Unemployment in the Euro area continues to grow.

The euro area (EA16) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.1% in October 2010, compared with 10.0% in September4. It was 9.9% in October 2009. The EU271 unemployment rate was 9.6% in October 2010, unchanged compared with September4. It was 9.4% in October 2009.

The news was released this lunchtime, read here. 

When will the people of Europe wake up to what is being done to them?

Irish Constitutional roadblock to bailout?

Article 29.5.2 of the Irish Constitution proclaims “The State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of the agreement shall have been approved by Dáil Éireann”.

"Shall have been approved" requires Parliamentary consent before finalisation of the agreement.

It appears that the Irish Government is about to argue that the bailout is exempt as it is not "international", meaning the Irish Statehas already been submerged into the EU. A report in the Irish Times is here.

The coming EU aftermath based upon the latest Wikileaks

According to Wikileaks, President Sarkozy is the 'Emperor with no clothes', while Sivio Berlusconi is 'Feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader' both quotes linked here, so what conclusions can we draw as to the future course for the crumbling EU following the widespread hikes of EU yields on yesterday's bond markets following the detail of the planned extended crucifiction of the Irish people?

Angela Merkel, the German leader, 'is the "undisputed" leader of the EU because no other European leader is man enough for the role', here, yet elsewhere she is described as being entirely concerned with domestic politics. Both indications that we must now look towards Berlin for the next moves in the EU unravelling.

Constitutionally Germany was already on thin ice over deep water with the Irish bailout coming after the Greek exception. Now with Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Italy and eventually even France facing excessive interest costs these latter basket cases will certainly prove far too much for any political party seeking election in Germany in the foreseeable future to try to help, even if aided by Finland, Austria and Holland and charging ever higher interest rates (approaching usary levels) which now seem to be in view.

Naturally Britain, with its pathetic and enfeebled leadership, will play no part as these great and momentous events unfold, we can only await with interest to learn how accurate are the US diplomatic descriptions of our craven, self-serving and thoroughly despicable political leaders!

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-four

Comment to a Daily Telegraph column, linked here, I recommend the following:

strongunitedkingdom

Today 01:30 PM

Recommended by
42 people

In terms of financial support, the EU is propped up by two main countries, UK & Germany. ( France puts a big chunk in but takes it all out again.) Surveys in the UK consistently run between 63-75% of people who want out of the EU. In Germany, the surveys run at around 80%, despite their population being less aware of the problems with the EU than our own. We should not think ill of the German people, they hate this whole charade as much as we do. They have also been betrayed by their politicians of all parties and have also been denied a referendum (sounds familiar?). It is the EU that is our enemy, not the German people. As long as we concentrate on old issues and rivalries, the EU can play the peace and harmony card and divert attention from its real activities.

The artificial construct of the EU has no honest or meaningful foundation in terms of democractic principles or popular mandate, let alone freedom of the individual and respect for nations' sovereignty. It is a sham, whereby several tens of thousands of self-serving individuals are holding 500million people to ransom by seeking to control every aspect of our lives and our national economies.

The EU's destination is, was and can only be Totalitarianism. This is clearly evidenced by the powers it has amassed over 7 treaties, countless regulations and directives, along with the construction of its own judiciary, police and paramilitary police. Add to this the swathes of politicians and public servants in each of the member states who have thrown in their lot with the EU for personal gain, and we are faced with a huge problem that must be tackled head on.

The immediate future for western Europe will be bloody and chaotic. The EU will seek to expand their control with every crisis. Look out for the highlights such as complete financial control, loss of freedom of speech and individual rights, declarations of emergency powers, and perhaps even some 'show trials' of anti-state individuals to establish their regeime credentials in history.

The UK can survive and will flourish beyond the shackles of the EU. When the UK leaves the EU, the German people will be desperate to follow. Let us hope that this will finally end the nightmare, and allow Europe to return to democracy and freedom.

All Irish opposition parties set to vote down budget

The report in this morning's Irish Times may be read from here.

Robbing Ireland's pension funds seems the latest ploy to continue the insane profiteering of the German, French and British bankers who with their large corporate clients and shareholders are now the sole beneficiaries from the increasingly totalitarian tyranny that the EU has quite clearly and deliberately become.

The indifference to the truly shocking terms of the Irish bailout package in the media of the UK this morning speaks volumes on the stupidity and poltical disinterest of the once astute natives of the British Isles.

Irish to pay EU 6.7% interest - 1.5% more than the Greeks!

The report is in the Irish Independent, linked here.

Small wonder the Portuguese are now vigourously denying they want EU help, their Finance Minister farcically proclaiming that nobody can force his country to accept a bail-out only one week after insisting the Irish MUST do just that.

At this rate of escalation of rates Portugal will presumably be charged another 1.5% at 8.2% and Spain will be pushing up towards 10%.

Nice club the EU was it not? The EU bill was always bound to be enormous once it became due, what will the final cost to bankrupt Britain be I wonder?

Can the UK be put back together AND repaired

In the aftermath of the disastrous EU experiment, which is happily now drawing to a close, it is time to start thinking of the best way forward.

This does not include incompatible long term partnerships of poltical opposites with the sole intention of obtaining a stranglehold on 'power' as proposed by ex-PM John Major in the Daily Telegraph this morning linked here.

Scottish Nationalism, built on a solid foundation of historic hatred of the English, was fuelled by the knowledge that a more powerful centralised system stood in the background offering both subsidies and wholehearted support. The essence of the EU was the break-up of former nation states thus allowing a power and asset grab by the signatories to the Treaty of Paris who jointly controlled the direction of travel in a deliberately non-democratic tyranny (as defined by Karl Popper).

The Scots must now realise the dangerous nature of the flirtations in which they have dallied, best starting point to take on board the real world being the situation of both Ireland and Iceland, two small nations they have often stated they wish to emulate. The English and Welsh and Northern Irish must consider whether they wish to resume the former Union or seek some other, perhaps more international route ahead perhaps in concert with the older Commonwealth countries.

Anything is now possible, trust the lacklustre former Tory PM, John Major, to only have arrived at the least inspiring and entirely self-interested starting point of a long term pact Tory with the Lib/Dems to further deprive our nation(s) of any real democratic say!

IRA political arm sweeps to Donegal By-election Victory

The crisis in Ireland has not yet been completely swept aside by Portuguese and Spanish debt concerns, read the by-election results here.

In more bad news for the subjugated member state of the EuroGroup and former sovereign nation, the credit rating of Anglo Irish Bank has been cut to junk status, read here.

Chaos abounds yet EU Reform is never even mentioned - Why?

Search as I may through all the talk of the euro currency's collapse, just as I predicted both this monday and the one before, nowhere can I find any suggestion that the number one priority for any economic reform in the EU is a restoration of democracy and a root and branch culling of the corruption that is so deeply ingrained within the many EU intstitutions.

The Fake European Parliament's budget for next year still remains unagreed so a perfect opportunity exists to send all those MEPs back to their own countries for a years unpaid sabbatical giving the people of the EU some considerable saving of expenses and a welcome break from the endless production of pointless and wealth destroying legislation. Shortly after could follow all the EU Commissioners, the five Presidents (according to my rough count) and absurd High Representative. A year for reflection seems a perfect starting point!

With the distraction of the ridiculous single currency soon out of the way, and no further EU meetings for one whole year, perhaps Europe's national leaders could devote the year to putting their own economies in order!

EU crushes last essence of democracy

The Irish Times, reviewing the terms of the four year agreement made by the crippled Irish Government, linked here, states the following:

REVIEW: THE FOUR-year plan will be reviewed every year but adjustments which cut expenditure savings or tax yields must be accompanied by measures to make up an equivalent amount elsewhere, the EU Commission has said.
Although the spokesman for economics commissioner Olli Rehn said the provision for an annual review meant elements of the plan were “not set in stone”, he added that only European finance ministers had the power to change the 2014 deadline for the achievement of a 3 per cent budget deficit.
This means that any incoming government may have scope to put their own stamp on the plan next year but not to change the fiscal parameters in which it operates.

The EU clearly has no concept of what democracy involves, one of the most fundamental tenets being:

--- NO GOVERNMENT MAY BIND ITS SUCCESSORS! ---

Bloated Eurocrats to sue Bankrupt Nation States for more cash plus past interest

EU politicians, spotting what for me was the image of this week - an Irish MP's office window daubed in huge red painted letters with the word 'TRAITOR', must have almost all felt a slight tremor of fear passing down their backbones knowing the underlying truth contained in the slogan.

No such hesitancy is yet appearing among the Eurocrats, EU Judges and other parasites who feed off the corpse of Europe by working within the corrupt EU, according to this report in EU Observer, linked here.

French PM Fillon wins confidence test by 100 votes

A report in french in Le Figaro is here, the Prime Minister re-asserted France's commitment to the EU and forecast growth of 2% next year.

It is not just Cameron and Clegg therefore, sleepwalking towards the abyss!

One quote from other morning press reports I skipped over this morning was the description of the Irish brutal austerity package as a sticking plaster over the gaping wound in the EU, or words to that effect.

David Prosser in the Independent, here, points out that the EU bank stress tests that took place in the summer meant nothing. That is why the Euro is now worth nothing, because the fact that it is solely based upon lies is daily becoming clearer to all!

Will the debt crisis now pass through Portugal, Spain, Italy and then on to France and the UK, will France seek relief by being absorbed into Germany? How will Britain cope with an austerity package similar to that unveiled yesterday in Ireland which will certainly be necessary?  These are the questions of the moment, as usual the UK MSM is elsewhere waffling about happiness indices and investments in high speed rail links for people with nowhere to go as they have no jobs to fill!

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers from America! Gobble gobble!

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-three.

This comment comes to an item detailing the extent of the cuts expected from Ireland in the coming revised budget, linked here:

Epictetus

5 minutes ago

The Germans and French do not understand the people they are dealing with here. The Irish, for all their amiable qualities, can be difficult to extract money from, even when they really owe it. (OK I know I have only ever had one Irish tenant, but think back to Captain Boycott).

In this case, the Irish are being asked to pay debts they did not personally incur. Why? To prop up bankrupt banks, including some in Britain and Germany.

There's no way they are going to do it. Frankly, why should they? Despite the very silly caricature of the Irish, they are far from being daft.

Europe seeks a Leader

Seventy years since the evacuation of Dunkirk and France may soon be seeking a way forward as critically important as in the aftermath of the British evacuation across the Channel. This time many more feasible options appear available. This afternoon the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, will set out his plans for the economy and face a vote of confidence.

In the unusual absence from the public view of President Sarkosy, busy socialising with the Mayors of the nation, perhaps some route out of Europe's present disastrous mess will be discerned in the Prime Minister's speech. Chancellor Merkel describing the situation as "exceptionally serious" while accurate, was hardly helpful, and seemed to this blogger a dereliction of duty.

France is unusual in Europe at present having a majority government with some reasonable time remaining in its mandate. Will Europeans today be offered some tiny glimpse of some feasible and realistic way forward that will begin to ease rather than add to the Continent's enormous piles of debt? Could removal from the ECB of Jean-Claude Trichet architect of both the early nineteen-nineties ERM collapse and now the Euro currency disintegration not prove a striking message of firm intent?

Clear signs that the Irish bail-out is already sunk!

Last week it was noises off from Austria that forewarned the Greek government that the next tranche of EU money would be delayed. This week it was the Finnish government who first gave the clue that the Irish bail-out was far from being a done deal, by demanding continued ECB support as a necessary first step, read here. Ironic really when considering it is a Finn, Commissioner Olli Rehn setting down the ground rules for Ireland's total economic subjugation in the name of the very banks the ECB has wasted billions in trying to support.

An earlier clue to the fact that the IMF/EU rescue package had already been doomed came yesterday morning, when the package supposedly having been agreed was torpedoed well below the waterline and with devestating effects by the man who negotiated the details on behalf of the IMF, Ajai Chopra, read here.

Why would the person who had negotiated a rescue package, hoping for support for the deal in the Irish Parliament and understanding amongst the general public over the coming two weeks at that moment go public with a call for reductions in dole payments and a cut in the minimum wage? Only one suggestion comes to my mind and that is that he had exceeded his authority in the negotiations and intended to incite the other side to renege on the terms and thus save his own position to the already severely strapped Board of the IMF.

Lastly, of course, we have the fact that no details of the deal became available during yesterday. No date was set for a meeting of the Euro Group Ecofin whose agreement would be required.

On top of all that as the day went on Spanish interest rates rose, Portuguese credit guarantees grew ever more expensive and the German Chancellor, on whom the EU and the world looked for action, could only publicly wring her hands and declare it was all "exceptionally serious".

The revised budget for Ireland is due to be published today, whether it eventually passes into law or not next month, my guess is that the IMF/EU rescue package will not arrive. The now relatively small amounts available to the EU Group under the supposed shock and awe package agreed last May must now all be hoarded for Spain!

French publication accuses Chancellor Merkel of terrorising the markets!

The headline, albeit in French is readily understandable in English, read here.

The conclusion to the same article may need some translation however, my version is as follows:

"In effect she has already made effective across the eurozone, and on the markets a model of 'centralised economic government'. Pay attention, it is on the German model."

Reuters gives a good summary of the ongoing chaos in Ireland, linked here, while Bloomberg TV this morning had an interview with a very senior Rothschild - bondholders must be getting fearful over a possible future shearing (haircut no longer seems an accurate term for the likely coming procedure!)

EU threatens Irish voters

The Irish Times has the report, linked here, from which comes the essence in these quotes:

While it is the practice of European authorities not to comment on the internal politics of member states, three well-placed sources said it was clear it would not be possible to agree a bailout programme with a caretaker administration.

“From our perspective, it is important that the Government is able to represent Ireland in the talks,” said a senior source.

“It would be very unpleasant if there was nobody to talk to. That would be very irresponsible.”

To bring down the Government at this point would make a difficult situation much worse, the source added.

EU officials, spokespeople, Commissioners and MEPS must soon learn that without the consent of the voters of the former nation states of Europe they are nothing and are owed nothing. While at the site of the Irish paper take the time to enjoy the cartoon, linked here, which appears on the front of the print edition this morning and illustrates the hapless Irish leader torn between the EU and the IMF.

Chancellor's crass statement show's Britian's helplessness and hopelessness.

To believe that offering around seven billion pounds to a bankrupt neighbour, partly in debt to your own banks for amounts possibly over a hundred billion, will somehow save your own banks from shortly having to eventually seek similar loans from other debtor neighbours is fantasy in the extreme.

In a short televised clip on Sky News last evening,(where a sharp and well informed young man called Hills illustrated what a pawn of the establishment Jeff Randall has become since being employed by that broadcaster) George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made just such a claim in a brief interview clip. He had earlier not been so frank in Parliament, flanked by his bosses Cameron and Clegg, where he had laid the blame at the door of national necessity before a House of Commons full of supine MPs few able to discern the complete absurdity this statement makes of their own positions and Osborne's recent budget of supposed austerity cuts.

The banks are calling all the tunes but the banks cannot be saved as is now being seen quite clearly in Ireland where EU leaders may in future come to be typified by Brian Cowan on the video at this link.

The IMF lacks the funding and the ECB will soon be seen to be committed way beyond its means, that is what Britain's leaders should be preparing for, not throwing more good money (what that?) after bad!

This blog called the Euro's demise correctly - Now for fragmentation

At this time one week ago this blog correctly predicted that last week would prove the final crunch point for the Euro, read here. It was perhaps fitting that it was this blogger who stood almost entirely alone in discerning the exact moment of the euro's demise, after all I have been blogging almost daily on the certainty of its collapse since its creation, first on the Financial Times Forums and over the past several years on Ironies and Ironies Too. In the latter years, as I have been forced to try to adapt to an azerty keyboard, the punctuation of my posts has not always been as I intended and I appreciate my regular readers' forbearance. Chaos will be the rule over the coming period of change. Pay no attention to the predictions of those now in power who have ever asserted that this supposed unthinkable catastrophe could ever occur. Democracy must somehow eventually emerge, perhaps in smaller units at first, the "Fragmentation" previously predicted on this blog, see my New Year's posting for 2010 linked here. As a parting post, however, that is not the particular one I have chosen to quote in full regarding all the always perfectly foreseeable dangers that now lie before us. Instead I have chosen one from last March on Britain's election campaign, for it highlights the real difficulty the EU 27 former nations now face. Our corrupt and lying politicians and the political parties which they thoughtlessly and unconscionably serve are the real villains, we would be best if they could be deprived of any role in preparing a way ahead. All my other posts serve as evidence of this dreadful, albeit sometimes well-intentioned, EU project, the archives remain available at present, unlike all my predictions as NM on the FT Forums!.

§§§§§§§§§§

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The poison from Political Parties.

Any rational person, watching the proceedings during Prime Minister Questions and the Budget Statement that immediately followed in the chamber of the House of Commons in Westminster yesterday afternoon, who was aware of the realities regarding the governance of the former nation of Great Britain and the true state of its economy, could only conclude that the only proper place for those participating in such a farcical scam would be jail. Party politics, as developed in the Constitutional Democracy that governed the independent sovereign state which was Great Britain and Northern Ireland, up until the enactment of the European Communities Act in 1972, delivered a form of alternating party democracy to the nation which served it well and thus compensated for the non-democratic features essential in a whipped parliamentary system. In the "post-democratic" era (a phrase tellingly now in frequent usage within the EU) the party system sends only corrupt individuals to Government or other positions of power, as no person with honour or integrity would demean themselves by joining the thoroughly rotten political parties who control all access to such positions of power, whether within Westminster or the EU. Only the electorate can address this problem by refusing to vote for any candidate from the three main parties in the forthcoming election. A system of direct democracy along Swiss lines might give hope that the deep sickness in Britain's system might eventually be turned around. Fragmentation or worldwide totalitarianism will be the alternative non-democratic outcomes.

§§§§§§§§§§

Thanks for bearing with my ramblings. When points need making or confusion reigns, check back to this site, I may have points to make but the saga of the euro at present seems to be at an end, for once the MSM can be relied upon to provide the detail if not pinpoint the underlying realities!

Irish trade union calls for civil unrest if no General Election is called

The report of the motion carried at the conference of the TEEU is in the Irish Times, linked here. The following is an extract from that report:

The emergency motion, which was put forward by the union’s executive, “condemns the Government for its criminal negligence in the management of the economy and for colluding with the banks in misleading the Irish people as to the seriousness of the crisis we face”.

It says that “this policy of economic sabotage has led to the betrayal of our country and to the loss of the last shreds of our economic sovereignty.

“We now call on the Government to resign, hold a general election and face the verdict of the electorate.

Elsewhere across the Irish Sea in Britain one newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph, carries a report of the threat by major US companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Intel, among other stories on the Irish tragedy, to quit Ireland if the country is forced by EU heavyweights to raise the rate of corporation tax in the country. Another Sunday paper, The Observer has a hard-hitting editorial in which it blames Ireland's politicians for the mess and also calls for an early election, apparently failing to recognise that Britain's politicians are equally rotten and culpable in bankrupting their nation whose own complete sacrifice of sovereignty presently seems merely somewhat delayed. In signing up to the Lisbon Treaty all countries accepted the single currency of the union as being the presently structured euro (albeit some with highfalutin sounding opt outs), economic governance of the eurogroup will in future it is proposed be enforced by a special agency of the ECB described in the ECB document I linked yesterday morning, which for convenience is linked again here. Britain tried to remain outside the centralising non-democratic clutches of the putative EU in the fifties and sixties by forming EFTA, a free-trade zone beyond the borders of the freedom sapping Common Market. Predatory and protectionist trade practises were imposed by the six founding members of the EU to destroy EFTA and its concept of free trading democratic sovereign states. Regardless of the opt out supposedly contained within the Lisbon Treaty, similar blackmailing economic practises will almost certainly be brought to bear on the UK and other non-eurogroup EU member states if anything like the proposal outlined in the linked ECB paper, now backed by Dominique Strauus-Kahn, head of the IMF, are ever put into effect. Seventy years on a new battle for Britain is taking place, our politicians and media are either unaware of that fact or endeavouring to keep the British public in ignorance of the facts by pretending the disaster taking place in the former sovereign state of Ireland is something of little other than financial concern to the other peoples of the archipelago of Britain. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth!

ECB has 130 billion exposure to Ireland's banks.

A good report on the present status of Ireland's subjugation is here, from which comes this: 

The ECB is worried they can lose the money they have given to the banks — that would be a nightmare," said a source close to the negotiations. The ECB has lent €130bn to the banks, a quarter of its book, while AIB admitted it lost €13bn in deposits this year and Bank of Ireland €10bn.

 The article claims Ireland has retained the right to continue with its12.5 % corporation tax rate, for how long that will be the case remains to be seen! Note this ominous sentence emphasised by the blog editor in the paragraphs below:

An EU source said: "We have realised the corporation tax issue is a casus belli [incident of war] for the Irish. We had something similar with the Greeks who did not want to touch their military spend, among the highest in the EU, so it was not touched."

However, he added that while the rate, at 12.5% the second lowest in the EU, would stay, there were other ways to address the loopholes that anger Berlin in particular because they see companies using them to avoid paying tax in Germany.

How will an Irish bailout help Portugal or Spain?

It is a good question contained in this posting's headline "How will an Irish bailout help Portugal or Spain?"..... the answer of course is that it will not, nor of course is it intended that it would. The name of the game from now on is consolidation of the suppression of sovereignty of an entire continent. Such conquests can never be achieved without pain if not downright widespread misery. For what is coming read the ECB proposals for its new Enforcement Agency from the pdf file, linked here, (especially page 7 onwards of the 14 in total).

Dominique Strauss-Kahn urges centralising EU economic governance outside EU Council!

Now we can discern the end game of this deliberately contrived EU economic crisis emerging from the mists of idealistic daydreams which have befogged the minds of Europe's national leaders down recent decades. (Read Mary Ellen Synon's blog here and here for more on what Germany and France might have been scheming. The end result, however, is now perfectly clear as always predicted on this blog, its forerunner "Ironies" and my novel written last century!) The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (possible contender in the next French Presidential elections should President Sarkozy continue to falter and drift downwards in the opinion polls) is reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning to be calling for huge handovers of sovereignty in taxation and economic governance to a centralised EU body beyond national or even EU Council control, read here. The article ends by quoting his claim that the only option is "more cooperation, and greater integration.” Absolutely incorrect and a certain recipe for ever greater resentment and chaos, the only option now is a halt to the EU as presently structured and a considered appraisal of alternatives to achieve a democratic alternative.

ECB already owns Allied Irish?

Interesting report from The Guardian, this evening linked here. A quote: During a day of feverish speculation over the size of the bailout being negotiated by the Irish government with the EU and International Monetary Fund, Allied Irish Bank reported that its dependence on "monetary authorities" had risen to €27bn (£23bn) from below €10bn in June.

A debate on an English Parliament

MPs invited to debate whether the UK has a future?

The Campaign for an English Parliament is delighted to host a debate on Wednesday, 24^th November 2010 (7pm) at Dartmouth House, 37 Charles Street, London W1J 5ED.

The motion will be

‘This house believes that an English Parliament is the last hope for a United Kingdom’.

The background to this debate is the widening gulf between the nations of the UK and the reluctance of the British Government to discuss these inequalities. You only have to listen to the Coalition Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg when on the 16^th November 2010 he stated, at the Hansard Society event, ‘that there is no evidence at all that devolution leads to inequalities.’

“That view is dangerously naive as the dissolution of Unions is a very real concern, we only have to think of Yugoslavia and the present impasse in Belgium to realise the damaging consequences of failure. The blatant inequalities within UK devolution need to be resolved before the people of England become totally irreconcilable to the Union”. Says Eddie Bone, Public Relations Officer, Campaign for an English Parliament

“Without national equality we will see a continuation of the unrest seen on our streets such as that of the students this month. Only English students face the prospect of tuition fees up to £9,000 and crippling debt on graduation wherever they choose to study in the UK unlike their Scottish and Welsh counterparts who pay no fees. Similarly the people of England are threatened with devastating cuts in funding from the British government of up to 25% whilst it is reported that the grants to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are only being reduced by 6.8%, 7.5% and 6.9% respectively. This inequality of cuts in funding occurs whilst there is asset stripping of England”. Says Scilla Cullen, Chairman, Campaign for an English Parliament

“Unlike Scottish Nationalists, the Campaign for an English Parliament is not committed to independence and hence the destruction of the UK but seeks a new 21^st Century union in which the nations and peoples of the UK are equally enfranchised”. Says Scilla Cullen, Chairman, Campaign for an English Parliament

“Partnerships can quickly disappear when they have grown apart or have financial disputes. This is what we see now in the UK yet MPs remain distant and aloof to these very real concerns as Nick Clegg’s naïve reply shows”. Says Eddie Bone, Public Relations Officer, Campaign for an English Parliament

“The Campaign for an English Parliament urges all the UK MPs and Peers to address the growing national inequalities. An English Parliament is a solution as it would allow the people of England to feel part of the UK again and not just an ignored and despised piggy bank for the rest of the UK”. Says Scilla Cullen, Chairman, Campaign for an English Parliament

For bookings and for more information contact either Scilla or Eddie on

Scilla Cullen, Chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament, Scilla.cullen@dsl.pipex.com

Eddie Bone, Public Relations Officer for the Campaign for an English Parliament eddiejbone@aol.co.uk

For further information about the Campaign for an English Parliament please go to our website www.thecep.org.uk

A message for Britain in an anguished Irish Times editorial!

The entire leading article from yesterday's Irish Times, titled "Was it for this?" may be read here, the lesson for we English, particularly your typical Tory MP, comes in this paragraph: "The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions."

'House price threat to UK Economy' warns OECD.

Downgrading its growth forecast for the UK from 2.5% to 1.7% for next year the OECD, as reported in The Independent, linked here, reports as follows:

The housing market is identified as a weak point: "Renewed decline in house prices in the UK would have a negative effect on household balance sheets , and have become a more acute risk in the UK.

"Several recent signs point to renewed weaknesses in the housing market. UK residential property is perhaps 40 per cent overvalued on historic norms, the OECD suggests, though no immediate correction is foreseen.

The Government, like its predecessor, pretends this problem does not exist, indeed endeavours to sustain the ludicrous situation with its low interest rate policy, comments on which are not tolerated as discovered by Lord Young, read here. Afternoon update following Lord Young's resignation - for the truth on the matter read the Daily Mash comment, linked here.

Only Connect - are two dreadful headlines somehow linked?

There is an entertaining quiz show being broadcast these days by BBC Four on television. It is called 'Only Connect' and you can try your hand at one of its games trying to draw connections from sixteen apparently random subjects into four specific categories from here. Having taken on the challenge, I have found myself tending to try to find connections during other idle moments such as driving or performing otherwise routine tasks. Worryingly, around the middle of this week I browsed by the following two articles, whilst trying to keep abreast of the Irish and euro crisis and all the other apparently disconnected but crazy events occurring in the world I found myself awake over the past two nights pondering whether these two grim and apparently totally disconnected headlines could be in some way related. The first is the following, from the Daily Telegraph, please visit this link to view the copyright image beneath this headline.

Ireland bailout: the European politicians who will decide

Ireland’s fate now rests in the hands of a cadre of powerful European politicians.

The second is from The Christian Voice, linked here, which also covered a topic appearing widely in the MSM, was as follows:

Cells derived from aborted baby injected into patient

Two unanswered questions prey on my mind in considering both these articles. What in heavens name can be the motivation in the minds of the people perpetrating these dreadful acts. In the first case old men, having destroyed the democracies of an entire continent now seek ever greater and even more unrestricted power over their fellow citizens even as they approach the normal age of death! In the second headline, a state run nationalised monopoly medical industry apparently seems to be factory farm foetuses on the back of a deliberate downgrading of public morality apparently for the harvesting of stem cells from aborted babies, now apparently destined to be directly injected into the brains of ordinary men! In the case reported this week, the first of twelve such experiments in Glasgow, (co-inceidentally? one of the most deprived cities of the EU) the recipient was a 79 year-old brain damaged victim of a stroke. Only Connect! I wish I could not!!!!!

The Tyranny Question that will not go away!

French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, was interviewed on the BBC Today programme this morning and repeatedly asked whether Ireland would be 'permitted' to retain its 12.5% Corporation Tax rate. She repeatedly refused to offer an answer. The interview may be heard from here. The entire four and a half minute interview is worth listening to but the crucial portion on economic sovereignty comes at the three minute point. The 'shrewd' question that was refused to be answered was the following as paraphrased by the blog editor: "But can you see the possibility of a bailout being agreed that did not include a change in Iraland's corporation tax rate?"

EU Construction Crisis!

It ain't just the banks and sovereign states folk, its construction as well. According to the official figures released at noon today Eurozone construction fell month on month between August and September 2.1% and 8.1% year on year! Shockingly awful when one notes these figures are seasonally adjusted and recalls how bad things seemed one year ago!

British aid for Ireland's banks

The Irish Finance Minister, quoted by Reuters, linked here, makes quite clear that any British help for Ireland's banks will be an entirely British matter and nothing whatever to do with the EU, giving George Osborne even greater negotiating flexibility in the Ecofin meeting today where he is not bound by previous illegitimate undertakings made by Alistair Darling as mentioned in the posting immediately below. A quote from Reuters:

POSSIBILITY OF UK ASSISTANCE? If Britain wishes to participate, that's a matter for Britain in the event that a package is needed. That's a matter in the first instance for the United Kingdom. I know they see Ireland as one of their best customers and the United Kingdom is anxious to help in every possible way but I don't want to pre-empt their right to make their own decision in a matter of this type.

In general, the UK has not participated in European Union wide assistance, but I know that the British authorities are anxious to ensure that any help that Ireland needs will be given, so again it's a matter for the United Kingdom authorities, it's not a matter for the Irish matters.

But let's be clear, Britain is not in the eurozone , it's in the sterling area, but the eurozone is determined to protect its own financial system and that's very important.

(Blog editor's added emphasis). Cameron and Darling be warned, what you offer to Ireland has to be justified by you yourselves, any amounts offered cannot be blamed on the previous administration.

Black hole or the wide, free universe?

"I want to call on every responsible European to resist the centrifugal tendencies and existential alarmism." Olli Rehn, the Finnish EU Commissioner is reported in the press this morning as making this plea in respect of the present crisis facing the inevitable and long predicted demise of the euro currency. The EU is a black hole, sucking the wealth, democracy, independence and future aspirations of Europe's citizens towards its centre where all is crushed under the massive strains of its corruption and incompetence. These coming days will prove a test of whether any of its surviving satellite democracies still have the will to break free. George Osborne carries a great weight on his youthful shoulders today in Ecofin - this blog offers him luck and fortitude and the hint that what Alistair Darling signed last May had no legal substance as Darling had by then lost the authority to sign, it having already been removed by the British electorate at the ballot box!

EU heavies head to Dublin to Slash last Shred of Sovereignty

The following are the concluding paragraphs to the statement issued last night by the Ecofin Eurogroup:

We welcome the determination of the Irish government to engage in a short and focused consultation with the commission, the ECB and the IMF in order to determine the best way to provide any necessary support to address market risks, especially as regard the banking sector, in the context of the four-year budgetary plan and the upcoming budget.

We confirm that we will take determined and co-ordinated action to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area, if needed, and that we have the means available to do so.

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-two

To an article about above target UK inflation and another stupid letter to the boy Chancellor Osborne from BoE Governor (shifting goalposts) King, linked here, comes this pithy point:

ultron

3 minutes ago

The continued wilful failure by the BoE to execute its mandate and contain inflation is astonishing. There is only one reason why interest rates are being held artificially low: to support the housing market. Companies do not need these rates--they are not borrowing! They are sitting on cash piles and waiting for better times. Does King want to reinflate the property bubble? Yes. It's a disaster for pensioners and savers, of course, but who cares about them as long as the speculators and the rash are bailed out? I have some advice for you, Mr King: it's going to end in disaster. Long-term rates are going up, whatever you do, and property is coming down.

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-one

The following comment which deals with all the many flaws of the EU almost at a stroke, comes as a comment to an item on the Euro's demise by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (who ends by sympathising with old friends in the EU about to lose their pensions):

anthonyhaverstock

4 minutes ago

Recommended by 13 people

It is an entirely good thing that the EU is going to break up. Not only is it good for all the countries of this region, but it will serve as an example to all countries all over the world that these sorts of union are undoable. The African Union with its fiat 'Afro' is doomed; after all, if the 'white' people cannot do it, they will claim that it should not be even tried. The same goes for the NAU and all the other nascent unions. This will not be tried again for two hundred years, at least Herman Van Rompuy is a globalist, anti liberty bureaucrat of the worst kind, in charge of an entirely unrepresentative, morally and financially bankrupt institution. These people should not be left in charge of box of cereal, much less the money and lawmaking for of hundreds of millions of people. The EU was a fundamentally flawed idea that had its foul origins in Germany. That it has gotten this far with its outrageous rules and regulations is a testament to the weakness of the people living in the sovereign states that make it up. That being said, the Irish voted against expansion, only to be told to go back and vote again until they get it right. This is the most clear example of the vulgar totalitarianism of the EU. The European Union, for the sake of the liberty of all the people who live on that continent, must be broken up and abandoned permanently. It is the only way that each country can insulate itself from economic and cultural shocks. Nation states, for all their ills, serve a purpose that mimics the biological function of a skin; they act as a membrane keeping out diseases like bad money and bad people. When that membrane is taken away, you get contagion flowing freely, as well as totalitarianism, unwelcome immigration and cultural erosion. None of these things profit the people who live in a country. If they did, no one would mind them. The fact of the matter is that the EU is entirely harmful to the people who live in the nations of it. They know it now, not only through their gut feelings, but in their pockets as the Greeks, Irish, Portuguese steal their money. The launch of the Euro was not premature what exactly are you saying? Are you saying that if it had been launched at an auspicious time, that it would be legitimate? The Euro is illegitimate and inherently flawed, and its nature would not change no matter when it was launched. It is a worthless, immoral fiat currency, controlled by a foreign central bank that is unaccountable, remote and destructive of value. The economies, legal systems, wage bargaining practices, productivity growth, and interest rate sensitivity, of North and South Europe are all irrelevant to the nature of the euro, and you should already understand this having conceded that the dollar is fundamentally flawed, printing money is immoral, and that the Federal Reserve should be abolished. Delors told colleagues that any crisis would be a “beneficial crisis” Hmmm. This sounds just like a 'conspiracy theory' doesn't it? And what would the benefit of a dollar crisis be, are the two crises being engineered deliberately to benefit the creation of a world currency and world government in a New World Order, the sovereign nations of the world being forced to give up national sovereignty? Anyone should be able to extrapolate that scenario from your words. Greece has been effectively colonised by the ECG and the Germans. Ireland and Portugal are next. The populations of these countries have not got a clue about what is happening to them; they just want their 'benefits' to flow uninterrupted. None of this could be done without central banks and fraudulent fiat currencies. Keynesians and their witchcraft economics are what has made this power grab possible. Shame on you all for peddling and for continuing to peddle this nonsense. As for political ownership of these policies, this might be the undoing of the EU. If the truth about all of this should spread, and the blame placed correctly, the EU will take the fall instead of the national governments. I cannot see Silvio taking the fall for Van Rompuy. The EU was illegitimate long before the rejection of the EU Constitution. It is illegitimate for one generation of people to give up the birthrights of future generations. The people today should no more be able to go into debt for future people to pay back than they should be able to vote to cede sovereignly to a foreign power. As for Ireland, they spent generations spilling their blood to be free. Now they are giving it all up for pieces of worthless paper. With any luck, they will find their spines and cut themselves off from this bankrupt, corrupting and purely destructive EU monster once and for all.

Austria withholding Greek funding!

News for the Euro currency just goes from bad to terrible with this report from Forex Crunch, linked here, which begins as follows: Austria refuses to transfer its portion in the bailout package to Greece. Why? Greece didn’t meet the conditions it made to the EU about cutting its deficit. No austerity – no payment. As simple as that. Add a refusal from Finland to aid Ireland, and you have a very vulnerable Euro.

Ireland in talks to surrender sovereignty to EU

So farewell to Eire, if Bloomberg TV is to be believed, Ireland is to enter talks removing its need to obtain market financing over the next year or so. RIP Eire 1922 - 2011? Watch statements on the Irish 12.5% Corporation Tax Rate to guage the extent of the defeat! This will not save the Euro currency, read my first posting on this blog of this morning regarding the one sane way forward.

Fannie Mae 30 year bond yield soars skywards!

Is QEII in the USA about to crash and burn? The jump in yield of the mortgage rate setting Fannie Mae 30 year bond seems to indicate things are going badly awry. Read the LA Times item from here. It is the mortgage debt in Ireland that now is the greatest threat to that nation's survival, officially not even being discussed at the Eurozone Ecofin meeting, read what I blogged and linked on that topic last week, from here. The UK is in the same boat as both Ireland and the USA yet the Coalition Government pretends no such worries or even concerns really exist. Oh Really!

Irish Sovereignty and Van Rompuy's "lie"!

A 'must read article' from Bruno Waterfield, linked here, titled "The EU versus Irish Freedom". I will resist offering any quotes, of which there are many worth retaining, in case it prevents my readers from absorbing the entire critically important content.

The human cost of the euro-currency conspiracy.

The decades long conspiracy to steal the sovereignty of Europe's nation states (long chronicled on this blog) is now beginning to reveal the devestating costs of this terrible tragedy in human terms, read here from the Irish Times.

MEP Troughers get no January fattening increases!

The disgusting, self-serving, troughing MEPs will be forced to make do on the same huge salaries, pensions and perks that they received one year ago also in January 2011, no increase iun the 2011 EU Budget having been agreed. So it would appear from this article in EU Observer, linked here. Knowing the almost complete lack of morals, decency and integrity of the vast majority of these MEP EU-filth usually display, we can anticipate that they will probably push through all the planned increases for their own benefits in January 2011 and cut programs for the supposed benefits of EU Citizens to compensate. If only all funds to the EU could be stopped from 1st January 2011, how much less austerity would the rest of Europe have to bear and how much closer to a solution to the euro currency crisis we would all be!

Eurozone Ecofin should concentrate on Spain

Much furore over Ireland and Portugal this morning as the MSM belatedly catches up with the real crisis of the moment. The eurozone finance ministers meeting today to consider building firewalls for Ireland and Portugal should instead concentrate on Spain where Europe's peace was similarly first threatened in the nineteen thirties. If Spain's economy can be fortified and held, a carefully considered de-construction of the Euro could be accomplished and a democratic replacement established for the takeover of the deeplycorrupted EU Institutions. (See my post on Teetering Tories earlier this morning) Leaving such a crucial task in the hands of the leaders who have wrought this damage would be the worst act of insanity and almost certainly gurantee its failure. If German Chancellor Angela Merkel is serious about wishing to save the EU, read here, she should call upon the services of those economists and finance specialists who have warned for decades that the euro-currency project was ever doomed to fail and at the same time employ Swiss Constitutional Law experts who grasp the concepts of multi-lingual democratic constructs.

Ireland - is this the crunch week for the Euro?

Little sensible coverage in the UK press this morning on the day of reckoning which is inexorably heading towards Iberia, although I did enjoy this description of Ireland's plight by Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph, linked here:

In the blink of an eye, Europe has in any case moved from a position where no act of default would be allowed, with the funding to make good this promise apparently in place, to one where some sort of undefined default has now been officially sanctioned.

Markets have reacted accordingly, by driving up rates to a level where the costs of refinancing and servicing Ireland’s national debt would make default virtually inevitable. If Ireland wasn’t bust before, it is now. Other peripheral eurozone economies could follow.

The Irish people have been betrayed by their European “friends” as surely as was Britain during the fiasco of the ERM in the early 1990s. Unfortunately for Ireland, there is no similarly obvious escape route. It cannot devalue its way back to growth. It is as permanently imprisoned in its eurozone sarcophagus as an Egyptian mummy in the Valley of the Kings. (Blog editor's emphasis)

Today's Cenotaph wreath laying is a PR sham.

The correct moment for Remembrance last week was at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the exact anniversary of the World War One armistice when the guns fell silent after the first German attempt to impose their hegemony over the entire European Continent. This year that moment came last Thursday and in many parts of Europe it was duly observed with those slaughtered being properly remembered and honoured. When I was young traffic stopped at that instant to allow for proper observance of the period of silence. This later became an inconvenience in Britain, where 11th November was an ordinary working day unlike in other parts of Europe, so Remembrance was displaced to Sunday. So detached from our own recent history and trivialised by our shallow media have we become, that yesterday I read an article directed at our nation's youth, which implied they needed guidance as to how to occupy their minds during the sombre two minutes. I have an alternative suggestion for them: Given the fact that proper regard to our fallen heroes was given last Thursday, and remembering that all the beliefs and values for which they died have now been trashed by our self-serving, expense manipulating, political classes I propose we consider the depth of the betrayal of the three political leaders standing clutching their wreaths in front of the Cenotaph and the treachery and hypocrisy of the political parties they represent. These men, the latest in a long line of similarly sinister liars and tricksters, have betrayed not just their country but the sacrifice of all those who fought and died for its independence and democracy down the centuries. In the two minutes of silence, think on the implications of the thoughts well conveyed in the poem beneath this posting that I put on this blog yesterday, think of the treachery that drove all three parties to deprive us of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which entered into power only one year ago on the 1st December yet has already cost us dear in no longer having our own foreign representation but also made our police forces dance to the tune of foreigners!

Shot at Dawn - a poem for Remembrance Sunday tomorrow!

Shot at Dawn. 11.11.2010.

Sixteen year old Herbert Burden

Lied about his age,

To fight for King and Country

Yet with his life he paid.

He saw his friends each massacred,

At the Battlefield of Bellwarde Ridge,

He bravely faced the firing squad,

Yet “officially” still under age.

Now tied firmly to the solid stake,

A white cloth pinned on his shirt,

A solitary Priest prayed for him

Loud came the order then to shoot.

God forgive those that metered out such “Justice”,

For those that fell asleep at their post,

Forgive those that refused to fight,

Or so terrified they just couldn’t cope.

Many so young paid the ultimate price,

Forgiveness will not bring them back.

They did their best for their Country

Of courage not one of them lacked.

Some refused to be blindfolded,

They stared down the barrels of those guns,

Guns that they knew would kill them,

Not cowards when all’s said and done.

Yet those standing today at the Cenotaph,

To pay respects to those now dead

In this year of Twenty-Ten,

There is much that needs to be said.

In 1914 they at least tried their best

For their Country and fellow man,

But “Today’s” Politicians with forked tongues speak

With no courage to say what they’ve done.

Others were shot for their fear of dying,

But their Country remained safe and free,

Now foreigners strut around and new laws make,

That have to be obeyed by you and me.

They deliberately gave away their Country

Bit by bit over air, land and sea,

Broken promises, shared ships, new Treaties,

Put in jeopardy-our Security.

But ‘ere the sun sets on this Country,

MP’s will come to know deep shame,

For those “Shot at Dawn” were far braver

For Crown and Country they never betrayed. by Anne Palmer

ECB is Bond Buyer of 'only resort' but who pays?

Bloomberg sums up the complete mess that is European economic policy at present in a report this morning, linked here. I can grasp quite easily that Bonds for the periphery countries (nice term that, an eventual Atlantic Seaboard EU breakaway, being a possible end result perhaps à la Nordic Bloc) are dodgy investments that even at yields above 10% where they are now headed are too risky by far for sane investors such as pensioners, but as a non-economist I do not see how they are less risky for ordinary taxpayers which is what ECB purchases will eventually have to prove to be. Yet there is of course a still bigger question, which taxpayers is the French head of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, representing when he purchases such worthless paper? Especially given that his German opposite and front-running replacement candidate, Axel Weber, is on record as opposing the purchases. All this is not helped by the French Finance Minister being interviewed on Bloomberg TV, testerday morning leaving the distinct impression she has no idea as to the answer to such painful questions. As presently a French taxpayer I am feeling none too comfortable with the conclusions to all this to which I am being reluctantly drawn.

And so begins the final end to British Parliamentary Sovereignty!

From Hansard, linked here:

Bill presented

European Union Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary William Hague, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Danny Alexander, Mr Patrick McLoughlin, Mr Oliver Letwin, Mr David Lidington, Mr Jeremy Browne, Mr Alistair Carmichael, Mr Henry Bellingham and Alistair Burt, presented a Bill to make provision about treaties relating to the European Union and decisions made under them, including provision implementing the Protocol signed at Brussels on 23 June 2010 amending the Protocol (No. 36) on transitional provisions annexed to the Treaty on European Union, to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community; and to make provision about the means by which directly applicable or directly effective European Union law has effect in the United Kingdom.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 106) with explanatory notes (Bill 106- EN ).

11 Nov 2010 : Column 471

Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I raised earlier with the Leader of the House my Committee's concerns at the extremely short time between the presentation of the European Union Bill and its Second Reading. The Bill deals with matters of enormous constitutional importance and it would be appropriate, within the terms of reference of my Committee, to guarantee that we are given adequate time to consider it. I would be grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you would be kind enough to take that point on board for the purposes of ensuring that, within the Standing Orders, my Committee has appropriate time to deal with the Bill.

Daily Express report on the totally flawed Bill is here!

Barroso set to throw EU taxpayers dwindling resources to Ireland

The President of the EU Commission, on such a huge salary and with massive perks that lost him and his fellow Commissioners any sense of reality many moons ago has just pledged EU help for Ireland, where ten year interest rates on their bonds yesterday went through the 8.75% mark. Bloomberg has the report from the G20 in Seoul, Korea just over an hour ago. Barroso is of course from Portugal, where he once agitated for an extreme far left government, so he no doubt has one eye on the dreadful situation in his own home country which is next in line behind Ireland in having its economy completely devestated by the ridiculous Euro currency project, which was always a certainty to fail.

Van Rompuy asserts claiming independent national survival is possible is a lie.

The power-crazed EU Council President has really shot himself in the foot this time. The Belgian was speaking at a grandly titled first annual "Europe Address" in Berlin on Tuesday, the skimped Deutshe Welle report may be read from here. The remarks DW excluded were nevertheless picked up by EU Observer and the Irish Times. These reports contained the following complete and utter garbage, Irish Times version first:

In a speech last night in Berlin in which he argued against protectionist tendencies, he made the case that there were people in every member state who believed their own countries could survive alone in the globalised world.

“It is more than an illusion: it is a lie,” he said as he cited Franklin Roosevelt’s expression that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

“The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear. Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism and nationalism leads to war.”

He said today’s nationalism was not a positive feeling of pride in one’s identity but a negative feeling of apprehension to others.

“Fear of enemies within our borders and beyond our borders, it is a feeling all over Europe, not of a majority, but everywhere present.” The EU was born out of a will to co-operate, reconcile and to act in solidarity, he said.

“Fear is the source of immobility, of a lack of ambition, or worse, of protectionism, in Europe and globally. Those who are afraid of the loss of jobs and prosperity will thus create precisely what they wanted to avoid.” Mr Van Rompuy also made the case against renewed institutional debate in the EU as its leaders discuss “limited” treaty change to create permanent rescue measures for euro zone countries.

The EU Observer report quotes it somewhat differently as follows: "We have together to fight the danger of a new euro-scepticism," he said in a speech in Berlin on Tuesday night (9 November).

"This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries. In every member state, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world," he continued.

"It is more than an illusion: it is a lie!"

The president was speaking in the German capital on the Schicksalstag, or 'fateful day,' the anniversary of five pivotal events in the nation's history: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fall of the monarchy in 1918, but also the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Kristallnacht in 1938 and the execution of a leader of the 1848 revolutions in the German states.

Quoting wartime US president Franklin Roosevelt, he said that the "biggest enemy of Europe today is fear," and that this ultimately could lead to war.

"Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war," he said. "Today's nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one's own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others. Fear of 'enemies' within our borders and beyond our borders."

"It is a feeling all over Europe, not of a majority, but everywhere present."

That survival as an independent sovereign state is a "lie" will surely come as a surprise to the multitude of such states who together form the United Nations! Van Rompuy is however right to talk of fear mounting within every former country of the EU, it is the fear of the post-Lisbon EU, that non-democratic monster which we have created in our midst, bankrupting its member states, corruptly continuing unaudited for the 16th consecutive year and headed by an 'appointed man' who cuts a figure of complete ridicule as he endeavours to gain a disinterested world's attention.

EU Commissioner Barnier agrees to face MPs in Westminster.

The FT report is here. The following a brief quote: The European Union internal market commissioner has bowed to pressure to give evidence ...... Michel Barnier initially declined an invitation to address the Treasury select committee, citing diary problems. The Independent has excepts from the open letter sent to President Barroso on the initial decision to refuse to attend, linked here, the report includes the following "some in the City believe it is impossible to have a conversation with Mr Barnier in any language" a belief that is proven given the fact that the Commissioner's website only has a french version of his recent speech on the direction of regulatory policy, a fact pointed out (with links) on this blog this morning.

Former Taoiseach John Bruton - clutching at straws for Ireland

The interview on Radio 4 this morning speaks volumes on the extent of wishful thinking evident amongst all the politicians in the West. Listen to the broadcast from here. The article referred to in the broadcast was linked from this blog earlier in the week. I repeat the link again here for convenience.

EU Commissioner Barnier refuses to appear before MPs

The influential Frenchman charged with dismantling the worldwide influence, capabilities and wealth creation of the City of London has refused to appear before MPs in Westminster to explain the new regulatory bodies and their powers which will begin work on the foregoing objectives from the beginning of next year. Perhaps now MPs and Parliament will begin to grasp the full extent of the disaster they have delivered to our once Sovereign nation and vote to begin reversing this calamity. A report is in the Daily Telegraph, linked here. Background from the Commons here. The following quote is from the former City Minister in 2009 reported in the Guardian, linked here:

Myners said: "What we could not live with is an agreement at a European level that would have had domestic fiscal consequences for domestic governments.

"That is why sSupervision of individual institutions must remain a matter for national supervisors. We will strongly defend this principle at the forthcoming European Council meeting."

Barnier's 12th October 2010 speech to the World Federation of Exchanges, only available from his Europa website in French, which says it all in terms of the ideas of the Commissioner and the relevance the EU will in future have on a globalised world's markets. Trying to get the information with a trick I sometimes use when trying to keep English speakers aware of the underhand activities of the evil EU, ie deleting "fr" in the url of pdf documents with "en" only achieves the following result with this document:

The information you requested is not available in the language of your choice. To access the information in one of the available languages, please select one of the following links

So this is how the City of London, Europe's main financial hub, is to be kept abreast of the thinking of the unelected official who has ultimate control of those who will regulate the City.

Bonds -Irish 10 yr thru 8% and Portugal's thru 7% - Sell Spanish 5 yr says HSBC

The headline of this post has the crux of matters at lunchtime, detail from Bloomberg is here. It seems inconceivable that this chaos can continue. Thank goodness the EU has its Finnish Financial Wizard, Olli Rehn, from Mikkeli on the job in Ireland....... (only taking the Mickie!))

Greek local elections remove Government's mandate

I watched open-mouthed as Bloomberg TV reported first thing on Monday morning of this week that the Sunday local elections in Greece were a ringing endorsement for the austerity programme and the EU/IMF failing rescue package. Sure enough the true result is now slowly becoming clearer, starting with this comment in The Guardian, which concludes as follows: Abstaining or spoiling the ballot in a highly politicised country is a political act of great consequence which leaves the government with no mandate to continue with its measures. It is the Greek equivalent to the Argentinian chant "que sa vayan todos" ("you should all go") addressed to the elites that had led the country to bankruptcy in December 2001.

The IMF-EU authored chronicle of an economic death foretold will move to its end game with the banks' plenipotentiaries signing the death certificate of the welfare state, but popular resistance is now likely to move up a gear. Strikes, demonstrations and social unrest will decide the future of the country in the coming months. The Greeks have a proud record of resistance against foreign and local dominations. They now need new ideas, people and convergences, if a new politics is to rise from the current debacle. In this direction the wider left, the only political group not involved in the debt and corruption crises, has a major role to play.

The 'Living Dead' of the UK Housing Market.

A report from earlier this month on the 'UK Zombies lurching towards the financial abyss' from Fatom Consulting earlier this month gets coverage in 'This is Money.co.uk' which article is linked from here. The following is the most macabre quote: Economists at Fathom Consulting were a bit late for Halloween with their warning that the UK is in danger of creating millions of 'zombie households', but it is a sobering thought nonetheless.

They were referring to the 'living dead' of the housing market, or people who are so heavily burdened with mortgages and other debts that they are able to stay afloat only because base rates are at a 300-year low of 0.5%.

Canadian commentator discerns Germany's Euro Endgame!

A Canadian article "What Germany really wants: A two-tiered Europe" by Carl Mortished, picks up on the Wolfgang Schauble interview in Der Spiegel which I linked from this blog yesterday. It may be read in full from the Globe and Mail site linked here, but the following conclusion contains the essence on the future for the Euro:

What seems to now be on the table is a regime whereby lenders to troubled sovereigns will be forced to undergo a managed process of default, in which bond maturities will first be lengthened and then, if that isn't enough, bond holders will suffer a partial loss of capital.

No surprise that Irish and Greek bonds are being pounded. It costs almost €600,000 to insure €10-million of Irish debt while Greek 10-year bonds are yielding almost 9 percentage points more than German bunds. Bond investors have been saying loudly for some time that the euro zone project as it stands is unworkable, and the voices are now shrill. What is new is that Germany is finally contemplating the managed default of euro zone member states. When that happens, I reckon that Germany will begin to work on the endgame, which is a two-tier euro zone of core members, mainly comprising the northern states sheltering under the bundesbank's iron apron and a gaggle of Club Med states, with currencies loosely linked to the euro but free to devalue to perdition.

Newcastle Council squanders millions on crazed property speculation

The absolutely incredible report on how a British Council is prepared to offer 95% mortgages on worthless property on which they have already squandered forty million pounds, first revealed on Channel 4 News on Sunday evening, may now be read about online. The link is here. Remember that Newcastle is one of the Councils falling under Lib/Dem control in recent years and that this same party of economic illiterates and left-wing incompetent weirdoes is now sharing national power in the new national 'Cameron Poliburo' see picture and video from here.

Ireland's ongoing agony.

I recommend reading the linked article which appeared in yesterday's Irish Times, in full, it is linked from here. It is titled "If you thought the bank bailout was bad, wait until the mortgage defaults hit home" and is written by Morgan Kelly who is Professor of Economics at University College Dublin. It offers a foretaste of what will soon overtake Britain and the following quotes paint a chilling picture which is as nothing compared to the full horror (bearing in mind all this was deliberately contrived by the EU's leaders) which comes with reading the article in full: Instead of the unpleasant showdown with the European Central Bank that a bank resolution would have entailed, everyone is a winner. Or everyone who matters, at least.

The German and French banks whose solvency is the overriding concern of the ECB get their money back. Senior Irish policymakers get to roll over and have their tummies tickled by their European overlords and be told what good sports they have been. And best of all, apart from some token departures of executives too old and rich to care less, the senior management of the banks that caused this crisis continue to enjoy their richly earned rewards. The only difficulty is that the Government’s open-ended commitment to cover the bank losses far exceeds the fiscal capacity of the Irish State........

Since September, a permanent team of ECB “observers” has taken up residence in the Department of Finance. Although of many nationalities, they are known there, dismayingly but inevitably, as “The Germans”......

The next act of the crisis will rehearse the same themes of bad loans and foreign debt, only this time as tragedy rather than farce. This time the bad loans will be mortgages, and the foreign creditor who cannot be repaid is the ECB. In consequence, the second act promises to be a good deal more traumatic than the first.

Where the first round of the banking crisis centred on a few dozen large developers, the next round will involve hundreds of thousands of families with mortgages. Between negotiated repayment reductions and defaults, at least 100,000 mortgages (one in eight) are already under water, and things have barely started........

...once Irish banks pass under direct ECB control next year, they will be forced to stop lending in order to shrink their balance sheets back to a level that can be funded from customer deposits. With no new mortgage lending, the housing market will be driven by cash transactions, and prices will collapse accordingly......

You have read enough articles by economists by now to know that it is customary at this stage for me to propose, in 30 words or fewer, a simple policy that will solve all our problems. Unfortunately, this is where I have to hold up my hands and confess that I have no solutions, simple or otherwise.

Ireland faced a painful choice between imposing a resolution on banks that were too big to save or becoming insolvent, and, for whatever reason, chose the latter. Sovereign nations get to make policy choices, and we are no longer a sovereign nation in any meaningful sense of that term.

From here on, for better or worse, we can only rely on the kindness of strangers.