November 2011
Beyond Merkozy
The problems of the EU, again
Will the euro survive?
Introduction -
A casual look at the EU shows the big beasts of the day locked into a battle to save their dream. But dig a little deeper and you see all sorts of people about to suffer from a career-long obsession with the EU and the single currency.
Have they have gone quiet or have we gone deaf? Not so many years ago there was a never ending stream of the great and the good telling us that the UK should join the euro. The implication was the sky would fall in and we would all starve to death unless the single currency was adopted. The Confederation of British Industry was typical of this siren call, its Chairman would routinely find time to take part in BBC programmes to spread the word. Propaganda this was not, this was real public service broadcasting!
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The story in pictures
Implausible plot but horrific outcome?
Merkel looks glum
Politics is weird and it numbs people, they turn off. Only a few people take it seriously and read as much as they can, some will not even look at the TV. A month ago, I startled a neighbour who told me her daughter was taking a holiday in Greece. Reacting to all the MSM reports I did a quick tour around the subject of strikes and demonstrations and wished the traveller well. That was the worst thing I could have done. The mother's face fell, rather than gearing herself up for the cat-sitting and plant watering she went straight into worry mode. How could, I though as I left the scene of my disaster, they not have noticed these things and wondered about the wisdom of taking the kids abroad? But it's not only ordinary people who get politics wrong and who fail to spot the important things.
It's been the same with the troubles in Greece. An example: the ordinary Greek has failed to spot the problem by thinking that the bailout terms are too harsh, while at the same time wanting to stay in the EU and stick with the euro. It's just mad, but then that's what the majority of Greeks are saying to the pollsters. Equally mad is that the pollsters then fail to ask who should give them money, and why, so they may carry on as they are. In fact it's not mad it's a joke, as were the actions of George Papandreou.
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Comedy, politics and St Paul's
Would Jesus have approved of the Greek bail-out?
Two Clerics
They thought it was all over. The photographs from the EU summit on the euro crisis told it all. Puffy eyed and puffed up at their 'success' the EU elite posed for the camera. However, as expected, Nicholas Sarkozy got the best shot with his theatrical snub of David Cameron who, if he had any sense at all, must now wonder at the merit of sharing aircraft carriers with the French. The EU leaders enjoyed it, they may even have thought this moment would last forever. But no, for the EU elite has only touched the symptoms, the cure for the ills of the single currency are beyond their grasp and understanding. That is done by splitting up the eurozone, this they cannot contemplate for they are no more than Witch Doctors.
By contrast, for another group of stupid people it's already over but they have failed to spot this. The people involved with the protest camp at St Paul's Cathedral, both sides that is, seem unaware this sort of thing is now so dated that even the resignation of two of the clerical staff won't warm it it up to a palatable level. As the EU folk get more publicity than is good for them we will start with the Cathedral people.