Eu

Monday

Melanie McDonagh

Why is Labour making merit out of not backing an EU referendum?

Fair play to Ed Miliband for launching Labour’s business manifesto today in Bloomberg, not perhaps the party’s natural stamping ground, at least not since the prawn cocktail initiative in 1997. And it was gutsy of it too to take out a full page advertisement in the FT – they don’t come cheap – to broadcast the party’s opposition to an EU referendum. ‘The biggest risk to British business is the threat of an EU exit. Labour will put the national interest first. We will deliver reform, not exit’, it says. Granted most British businesses, especially big ones and foreign-based ones, don’t want out of the EU. But doesn’t it seem

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: John Major on James Goldsmith

The Goldsmith effect Sir: Much as I admire filial loyalty, I cannot allow Zac Goldsmith’s article about his father to go uncorrected (‘My dad saved the pound’, 28 February). Sir James Goldsmith was a formidable campaigner against the European Union and the euro currency, but at no point did he alter government policy. Zac Goldsmith suggests that I did not offer a referendum on membership of the euro currency out of conviction. This is wrong. I believed that any decision to abandon sterling — which I myself did not favour — was so fundamental that it would need national endorsement. On constitutional grounds some Cabinet members dissented, but many will

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Here’s what a real reform of business rates would look like

Of all the measures talked up ahead of the Budget, the reannouncement of a ‘radical’ review of the business rates was the least concrete in content but the most important in potential impact on the domestic economy, and especially on business investment. This column has banged on for years about the iniquity of a system that imposes the highest local taxes on businesses of any EU country, based on pre-crash rental assessments and bearing no relation to the value of diminishing local authority services. It’s a system that, on top of other economic woes, has brought devastation to town centres — and gets away with all this because it has

Thursday

James Forsyth

Wanted: a party leader willing to talk about defence

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-death-of-childhood/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and John Bew discuss the lack of foreign policy in the election campaign” startat=928] Listen [/audioplayer]In the 1984 US presidential election, Ronald Reagan came up with an effective way of embarrassing his rival Walter Mondale over defence. ‘There’s a bear in the woods,’ ran his television advert, showing a grizzly bear wandering through a forest. ‘For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it all.’ During the British general election campaign, the Russian bear isn’t making any attempt to hide — it is standing on its hind legs and pawing at the trees with its claws. Although everyone can see the bear,

Thursday

James Delingpole

The Great European Disaster on BBC4 reviewed: propaganda worthy of Leni Riefenstahl

My favourite bit of The Great European Disaster (BBC4, Sunday) was the lingering shot that showed golden heads of corn stirring gently in the breeze. It was captioned ‘Europe’. I cannot even begin to describe what a powerful effect this had on my subconscious. It was worthy of Leni Riefenstahl. Indeed, when I experimentally turned off the colour, it was Leni Riefenstahl. ‘Bloody hell!’ I thought to myself. ‘Suddenly it all makes sense.’ But my journey of discovery and enlightenment was only just beginning. I haven’t yet told you what the Ukrainian peasant said. I forget his exact words, but it was something along the lines of, ‘When I think

Peter Hitchens

It’s Nato that’s empire-building, not Putin

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/putin-s-empire-building/media.mp3″ title=”Peter Hitchens and Ben Judah debate Putin’s empire building” startat=33] Listen [/audioplayer]Just for once, let us try this argument with an open mind, employing arithmetic and geography and going easy on the adjectives. Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 square miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding? There remain 300,000 neutral square miles between the two, mostly in Ukraine. From Moscow’s point of view, this is already a grievous, irretrievable loss. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the canniest of

Sunday

James Forsyth

Who paid for that?

One of the things that even its critics, such as myself, have to concede that the European Union has been good at is making clear what it has funded. By contrast, in this country there’s little to tell you that the taxpayer has paid for something. But this is changing. The government will tomorrow, as I mention in the Mail on Sunday, announce that all publicly funded infrastructure projects will now be branded with a Union flag logo and the message ‘Funded by the UK Government.’ This will apply right across the UK and should provide some clarity as to who is paying for what; using this branding will be

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Why rural churches are so important, and the best use for them

The presence of a church Sir: The challenge for the Church of England and the wider community is to ensure that our village churches are a blessing and not a burden (‘It takes a village’, 21 February). The Church of England has approximately 16,000 churches, three-quarters of which are listed by English Heritage. Most of these church buildings are in rural areas. There are around 2,000 rural churches with weekly attendance lower than ten. It can be a significant responsibility for those small congregations to look after that church, and one has to recognise that this is a burden that falls on thriving parishes. There is no ‘one size fits

Paul Mason

Paul Mason’s diary: My Greek TV drama

It’ll be a Skype interview, says the producer from Greek television, and not live. In TV-speak that usually means not urgent and not important, but I’ve become vaguely interesting to Greeks because of the ‘Moscovici draft’ — a doomed attempt to resolve the crisis, leaked to me amid denials of its existence. The interview goes on a bit and the tone is deferential. At the appointed time, I fire up Greek television to see how many clips they’ve used. Instead of me, a panel of five bearded men in an expansive studio are conducting an earnest preview of my interview. When it starts, my face is on a studio screen

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How Cameron’s jobs miracle ate his immigration target

The embarrassing truth is that David Cameron did not think carefully about this pledge to take net immigration into the ‘tens of thousands’. The pledge originated in a Thick-of-It style farce: it was an aspiration mentioned by Damian Green, then immigration spokesman, that caught media attention. The Tories didn’t want to make a fuss by disowning it, so this pledge ended up becoming party policy and then government policy. Absurdly so: a country can only control who comes in, not who goes out. So immigration, not ‘net immigration’, should have been the target. And even then, it should have been immigration from outside the EU – which Theresa May has done

Zac Goldsmith

Zac Goldsmith: How my dad saved Britain

In recent weeks Ed Balls has been offering a new reason to vote Labour: it was his party, he says, that saved Britain from joining the euro. Now, the shadow chancellor is free to say what he wants — and in a way, I’m pleased that he feels the need to convey such an impression. But the true story of how Britain was saved from the euro is somewhat different. It all happened nearly a generation ago, between 1995 and 1997, when I was in my very early twenties. It was my father, James Goldsmith, who set out to ensure that Britain would never join the euro without the consent

Saturday

James Forsyth

The Greek crisis isn’t over

The more you read about the deal between Greece and the Eurozone, the clearer it becomes how temporary a deal it is. First, the Syrzia-led government has to submit on Monday a list of the reforms that it intends to implement over the next four months before the bailout is extended. Then, negotiations will have to start on a third Greek bailout for when this one runs out in the summer. These negotiations will be particularly fraught because of the lack of goodwill on all sides. Last night, Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, declared ‘The Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters.’ Now,

Thursday

Anne Applebaum

How Vladimir Putin is waging war on the West – and winning

Last month, the speaker of the Russian parliament solemnly instructed his foreign affairs committee to launch a historical investigation: was West Germany’s ‘annexation’ of East Germany really legal? Should it be condemned? Ought it to be reversed? Last week, the Russian foreign minister, speaking at a security conference in Munich, hinted that he might have similar doubts. ‘Germany’s reunification was conducted without any referendum,’ he declared, ominously. At this, the normally staid audience burst out laughing. The Germans in the room found the Russian statements particularly hilarious. Undo German unification? Why, that would require undoing the whole post-Cold War settlement! Which is indeed a very amusing notion — unless you

Digby Warde-Aldam

Emir Kusturica interview: why Slavoj Žižek is a fraud

Last month I was invited on a press trip to Serbia. The whole thing sounded great; free accommodation, free food, free travel. I said yes, obviously. But there was a catch; it involved an interview with the film director Emir Kusturica. Now, the first thing you should know about Emir Kusturica is that he’s huge, a proper man-mountain. His hands look like they could do more damage than your average battle tank, and at 6’3″, he must be at least a head taller than me. Not that I’m thinking this lucidly when finally the interview moment comes. Before I begin my questions, I’m more than a little scared that, at any

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Bet on a swift Grexit

‘Will Greece exit the eurozone in 2015?’ Paddy Power was pricing ‘yes’ at 3-to-1 on Tuesday, with 5-to-2 on another Greek general election within the year and 6-to-4 on the more cautious ‘Greece to adopt an official currency other than the euro by the end of 2017.’ I’m no betting man — as I reminded myself after backing a parade of point-to-point losers on Sunday — and I defer to our in-house speculator Freddy Gray, who will offer a wider guide to political bets worth having in the forthcoming Spectator Money (7 March). But on the Greek card I’m tempted by the longer odds on the shorter timeframe, because this

Tuesday

Fredrik Erixon

The Eurozone crisis is as much a political problem as it is an economic one

Veterans of Eurozone crisis summits, hoping for another nail-biting drama, had queued to get ringside seats. But yesterday’s meeting over Greece with Eurozone Finance Ministers ended without result. And you shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve been here many times before – Eurozone committees keep minutes but lose hours – and this was not a meeting during which decisions were to be taken. While some Eurozone watchers have convinced themselves that there is now a new script for Greece’s relation with its Eurozone creditors, no Eurozone government but the Greek share that view. It’s not just that other capitals are hostile to Greece’s own game plan of forcing other governments to make a new

Monday

Steerpike

Kindred spirits? Nigel Farage wants Jean-Claude Juncker as his drinking buddy

Nigel Farage wrote in the Spectator of his struggle to complete Dry January, while Jean-Claude Juncker is reported to be partial to a glass of cognac to kick start the day. So it came as little surprise to Mr Steerpike that the leader of Ukip named the President of the European Commission as his preferred drinking partner. Asked by Jim Mellon of Master Investor who out of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Jean-Claude Juncker, Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush, he would most like to go for a pint with, Farage opted for Juncker. ‘Oh Juncker every time, top man . I don’t agree with him politically, but I tell you something, he’s got a

Thursday

Merryn Somerset-Webb

Worry about the eurozone crisis if you like. But profit, too

If you want something to worry about, you need only cast your eye across the channel to find yourself spoilt for choice. There is the background noise of massive unrepayable sovereign debt levels. There’s huge youth unemployment. There are angry minority political parties — note the rise of Spain’s anti-austerity party Podemos. There is the battle between those who think the eurozone can survive as just a monetary union and those who know that it will only survive if it gives into political union. There is the threat of deflation (nice when you aren’t in debt, crippling when you are). There is the new phenomenon of negative yields, whereby desperate

Thursday

Taki

Taki’s recipe for the survival of the Greek nation

The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst posing — just as Fidel did 56 years ago — as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’d take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels gang anytime. The problem is Tsipras, a vulgar-sounding name if ever there was one. Add to it the fact that he has two sons, one named after Che Guevara, the other after Carlos, the

Fredrik Erixon

This time next year Greece will be out of the euro or Syriza will be out of power

There has been much interest in the European Central Bank making a new call on Greek government bonds, saying that ‘it is currently not possible to assume’ the bonds to be safe assets once the bailout programme expires. This is as you might expect: after all Yanis Varoufakis, the new Greek Finance Minister, has been touring European capitals this week to remind creditors that Greece is bankrupt. Yet markets and Twitter – our two modern messengers of truth – ‘spooked’, along, of course, with the poor souls who thought Greece’s Attica or Piraeus banks to be worthy an embrace by their savings. Loans to the Greek government fetch a 9.7