Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Ken Clarke on the Euro

I have a new post up at Oncemore.

"Ken Clarke may believe he has improved his Conservative leadership chances by recognising that the Euro has failed to deliver "increased productivity, efficiency and living standards and stimulate policy reforms", but he has not. He has not had a Damascean conversion but simply "doubt[s] it is possible for 10 years or more". Should Britain really join the Euro during a Clarke premiership?"

5 comments:

BigRedOne said...

Ken Clarke is right, but he should go further and rule out ever joining. This is an issue that is rather close to my heart (and I fully intend to blog about it very soon) having been a passionate believer pre-conversion, and am now equally passionate in my loathing of this terrible monument to political egotism. Britain should stay out. End of.

Snafu said...

FBB, Surely it's the anti-Euro lobby who have been proved right! I don't think Ken could rule it out forever as he is too much of a Europhile.

It would be interesting to know if your German colleagues now have a similar view to yours on the Euro.

Bishop Hill said...

I wonder how we would all react if Clarke said he'd offer the people a referendum on continued membership of the EU?

Would we vote for him?

Anonymous said...

I suppose it would depend on whether we believed such referendum would be forthcoming. I for one suspect not.

BigRedOne said...

Snafu, I don't think I was clear enough earlier. I absolutely agree with you - the anti-Euro lobby HAVE been proved right. And if Clarke had any political sense, he would rule it out forever.

A lot of people I talk to, not just colleagues, would love to have the Euro go up in a puff of smoke and get the Deutschmark back. Remember, Germany was the only country in the Eurozone which didn't have a referendum on the issue. Why? Because that pompous f*ck Helmut Kohl knew the proposal would be rejected by the people, and didn't want anything so tedious as the majority of his countrymen disagreeing with him stopping him creating his political legacy.