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12200

...Indeed and evidence of that elephant in one of the countries that's meant to be a key driver of the new "Europe", from BBC: Meanwhile, French presidential candidate Francois Hollande has said that he would seek to renegotiate the deal on the euro agreed last week. Mr Hollande, who is the Socialist Party's challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy at next year's elections, said the agreement was not the right solution for the European Union. Francois Hollande is the Socialist Party's candidate for next year's elections He said he wanted greater powers for the European Central Bank (ECB) and for member states to issue joint eurobonds. Germany is opposed to such measures. Speaking to RTL radio, Mr Hollande said: "This accord is not the right answer, nor does it have the urgency. "If I am elected president, I will negotiate, renegotiate this deal to include what is missing today." Members of Mr Hollande's party have accused President Sarkozy of bowing to German pressure on the issues of the ECB's power and eurobonds. France is holding its presidential election in two rounds of voting on 22 April and 6 May. President Sarkozy has yet to declare his candidacy but is widely expected to stand. Polling organisations currently predict that Mr Hollande would beat Mr Sarkozy in the second round of voting. I'm not sure what's going to overwhelm it first economics or politics.....

You don't read much then. And in the First World War proportionally frontline officers (who were by and large Public Schoolboys - until they started running out of them) were the most likely to be killed. I'm with MM.

Or as a fantastic tribute to them bothe, how about Otis Redding singing a beautiful, powerful and fantasic civil rights song wirtten by Sam Cooke A Change is Gonna Come Tow brilliant talents cut short

:X today's result and :X Laddy

not old school ones, but there was no football prior to 1996 ...of course

or close but no cigar as the vernacular goes

...no trophy tho Jah.

Personally I think Huge likes an argument and will never admit he's wrong. I think this thread clearly proves he is way out of touch with current and recent events in Europe and his knowledege is a bit sketchy about global finance/bond markets and the practical fundamentals of a single currency, his antagonistic style of posting is therefore exposed IN THIS CASE. And his stubborness means he carries on digging himself a deeper hole. His defence that the ideal is right and the end justifies the means is poor (but all he has left other than to admit defeat) as he knows in his heart - Stalin, Mao, Pot all clung to tht kind of fanatical rubbish . Realistically millions are going to suffer becasue of the idealstic claptrat that created the Euro without firm foundations, democracy is and will continue to be undermined to try and hold up this charade and the consequences will be far reaching. Indeed, the Euro is as likely to result in the demise of the EU as cementing it. It's been a disaster.

Thanks Huge - I'm off to eat/kids etc but will get back at a later point but as in broad terms where we differ is that as a pragmatist I think objectives are best achieved by a distant goal with a number of achievable milestones on the way. The Euro as it was set up just had the distant goal......a dream. That's not enough.

you were moderately funnier when you weren't drinking...

Those polls are spring 2011 Huge - the Greek austerity protests started in May 2011, the criss has unfolded since. Polls are polls and swing rapidly - as the swing in UK opinion that you showed earlier demobnstrats. Real democratic deciisions like are you willing to give up ypur sovreignty for the Euro require a referendum or an election if you believe in democracy, something the greeks were denied recently for starters...you think 70% of the Eurozone population would vote for that? Really?

How has the EU changed since then? Not at all. The only difference is the Euro crisis, and how it has been exploited by anti-regulatory and isolationist businesses who could exploit a weak Britain. Hurrah, Hallelujah, rejoice - look at the title of the thread and realise why many of us (not all admiittedly) have been arguing with you for what seems like aeons on here and been getting frustrated by your unwillingness to split up the the Euro and the EU except when it suited your arguments. The Euro was flawed for very several obvious reasons which I've posted about 20 times as have others (can't have a common currency without central fiscal control - and also, incidentally, the support of the people for the latter) that it's critics pointed out at it's foundation for which they were screamed "Xenpphobic/Little Englander" at continually from the idealists that didn't want to hear reality. The shit has hit the fan and the Euro is now belatedly, and probably to late, nowtrying to do what it should have done at the beginning - and doing it without democratic consent, this is potentially disatrous. Simplifying just answer these questions please. Do you think the Euro was flawed at its conception? Do you think that sovreighn states can have a shared currency without centralised Fiscal Control? Do you think that handing over a sovreaign states fiscal control to a central state without the will of the people is democratic? Do you think ALL critics of the Euro are bigoted europhiles? Do you think the Euro has been a good thing for Greece, Irealnd, Italy and Spain thus far? The irony of you claiming others are getting the EU and The Euro mixed up on this thread is truly hysterical!

My own personal thoughts are that tend to be the Tory party in general but

That was data from 2010 and was already trending away as I pointed out. In the FUTURE we have several years of austerity ahead of us, the resentment will grow enourmously., and I think defualts may happen anyway. The Greeks for example do not feel, nor protest the proposition, that the austerity has been imposed by Germany. ...you are joking surely? Spain beginning to creak. Italy will be soon, the Irish are increasingly resentful. If you think there aren't huge parts of the populations in many EU nations who won't blame this on a French/German stitch up after a few years of austerity you are massively delsuional. The current debate is being framed by European politicians and bureacrats/techncnocrats who haven't a clue what to do about their Frankenstein ....the people haven't had a chance at all yet, I don't think it will end well.

Ridgley Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am not prejudices towards toffs ??? I just said > it tends to be in the Tory party more than the > others another?s so wind your Tory neck in! I am not a Tory - how about starting a thread with some analyis or facts or idea development rather than a simplistic charichature from the Daily Worker if you don't want to get pulled up for it.

..the real political fall out will come with the growing malaise from those people in the smaller states who feel they have no real influence, have not had a choice, and have, in their minds, austerity imposed upon them by Germany and France, and yet will be too scared to leave the Euro which will work pretty poorly at balancing economies of its member stats, that's a massive, massive (like potentially Tim McVeigh type) problem a few years down the line...if the Euro makes it that far. They can't all get jobs in Germany! The attempted Euro 'rescue' is risky, undemocratic, based on a growing economy and taking awayany sense of democratic empowerment that the non-existant 'people of europe' (ha!) ...it's a timebomb and completley predictable that it would end thus. I personally feel they need to think about dismantling it as ordely as possible

...various opinions Chortling at this one The UK is "as isolated as somebody who refused to join the Titanic just before it sailed".

Dulwichmum does the ones in the Quiet Room standing on MichaelP's shoulders with a feather duster waering a French Maid's outfit...we blindfold Michaelp

and, how could I forget "Poo"..... as in the real thing not the bear

...and for the millionth, billionth time we all understand about the importance of europe as a trading partner which is why many of us are pulling our hair out at the economic illiteracy of the European elite who created a single currency on unstable foundations which is now dragging Europe to the precipice (including us) and has a very real chance of economic and, as worryingly, political catastrophe throughout Europe.....

In the long term we are all dead - with our own massive budget defeceit and teetering on the edge of our own Sovreaghn Debt crisis and you think it's ok to let German and French self-interest destroy a massive part of our economy? Tp try and prop up something (the Euro) that has a 50/50 chance of survival? And will take YEARS to function properly if it ever does. You could argue that the environemnt is as bigger issue than Financial Regulation, why is the EU not imposing transaction tax on all Cars Manufactured in the EU....Germany would sure as hell support that.....er. maybe

PS DaveR - "The Powerhouses of Europe" made me chuckle muchly too

In the same slow lane that we were in whilst the other European's powerhouses (SIC) 'powerhoused' themselves into the disaster the Euro? I have my suspicions which part of the 2-speed Europe will be going quickly.... bust. Huge ypu appear to understand nothing, or just ignore, about the crisis and total hash Sarkov and Merkel and the unelected bureacrats from Briussels have made of the Sovreign debt crisis in Europe. 80% of financial transactions in the EU that would be covered by an FTT are carried out in the UK, the Eurozone wanst to impose a tax on these to help pay for Eurozone debt, unsurprisngly the Germans and French think this is a great idea as they won't be fitting the bill for their idiotic mistakes. In the short term they get plenty of tax revenue genertaed in the UK, in the medium term it will decimate London's global lead in this business as the business migrates to, ooh let's see Singapore. If we don't get a veto on this tax then David Cameron is absolutely in the right to say we won't sign up. Let the Eurozone sort out its own problem and deystroy Frankfurts smallish bit of this trade if it wants. Europe's the basket case at the mo - not good for us but the truth. Incidentally Huge your continued crap that the UK is somehow a parasite on the rest of the EU is laughable not only are we a net contributor and a major Export market for both France and Germany - with whom I believe we both run a trade defeceit with....you think their manufacturers are keen to see us shunned and not part of an available market to them? You're not being rational on this at all, you're stuck in some bizzare 1996 Timewarp about anyone who's questioning the Euro