I thought that some people might be interested in Europe and the banking crisis concerns dealt with in my article today, written for the Yorkshire Post. Meanwhile, the expected failure for ‘unity’ on banking rescue plans at the Luxembourg meeting yesterday have now been overshadowed this morning by Gordon Brown's proposal for a European-wide funding plan for the medium term. It is proof of Labour's bottomless pit of spending. As if the mutli-billion pound spending spree and nationalisation has not been enough, we are now presented with proof that the rescue plan is no longer about the British national interest – it is about propping up financial institutions in the interests of Europe.
Britain would now appear to be forking out billions for the decades of failures of the European Union. In my view, British taxpayers' should not be paying for every Tom, Dick and Harry across Europe. European nations must pay their own way, to sink or swim their own banks, according to their own vital national interests. It would be reckless to pump several more billions into European banks, by acting against the interests of British consumers and taxpayers.
Yesterday, Alistair Darling and the European Union finance ministers in Luxembourg agreed to guarantee bank deposits up to 50,000 euros, in contrast to the 20,000 euros under existing rules. The level could not be raised as high £80,000, as some states wanted, because not all Member States would give their agreement. As I told the Daily Mail's rolling article on the 'financial crisis' at the time, not only did the Paris summit on Saturday fail to achieve anything of real consequence for Britain, the subsequent Luxembourg meeting yesterday also failed to achieve anything of real substance.
This proves that Europe is without substance and can do nothing but disintegrate in the face of real global economic challenges. Despite expectations and misleading reports, Alistair Darling did return home empty-handed to a country in financial tatters.
