Philip Stephens of the Financial Times is one of the misguided Europhiles on the pink organ. Quite the chronicler of Tory failure, his tome from the nineties: "Politics and the Pound", is a timely reminder, if read today, of the mistakes and misguidance that has afflicted this country. The concluding remarks in his book sum up the erroneous assumptions underlying Europhilia and the ideological compass that underpins their reasoning:

Sterling is a useful indicator and an instrument of economic management but the currency markets can be as destructive as they are powerful. For now there seems only the slightest prospect that Britain will join EMU in 1999. A re-elected Conservative government would not survive such a decision. Tony Blair would almost certainly have more pressing priorities. But if the rest of Europe does create a single currency, sterling's future will look bleak. Once again Britain is likely to follow Monnet's advice.  It will watch from the sidelines to see if the venture works and, if it does, will join. Until then politics and the pound are destined to remain dangerously entangled.

The emphasis is upon British reticence, hesitation and cowardice, not upon the pros and cons of a currency union. When your magnetic north is inverted to Brussels, your reasoning does not look ahead but back, from out of your arse. The 'guilty men', who supported this disastrous venture have found any number of excuses for not amending their opinions.

This does not prevent our pygmies from another failure at the G7 (no Putin, so no G8). Strong leadership would demand the orderly dismantling of the currency union into convergent groups. Instead, isolating Angela Merkel, the Anglo-Saxons called for further integration, the mutualisation of debt and the monetary debasement of the Euro. The only response they can give is their own pisspoor stealth inflation and austerity spin. (The UK government is not on the austerity treadmill).

Why should the Germans pay for the debts of others? Their political elite may subscribe to a 'European Germany' and wish to avoid causing the gimps who gave all of their deposits in bad loans from facing the consequences of their actions. The German government have tried to stop bailing out their own banks. Merkel may have forced this poison on Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain and the periphery. Now that poison is being thrust upon her.