinary oversight not just of budgets but all manner of other aspects of euro-zone countries' economies. That goes well beyond a pooling of sovereignty. If it walks like a government, and it talks like a government, then it probably is a government.
But what happens when enough voters, in what might be called a nation state, inside the euro zone, one day soon decide that they want to change their government? I don't mean reshuffle their political elite, drilled by the bond markets and common currency orthodoxy, but vote to really head off in a new direction right or left, a direction that requires an independent economic policy. Perhaps such voters in countries including Ireland will always be relaxed when they discover the option has been permanently removed by the ECB and EU. But what happens if they are not so relaxed?What happens indeed? The inevitable:
Skepticism about the European project leads to nationalism and extremism, said Mr. Van Rompuy last week. It is equally possible that designing a new form of government that does not have democracy at its heart will anger voters and provide an opening for extremists.
