The EU’s “rescue” of the Greek economy has become a naked attempt by the Brussels machine to extend the powers of our EU government so that it will regulate all 27 economies on an unprecedented scale. The UK – still represented by the Brownite squatters – is powerless to prevent this happening, and is saddled with a bill that is estimated will cost the UK taxpayer £43bn. Meanwhile, the BBC report on the fiasco as if it were about events in a different country. Following on from my post yesterday, Dave’s policy towards Europe is shown up to be the obscene shambles that it is; he shunned a pre-election deal with UKIP – calling them “fuitcakes and loonies” – and lost at least 20 seats as a result; and now he’s cobbling together a coalition with the mosty Europhile party of them all, the Cleggmaniacs. To the BBC, this is an issue that does not even register; they long since took the Brussels shilling.
FARCICAL…
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Should probably mention that that ‘estimate’ is completely dreamt up by the Daily Mail. More reasoned analysis shows that the UK ‘bill’ would be much less and that’s only as part of our pre-existing obligations to the IMF. Even then, we would only be liable if the IMF loan was defaulted. Still, no need to let facts get in the way of a good story eh?
As for your theory that a tougher stance on Europe would have swept the Tories to power, well, hindsight is a wonderful gift. How do you know that it wasn’t Cameron’s softer approach to Europe that won over many LibDem supporters to voting Tory, winning him some crucial Tory/Lib marginals? A ‘hardline’ Europe approach would have potentially lost him as many votes as it would have gained. Plus, an extremist view on Europe would have made an alliance with the liberals impossible, meaning the Tories would have had to pull off the impressive feat of achieving an overall majority.
The BBC Radio 4 News bulletin at 7:30 this morning failed to mention any British involvement in the support for the Eurozone. The bulletin at 8:00 (via Jonny Dimond, the BBC’s eurofanatic correspondent) repeated Darling’s claim (which may indeed be correct – although nobody with an off-message view was deemed worthy of interview by the BBC) made in a fawning “interview” at around 7:45, that we’ll only be called upon for £7- 8 billion if the whole project goes belly up. So no need to worry.
The bulletins also failed to mention that Darling had no option but to agree to anything cobbled together over the weekend or the increasing anger in Germany over the Greek and related bail-outs (expressed by Angela Merkel’s poll failures over the weekend). I agree with Paulo’s sentiment: at the BBC there’s no need to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Paulo, from previous experience, there’s not much point in taking issue with anything you say; but to other readers who may be interested in this topic, I think Lord Pearson’s letter in the Daily Telegraph today pretty much answers Paulo’s ridiculous point about whether promising a referendum (as UKIP wanted) would have helped the Tories:
“Your report “How Ukip cost Tories a clear majority” (May 8) lets David Cameron off lightly.
Last June, and twice since, he refused Ukip’s offer to stand aside and help the Conservatives win the general election, in return for a binding referendum on our EU membership. This guarantee would have been in the open for months, would have been in the Conservative manifesto, and on its own would have given the Conservatives a comfortable majority.
In the event, we did not stand against a few Eurosceptic Conservative candidates in very marginal seats, whom we wanted also to help. Mr Cameron ordered four of them not to be seen in public with me but we helped them anyway in varying degrees, with leaflets and support in their local press. They averaged an increase of 10,000 votes each, with 50 per cent of the turnout and an eight per cent swing in their favour.
Mr Cameron threw the election away because he would not honour his promise to hold a referendum on Lisbon “whatever the outcome of the negotiations”. Dare we hope that Mr Cameron has learned his lesson for next time round?”
As to the price of the Greek rescue package to Britain, the reality of the cost of EU membership has been repeatedly and constantly under-estimated. The Daily Mail’s guesstimate today (linked by RH) is a good a stab as any, particularly as most in the MSM and at the BBC are economical with the truth in this area (to put it midly). The BBC actually don’t care; to them anything that emanates from Brussels is good.
Well, I hardly think “UKIP leader claims UKIP could have helped Cameron win” is exactly earth shattering news. As for the Daily Mail’s figure of £43 Billion that Robin quoted, even they have now realized that they were being (as you put it) economical with the truth and have revised the headline figure in the article Robin linked to (this one) down to £10 Billion. (although the page title and URL still read £43 billion). What they (and apparently you) fail to comment on is that this ‘£10bn bill’ is nothing of the sort. It is the risk we are exposed to if they default on the IMF loan. All other IMF contributors are exposed to a similar risk.