T-eu late?

Some promising ideas in Mrs Queen's speech yesterday, not least those leading to the 'rolling back' of the Nanny State. Bye Nanny! Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, will you?

But let's not get too excited about that just yet. There's a bigger elephant in the room, or more actually, there are PIGS in the room. What about the euro crisis? what about the E-word? What about Europe?

Cleggy's very pro the superstate, CallMeDave doesn't know what he thinks, but many Tories would happily pull up the drawbridge and turn their backs on the frogs, the krauts and the lazy wops and dagos.

So how was this mixture of views reflected in the Queen's speech? As the Telegraph puts it :

"A European Union Bill will "increase democratic and parliamentary control, scrutiny and accountability over EU decision making". No further powers will be transferred from theUnited Kingdom to Brussels without a national vote, known as "referendum lock".

Britain will not join the euro currency without a referendum, and major modification of EU treaties would need fresh legislation.

The Government will also "examine the case" for a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, which would state formally that ultimate authority remains in this country rather than the EU"

So, in summary still no further 'in', still no further 'out', and a bit of vague head-scratching about what to do next. A coalition compromise.

But it's all too fucking late anyway,: well, according to Christopher Booker, it is.

"We have still scarcely begun to wake up to the gravity of the crisis now upon us, not just for the eurozone but also for us here in Britain and for the entire global economy. The measures so far taken to prop up the collapsing euro, such as that famous "$1 trillion package", are no more than gestures."

Shit. So, how did we come to this?

"What we are witnessing here is a judgment on the entire deceitful and self-deceiving way in which the "European project" has been assembled over the past 53 years. One of the most important things to understand about that project is that it has only ever had one real agenda ..

by far the most important project of all was locking the member states into a single currency."

But we're not in the single currency, are we, so we're (relatively) safe, right? Isn't this crisis the rich Eurozone countries problem: Germany's problem, France's problem? Well. Frau Merkel needs a cash, a lot of cash, and she's got an idea on where she might get it..

"..calling last week for a "global" tax on financial transactions to raise 321 billion euros a year Europe-wide – 204 billion euros of which would come from Britain, still the world's leading financial centre, with 43 billion euros from Germany and just 17 billion euros from France.

Oh for fuck's sake. We're stuck half-in, half-out, and even though we didn't have a starter or a pudding, it looks like we're going to have to pay for everyone's pizza, pasta, sardines and Greek salads.

So what are the Coalition going to do about this? There's nothing in the Queen's speech. What does Booker think?

"As alarming as anything, with this tsunami roaring down on us, has been the sight of our new leaders preening themselves with their list of irrelevant little "coalition policies" and babyish boasts about the "greatest democratic shake-up since the 1832 Reform Act", as if none of this was happening."

Suddenly the scrapping of ID cards seems a little less relevant.

Oh fuck.

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