Monthly Archives: November 2011

  Some say it is democracy – but not as we know it. It is true the Euro is a great device for bringing down EU member states governments. Recent victims include Ireland and Portugal, with the Greek government hanging by a thread.  Electors can still change the people who are in a government, and [...]

        81  Conservative MPs voted for the referendum motion. 9 more abstained, because they disagreed with the government’s stance.         However, some of those who voted “No” to a referendum did not necessarily do so because they endorse the current approach to the EU. My neighbouring MP, the Conservative Dr. Phillip Lee has made an interesting statement [...]

              Some people think there will be an immediate vote on IMF funds in the Commons. My understanding  is that the government has full authority from the 11 July vote to almost double our subscription to the IMF. No new enlarged numbers seem to have been agreed at Cannes.            I attended the Committee which [...]

  I have received a copy of a letter from Dame Lucy Doolittle  to Dr Roy Spendlove:   Dear Roy, I am writing to reassure you. I know how worried you were that the government might cut spending too fast, and might take a combative approach to the EU. I think we can now be [...]

  Sometimes it is best to do nothing. It was good we were spared the high flown rhetoric that they saved the Euro and the world. It was even better than no new money was committed to bail outs. The IMF subs were not quantified and remain to be worked out next year.. The US [...]

  On 16 September 1992 the EU gave up on the narrow band Exchange Rate Mechanism. Italy was forced out of the narrow bands. Spain, Portugal  and others were also unable to hold their currencies against a strengthening DM. The Euro is the ERM it’s more difficult to get out of. The ERM still left [...]

               The untimely intrusion of democracy into the best laid plans of Euroland may have left some leaders thinking today you can have too many summits. This was meant to be the summit where Euroland told the world it had solved its problems, if only the Chinese and some of the others agreed to [...]

                The interview I was offered on Monday to give on Tuesday after the publication of the GDP figures was cancelled. Clearly the figures were too good to make it interesting. Growth came in at 0.5%, instead of the 0.3%  forecast. The story of a double dip or a falling economy was ruled out, [...]