In the prevailing economic turmoil of the credit crisis, the June issue of The European Journal has attempted to address some of the key issues within the UK, whilst making comparisons with problems within Europe and indeed the United States. John Redwood starts off by focusing on the independence and strength of the Bank of England: observing how the UK has mismanaged the credit crisis in comparison to the American authorities, he suggests that the Labour Government needs to recognise that the tripartite system which they set up has mishandled the Northern Rock crisis, and so we need to reinstate the Bank of England as the chief controller of commercial banks and the manager of money markets. Gordon Brown’s so called “reforms” for an “independent” Bank of England in the late 1990s greatly took away banking supervision and government debt management from the Bank of England.
John Redwood’s concerns are furthered by the Director of Global Vision and Economic Adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group, Ruth Lea, who argues that while some optimists are speculating that he worst of the credit crunch may be easing, this is far from certain. Even if the worst were to be over, then it is now fairly clear that the economic effects are intensifying, confidence continues to deteriorate in the US as the housing market continues to decline, and there is no room for complacency on the prospects for the eurozone, despite the seemingly buoyant picture provided by economic data in the first quarter of 2008, especially in Spain. I have already posted my own views on the eurozone this morning.
Outside of those concerns, and worth noting is that the Brussels Correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, Bruno Waterfield, argues that the focus on “transparency” and lobbying entirely “misses the point about what is wrong with the EU … It shifts the focus from the EU’s lack of democracy and accountability to a priggish, childish obsession with money and the corporate world.” I could not have put it better myself: there is a troubling consensus in the Westminster village that if Britain engages in the push towards transparency, then everything else (i.e. democracy) will sort itself out at some point afterwards. In fact, Waterfield’s intervention brings us back to a principled argument, of democracy and individual freedom, rather than running off on a “childish” tangential debate on the transparency of the institutions.
On top of these excellent articles, we have our regular European news from John Laughland, our guide through the EU labyrinth from Margarida Vasconcelos and thought-provoking commentary from Glen Ruffle, Lee Rotherham, Roger Helmer MEP, Juan Manuel Ghersinich, Will Podmore, Bryan Smalley (on the post offices), Carl Thomson and Jean-Paul Floru. Worth a read if you have time …
