Euro-realism: we’re all doomed

I have written about the eurozone crisis for the fourth or fifth week running in The Independent on Sunday. The case can be made that this stuff is important. I thought David Cameron did as well as he could in his talks with Angela Merkel last week, but the situation seems pretty grim.

He seems a realist with a smiley face, whereas his leadership rival David Davis, in the Telegraph on Friday, is an unrealist with a rubber dagger in his hand. His idea that Britain could secure a “permanent, universal opt-out” of the EU can be achieved only one way: by leaving. That is not a daft idea, but it is a big one, and it would be better to say what we mean.

John Major, meanwhile, interviewed by David Frost on Al Jazeera on Saturday, seems a realist with a glum face. He predicts a permanently “diminished, semi-detached” status for the UK. As I say:

It has come to something if John Major thinks that David Cameron’s European policy is doomed.

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• http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ Firozali A.Mulla

  AND the age for retirement goes up 75 that is bargain I say I thank youi Firozali A.Mulla DBA

• greggf

  The Tobin tax is a negotiating ploy, in case Cameron actually dares to ask for anything back.
  The Germans will welcome an enhanced role for the ECB once they’ve got control of the EZ through a fiscal union, a federation and the ESM is enacted.
  But surely all this is obvious…..?