World

It was only a matter of time before the Franco-German drive to reshape Europe’s “economic governance” met with a counter-proposal. In international politics, a powerful state or group of states tends to lead others to band together in or order to provide some form of balance. This is now happening in Europe. David Owen and David Marsh are proposing the creation of a “Non-Eurogroup” (NEG), corralling the 10 EU countries outside the Eurozone into a group. Writing for the Financial Times, they argue that such an NEG would bring many benefits. They say: “Setting up the NEG would establish rights and responsibilities for non-eurozone members, ending the long-held European position

Remember when Alistair Darling said that we faced the worst financial crisis for sixty years? Now Mervyn King has trumped that piece of doom-mongery by telling Channel 4 last night that “This is undoubtedly the biggest financial crisis the world economy has ever faced” (see video above, three minutes in). The Governor of the Bank of England saying that this is the worst crisis ever? On the day that he rushed another £75 billion into the economy? As mood music goes, it is a particularly dreadful symphony.       It is also the sort of situation that Ed Balls will relish, especially with the Pre-Budget Report approaching. And it is true:

A fringe debate on the Human Rights Act hosted by the Tory Reform Group might not have been a crowd puller. But yesterday’s feline foul-up and the presence of Attorney General Dominic Grieve, a firm advocate of human rights, ensured the event was a sell-out. If Grieve had been advised against deepening internal animosity on the ‘cat flap’ furore, he ignored the direction. The TRG’s Egremont blog quotes Grieve as saying: “We need to have a rational debate. We must be more productive than just going for the ‘meow’ factor.” Then he added: “The judicial interpretation and case workload of the European Court ought to be a concern for the UK and other

The broad narrative of the Republican primaries has essentially been “the search for an alternative to Mitt Romney”. And that search looks set to continue with another potential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, set against running for president. Romney has been the favourite to win the nomination pretty much since the 2008 election. But he does not generate much enthusiasm among the Republican base: only 14 per cent of Republicans have a “strongly favourable” view of him (according to Gallup) and he’s polling at just 24 per cent: pretty low for such a well-known frontrunner. As a result, many in the Grand Old Party have been looking elsewhere. This has

I apologise for the advertisement, but there is a piece in the Observer that is well worth reading. Michael Cohen describes how Obama has tired of offering the hand of friendship, only for the Republicans to accuse him of being a socialist Mau Mau on a mission to destroy America. He will abandon bipartisanship and fight the 2012 presidential election as Harry Truman and FDR would have done: by painting the Republicans as the yapping lapdogs of the Wall Street plutocracy. Cohen reports that in a recent speech: ‘Obama blasted Republicans for possessing a world view where “corporations write their own rules, and we dismantle environmental regulations and we dismantle labour

Here’s Peter Oborne in mid-season form on Newsnight last night, drawing on the book he previewed in his essential cover piece in last week’s issue of the Spectator, The Guilty Men. The spokesman from the European Commission makes a statement that exposes Brussels’ current helplessness, but his comment about the post-war era reveals what many pro-Europeans on the continent feel: the EU’s greatest achievement is to have secured peace and prosperity across a continent that had been at war for most of the previous 1,000 years; wars that obviously assumed terrible dimensions in the 20th Century. The spokesman also refers to the EU’s perceived second greatest achievement: the most complete welfare settlement in

This morning’s headlines are apocalyptic: “Global economy on the brink”, “Six weeks to save the Euro”, “Collective action needed now”. The unifying theme is the lack of leadership in the Eurozone: someone must grasp the nettle, say external politicians and commentators. Meanwhile, Charles Moore points out, with typical understatement, that Europe is leaderless by nature: no one is in charge and that is its tragedy. Moore doesn’t mention the European President, who could, conceivably, offer direction and insist on fiscal discipline; but Herbert Van Rompuy is yet to meet that challenge. You wonder if someone of Tony Blair’s international standing might have succeeded where Van Rompuy has so far failed. Perhaps, but Europe’s

US-Pakistani relations will deteriorate even further following today’s claims by Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Pakistani ISI aided and abetted the attack on the US embassy in Kabul. Mullen told a Senate panel that, “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted a truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy.” This charge was part of broader criticism of what Washington sees as Pakistan’s strategy of exporting its internal problems. Mullen summed up his concerns thus: “In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan – and most especially the Pakistani Army