Week of June 16 – 22

Read Time:4 Minute, 40 Second

By Steve Parkhurst, Senior Editor, USDR.

Looking at the news and opinion out of London each day.

6-22-15

Greek catastrophe shows EU’s promised trade-offs are hot air

Losing sovereignty was supposed to be a price worth paying but it has ended in humiliation

Just say Out

If Eurosceptics concentrate their energies on renegotiation, the case for In will be halfway round the country before Out has got its boots on.

Business for Britain attempts to show the positive side of the ‘No’ campaign

The EU ‘out’ campaigners have two troublesome image problems to contend with: the message of ‘No’ is intrinsically negative and will scare off voters, plus they are looking to change the status quo. Business for Britain, which is expected by many in Westminster to be one of the groups forming the ‘No’ campaign, is attempting to remedy the negativity of a Brexit with its new publication ‘Change or Go’.

The eurozone must either integrate or disintegrate

New research shows that the single currency is amplifying the differences between its members, making the euro in its current form unsustainable

6-21-15

Why David Cameron is an anxious spectator of the Greek drama

The wrong outcome to this crisis will weaken Angela Merkel and jeopardise the prime minister’s European strategy

Greece can only be liberated from impossible German rules by leaving the euro

Germany’s political class finds itself in an impossible position, for it promised German taxpayers they would never have to pay for the Greeks.

6-20-15

The Holy Father is wrong to say that our way of life is doomed

Pope Francis’s ‘green’ encyclical preaches only to the converted and is unduly gloomy

Pope Francis a liberal free thinker? Don’t kid yourself

Francis can never steer humanity to environmental salvation while he remains in thrall to Catholic dogma on birth control

Kamall declares his bid for the Tory mayoral nomination

The popular MEP will up the race, and his entry helps to sharpen the strategic choices facing the party selectorate.

Suzanne Evans ‘unsacked’ as Ukip spokesman

Those Kippers just can’t decide whether to stay or go. Suzanne Evans, Ukip’s deputy chairman, was yesterday banned from representing the party, according to a leaked internal email. Evans upset some in the party after telling the Daily Politics that Farage can be perceived as ‘divisive figure.’ But the party has just released a statement to the contrary

Rudd must avoid more hot air on wind farms

The previous government tended to over-promise and under-deliver on matters like restricting new turbines. With the Liberal Democrats out, will that change?

6-19-15

It has to be Liz Kendall, doesn’t it?

The most revealing moment in the Labour debate last night came when a questioner asked ‘what qualities do you share with Nicola Sturgeon that could make you as successful as a party leader?’

Letwin mulls “a suite” of family policies

The Government has already doubled funding for relationship support, and help during early years is bound to be in the agenda.

The Tories must seize the chance to rethink climate change policy

David Cameron and George Osborne have just defeated Ed Miliband electorally; now they have to defeat him intellectually

6-18-15

The Conservative case against Greek austerity

The country simply cannot bear such a crushing burden of debt while the Eurozone works as it does.

Who won the Labour leadership debate? Nobody

Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn should be relaxing on a beach somewhere – not tearing chunks out of each other like this

The Greek and German tragedy

I was asked this week in the Commons if I thought Germany was an independent country. Some were surprised when I said that of course it is not. Some people keep on confusing power with sovereignty. Germany is a powerful country, but her actions are now very circumscribed by the EU and more especially by the Euro.

Britain could so nearly have suffered the same fate as Greece

Far from taking any pleasure in Athens’s travails, we should be counting our blessings

6-17-15

Economic migrants to the EU

Yesterday news came that the French have blocked the border with Italy to impede the progress of illegal economic migrants. This is against the Shengen rules they signed up to. Italy demands “burden sharing”, seeking a system of quotas for all EU states to share the migrants she lets in to her country. The UK has exercised its opt out from any such measure, having in the past stood apart from Shengen common frontiers.

You may disagree with him, but Jeremy Corbyn has a key role in Labour’s leadership race

The idea that his views should disqualify him from standing is reprehensible

6-16-15

Magna Carta is no case for a codified constitution

It is being cited by those who seek to replace the distinct strengths of our ancient constitution with tired, American orthodoxies.

Free trade and the EU

I wrote this recently for Conservative Home, but would like to share it with readers here: It is one of the ironies of life in the EU that an apparently good idea, more free trade with the USA, ends up with both left of centre and right of centre critics combining to condemn the way the EU has been doing it.
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Across The Pond is edited daily by Steve Parkhurst. Steve is a political consultant, a writer at his blog as well as a Senior Editor here at US Daily Review. Follow Steve on Twitter  @SteveParkhurst

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