Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Bella Mackie (on Twitter) credits Paul Hamilos (on Twitter) for pointing out this unfortunate headline in the Guardian:
I suppose it does at least have the virtue of being truthful, unlike most of the headlines that rag comes up with. But I'm sure that was by accident.
Cameron did the right thing, of course. I'd say something admiring about the man proving that he has a spine, but even a sea sponge would have done the same. Some things are just obvious to everyone in the world except Ed Miliband.
I received an e-mail this morning from a Left-leaning former Europhile in Britain. (He wishes to remain anonymous.) This is how he aptly put it:
This "revised treaty" to hold the euro together is a car crash. It pains me to admit it, but Cameron did exactly the right thing by pulling out of the agreement. Yes, it has domestic political advantages for him, and, yes, it's almost certainly in the interests of the City; but it's also the best way to respond to the terrible, terrible mistakes the French and Germans have made. I suspect that this is a fair asessment.
If the consequences of those mistakes were merely economic ones, that would be bad enough, but they are going to be social and political. As another recession bites and tension grows between the inner and outer states, Europe is going to get nastier: more xenophobic, more anti-Semitic, more violent. Within two years, there'll be riots on the streets of mainland Europe. It's going to be ugly.
I'm always telling that anecdote about how transcontinental container lorry drivers say that Britain and Germany are the only two countries in Europe where you actually get into trouble when you try to bribe the police, rather than get your speeding ticket torn up and a friendly wave on.
A lot of the European Union's woes have come from Europeans drafting and signing huge written agreements with each other and then ignoring them as and when it suits, just as they do with many of their laws. They have treated various eurozone agreements like this, but can't get away from the discipline of the market any longer.
The Brits aren't so big on writing things down---constitutions, for example---preferring a nod and a wink and a fudge; but, when they do write stuff down, they tend to take it more seriously than their neighbours. Most people expected Cameron to be relaxed about the content of the revisions, but he wasn't. This choice of his (and his party) won't protect Britain from the waves of sewage that'll crash against our coastline when the [sewage] hits the fan in Europe, but, if he had chosen otherwise, things would have turned out to be far worse. They're going to be bad enough anyway.
They will indeed be bad enough, alas.
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Oct '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
“Within two years, there'll be riots on the streets of mainland Europe. It's going to be ugly.”
Your friend provides a great summation and (sad, but realistic) prognostication. I suppose by “mainland” he means heartland, as in France & Germany. Greece—where the riots have been on-going for months—is technically on the European “mainland.” But I quibble …
Nov '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Maybe the British people aren't a lost cause after all. It has been difficult to admire them in recent years, save for a few bright lights like Dan Hannan or those guys who present Top Gear. What are the odds that having found the nerve to summarily reject further dealings with "Europe" the Brits might now reject socialism domestically too?
Oct '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
I'd say the chance of that is the square root of zero. Cameron-led Tories don’t seriously challenge Socialism --- they loosen the apron strings a bit, but that’s all. It’s not Grandma Thatcher’s party anymore.
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
29 percent.
Jun '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Claire,
Man I love these "Notes from Underground!" Well, love is not quite right...its good to hear of independent thought coming from lefties. Its disappointing, terrifying and disgusting to read "off the cuff" quotes like:
So blame the jews remains an oldie but a goodie for a Europe which has no one else to blame for their miseries, save themselves. Somehow this article in PJMedia this past week came to mind...
Thanks for the intel Claire!
Mar '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
They will indeed be bad enough, alas. ·
So, your friend is basically saying that Maggie Thatcher was right about the EU. That would more than explain the desire for anonymity.
Imagine: a super-government, answerable to no one whatsoever, tried to regulate the economic future of four to five hundred million people. That's a task beyond the capacity of any government, no matter how much power and money you throw at the apparatchiks.
That unicycle was on fire before you got on it, chum.
And that line on "the discipline of the market?" He can't think like that for very much longer -- that way madness lies. Next thing he knows, he'll be sneaking reads of The Road to Serfdom.
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
The sewage is going to wash up onto our shores as well. Our banks are intertwined with theirs.
Nov '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
And our "governing class" is enslaved to European "thought" and "progress", too.
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
So true, so very true, and so few Americans seem to realize this.
May '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
As I've said before, we should all take our medicine now and get it over with. Every time we postpone the reckoning, we just make it worse. But I realize the chances of this happening are effectively zero. Part of the problem is that our politicians' motivations are aligned with short-term (two or four years) results.
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Precisely.
May '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Watch for a surge from the nationalist parties in the next round of elections. The Germans have already moved to ban the NDP, a move that failed eight years ago.
Arnie Schimmer, fiscal policy spokesman from the NDP called this, "the unconditional surrender to the international financial oligarchy," and an unconstitutional surrender of sovereign power and a "coup."
The NDP slogan: Arbeit. Familie. Vaterland. (Work. Family. Fatherland.)
This ain't gonna be pretty.
Apr '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Paul A. Rahe
Precisely. · Dec 10 at 7:47am
I am reminded of a Romanian saying. "Don't leave anything you can do today for tomorrow, leave it for the day after tomorrow because then it might not need to be done."
As I have found the wisdom of my ancestors is probably the closest approximation to the truth. They refuse to act because they hope if they wait they might not need to..
May '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
How many bases do you guys still have in Germany? Maybe you will have to point the tanks west as well as east. This is all perfect cover for Iran to get the bomb, while the Euro crashes, and Europe is in turmoil, no one will notice what is going on in Iran.
I think I'd like to move back to Canada and buy 100 acres out in the boonies somewhere.....
May '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
There are 17 USAF bases and 1 NATO base in Germany. There are currently (If I counted correctly) 51 USA barracks there, 13 of which are scheduled for closure before the 2016 elections.
Edited on Dec 10, 2011 at 8:41amMar '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Hey, that would make a nice poster for Mr Obama - can you come up with something, EJ?
Jun '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Indulging your Eurogenous Zone with strangers can result in social diseases.
Oct '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
So true, so very true, and so few Americans seem to realize this. · Dec 10 at 7:05am
Claire, is it just me, or does the situation vis-a-vis the Eurozone look exactly like the interwar gold standard, with Germany swapping places with France and the U.S.? You have the same basic pattern; misaligned fixed exchange rates, adjustment mechanisms that require economic depressions, surplus countries manipulating the system to sustain their trade surpluses (as we and France did in the 20s/30s), etc.
The classical solution would be for Germany to overheat its economy a bit, forcing investment into the periphery. This happens all the time in the U.S., where rich states tend to have higher inflation rates that drives investment to poor states. But Germany will never allow that to happen, and it will use its heft in the ECB to buck the market if it has to--even if it means depression in most of the eurozone and recession at home.
May '10
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Mar '11
Re: Cameron Calls it Right, Ed Stays Red, and an Unfortunate Headline
Wow - thanks EJ!