Cyprus Says "No!"

It is sometimes difficult to understand what politicians use for brains. This week the EU literally ambused Cyprus and threatened them that of they didn't grab 10% of their citizens savings then the island would face bankruptcy. This was the best they could come up with - a strategy that threatened to undermine confidence in banks across Europe and start a run on them not seen since 1929. The Cypriot negotiators flew back to Cyprus, told their citizens what was about to happen and then stared into the headlights like so many startled rabbits. The people of Cyprus, quite understandably, told their politicians to go shove it and their government then failed to vote for their own policy. There is an alternative, but the EU isn't going to like it. Cyprus could sell off the gas that has been discovered off its shores to the Russians. This would give the Russians an even tighter grip on energy in Europe and allow them a sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean both of which would be far from welcome. All of this could have been predicted by almost anyone other than a European politician who seem to have their heads firmly planted up their nether regions.

The Thick Man Of Europe.

David Cameron couldn't welcome the Olympic flame to Britain yesterday because he was at the G8 Conference in Washington making a fool of himself. His first move was to meet President Hollande of France, making up lost ground after having snubbed him when he was only a candidate, in order to inform him that any attempt to tax the financial industry in Europe will be "vetoed." Of course, in David Cameron's case, this simply means refusing to sign such an undertaking while Europe goes ahead anyway. After this auspicious meeting Cameron then went on to lecture the rest of Europe on how best to flatten the entire continental economy. Angela Merkel basically agreed, proposing a new EU treaty that would effectively prevent members from doing anything she disapproves of. Still she was still pretty pissed off with Cameron's lecturing and told him so. His idea of stoking hyper-inflation by printing more money across Europe was rightly dismissed out of hand. As an idea that was about as stupid as it gets. Not that the German's don't have halucinations of their own. One is the idea that the Maastrict treaty can be re-written by Germany without triggering a referendum in Britain - though it would interesting to see how Cameron would twist and turn to avoid one. Another is the astounding idea that Britain will be forced to join the Euro "sooner than it thinks." The only things that were clear is that Germany will not come to the aid of Greece and that country will be the Euro's sacrificial lamb, that Angela Merkel is as determined as Cameron to pauperise everyone else to protect the rich and that the French are now pulling for all their worth in the opposite direction. European Union? Not for much longer by the look of it.