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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, no. no!

The only thing that does that is nasty trades unions.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=player_embeddedthis delightfully illustrates why people are still so completely f**ked off – and are right to be.[/url

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



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

. As to wondering why they voted them in the fact they vote the way the do time after time is as we agree in many cases because they vote for the party not the individual. Many voters are tribal as opposed to floating voters and would vote for a brass monkey with the right rosette on. The point I was making was given the majority of voters never meet their MP they might be quite surprised at the low calibre of the MP they actually got when they see them on TV. He or she may be from the party they support election after election but that certainly doesn't guarantee they are any good as I think some of the ones I have seen on TV recently show.

Put another way just because we have a democracy and our MP's are elected does not mean it delivers the best or brightest people as our elected representatives. Enough of them from all sides have wound up in the clink for various reasons in the past to show this is basically true. It is therefore no bad reflection on anyone's voting preference or democracy itself to point out it sometimes delivers sub-standard MP's. As I said the ones lining up in the Eurosceptic back bench branch of the Tory party seem pretty low calibre to me with a poor grasp of reality in regard to leaving the EU.



Regarding the BBC whether its left of centre or not, it does not peddle deliberately misleading lies on the EU issue. The story over the lack of foreign office involvement was not invented by the BBC in a biased editorial. It reported it.

In contrast rags such as the Daily Mail have been exposed as peddling outright lies on the EU in the past. With quality journalism you [ican[/i form your own opinions whether you read the Guardian or the Telegraph. Unfortunately the word quality and journalism and even truth are not words that can be associated with the tabloid press views on the EU.

Found this on the net which tends to back up the idea it was a screw up:

die Welt (right-of-centre German newpaper) editorial some quotes:

"Cameron wished to get "a guarantee" for the Financial Sector in London. Where did he search for allies for this position? Nowhere. ... the british sent their suggestions one day before the summit. One-to-One Discussions, such as Chancellor Merkel and her diplomats carried out in the week before the summit, didn't take place. It was naive to assume that they happen by themselves"

"In addition to naivety there was effrontery. For there was nothing to guarantee in a question, that was neither on the agenda of the Save-the-Euro summit, nor belonged to the urgent matters at hand. Cameron demanded Unanimity (Veto-Rights) on a range of upcoming decisions. This would have set europe's freedom to act back so far, that it should have been clear to him, that he couldn't get a majority"

So it seems I am not the only who thinks DC is a rank amateur.

Apologies if this has been pointed out already, I've only gone back 3 pages..................
I was amused to see a right wing commentator suggest that Prime Minister Cameron is certainly isolated after the recent summit; as isolated as a man left on the quayside when the Titanic sailed.

For all Blair's faults, compared to Cameron, he was a political Titan.....Cameron and his little gang are, at present, coming across like novice swimmers, who are in just a little too deep....

Wasn't that the guy who gave away a huge part of our rebate in exchange for an overhaul of the CAP ?
Wasn't that the overhaul of the CAP that never actually happened ?
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jun/10/eu.politicsA true titan.[/url

They're all crooks

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

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

wild assertions

.I thought it was fairly common knowledge.

In fairness Blair was talking tough before the Dec 2005 summit and did his best to take on Chirac.

[urlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-370406/In-focus-The-EU-rebate-matters.html[/url

However he didn't want to be seen as a failure in his EU presidency year so agreed to give a big chunk of rebate in exchange for some woolly arrangement that the entire EU budget structure, including the CAP, would be renegotiated in coming years.

[urlhttp://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=143[/url

"[i- In 2005, Tony Blair agreed to give away a portion of the UK rebate in return for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which never materialised. The effects of that decision are only now being felt as the cut to the rebate is being fully phased in. As a result, the UK's net contribution to the EU is expected to rise from £6.4bn in 2009-10 to £10.3bn in 2014-15[4.

- Over a ten year period from 2004-5 to 2014-15, the UK's net contribution will have risen from £3.9bn[5 to £10.3bn, a 260% increase. Any further reduction to the UK rebate would see the UK's net contribution rise to yet more unacceptable levels[/i."

Full credit to Chirac though - he defended his country's main interest admirably (a course of action that no doubt delighted his countrymen). He must have wet himself laughing at how easy it was to get the UK to pay in more and give absolutely nothing in return. Blair of course was more interested in avoiding personal failure (as the then EU president) than protecting our interests. A true Titan as someone else said

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



How those extra billions would be handy right now.

Quotes from an openly Euro-sceptic website don't really constitute proof of anything much. Wikipedia (not a definitive source admittedly) says this:



So 20% of the rebate is 'suspended' in effect up until 2013 and in return less of the EU budget is spent on the CAP (the original reason for us getting a rebate) and the funding from the 20% goes only to the poorer states in the EU - not France. And since France is one of the largest beneficiaries of the CAP I don't really see how Chirac defended his country's interests at the expense of ours. Not exactly the capitulation that 'Open Europe' would have you think.

Cameron isn't fit to lace Blair's shoes on the diplomacy front. Or the shoes of any other Prime Minister in my lifetime come to that. He's a numpty.

Not nearly as handy as the £bns we threw at the banks

Is there any connection between the CAP and the fact that Cameron is the love child of a Cabbage Patch Kid?

I think we should be told.

A couple of other points about those figures...

The 20% reduction in our rebate runs out in 2013, so I'm not sure how he can be blamed for rises in 2014 and beyond.

These figures are forecasts. The EU budget beyond 2013 hasn't even been negotiated yet.

Using the net transfer is slightly misleading since ALL countries in the EU have contributed increasing amounts to the EU budget over that period, so only a proportion of the increase in our net contribution is attributable to the deal that Blair did. They also fail to mention that the deal is responsible in part for the proportion of the budget spent on the cap dropping from close to 80% down to roughly 40% or thereabouts.

Euro-sceptic think tank (independent my backside) twists figures to suit their agenda shock!

Cameron shoots ahead in the polls. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16175503

Cameron shoots ahead in the polls. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16175503

Cameron isn't fit to lace Blair's shoes on the diplomacy front. Or the shoes of any other Prime Minister in my lifetime come to that. He's a numpty.'"

Couldn't agree more - way under regulated. Soft touch regulation in fact.

quality mate.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jun/10/eu.politicsThe original Guardian article I quoted[/url makes it pretty clear what the position was going in to the summit. Apologies I couldn't find a related article in Socialist Worker. In fairness to him he pointed out the facts very well, not least how the CAP was disadvantageous to poorer countries. The rhetoric is all in the article. At the end of the summit he had given back some rebate under the cover of financing a bigger budget for a bigger Europe. As you rightly say contributions went up across the board which is clearly why the CAP %age of the budget went down. No concessions were made on the CAP (or other wider budgetary issues) whatsoever so Blair basically failed to deliver what he set out to achieve. Chirac and Shroeder said the CAP was not up for negotiation until 2013. It was Merkel's first summit and she brokered the deal. As you rightly pointed out the CAP wasn't renegotiated and wont be until at least 2014.

Incidentally Britain were totally isolated on the issue, and Cameron wasn't even there.

Not under regulated enough according to Gideon in opposition.

Why not just accept the fact that Cameron has been caught with his pants round his ankles and stop introducing straw men that bear no relevance to the matter in question?

Compared to Gideon "look to Ireland for an example of how it should be done" Osborne and David "we're all in it together" Cameron, yes. Those two would make Pavlov's dogs look statesmanlike

In your opinion.

The opinion of of the electorate is somewhat different.