If you watched Newsnight last night or you may have seen it on the BBC web site , there is a theory going that simple incompetence was a big factor in getting Britain's requests for various opt outs simply dismissed out of hand.

Apparently what normally happens when something like this summit is on the cards is that the Foreign Office machinery swings into action and the diplomats start forging alliances and basically softening up our partners priming them for the summit or whatever. It is supposed to be brilliant at this and it is how all UK governments have approached such delicate negotiations over all the time we have been in the EU.

Not this time. Instead of engaging the Foreign Office, briefing them on the objectives and letting them off the leash, No. 10 kept it all to themselves. Reasons as to why are possibly not to reveal DC's hand (going against the accepted practice described above) or because Hague was felt to Eurosceptic to be trusted (though that point is now completely moot!).

The upshot is the British proposals were only presented in any detail at 02:30 in the morning. Though other countries they were no doubt aware Britain had reservations they had no idea of the details. That was the first 26 heard of them in any detail. They had no time to digest what they were or the implications of them and so had little choice but to reject them.

In the past our natural allies in the EU such as Denmark, Sweden and the Eastern countries would have been fully briefed and if we assume our proposals were reasonable they would have backed them. This would have made it impossible for Sarkozy to block the proposals because if he did then it would have been him who put the spanner in the works of the agreement.

As it happened because we had no allies Cameron made it easy for our demands to be rejected which they were and now instead of having reached a negotiated settlement with our demands part of the deal, any financial regulations will be subject to qualified majority voting so the veto is useless anyway.

This saga shows just what a rank amateur DC is and what a spectacular own goal he just scored.

As much as I detested Tony Blair, the man, I've no doubt that if necessary, he'd still be locked in a room with them all until there was a deal acceptable to everyone.

One man's peddled rubbish is another man's belief I guess. In a democracy like ours elected representatives are not "put there" but are elected by citizens. Citizens have beliefs and views and would normally vote for the MP who will best represent them. You are quite right that often it's not actually the individual that is voted for but the party that best aligns with the view of the voter. Many of the MPs you refer to have been re-elected on multiple occasions so I'm not entirely sure you are right about people wondering why they voted them in.

On the point about a "biased press" there is a reasonable cross-political spectrum of views across the daily written media in this country. In a later post you refer to BBC's Newsnight programme to support your criticism of events last week. There are many in this country who would consider the BBC to be a left of centre broadcaster which promotes a left of centre viewpoint. At the end of the day it's all about opinions, thankfully these can all still be heard and judgements can be made by the people. Whether opposing viewpoints should be dismissed either as ill informed or too intellectually challenging for their holder is probably a matter for the individual but thankfully we still have ultimate determination over who governs us via our democratically elected MPs.

No, no. no!

The only thing that does that is nasty trades unions.



I would repeat, though, what I mentioned earlier. The Maastricht Treaty effectively enshrined neo-liberal economic policies in the EU – thanks to Caroline Lucas MP for pointing this out – and the plans announced by Merkel and Sarkozy effectively would outlaw any policy of stimulus. No country would, for instance, be able to grow its economy in the way that the UK did after WWII.

So one could say that it effectively says: 'you can elect social democratic governments in the future – but they'll legally have to follow neo-liberal economic policy'. Given the utterly undemocratic way in which unelected bankers are now at the helm in more than one European country, it does not suggest good things.

I very much doubt that Cameron has done what he has for these reasons – he's acted at the behest of his friends in the City, who do not want any increased regulation or any form of transaction tax, whether the latter is to bolster a currency that we are not part of or even to be used to cut the domestic deficit, stimulate UK growth or avoid the current austerity measures that are actually damaging our ability to grow the economy.

It reflects a general feeling that people cannot trust banks in the way that they once could. It reflects an understanding – as we have seen noted several times here, by a number of posters – that however responsible one tries to be in saving money, it is still a gamble that is dependent on many other things and the whims of many other people.

That much of what goes on is gambling – a former trader described it to me as exactly that just a few weeks ago.

It reflects the insanity of selling and buying debts – FFS, this reminds me of someone being dumb enough to imagine that you could feed under-cooked meat to vegetarian animals with no possible negative outcomes ...

It reflects too, I think, a general understanding of the reality that the economy as a whole no longer serves the people as a whole but the latter is expected to service the former for the benefit of a few – and a dislike of that.

And despite the best efforts of some elements in the political and media worlds to pretend otherwise, people have not forgotten how the banks behaved and what their gambling behaviour caused.

And rlthis delightfully illustrates why people are still so completely f**ked off – and are right to be.rl

Not when you are talking facts as opposed to opinion. Kosh explained the pertinent facts regarding the single market and trade outside it very succinctly earlier in the thread. They are the facts of the matter because that is how it works. Yet the "nice but dim" crowd of Tory MP's ignore the facts and so peddle rubbish such as how we can be like Norway of we are outside.



Put there is a figure of speech for elected and you know it

Wasn't that the guy who gave away a huge part of our rebate in exchange for an overhaul of the CAP ?
Wasn't that the overhaul of the CAP that never actually happened ?
rlA true titan.rl

They're all crooks

Dunno but all that link shows is that something was being considered/proposed.

Maybe you could provide a link that actually backs up your wild assertions?

He must have had them all locked in a room for weeks to get that one through

How those extra billions would be handy right now.