A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
Farage disappeared at the end of the campaign when they realised they were going to lose.
He's very happy for the rest of the party to campaign hard and spend lots of other people's money doing so.
No he didn't. Everyone here was bumping their gums about how Farage had given up and was doing something down south instead, and then he went to the constituency that very day and campaigned hard, as did the rest of the Reform front bench team all through the campaign.
AI says this:
Yes, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visited Gorton and Denton multiple times during the campaign for the by-election held on February 26, 2026.
Key details of his involvement include:
Campaign Visits: Farage made public campaign appearances in the constituency, including opening the party's campaign headquarters in Denton on February 5, 2026, and visiting ahead of the vote to rally support for candidate Matt Goodwin.
You are posting lazy Farage-bad nonsense pulled from your imagination - ironical that you are doing so whilst trying to portray Farage as a lazy, glory-seeking campaigner.
You're using AI to try to win an argument about facts. Instant fail.
I didn't say he hasn't been to the constituency at all. At the start of the campaign they thought they were going to win.
AI is a quick way of searching for and summarising publicly available information. It can make mistakes, it hasn't in this instance.
He campaigned in Gorton and Denton on polling day. Just do better research, and try not to make lazy, half-arsed assumptions about other people being lazy and half-arsing things.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
Farage disappeared at the end of the campaign when they realised they were going to lose.
He's very happy for the rest of the party to campaign hard and spend lots of other people's money doing so.
No he didn't. Everyone here was bumping their gums about how Farage had given up and was doing something down south instead, and then he went to the constituency that very day and campaigned hard, as did the rest of the Reform front bench team all through the campaign.
AI says this:
Yes, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visited Gorton and Denton multiple times during the campaign for the by-election held on February 26, 2026.
Key details of his involvement include:
Campaign Visits: Farage made public campaign appearances in the constituency, including opening the party's campaign headquarters in Denton on February 5, 2026, and visiting ahead of the vote to rally support for candidate Matt Goodwin.
You are posting lazy Farage-bad nonsense pulled from your imagination - ironical that you are doing so whilst trying to portray Farage as a lazy, glory-seeking campaigner.
You're using AI to try to win an argument about facts. Instant fail.
I didn't say he hasn't been to the constituency at all. At the start of the campaign they thought they were going to win.
AI is a quick way of searching for and summarising publicly available information. It can make mistakes, it hasn't in this instance.
He campaigned in Gorton and Denton on polling day. Just do better research, and try not to make lazy, half-arsed assumptions about other people being lazy and half-arsing things.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
For my money its, US people work longer hours, Europeans have more leisure. Plus they've had a few big tech companies that have lifted the whole economy.
Will be interesting to see if European efforts on digital sovereignty change things.
That's partly true. But it avoids the point. WHY has America developed these incredible tech companies, whereas Europe has totally failed? Where is the European Google, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Nvidia? It's not a lack of human capital, half the people in these companies are European. it's not a lack of basic capital, Europe has fallen behind but it is still rich. Therefore, something in Europe is holding people back, and one of those things is stifling EU regulation. The EU now admits this- see the Draghi report - yet still seems incapable of doing anything about it
Also, the difference is now becoming painfully obvious. I dunno if you've been to the USA recently but I've been several times in the last three years, and I have been all over, from DC to Portland, from Seattle to Nashville, from the richest states like California to the poorer like West Virginia
The relative wealth of America compared to the EU is striking, and a bit depressing, TBH
Been there also several times in the last few years, as I am sure many have here. And yes the wealth is impressive, but so is the poor and not in a good way. The road from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon has thousands upon thousands of mobile homes as far as you can see. A mile outside of the Strip in Las Vegas and the poverty is appalling. I will admit I didn't see poverty in New England.
The difference is the decision we make about how we run our society. Most of us in Europe are happy to forgo the super rich to avoid the appalling poverty.
I can't remember where I saw it, but America prides itself on having an aspiration economy. They often quote that anyone can become President. In reality it is less socially mobile than Europe.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
Your argument just sounds like it must be better because REASONS.
Nonsense. I've given you 6 logical and germane sentences there. But if you want to argue that America would do better without its political and currency union go right ahead.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Dan Neidle @DanNeidle · 1h I regret to inform you that we will be publishing a detailed analysis this week of the £5m payment to Nigel Farage, and whether it's taxable. It is likely to annoy *everybody*.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
For my money its, US people work longer hours, Europeans have more leisure. Plus they've had a few big tech companies that have lifted the whole economy.
Will be interesting to see if European efforts on digital sovereignty change things.
That's partly true. But it avoids the point. WHY has America developed these incredible tech companies, whereas Europe has totally failed? Where is the European Google, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Nvidia? It's not a lack of human capital, half the people in these companies are European. it's not a lack of basic capital, Europe has fallen behind but it is still rich. Therefore, something in Europe is holding people back, and one of those things is stifling EU regulation. The EU now admits this- see the Draghi report - yet still seems incapable of doing anything about it
Also, the difference is now becoming painfully obvious. I dunno if you've been to the USA recently but I've been several times in the last three years, and I have been all over, from DC to Portland, from Seattle to Nashville, from the richest states like California to the poorer like West Virginia
The relative wealth of America compared to the EU is striking, and a bit depressing, TBH
Been there also several times in the last few years, as I am sure many have here. And yes the wealth is impressive, but so is the poor and not in a good way. The road from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon has thousands upon thousands of mobile homes as far as you can see. A mile outside of the Strip in Las Vegas and the poverty is appalling. I will admit I didn't see poverty in New England.
The difference is the decision we make about how we run our society. Most of us in Europe are happy to forgo the super rich to avoid the appalling poverty.
I can't remember where I saw it, but America prides itself on having an aspiration economy. They often quote that anyone can become President. In reality it is less socially mobile than Europe.
That *anyone* can become President has been borne out, somewhat tragically.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
With the Lire Italy ran a slightly higher inflation rate than average resulting in a tendency towards depreciation that made Italian exports, particularly from the north of Italy, highly competitive. The Euro has meant that that technique was no longer open to them and they have struggled to replace it, persistently losing competitiveness to Germany in particular.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
For my money its, US people work longer hours, Europeans have more leisure. Plus they've had a few big tech companies that have lifted the whole economy.
Will be interesting to see if European efforts on digital sovereignty change things.
That's partly true. But it avoids the point. WHY has America developed these incredible tech companies, whereas Europe has totally failed? Where is the European Google, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Nvidia? It's not a lack of human capital, half the people in these companies are European. it's not a lack of basic capital, Europe has fallen behind but it is still rich. Therefore, something in Europe is holding people back, and one of those things is stifling EU regulation. The EU now admits this- see the Draghi report - yet still seems incapable of doing anything about it
Also, the difference is now becoming painfully obvious. I dunno if you've been to the USA recently but I've been several times in the last three years, and I have been all over, from DC to Portland, from Seattle to Nashville, from the richest states like California to the poorer like West Virginia
The relative wealth of America compared to the EU is striking, and a bit depressing, TBH
It's a mistake to see the tech sector as Europe vs US I think. It's really California vs rest of the world.
My top reasons for their success would be world class technical universities in close proximity, and openness to talented immigration. And it does then become a self-reinforcing cycle to some extent.
Europe could have done what China did to build domestic equivalents/restrict foreign competition.
Typical. As soon as I start watching the livestream from Bristol, Northants start scoring freely and stop losing wickets.
Glamorgan could be planning a once in a generation county championship win.
They got one of those a couple of weeks ago. Admittedly, that was against Hampshire, who seem to have forgotten the importance of scoring runs, but it still counts.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit not working isn’t the reason Starmer has failed.
Let’s be honest, the UK has had poor growth 2008 onwards. It’s actually amazing how much it used to grow under Brown and Blair.
Labour this time hasn’t done any worse than the Tories. But the economy is fundamentally stuck.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
But it'd be a lot easier to give up and do what we know works...
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
Your daily reminder we’re at the mercy of events. So enjoy it while you can.
That is very sad. I worked with him once when he was an account director at a Scottish Ad agency. He even modelled for me on the commercial I was shooting He was paranoid that we didn't see his face because I don't think amateur rugby players were allowed to appear in ads at that time. But such a nice man as was his brother Gavin.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
But it'd be a lot easier to give up and do what we know works...
Even if we accept the flawed premise, the evidence indicates it wouldn't be easier at all. It would be much harder.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
With the Lire Italy ran a slightly higher inflation rate than average resulting in a tendency towards depreciation that made Italian exports, particularly from the north of Italy, highly competitive. The Euro has meant that that technique was no longer open to them and they have struggled to replace it, persistently losing competitiveness to Germany in particular.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
Serial depreciation coupled with inflation is not a formula for economic success. Sound money and control of debt is.
There is a case to be made that an overvalued Euro damaged the Italian, Spanish and Greek economies, though worth noting that both Spain and Greece are growing quite strongly in recent years.
The same could be said for the UK though, where a strong pound set by the interests of London has damaged the economy of the rUK. Perhaps the Midlands, North, Scotland, Wales and NI should leave Sterling so we could restore economic growth via depreciation.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
With the Lire Italy ran a slightly higher inflation rate than average resulting in a tendency towards depreciation that made Italian exports, particularly from the north of Italy, highly competitive. The Euro has meant that that technique was no longer open to them and they have struggled to replace it, persistently losing competitiveness to Germany in particular.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
Serial depreciation coupled with inflation is not a formula for economic success. Sound money and control of debt is.
There is a case to be made that an overvalued Euro damaged the Italian, Spanish and Greek economies, though worth noting that both Spain and Greece are growing quite strongly in recent years.
The same could be said for the UK though, where a strong pound set by the interests of London has damaged the economy of the rUK. Perhaps the Midlands, North, Scotland, Wales and NI should leave Sterling so we could restore economic growth via depreciation.
The whole point is that there are fiscal transfers from London to the rest of the UK. Which doesn't happen in the Eurozone.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia are too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia re too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
It raises an interesting point about Britain's 'left behind' areas. Maybe we'd have been better off encouraging people to move to bigger cities instead of pursuing futile 'levelling up' schemes.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
With the Lire Italy ran a slightly higher inflation rate than average resulting in a tendency towards depreciation that made Italian exports, particularly from the north of Italy, highly competitive. The Euro has meant that that technique was no longer open to them and they have struggled to replace it, persistently losing competitiveness to Germany in particular.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
Serial depreciation coupled with inflation is not a formula for economic success. Sound money and control of debt is.
There is a case to be made that an overvalued Euro damaged the Italian, Spanish and Greek economies, though worth noting that both Spain and Greece are growing quite strongly in recent years.
The same could be said for the UK though, where a strong pound set by the interests of London has damaged the economy of the rUK. Perhaps the Midlands, North, Scotland, Wales and NI should leave Sterling so we could restore economic growth via depreciation.
The whole point is that there are fiscal transfers from London to the rest of the UK. Which doesn't happen in the Eurozone.
But have those worked to build prosperity in the Welsh valleys or Stoke on Trent?
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
But it'd be a lot easier to give up and do what we know works...
Even if we accept the flawed premise, the evidence indicates it wouldn't be easier at all. It would be much harder.
Much harder than finding a way for Brexit to work? We left in Jan 2020, we've still not fully implemented leaving and we'll be in constant renegotiation for ever. So that's 3 and a bit years of getting round to it, 6 years of transitioning to it and endless renegotiation of the terms of it.
Go back in, referendum campaign (if you must), 6 months or maybe 6 weeks, count the votes, get pissed, shake off the hangover, HoC vote monday. Definitely going to be a shorter timescale
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I can give you the answer
In the 26 years since the euro's inception (1999-2024), Italy has averaged 0.4% real GDP growth per annum
In the 26 years PRECEDING the euro's inception (1973-1999) Italy averaged 2.4% real GDP growth per annum
Put it another way: in the 26 years before joining the euro, the Italian economy grew by about 55%. In the 26 years since, it has grown by 14%
Adopting the euro meant Italian growth was slashed to a fifth of what it was before. For Italy, the euro was a disaster
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
With the Lire Italy ran a slightly higher inflation rate than average resulting in a tendency towards depreciation that made Italian exports, particularly from the north of Italy, highly competitive. The Euro has meant that that technique was no longer open to them and they have struggled to replace it, persistently losing competitiveness to Germany in particular.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
But prolonged higher inflation and currency depreciation means you are getting relatively poorer. A depreciating currency isn't a cure for poor productivity, it just puts off dealing with it.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia re too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
It raises an interesting point about Britain's 'left behind' areas. Maybe we'd have been better off encouraging people to move to bigger cities instead of pursuing futile 'levelling up' schemes.
I think there is a general consensus among economists that the lowest hanging fruit for the UK is a bit of both - level up our second-tier cities.
A towns strategy is much harder to crack, and possibly futile.
It's the latest in a very clever series of collaborations. Swatch (£100 watch) makes a plastic version of Audemars Piguet (£20000 watch) and sells if for £300. Counterintuitively both brands benefit.
Previous collaboration with Omega was widely considered markerting genius:
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
I think you can go back even further and question whether the single market has delivered what its advocates claimed it would. Since then, there's been a technological revolution in which Europe's main achievement has been regulating itself out of the game.
Quite so
The liberal left centrist dork Rejoiners are bizarre people. They are hankering for an EU that no longer exists, economically or politically
Economically the EU is languishing. It is falling ever further behind the USA when EMU was meant to achieve the opposite. It is also being overtaken by Asia. And it has almost zero claim to the new technologies that are gonna transform society (many of them invented and perfected by Europeans, ironically)
Politically, and partly as a result of the above, the EU is swinging to the hard right and possibly the far right. It is not the cosy social democratic club of yore. It will soon be very seriously right wing. And waaaaaay to the right of the British government as it stands
And yet Rejoiners seem wilfully blind to both these obvious and fundamental truths. It’s quite odd
European (and Japanese) precision engineering are still indispensable moats underpinning US and Asian tech. What that means over the next decade is not yet clear.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I can give you the answer
In the 26 years since the euro's inception (1999-2024), Italy has averaged 0.4% real GDP growth per annum
In the 26 years PRECEDING the euro's inception (1973-1999) Italy averaged 2.4% real GDP growth per annum
Put it another way: in the 26 years before joining the euro, the Italian economy grew by about 55%. In the 26 years since, it has grown by 14%
Adopting the euro meant Italian growth was slashed to a fifth of what it was before. For Italy, the euro was a disaster
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia re too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
It raises an interesting point about Britain's 'left behind' areas. Maybe we'd have been better off encouraging people to move to bigger cities instead of pursuing futile 'levelling up' schemes.
Or do UDI and create their own currencies so they have the freedom to devalue it and make themselves more competitive.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia are too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
You don't seem to realise that, in recent years, Mississippi has boomed
From 2000 to 2022, per capita income in Mississippi rose 140% - from $21,500 to $46,200, that's over 3% per year. Imagine what Britain would be like if our GDP per cap had grown 3% a year, since 2000
"In 2023, Mississippi's per capita output surpassed the UK's. Even better, this year [2024], we're projected to overtake Germany's per capita output"
The computer decided to do an update today (without my permission, I might add). It first wrecked my BIOS saying I would have to switch from HCMI to RAID to start up. So I did, and of course it wouldn't start up, so I had to change it back. Then, when I tried to log in, I found it had deleted all my passkeys and all my pins, and all of them had to be re-entered manually.
Very annoying indeed, totally unnecessary, and possibly illegal.
If this is what the mad twats do while providing 'support' roll on October when they withdraw it.
Although I'm sorely tempted to switch to Linux anyway if they're going to be doing this all the time.
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia re too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
It raises an interesting point about Britain's 'left behind' areas. Maybe we'd have been better off encouraging people to move to bigger cities instead of pursuing futile 'levelling up' schemes.
That would involve building housing, which is cryptonite to Britain.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
I am quite happy to 'fire up the next argument', but I am not sure I can engage with a point quite so simplistic and fatuous as thinking that one word is a satisfactory explanation for what has happened (or more accurately not happened) with UK fracking.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
Dan Neidle @DanNeidle · 1h I regret to inform you that we will be publishing a detailed analysis this week of the £5m payment to Nigel Farage, and whether it's taxable. It is likely to annoy *everybody*.
(except tax advisers, which is all that matters)
The key question around the £5 million payment to Farage is not whether it is taxable but whether it bought anything? Was there a quid pro quo? Is this the new cash for questions, or just gold wallpaper?
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
Well, given that those columns propelled him to fame, enabling him to become Mayor of London and then Prime Minister, yes
Before anyone panics, I have no desire to become Prime Minister, even if I would do a better job than 98% of modern politicians
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered a powerful speech in Davos in January, surprising the audience with an uncharacteristic honesty for a politician.
"We [Germany and the EU] have become world champions of overregulation," said Friedrich Merz."
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Is it really sensible to include Eastern European countries in the economic comparisons between Europe and the United States over the last 35 years. After all those countries had a lot of catching up to do. As had the southern countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't a better comparison be France/Germany/UK/Italy?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
That' squite an interesting question - perhaps you'd want to compare rich states v rich EU countries, and poor states v poor EU countries. My sense is that the top US states are astonishingly wealthy, and have continued to grow fast (and places like Mississippi have not), while it's the other way round in the EU. Why have their political and currency unions behaved so differently?
Hasn't there been a largescale depopulation of much of eastern and southern Europe as the rural population has moved to the likes of Prague and Riga, Athens and Madrid.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia re too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
It raises an interesting point about Britain's 'left behind' areas. Maybe we'd have been better off encouraging people to move to bigger cities instead of pursuing futile 'levelling up' schemes.
There's certainly been depopulation in some isolated rural and mining areas in this country and general population churn - talented people leaving their areas to go to university being a large cause.
Though in general the population in Britain was already much more concentrated and the old industrial areas are generally near big cities and have motorways going through them.
Makerfield for example is likely closer to both Liverpool and Manchester than an old coal county in Appalachia is to the adjacent old coal county. Similarly with Bolsover or Barnsley or Blyth.
Going down to the micro level you can find places which never prosper even when those around them do and I wonder if demolishing them and relocating their population would be an idea. Fitzwilliam, south of Wakefield was one such place (I've not been there for years so it might have improved).
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I can give you the answer
In the 26 years since the euro's inception (1999-2024), Italy has averaged 0.4% real GDP growth per annum
In the 26 years PRECEDING the euro's inception (1973-1999) Italy averaged 2.4% real GDP growth per annum
Put it another way: in the 26 years before joining the euro, the Italian economy grew by about 55%. In the 26 years since, it has grown by 14%
Adopting the euro meant Italian growth was slashed to a fifth of what it was before. For Italy, the euro was a disaster
Adopting the euro meant Italy was subject to the Germany-first policies of the ECB. Ask Greece.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It's fascinating how the comments of the Centrist Dorks almost never contain data. Just effete opinions like
"Correlation causation conflation.
(like that - catchy)"
It's almost as if they don't have any evidence, just poignant yearning
"Cutting off our closest trading partner"
"Straight bananas har har har"
Fact free emotive drivel from the more intelligent and educated side of the argument.
I don't wish to be mean or coarse, but the PB Centrist Dads are stupid twats
Admirably taken down several pegs by Fishing's excellent analysis in his headers, which after the fact, Mexican Pete now argues were 'wildly innacurate', and when I ask what specifically was innacurate, Nigel tell me to 'DYOR'. Well that told me.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
I am quite happy to 'fire up the next argument', but I am not sure I can engage with a point quite so simplistic and fatuous as thinking that one word is a satisfactory explanation for what has happened (or more accurately not happened) with UK fracking.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
U.K. fracking died because they couldn’t extract very much, due to geology, while meeting rules on not creating too many earthquakes and polluting ground water.
The actual ban at the end of that was pretty much performative.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered a powerful speech in Davos in January, surprising the audience with an uncharacteristic honesty for a politician.
"We [Germany and the EU] have become world champions of overregulation," said Friedrich Merz."
I'm sure there is scope for lighter regulation in places. That's a perfectly normal situation in the developed world.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit has worked.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Norway isn't in the EU and does quite well, isn't in the Euro, and is in the single market. The answer for Labour is obvious and is consistent with the 2016 decision to leave the EU.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I can give you the answer
In the 26 years since the euro's inception (1999-2024), Italy has averaged 0.4% real GDP growth per annum
In the 26 years PRECEDING the euro's inception (1973-1999) Italy averaged 2.4% real GDP growth per annum
Put it another way: in the 26 years before joining the euro, the Italian economy grew by about 55%. In the 26 years since, it has grown by 14%
Adopting the euro meant Italian growth was slashed to a fifth of what it was before. For Italy, the euro was a disaster
Adopting the euro meant Italy was subject to the Germany-first policies of the ECB. Ask Greece.
Things in Greece subsequently panned out quite well.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
I am quite happy to 'fire up the next argument', but I am not sure I can engage with a point quite so simplistic and fatuous as thinking that one word is a satisfactory explanation for what has happened (or more accurately not happened) with UK fracking.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
U.K. fracking died because they couldn’t extract very much, due to geology, while meeting rules on not creating too many earthquakes and polluting ground water.
The actual ban at the end of that was pretty much performative.
I agree. The regulatory environment had already made success in fracking so unlikely that the ban was merely the coup de grace. In particular the limit of 0.5 on seismic activity after which extraction must stop for 18 hours. To put that into context, humans cannot even feel a tremor of 0.5 - a tremor must be 2.5 before we can feel it. And quarrying blasts are allowed to create seismic activity of 2.0.
The US limit was 4.5.
That is not 'Geology is woke bad facts', that is indefensible overregulation choking out a fledgling industry.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit has worked.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
You'll be telling us next the IDF are squeaky clean pacifists.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
Worth noting also that Italy was booming in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s even as it had a new government every few months. So perhaps stability is over-rated. Or at least political stability more narrowly construed than economic stability.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
JRM has noted that this sort of instability seems to happen in the 20s of each century.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
JRM has noted that this sort of instability seems to happen in the 20s of each century.
Well, he's not terribly accurate. The 1720s saw Walpole come to power and hold it for 21 years, in the 1920s there were four PMs but two of them held office for around six years and one would surely have lasted longer than 209 days had he not died of throat cancer, and in the 1820s although there were again four PMs one died of pneumonia, one had a nervous breakdown due to bullying by the king and one had held office for 15 years.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
I am quite happy to 'fire up the next argument', but I am not sure I can engage with a point quite so simplistic and fatuous as thinking that one word is a satisfactory explanation for what has happened (or more accurately not happened) with UK fracking.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
U.K. fracking died because they couldn’t extract very much, due to geology, while meeting rules on not creating too many earthquakes and polluting ground water.
The actual ban at the end of that was pretty much performative.
I agree. The regulatory environment had already made success in fracking so unlikely that the ban was merely the coup de grace. In particular the limit of 0.5 on seismic activity after which extraction must stop for 18 hours. To put that into context, humans cannot even feel a tremor of 0.5 - a tremor must be 2.5 before we can feel it. And quarrying blasts are allowed to create seismic activity of 2.0.
The US limit was 4.5.
That is not 'Geology is woke bad facts', that is indefensible overregulation choking out a fledgling industry.
Every drop of oil left in the ground is a good thing.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
To truly measure PM instability I think you need some sort of ratio of time in office to size of governing majority. The anecdata feeling is that we're churning through PMs ever faster even though they have larger working majorities compared to previous eras, though whether that's actually what the data is implying is another question.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
JRM has noted that this sort of instability seems to happen in the 20s of each century.
Well, he's not terribly accurate. The 1720s saw Walpole come to power and hold it for 21 years, in the 1920s there were four PMs but two of them held office for around six years and one would surely have lasted longer than 209 days had he not died of throat cancer, and in the 1820s although there were again four PMs one died of pneumonia, one had a nervous breakdown due to bullying by the king and one had held office for 15 years.
So he's right for the most recent three centuries (which is all he claimed). He wasn't making a historical theory, just a passing observation.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered a powerful speech in Davos in January, surprising the audience with an uncharacteristic honesty for a politician.
"We [Germany and the EU] have become world champions of overregulation," said Friedrich Merz."
The obvious case for our rejoining the EU is that they need more of our entrepreneurialism, and we need the depth of their capital markets.
Thatcher recognised that four decades ago. But was too much a control freak to take that to its logical conclusion..
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
To truly measure PM instability I think you need some sort of ratio of time in office to size of governing majority. The anecdata feeling is that we're churning through PMs ever faster even though they have larger working majorities compared to previous eras, though whether that's actually what the data is implying is another question.
Again, there were substantial majorities in the 50s and 60s. Wilson and Macmillan could both boast majorities of around a hundred. Eden's was sixty. Heath's was thirty.
Moreover, of the last 20 years three elections produced either bare majorities or no majority, with only the other two being clear cut.
You could make the same comment of 1890-1915 as well, where several PMs had tenures of less than three years - Gladstone, Rosebery, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman. Yet Salisbury, Balfour and Campbell-Bannerman boasted huge majorities.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
JRM has noted that this sort of instability seems to happen in the 20s of each century.
Well, he's not terribly accurate. The 1720s saw Walpole come to power and hold it for 21 years, in the 1920s there were four PMs but two of them held office for around six years and one would surely have lasted longer than 209 days had he not died of throat cancer, and in the 1820s although there were again four PMs one died of pneumonia, one had a nervous breakdown due to bullying by the king and one had held office for 15 years.
So he's right for the most recent three centuries (which is all he claimed). He wasn't making a historical theory, just a passing observation.
But he's implying that history repeats itself which really isn't true, Unless Burnham becomes PM and remains there until at least 2031.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
The EU has considerable shale gas resources, in Poland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Maybe not quite as rich as those in the USA, but definitely significant
Almost none of it is being extracted, because the EU is politically stupid. France banned fracking as early as 2011. Germany, Holland, the UK and others have all followed suit. Europe self harms in multiple ways, this is one of them
Not this crap again. There have been loads of attempts to extract it (particularly in Poland) and none of them got anywhere. The firms actually handed their licenses back.
Geology is Woke Bad Facts.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Geological data can be deployed to support political arguments and causes as much as economical or social data. To assume otherwise is singularly naive.
Geology is why fracking results in large quantities of hydrocarbons extracted in parts of the US.
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
I am quite happy to 'fire up the next argument', but I am not sure I can engage with a point quite so simplistic and fatuous as thinking that one word is a satisfactory explanation for what has happened (or more accurately not happened) with UK fracking.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
U.K. fracking died because they couldn’t extract very much, due to geology, while meeting rules on not creating too many earthquakes and polluting ground water.
The actual ban at the end of that was pretty much performative.
I agree. The regulatory environment had already made success in fracking so unlikely that the ban was merely the coup de grace. In particular the limit of 0.5 on seismic activity after which extraction must stop for 18 hours. To put that into context, humans cannot even feel a tremor of 0.5 - a tremor must be 2.5 before we can feel it. And quarrying blasts are allowed to create seismic activity of 2.0.
The US limit was 4.5.
That is not 'Geology is woke bad facts', that is indefensible overregulation choking out a fledgling industry.
Every drop of oil left in the ground is a good thing.
You should consider a career in the civil service.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Norway isn't in the EU and does quite well, isn't in the Euro, and is in the single market. The answer for Labour is obvious and is consistent with the 2016 decision to leave the EU.
Norway had put oil and gas reserves and a tenth of our population. And most of Europe's hydro electric power.
It would be doing well in, out, or halfway between.
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
That's an exaggeration. Italy had a new government on average every eleven months until Berlusconi. In the last 20 years the average PM has lasted a bit over two and a half years.
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
It is worth noting as well that in the period 1951-79 there were eight prime ministers* and only two of them made it past four years** - one of them only lasted eleven months and another of them just over eighteen.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
JRM has noted that this sort of instability seems to happen in the 20s of each century.
Well, he's not terribly accurate. The 1720s saw Walpole come to power and hold it for 21 years, in the 1920s there were four PMs but two of them held office for around six years and one would surely have lasted longer than 209 days had he not died of throat cancer, and in the 1820s although there were again four PMs one died of pneumonia, one had a nervous breakdown due to bullying by the king and one had held office for 15 years.
So he's right for the most recent three centuries (which is all he claimed). He wasn't making a historical theory, just a passing observation.
I would not say especially so based on what you have said, but obviously that's at second hand and I am assuming even as a passing observation there was probably more to it than that.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit has worked.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
Last sentence is plain nonsense.
How is the closure of Hormuz a problem of our making that we can fix?
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
Joining the Euro is a decision that can only be taken once.
There are at least 19 examples of countries leaving currency unions, so it’s not an irrevocable decision.
But there are no examples of anyone quitting the euro. Because it is so inextricably tied in to the political union that goes with it, and because economics is a lot more complex these days
What's more, if the euro really did fracture, that would be a disaster not just for the economy leaving, but for all euro members. The currency would suddenly come into question, the foundations of the EU would tremble, and European debt would become way more expensive. Calamity
This is why, in extremis, Brussels will over-rule democratic votes and send in the euro-commissars to run countries - Italy, Greece - rather than risk anyone leaving the euro. But how long can they keep doing that without a major revolt? What happens if Le Pen wins in Paris? Or, even more extreme, the AfD in Germany?
The euro is a disaster waiting to happen
Everything's a disaster waiting to happen if you just big up the possible future negative developments.
Arguably, the disaster has already happened. European growth was meant to be boosted, significantly, by the euro. That's what all the europhile economists claimed. Has this happened? Let's check the numbers
Eurozone GDP grew 1.5% across 2025; the ECB projects 1.4% in 2025, 1.2% in 2026, and 1.4% in 2027 and 2028. That's, frankly, dismal. America is achieving twice this rate of growth, and has done for yeears. Look at the wider picture and it gets even worse. The eurozone has averaged something like 1.3% real GDP growth for a quarter of a century. The convergence with American living standards that was supposed to follow Maastricht has, to put it politely, not occurred. Europe has gone backwards
So the euro is shite
America has political and monetary union as it happens. And several other structural advantages. I doubt Europe would have matched its growth if it had simply kept all its little separate currencies.
Why?
Because it makes no sense. The overperformer of the two places is the one that has fully developed political and monetary union. Would it do even better as 50 sovereign states with 50 currencies? One can't know but my sense is not. Any case, the US v Europe economic performance delta is not down to currency technicalities. There's loads of factors.
It's massive energy surplus and exports are the oily elephant in the room and overlooked by so many deregulate and dehumanise types. Hard not to grow when you've so much energy coming out the wells.
And its global reserve currency.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Do you think the Euro has been a success for Italy?
Not really. Nor was the Lire. Success or failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to what currency it uses.
Has Italy's growth performance got better or worse under the Euro?
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I don't have a positive take on the European economy. Or on Italy's.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
And sensible regulation, or the lack of
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
You're sounding like Boris Johnson in his Telegraph Brussels hack days.
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered a powerful speech in Davos in January, surprising the audience with an uncharacteristic honesty for a politician.
"We [Germany and the EU] have become world champions of overregulation," said Friedrich Merz."
The obvious case for our rejoining the EU is that they need more of our entrepreneurialism, and we need the depth of their capital markets.
Thatcher recognised that four decades ago. But was too much a control freak to take that to its logical conclusion..
Four decades ago Thatcher proposed a market that would be bigger than the United States.
Unfortunately the EU was such a dreadful failure at growth that the EU and UK combined are now considerably smaller than the United States, and were before we left.
The EU has not worked. Going back to the failures of the past will not create growth.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit has worked.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
Last sentence is plain nonsense.
How is the closure of Hormuz a problem of our making that we can fix?
Or umpteen other global issues.
C'mon.
Most people dont give a fuck about brevit.. They naturally loathe the frogs and the Spaniards and when their holidays are delayed by Eu regulations and passport bullshit.. it makes them loathe them even more.
There is general scepticism about the success of Brexit but it's done. I've got two misgivings.
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
I can’t see the point in going back in. We’ve left and it’s never going to be the same. Can’t we just try and make what we’ve got work.
That's essentially what Suank and Starmer, in slightly different ways, tried to do. And it's not the only reason they both failed, but the lack of Brexit Triumph made both their jobs harder. Of course it's possible that there's a way of Making Brexit Work and we just haven't collectively found it yet.
It's possible.
Brexit has worked.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
Last sentence is plain nonsense.
How is the closure of Hormuz a problem of our making that we can fix?
Or umpteen other global issues.
C'mon.
We control our ability to react to global issues.
We also could and should have chosen to invest in our own energy sources, both hydrocarbons and renewables, and not acted to both block on shore wind, and block North Sea development.
Comments
He campaigned in Gorton and Denton on polling day. Just do better research, and try not to make lazy, half-arsed assumptions about other people being lazy and half-arsing things.
He campaigned in Gorton and Denton on polling day. Just do better research, and try not to make lazy, half-arsed assumptions about other people being lazy and half-arsing things.
The difference is the decision we make about how we run our society. Most of us in Europe are happy to forgo the super rich to avoid the appalling poverty.
I can't remember where I saw it, but America prides itself on having an aspiration economy. They often quote that anyone can become President. In reality it is less socially mobile than Europe.
Many many factors.
It's a beast, the US economy. Even Trump2 can't wreck it.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Bearing that in mind you might have expected Europe to have closed the gap since the Berlin wall came down but it hasn't it seems.
Dan Neidle
@DanNeidle
·
1h
I regret to inform you that we will be publishing a detailed analysis this week of the £5m payment to Nigel Farage, and whether it's taxable. It is likely to annoy *everybody*.
(except tax advisers, which is all that matters)
Do the general public WANT to go back to arguing about the EU? I've not seen any polling that says it's salient.
Would the Rejoiners vote to rejoin if we don't keep our previous opt outs? The polling I've seen on this brings the rejoin figures down considerably.
I don't think it's worth the bother. There's votes in it but that's for the likes of the Lib Dems, not Labour. For Labour it's a divisive argument.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c302vjqz563o
I'm not sure Mario Draghi would share your positive take on the European economy.
I think its a bit of an oversimplification, if largely true, to say that the success of failure of a country's economy isn't mainly down to currency. What is important is a mixture of policies that works for the country and encourages growth and opportunity. Losing control of their currency has not worked for Italy or, of course, Greece. Its worked much better for some others.
It's possible.
My top reasons for their success would be world class technical universities in close proximity, and openness to talented immigration. And it does then become a self-reinforcing cycle to some extent.
Europe could have done what China did to build domestic equivalents/restrict foreign competition.
Let’s be honest, the UK has had poor growth 2008 onwards. It’s actually amazing how much it used to grow under Brown and Blair.
Labour this time hasn’t done any worse than the Tories. But the economy is fundamentally stuck.
Economies prosper (or not) due to investment, resources and productivity.
That's where the EU falls down, badly. It wants to regulate everything, just to show it has meaning and purpose
For a while they actually boasted about it. The EU was a "regulatory superpower", yes China has got a trillion robots and is building a ladder to Mars, yes America has 983 mega-companies all more powerful than France, but Brussels has got them beat when it comes to labelling fennel bulbs
Fucking CRINGE
There is a case to be made that an overvalued Euro damaged the Italian, Spanish and Greek economies, though worth noting that both Spain and Greece are growing quite strongly in recent years.
The same could be said for the UK though, where a strong pound set by the interests of London has damaged the economy of the rUK. Perhaps the Midlands, North, Scotland, Wales and NI should leave Sterling so we could restore economic growth via depreciation.
Effectively copying the pattern of concentrating economic potential to reach a critical mass which had already happened in western Europe and the USA.
Whereas the deprived areas in the USA such as Mississippi and Appalachia are too distant, too purposeless, too low populated (the most talented having left) to be successful.
(Disclaimer: when I'm obliged to buy a new watch, I buy the cheapest thing that does the job in the way I want.)
It is also why U.K. fracking doesn’t have such yields.
This has been explained, multiple times, by domain experts.
And, before you fire up the next argument, it can be very, very profitable to drill to find nothing. You just have to own the company that gets paid to drill.
We left in Jan 2020, we've still not fully implemented leaving and we'll be in constant renegotiation for ever.
So that's 3 and a bit years of getting round to it, 6 years of transitioning to it and endless renegotiation of the terms of it.
Go back in, referendum campaign (if you must), 6 months or maybe 6 weeks, count the votes, get pissed, shake off the hangover, HoC vote monday. Definitely going to be a shorter timescale
In the 26 years since the euro's inception (1999-2024), Italy has averaged 0.4% real GDP growth per annum
In the 26 years PRECEDING the euro's inception (1973-1999) Italy averaged 2.4% real GDP growth per annum
Put it another way: in the 26 years before joining the euro, the Italian economy grew by about 55%. In the 26 years since, it has grown by 14%
Adopting the euro meant Italian growth was slashed to a fifth of what it was before. For Italy, the euro was a disaster
Sort of like that Enver Hoxa speech about how this year will be harder than last year, on the other hand, it will be easier than next year…
A towns strategy is much harder to crack, and possibly futile.
Previous collaboration with Omega was widely considered markerting genius:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoonSwatch
Hence this.
What that means over the next decade is not yet clear.
The rest if your push is pretty well wishcasting.
(like that - catchy)
From 2000 to 2022, per capita income in Mississippi rose 140% - from $21,500 to $46,200, that's over 3% per year. Imagine what Britain would be like if our GDP per cap had grown 3% a year, since 2000
"In 2023, Mississippi's per capita output surpassed the UK's. Even better, this year [2024], we're projected to overtake Germany's per capita output"
https://mspolicy.org/mississippis-economic-surge-leading-the-way/
The computer decided to do an update today (without my permission, I might add). It first wrecked my BIOS saying I would have to switch from HCMI to RAID to start up. So I did, and of course it wouldn't start up, so I had to change it back. Then, when I tried to log in, I found it had deleted all my passkeys and all my pins, and all of them had to be re-entered manually.
Very annoying indeed, totally unnecessary, and possibly illegal.
If this is what the mad twats do while providing 'support' roll on October when they withdraw it.
Although I'm sorely tempted to switch to Linux anyway if they're going to be doing this all the time.
Perhaps you also think any debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of the UK's Covid policy can be ended by saying 'Virology is woke bad facts'.
Honestly, can't beat Kent when they play with ten men, can't beat Northants, no wonder we're bottom of the table.
"Correlation causation conflation.
(like that - catchy)"
It's almost as if they don't have any evidence, just poignant yearning
But what's the point. You'll take this as a compliment, won't you.
You're a data man, alright.
Before anyone panics, I have no desire to become Prime Minister, even if I would do a better job than 98% of modern politicians
"We [Germany and the EU] have become world champions of overregulation," said Friedrich Merz."
"Straight bananas har har har"
Fact free emotive drivel from the more intelligent and educated side of the argument.
Or indeed, date *a* woman.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjpe7q0j1xo
BBC indepth article:
"What is driving this narrative? Why is the UK churning through its leaders almost as quickly as Italy once did? Why do voters and MPs bequeath and remove their support with seemingly such casual ease? In short, is Britain becoming ungovernable?"
Fun read.
Though in general the population in Britain was already much more concentrated and the old industrial areas are generally near big cities and have motorways going through them.
Makerfield for example is likely closer to both Liverpool and Manchester than an old coal county in Appalachia is to the adjacent old coal county. Similarly with Bolsover or Barnsley or Blyth.
Going down to the micro level you can find places which never prosper even when those around them do and I wonder if demolishing them and relocating their population would be an idea. Fitzwilliam, south of Wakefield was one such place (I've not been there for years so it might have improved).
And there have been some pretty average PMs in that time.
The actual ban at the end of that was pretty much performative.
We have operated independently, reclaimed control over our laws etc and the ability to kick the bastards out if we don't like them, an ability we have exercised.
We have also stopped paying the EU membership fees.
And we have outgrown our European peers like Germany.
What more do you want?
Any problems now are of our making and we need to fix them.
Way too soon
A warrior on and off the Pitch
RIP
The US limit was 4.5.
That is not 'Geology is woke bad facts', that is indefensible overregulation choking out a fledgling industry.
So it's hardly unprecedented.
*counting Harold Wilson twice.
**Macmillan was the longest serving at six years nine months, with Wilson I some way behind at five years and seven months,
He managed to go so long without crashing into somebody is a turn up for the books.
Thatcher recognised that four decades ago.
But was too much a control freak to take that to its logical conclusion..
Moreover, of the last 20 years three elections produced either bare majorities or no majority, with only the other two being clear cut.
You could make the same comment of 1890-1915 as well, where several PMs had tenures of less than three years - Gladstone, Rosebery, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman. Yet Salisbury, Balfour and Campbell-Bannerman boasted huge majorities.
And most of Europe's hydro electric power.
It would be doing well in, out, or halfway between.
How is the closure of Hormuz a problem of our making that we can fix?
Or umpteen other global issues.
C'mon.
Unfortunately the EU was such a dreadful failure at growth that the EU and UK combined are now considerably smaller than the United States, and were before we left.
The EU has not worked. Going back to the failures of the past will not create growth.
We also could and should have chosen to invest in our own energy sources, both hydrocarbons and renewables, and not acted to both block on shore wind, and block North Sea development.