Ducking and diving or is Dave dangerous
Maurice O'Brien • Published 16 Dec 2011 09:30
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HOPEFULLY Dave didn't snag anything painfully significant sliding off the fence last Friday, but almost a week later he's still manfully gritting his teeth.
Despite all the backslapping, he knows his grand gesture's really neither here nor there for Sarkkel and their 24 cronies who may, or may not, be unanimously in favour of saving the euro.
The nagging suspicion is that, by ducking out before the Sarkkelites drew up a new treaty, Dave devised yet another excuse for evading his "cast iron" referendum guarantee. Some might also argue that, as there wasn't a treaty text in the first place, there was nothing to veto, therefore boasts of being the first British prime minister to use it seem bogus.
Similarly counterfeit is their euro rescue masterplan, which has lurched from one eleventh hour to the next for three years now. The misbegotten euro was doomed, probably from the start, but definitely from the moment a blind eye was turned to Greece's inability to meet the membership criteria; its bizarre, tax-free fantasy land an accident in waiting.
During the crisis Sarkkel and Co have had us believe monetary union was derailed solely by the budgetary irresponsibility of a reckless few. But if that's its only problem, why should the European Central Bank need re-inventing, as they now propose, simply to deal with the usual spendthrift suspects?
Beleaguered Dave might also wonder why routine use of the French and Spanish veto, whenever anyone suggests reforming the EU's corrupt farming and fishery policies, never produces matching hysteria levels.
Maybe, though, Dave's Eurozone poison pen letter won't necessarily bear 26 signatures. Remember how content Greece and Spain were in the days when the drachma and peseta were in their pomp and freespending foreign investors and holidaymakers flooded across their borders?
But having reduced the BBC to apoplexy and Labour to incoherence, left those sad old buffers Ashdown, Heseltine and Ken Clarke dribbling into their cocoa, and presented the sulky Lib Dems with a dilemma - jump ship and be humiliated by the electorate or cling pathetically to their once-in-a-century power trip - maybe Dave's more dangerous than we thought.
IN THE realms of pointless exercises, flying thousands of carbon-frittering delegates to Durban to inconclusively discuss climate change is right up there. But, starting from now, delegates could build DIY vehicular transport from recyclables and just about make it in time to next year's jamboree in Qatar - which proudly boasts the world's highest annual per capita CO2 emissions.
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Jan 22, 16:18
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