Doing the Hokey Kokey

The whole euro crisis has now descended into farce. It would be funny if the surrounding circumstances weren't so serious. Papandreou with good reason called a referendum to approve the latest bail out terms. The other euroland prime ministers were horrified at the idea that those who are not politicians should have any say in anything so serious as the latest Greek bailout terms whereas others of us thought what a truly clever idea a referendum was. In that way the electorate could decide and the politicians would be free of any blame for whatever the result happened to be and more than that it would go some way to redress the democratic deficit that exists in the EU. It was also a referendum that it would be difficult to get the Greeks to hold again until the 'right' decision was reached since if the original vote was 'no' it would be impossible for the euro to exist in a kind of limbo until the Greeks re-voted 'yes'. Despite my dislike of Papandreou's politics his call for a referendum was brave and principled and something I admired him for. Now he has withdrawn the referendum at the behest of Sarkozy, Merkel and God knows who else (I hope not our Prime Minister)  it is clear that the euro saga is going to drag on even longer and lead to even more turmoil and eventually even more of a bust. What therefore are we now doing saying we will support the eurozone through further contributions to the IMF? It was only a day or so ago that Osborne had said we would not make any more contributions. This is mickey mouse politics of the worst kind and leaves looking weak and indecisive. One can expect this kind of thing from the euroland countries but not from a Tory government. Oborne's article in the Telegraph today here looks even more prescient than when I read it this morning.