If he calls an election he's gone and I hope that it happens. He should resign anyway.

There was no risk to UK sovereignty since the proposals for greater control from Brussels over budgets were to Eurozone countries only. The transaction tax was a seperate issue too.
The only issue, apparently, was certain restrictions that would be placed on financial industries as the view was that lax regulation was at least partly to blame for the financial crash.
Now Cameron might well be right to oppose those restrictions due to the large size of the UK financial sector, however I don't think it was necessary to veto the entire treaty. If a bit of effort had been put into negotiating with other European countries instead of slagging them off like a patronising parent for the last 18 months then I'm fairly sure that some kind of equitable agreement could have been reached.

But since Cameron cant bring himself to talk to the Europeans as equals then this situation was inevitable.

But that is the thing he didn't veto it (I am wrong on that point) as it is happening anyway.
All he did was say 'That isn't for us old chap'.

Just on cars, Germany's biggest export market is the UK. If I recall they will also earn bigger profits here on account of car margins for manufacturers here being higher in rip off Britain.

We have the power to totally destabilise Germany and thereby the whole EZ if they want to get silly with us. The Euro will not survive anyway, IMO. Indeed, I believe the drag on Germany will be so great over time that they will withdraw when the time is right for them.

Very true.
The fact that it has now become clear that we are stuck in this rut for this full term of his office pretty much confirms a Labour win in 2014.

TBH everytime they say 'We are just clearing up the mess' the amount who will vote for the just reduces, as most are sick of that excuse now.

I agree with you, can't see the Euro surviving as it is. They should have just started with Germany, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands, and France: stable economies with fairly aligned needs. Then the rest could have joined as and when ready.

All they needed to do was give up the opt-outs the UK needed, as it is that's all that has really happened anyway.

Indeed
If 'Dave' hadn't spent ages laying into the Euro zone so much so that eventually the French leader (Can't spell is name) told him to shut it he may have got the consessions he wanted but as such there was no way he was ever gunna give Cameron what he wanted after his recent comments.
I still think not agreeing was the correct decision mind.

Doubt it to be honest. It'd have been the same result regardless. After all, Sarkozy has been preening over the fact that there will be no referenda as a result. Or so he thinks...

I'm not so certain as it isn't often that a country's leader has a clear hissy fit towards another like Sarkozy(Thanks) did.

I think this is great news for Britain, and the quicker we pull out of the bloated, corrupt, expensive gravy train the better.

Countries will still trade with us if we have the right products and services to offer.

I see your point (although it's not like Sarko hasn't had his fair share of hissy fits at other heads of state, or indeed his own voters), but he has now got the same result he would have got if he'd given those concessions- now he just doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of referenda.

I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are.

Now go away and get some education.

Agreed. Felt this for some time.

Today's Daily Chart in the Economist shows the budget deficits of the main Eurozone economies in 2007 (before the crash), 2009 (in the middle of the recession) and 2011:



The 3% mark is the agreed limit under the Growth and Stability Pact agreed at Maastricht (but never properly enforced). As you can see Greece was well over it before the crash in 2007, so Greece has got in the situation that it is in due to excessive borrowing over a long period of time. As a comparison, the UK was 2.4% at this time (so a bit less than France). However Ireland and Spain were actually running budget surpluses going into the crash, their economies collapsed because they were based on unsustainable property bubbles and when the financial services sector collapsed their economies went into deep recession and in the case of Ireland the costs of bailing out their banking sector saddled the taxpayer with huge bills. Their economies were ruined by bad practices in the financial services sector, inappropriate lending and speculation on property.

So you have two types of problem - excess government borrowing (Greece) and the failure of regulation on the financial services sector (Spain/Ireland). The solution being driven by Germany is to constrain governments from running up budget deficits and to impose regulation on the financial services sector.

In the UK however the rhetoric from Cameron and Osborne recognises the first problem but not the second. They are trying to turn everything into a problem of government borrowing, Osborne keeps going on about Greece, saying "we don't want to end up like Greece"....but the UK had more in common with the Ireland and Spain story than Greece as we did not have a large budget deficit before the crash. They have gone on about high government borrowing figures after the crash, across Europe, but that is always going to happen when you have recessions, it doesn't mean borrowing caused the crisis in the first place.

What Cameron wanted was to have a solution involving constraints on government borrowing but not involving regulation of the financial services sector. However he can't really stop it, because if the Eurozone countries want to put tight rules on banks trading in Euro denominated assets they may make it impractical for banks based outside the Eurozone to trade in Eurozone assets and so force the relocation of banks from London to Frankfurt.

It's a reality. Get over it.

I'm sure though during these times of economic crisis, losing the UK economic ties would be a miny disaster for the german economy

Germans export levels with the UK are 6.6 percent of $1.337 trillion their import levels at $1.12 trillion

I'm sure doing the maths it's a hit they wouldn't want to take.

Quite.

Exactly.
We are big enough that we are someone the EU will WANT to trade with even if we were on the outside.

They wouldn't give a tuppeny if we left them alone.

Germany doesn't need the UK, neither does Europe.

They'd be better off without us. It wouldn't be long before the City of London was sidelined by Frankfurt.

Be very, very careful what you wish for.

Had to gasp when Michael Portillo gave Brown credit for that on BBC24 today.

Just a thought for you experts, if the Tories got their way and we eventually pulled out of Europe, does this mean we extradite all the Eastern Europeans that are settled here

Not my girlfriend, or my son's girlfriend I hope......

Quote ="billypop"I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are. Now go away and get some education.'" cars.european-traveler.com/germa ... tomobiles/ Silly little boy aren't you?

Quote ="billypop"I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are. Now go away and get some education.'" cars.european-traveler.com/germa ... tomobiles/ Silly little boy aren't you?

No. We have a debt crisis caused by conventional banking write downs on loans (mainly to greedy householders) and a sovereign debt crisis due to excessive governmental spending across Europe and the USA. Casino (or investment banking) is not at all the issue. It's just popularist guff so that people don't need to accept any personal responsibility and politicians can have scape-goats (in rhetorial terms only).