While we're waiting for George Osborne's budget let's look on the bright side over the coalition and Europe. It's usually the sensible thing to do, as Esther Rantzen points out in a different context today – it's her 70th birthday – in the Daily Mail.
Happy birthday, Esther, and well done David Cameron over your handling of the sensitive T-word at last weekend's European council – or summit as we used to call them when they mattered more. If the chancellor is half as calm at 12.30 we will all sleep more soundly.
After his trip to Brussels – no more gallivanting to Corfu or Cannes for the summer summit, alas – Cameron reported to MPs yesterday in a tone that seems not to have outraged his Eurosceptics or sent the Mail editor's blood pressure in a northerly direction.
If so, that "full English breakfast" served to summiteers as a gesture to Dave may be Europe's best culinary investment since Jacques Chirac insulted Finnish cooking just before voting on the 2012 Olympics.
So far as I see it this is the PM's crucial passage: "Britain is not in the euro, and, let me be clear: we are not going to join the euro" – honourable members: "Hear, hear" – "but a strong and successful eurozone is vital for the British national interest. Already, about half our exports go to the EU, fourth fifths of them to the eurozone. As this house is aware, however, with the situation in Greece and the need for a support package from the other eurozone members, there is no doubt that the eurozone as a whole faces real challenges. So I was generally supportive of the council's efforts to strengthen the eurozone governance arrangements, but I was equally determined to ensure our national interests are protected."
He then went on to say that British budgets would continue to be presented to the House of Commons before Brussels saw them – as won't probably be the case inside the zone, though France may cheat as usual. Gordon Brown would have said the same. After all, it was his refusal to cut public spending and interest rates – the price of euro-entry – that saved us from membership.
So far, so good. But Dave's Tory pragmatism emerged at this juncture too.
"Sorting out the eurozone and adding to its governance arrangements is clearly vital for Europe. There may well be significant changes coming down the track. Whether they require treaty changes or not, our position will be the same: we will back measures that will help sort out the eurozone; we will not back measures that pass power from the UK to Brussels. As we are not members of the euro, we will not back measures that draw Britain further into financial support for the euro area."
If that means what it seems to mean, the Cameron government will nod through a revised treaty without putting it to the UK referendum which he promised would apply to future treaty changes. That move was intended as a sop to core Tory voters, but it was also a reproach after Labour's refusal to put the Lisbon treaty to a referendum after the EU constitution – a different creature altogether – was rejected by both Dutch and French voters.
The coalition line will be that the possible treaty to tighten the EU's grip on wayward national finance ministries – Greece's for instance — will not affect Britain because the UK is not inside the eurozone. This is so sensible that I am amazed that the Tory Eurosceptic MPs did not seize the opportunity to bark up the wrong tree. Woof woof.
But no, my old friend Bill Cash was admirably focused, and Douglas "Kamikaze" Carswell did not make his presence felt (he has become one of Cameron's chief tormentors during the brief prime ministerial career).
I have not yet seen if the Daily Telegraph has gone ape (the FT is so expensive, I cannot afford them both), but the trend-setting Mail carries the story on page two today, albeit calmly, using what I call its gritted teeth typeface, Sans Scowl.
Gosh, an outbreak of pragmatism that pays due respect to the facts on the ground and the wider national interest – rather than internal party management. If today's budget is equally pragmatic we may yet be saved for a bit longer, though the real test will come only when the Tories turn down an invitation to join birthday celebrations with the Latvian far right.
Comments in chronological order (Total 5 comments)
22 June 2010 12:10PM
It was encouraging to witness how Cameron handled both Europe and the Bloody Sunday issue, and we can draw some comfort from where the Budget is concerned. Nimble footwork can't do much to reduce the deficit, but the coalition seem to be leaning towards the least worst option, which is to penalise public sector workers, but not sack them.
22 June 2010 2:24PM
Who writes this cr@#? The key passage, where you know the author does not understand the subject matter, is when he says "after Labour's refusal to put the Lisbon treaty to a referendum after the EU constitution – a different creature altogether – was rejected by both Dutch and French voters." There are no substantial differences between the EU Constituton and the Lisbon treaty.
In Europe you get what you negotiate, and this article is from someone happy to see Cameron give away something for nothing. Also the continued survival of the eurozone is no more in this or any other countries interest than the survival of Sterling inside the ERM was in 1992. When the ERM broke up it ushered in the longest period of growth in the UK for three centuries, and the eruozone will like stay in a deflationary depression until it breaks up like the ERM did.
23 June 2010 7:53AM
Esther looked ridiculous why has she gone to the Mail and thought she was on the payroll of Richard Desmond and those photos would not look out of place in the Star .....The pictures reminded me of those seaside postcards we used to send years ago from Skeggie
Poor Dacre little wonder no Honour again !
Mel Bel x
23 June 2010 8:47AM
I don't know why he is praised for that? He had no other real option. Should he have refused changes to the Eurozone despite Britain not being in it? As he firmly believes that Britain is not a part of Europe and there is no real coherent British policy on Europe why should he even have an opinion on European issues?
Cameron has to love the EU in some way. It serves as his perfect scapegoat. Despite all the new nationalist fervour in Britain there should be a more rational debate about the EU. That Britain is better of without the Euro is speculation, but keeps being stated as a fact.
29 June 2010 8:54AM
Anglosphere, on the Lisbon Treaty - and much else - in your short post, you are wrong.
Sensible people who did not favour British entry into the eurozone and were alarmed by some of those admitted ( Greece and Italy were not supposed to be ready) do not look to its possible break-up with enthusiasm. It will cause us grief too.