What on earth has David Cameron been doing courting a load of corrupt potentates of the world’s wealthiest game, trying to bribe them with a “grassroots fund” when we should be putting them on the interpol most wanted list?  I love any opportunity to kick the BBC, but frankly they did us a favour by avoiding this Olympic sized farce (pun intended).

We can’t talk about spending taxpayers money wisely and then have this Millennium Dome Mark III.

I actually love the World Cup, as it was while watching the Mexico World Cup that I realised that football can be a genuinely beautiful game, rather than the twice weekly winter punishment.  I even managed to con my football hating wife into agreeing to see a World Cup game if we won the bid.

Now if only the BBC could sufficiently annoy that other bunch of undemocratic, corrupt and undistinguished foreigners and get the European Union to chuck us out then I would be really happy to pay my licence fee for the 24 hour Labour party political broadcast in White City.

Related articles

• “Should the UK contribute to an Irish bailout?” and related posts (openeuropeblog.blogspot.com)
• It’s a bit rich for Germans to gripe about Ireland | Alan Posener (guardian.co.uk)
• Domino effect at work with Euro (politics.ie)
• What an EU bailout for Ireland could mean for Britain (telegraph.co.uk)
• Euro Dominos Will Fall Until Currency Is Split … (politics.ie)

Well Ireland’s going belly up partly due to an enthusiasm for the Euro, and aren’t we lucky that we didn’t catch that train early – as Michael Heseltine put it (not the first or last time he was wrong).  It’s also due to the fact that, probably at German urging, the Irish state backed up the very dodgy banks to 100% of the face value of their liabilities.

So George Osborne looks like he wants to help alleviate these mistakes by making them for Britain.  First he wants to tie us into the Euro zone rescue deal, which will create a trillion pound precedent as we will be called to rescue Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy.  The other mistake he wants us to repeat is to buy the Irish debt up at near the face value.

So if we think that we shouldn’t let Ireland go bust (and that’s probably the best deal for all of us, particularly for the Irish) why should we be there?  Well there seem to be two answers, the first is that there’s a lot of trade with Ireland and the second (and not so loudly shouted) is that there are quite a few British banks up to their eyes in Irish debt.

So what can we do?  First as to the debt.  The best way to do this is to buy the debt as close as possible to market price.  This should be done through a reverse auction in that the British government allows for a certain amount of ten year treasuries which will be traded for Irish debt, with the banks bidding with Irish debt – the more the debt the more likely they are to get the Treasuries.  This debt can then be bundled into a debt vehicle which could come under UK Financial Investments Limited, the UK’s holding company.  This will call the banks’ bluff as they will have to declare a loss on this debt, which in turn should dent a few bonus pots.  It should also be a better long term deal for the Treasury.

With some of the partially state owned banks the devalued debt could be swapped directly for shares, as a form of buy back.

This money would also have the beneficial effect of recapitalising the banks, although doubtless EU state aid rules would mean that continental banks can get in here (although in turn there may actually be some really good bargains if we have the Germans and French offloading the debt).  This will mean that unlike a Euro zone bailout that some of the money would come back to the UK in the form of lending.  It could take the place of Quantitative Easing (although EU state aid rules mean that this leaks like a sieve outside the UK).

Most importantly of all it would be out in the open where the billions of pounds are going.  People are far more likely to approve of stopping banks going under than they are of keeping a foreign currency alive.

As to Ireland itself it is imperative that any bailout that is done to smooth out the recession in one of our larger trading partners is done under separate cover from the EU.  The EU should get the credit for what they can give, and the UK should get credit for what it gives.

A straight loan or credit facility from the UK government to the Irish would be the best thing here, although I suspect that this bailout is more about the banks than about export markets.  The EU should not administer a British penny, as for no other reason the EU has African levels of corruption and a good chunk of the money would become salaries and consultancy fees for the children and mistresses of well connected officials.  As an aside, aren’t the Kinnock family looking prosperous these days?  Our civil service and political class (at least those that haven’t been in Brussels)  is far, far less corrupt than the Europeans.

The financing needs to be independent and transparent.  Personally I’d be happy to see the banks that over-lent to go bust.  If we had kept our nerve after Lehman the recession would have been a distant memory by now.  It may be galling for all the bankers to see their bonuses in six rather than seven figures, but the taxpayers deserve a break too.

(Rather oddly the “head of the euro zone’s fiscal safety net” is saying that the British are going to subordinate to the rest of Europe, while George Osborne is talking about a separate line of aid.  This is more than just words.)

Related articles

• Eurozone debt crisis: Portugal admits ‘it could need EU bail-out’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• What our German friends are saying about the Irish problem. (politics.ie)
• EURO GOVT-Irish bond yields rise as euro zone ministers meet (reuters.com)

Whenever you get involved in anything that seems particularly intractable there usually seems to be a misapplied European regulation at the bottom of it.  Buses leaving within two minutes of each other but not regulating their times?  That will be European competition regulations.  Importing cement for big government projects without any environmental assessment?  That’s European tendering regulations.  Black bins going rancid in the summer heat because they’re not collected for two weeks?  European recycling targets.  And the doorstep issue, net low skilled immigration during an increase in unemployment?  Free movement of labour within Europe (why do the liberals on the left and right regard people to be more mobile than goods?)

Well there’s yet another new European treaty down the track, in order to allow for a massive wealth transfer to the failed economies in the Eurozone.  This is a golden opportunity to repatriate powers, they are over a barrel.  Even if this does not happen then the Conservative party promised a vote on this, and it can be struck down.

The position was clear, new treaty, new vote.

I, for one, will not remain associated with a party that so blatantly breaks its word on a matter as important as this.

Related articles

• David Cameron risks new row over Lisbon Treaty (telegraph.co.uk)
• Europe’s push-me-pull-you (bbc.co.uk)
• How will you vote on the new EU Treaty? (politics.ie)
• French Support Means Attempt at Alteration of Lisbon Treaty Possible (nytimes.com)
• David Cameron to push for EU budget freeze at summit (guardian.co.uk)

So letting Turkey in will fail in any geopolitical gambit.

And what about the practical effect on us here? Bridge ward, particularly the Old Stoke part, has been a magnet for Eastern European immigrants. This has clearly put wages down and rents up, and it also has had an effect on school rolls – although its not really affected the doctor’s surgeries.

Turkey will be more of the same. Much more. The rural heart of Turkey is both poorer and more populous than Eastern European countries. And did I mention illiteracy? There is also the issue of an increasingly more militant Islam. We’re assuming that Turkish kids will be immune from this, because the Turkish upper middle class used to be. That’s one massive assumption.

The Conservatives canvassed on the basis that they would listen to people’s concerns on immigration and take them seriously. If the Conservatives simply put a cap on skilled immigration and then drown this out through a far larger increase in the amount of people allowed in through EU accession they will not be forgiven or forgotten. David Cameron’s guff that Turkey was always improving and so there wouldn’t be anything to worry about on immigration sounds a bit like Tony Blair assuring us that there would only be a few thousand people coming in from the EU accession states. We could put Blair’s mistake down to ignorance, Cameron won’t have the same excuse.

The left has sacrificed the interests of the working class to trendy concerns in favour of windmills and against church going, the Conservatives promised to listen. Letting Turkey in to the EU is not listening.

This has meant that there is an almost two hour gap between buses in the evening on the route out of the town centre, and this starts almost exactly when the first commuter train comes in from London.  Thanks Brussels. 

Oxford has moved to stop their version of this needless, mandated competitive inefficiency by getting an agreement between the bus operating companies.  Hopefully we won’t have some European under-secretary for buses deciding that this won’t work.

In fact the minister who could decide on this would be Chris Mole.  I know that he doesn’t keep an eye on local media any more, but a couple of his tax paid staff do (even this humble site), so perhaps they can pass on the message that if he blocks the Oxford deal it will play badly on the Wherstead Road.  We’ll make sure of it.

I want you to know that I have begun a campaign for a referendum on the EU. All three parties promised us a referendum. Yet somehow it hasn’t happened. I think that’s wrong.

And yet they wonder why there’s no trust in politics.

The problem is not the breakup as such – it’s just that it is made by a foreign official with no democratic accountability.  The EU is having a greater effect on the lives of the people in Bridge. 

Here’s some of the ways in which EU rules have made life less pleasant in Bridge:

- Competition laws stop bus operators picking up the phone to talk to each other to get Wherstead Road covered by a regular service
- The Post Office in Austin Street had to be shut down in order after an EU mandated programme to liberalise delivery services made this Post Office marginal
- The stupid, stupid, stupid seperation of train and track with the consequent lack of accountability for track problems which does so much to make train journeys long and was done in order to comply with a daft EU directive to open up train services to – well it’s never quite clear
- Open tendering rules which mean that the London Olympics could only look at price and could not look into environmental effects when awarding the cement importing contract to Southern Cement
- The Eastern European influx which even the Conservatives are not intending to control which has driven up rents and driven down wages across a whole swathe of Bridge

Some people claim that membership of the EU has given Britain “incalculable benefits”, which could simply mean don’t bother to tot up the costs and benefits.  Some say that the only problem with Europe is that there’s a “democratic deficit” which is true as there’s no bloody demos and never will be.

This is not a rant to say that we should not learn from how some European countries do things, that would be stupid.  It’s just a reminder that ratifying the Constitution of Europe, now renamed the Lisbon Treaty, will mean more decisions taken by people who don’t understand us and whom we have no mecahnism to recall. 

Just the sort of thing an absentee Labour councillor accustomed to a safe seat would love.

Don’t they see the inconvenience that the current policy is forcing on anyone without substantial gardens.  It’s no surprise that most councillors, of all parties, have spacious and well appointed gardens.  Three bins are not filling up a good proportion of their back garden.  If you live on a terrace in Rectory Road then it’s a different story.

It’s no surprise that the original policy originated in Brussels, another one size fits all European law, Directive 75/442/EEC.