Clegg's guests in London tomorrow include one of the main perpetrators of EU chaos.

Olli Rehn, as frequently pointed out on this blog, bears huge responsibility for two years of disastrous policy failures over the EU bail outs asVice President of the EU Commission for Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Marke Rutte, with whom Clegg will be able to share side discussions in Dutch to disguise the proceedings from any non-biased civil servants (should any exist in the Office of the Deputy PM or Foreign Affairs), attended an elitist Gymanasium School and has notably recently - told the BBC that any further withdrawal from Europe risks making Britain “a pygmy in the world.”- one way Clegg presumably hopes to overshadow Cameron!

German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler recently blamed Britain for constantly giving advice as to what Germany should do to fix the euro debt crisis, yet was unwilling to help solve it.

"I find it somewhat odd that they don't even have the euro yet they constantly give us advice what we should do," Roesler said, adding "but they don't want to help in any way."(Telegraph report here).

The Coalition is clearly divided and Clegg should be brought back in line on the EU or an election called! Meantime the delegates to the Liberal Get-together could all learn the words and tune to Olli's theme tune awarded by this blog:

Empty words and complete inaction are EU leaders' response to crisis! Redwood's blog.

A report, from a capital within the Euro Group, gives these remarks to yesterday's moves within the EMU currency zone, designed to counter the ever growing market turmoil:

Speaking during a parliamentary debate in Rome, Mr Berlusconi said “the government and parliament will act, I hope, with a large political and social consensus to fight every threat to our financial stability. Today more than ever, we need to act all together”.

He did not announce any new policy measures.

The moments when the television cameras were diverted to Berlusconi's listener among the Italian lawmakers spoke volumes. The Irish Times article continues:

Earlier in the day his finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, travelled to Luxembourg to meet euro group president, Jean-Claude Juncker. He also spoke to European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs Olli Rehn.

Details of the talks were not disclosed. No new measures were announced following either discussion.

The same report later continues:

The loss of investor confidence in Spain in recent weeks has triggered the sell-off of its government bonds, which pushes up the yield (the effective interest rate) on these bonds.

No new policy initiatives were announced in Madrid, but Mr Zapatero said his cabinet would meet in three weeks to discuss additional measures.

An auction of €3.5 billion of Spanish government bonds is scheduled to take place this morning.

Meantime in Britain, the specially created Office of Budget Responsibility has effectively committed patricide by pointing out that George Osborne's growth projections are products from fantasy land.

John Redwood, on his blog this morning, sets out some common sense steps that should now be taken by the Coalition Governement, to rectify this looming disaster for Britain's economy. These will of course be ignored, as likely to upset the Conservative's coalition partners, as I point out in my own comment to Mr Redwood's post which is still waiting moderation on that website:

Posted August 4, 2011 at 7:15 am | Permalink
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

(You write)"That requires more to go right, both in controlling spending and in faster growth of revenues".

Quite so, yet you yourself, and several others on your party’s backbenches continue to prop up this clearly left-leaning Coalition Government. I agree UKIP has no parliamentary voice as you pointed out in reply to my comment of yesterday, that is all the more reason that the tens of thousands of thoughtful and rational people in the country, who therefore eschew the frequent childishness of Farage & Co, are looking to you Mr Redwood, and similar Conservative colleagues, to push your own party the right way.

As with the EU, concessions will only be achieved when Westminster shows the resolve to contemplate withdrawal, similarly in the Coalition, your sane views, which offer the sole hope for economic survival, will only receive attention when you gather sufficient support to threaten the very survival of the coalition itself. Lib/Dem MPs have grasped this simple fact, hence, IMO, their undue influence on policy, taxation and spending.

HMS Astute, Jonahs, Jinxed Ships and Governments!

The extraordinary shooting incident on board the nuclear submarine HMS Astute in Southampton, following on from its grounding which led to the court martial of its commissioning Commanding Officer, set my mind to pondering on Jonahs and jinxed ships in general.

Seamen are notoriously superstitious, and when a run of bad luck seems to randomly occur on board a vessel, it will not be long before tongues wag, gossip flows and the search for a Jonah begun. Believe you me, such a situation is an ugly event, particularly for any scapegoat thus selected. For once so tagged on one ship, the suspicion tends to follow thereafter.

A Jonah on board, however, brings bad luck which should only last for the duration of a trip, the problem being solved with the signing on of a new crew, but should a vessel itself seem to be the victim of successive incidents of bad luck, then the ship itself may become considered as jinxed. Then no new crews can easily be found.

When I was about eighteen years old I served on a jinxed ship. Her name was 'British Aviator' a 42,000 deadweight tonnage tanker owned by the BP Tanker Company. Early in her life she collided with another vessel 'Crystal Jewel' killing the young daughter of that ship's Captain, in an event which later became notorious as a "radar assisted collision".

Other incidents occurred thereafter and while I was serving on board as a navigating apprentice, the Captain disappeared while we were sailing in ballast between Aden and Kuwait in the shark infested, highly luminescent waters to the south of the Arabian peninsular. We retraced our course and searched the seas throughout the daylight hours but he was never found. We radioed the loss of the Master, which was picked up by the Evening News and reported as the loss of the ship itself, giving my family some hours of concern. The ship's reputation went from unlucky to jinxed and thereafter she could only find crews with difficulty.

Looking at the present coalition government in the UK, it strikes me that its Cabinet Ministers are somewhat alike the crew on an unlucky ship. First we have seen the search for Jonah's, passing variously between Vince Cable, William Hague, Liam Fox and now on to Andrew Lansley yet it now seems the mishaps, misjudgements and sheer incompetence cannot be assigned to one Jonah alone. Something more grave and sinister is at work, something that will only disappear when the whole thing is consigned to the scrapyard!

George Osborne, allowing his name, and therefore that of the Government whom he represents, to be put to the disgraceful document posted on this blog last evening and headed:

"Gödöllö (Hungary), 8 April 2011
Statement by the Eurogroup and ECOFIN Ministers"

which may be read in full from the posting immediately below, must surely provide the final justification for Conservative MPs to bring this farce to a close. Strangely, perhaps the main beneficiary of this eleven month fiasco, initially appeared the first victim of its misfortunes, namely David Laws?

A Government that has lost its wits!

It is apparently a somewhat old-fashioned expression these days but the statement that a person had lost their wits evoked in the past more sympathy and understanding in the listener than the bald statement that a person has lost their marbles which seems today's replacement description.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister has gone on record this morning in the press with a lunatic proposal that fathers should in future be entitled to 10 months paterntity leave, a certain recipe for much extra insanity amongst normally productive fathers earning their income by their own efforts - unlike Cameron and Clegg!

The BBC interview on the Today programme with the actual Prime Minister, who entered Government as an obvious half-wit and has now gone all the way, may be heard here for complete confirmation of his unfitness to govern.

Czechs describe Chancellor Osborne's complete Council capitulation over City regulation

The Prague Daily Monitor, linked here, describes in a report from the Czech Republic's Economy Minister how the Coalition Government of the UK completely folded and left the Czechs isolated and alone, just as Chamberlain had done at Munich in the run up to world war, I quote: The Czech Republic stayed practically alone with its objections when Great Britain withdrew its own objections. Czechs had no chance to alter the proposal in any way and gave in so as not to worsen its negotiating position in the future, Kalousek said.

"Gnashing our teeth at a moment when the Czech Republic stayed alone and the result was clear, we said we would not break the EU Council's unity because it is quite important for our negotiating position on other topics," Kalousek said.

"Great Britain shared our view until yesterday [Monday] and thus has offered an extraordinary show of pragmatism," he added.

Over on the blog "The Slog", linked here, John Ward is railing at the further loss of the sovereignty of parliament consequent on Osborne's concurrent crumbling on giving the right to the EU to vet and approve the UK budget. This point is worth raising I guess, although I have now ceased to be surprised as each new Westminster Parliament grows ever more supine in the face of the erosion of their rights by the EU. Truly our MPs at Westminster are the very lowest of the low in their pursuit of salaries, pensions and perks while handing all power, work and responsibilities to foreigners over whom they have zero control! How they can pretend to represent the interests of their constituents completely defeats me, hopefully like Blair who can now barely walk the streets of London, each MP and MEP will soon receive the same contempt on the streets of their constituencies as the years of misgovernance which they have allowed the EU will demonstrate its inevitable consequences on the lives, livlihoods, purses and pocket books of their deliberately ill-educated and so far unaware electorates! The Coalition Government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are proceeding at a breathless pace in conceding new powers to the EU. At this rate we will be fully EU federalised even before the coalition ceases to be!