The exultant doom-sayers, which includes me, who happily forecast the demise of the euro-bloc have been proved wrong. My fingers tremble with impotent fury as I type this but we were wrong and the proof is 'just over there' where the EU staggers on but with signs of increased vigor. It may be that the euro-bloc will simply totter into a long Japanese-style period of deflation but, dammit, it will exist! Simon Nixon at the WSJ has an interesting article explaining it in economic terms but for me the real surpise has come from 'The People' - dread words! I assumed that they would revolt in fury against their leaders who, just as ours did all those years ago, conned them into this "German racket". But apart from a bit of stone-throwing in Athens and Madrid, mostly organised by trade unions because that's all they're good for, 'The People' have mostly remained quiescent.
Of course, where I went wrong was in subconsciously assuming that my inherent dislike of the whole rotten European edifice was shared at heart by many Europeans. Big mistake! It is obvious now that whilst most of them might grumble a bit, the fact is that they mostly quite like it, indeed, they prefer it to rule by their own (mostly rotten and/or useless) politicians. This, I believe, is why they are prepared to put up with German rules and regulations diffused via Brussels because that is preferable to anything coming from their own parliaments.
You may have gathered from my scribblings that my opinion of most of our Westminster politicians varies betweeen hopeless, hapless and helpless but I would grit my teeth and put up with their absurdities rather than succumb to rules laid down by the Berlin-Brussels axis. There-in, I think, lies the difference between us and them.
