Leadership at last? - Peter Valentine

At long last I feel the curse of living in interesting times may be ending as finally, it seems, the EU and more importantly most of its

Nation States seem to have woken up to the fact that wherever we stand on the sovereignty thing we jolly well need to work together to a

common hymn book and with common rules and regulations.
 
The announced EU defence scheme is bigger than I could have imagined and I believe Mr Barroso spoke for us all in saying that we

had to have common will power and policies. This could well lead to greater political union and I for one hope that that is exactly what it

means. This may well bring the UK into even greater conflict with our fellow members or it may prove the tipping point to finally push the

UK to the centre of Europe, a position much talked about but never achieved - not yet anyway.
 
Kevin Hannon and Bill Newton Dunn both observed that the EU does best when under pressure, and we sure have been under

pressure and failing to project real leadership. By this Euro Defence Pact we are certainly showing unity and leadership so it may be

that Kevin and Bill were right.
 
The other plank of all this is the regulation of the financial markets, where a fair degree of consensus between the EU the USA and the

UK seems to be emerging, but we are still some way from implementation.

I still have a scenario in my thoughts that the excess pressure from the "Market" is not unrelated to the threat of regulation. It is

ridiculous that a few words a nod and a wink can change the real value of a stock, an economy or a sovereign State - but that is all it t

takes; just deduct one letter A from a rating report and a whole nation is devalued - do me a favour.
 
So given this conspiracy theory I can only hope that the "Market" got well and truly pasted last weekend.
 
And what of the UK? Well, if the English keep up their sceptic ways and continue to refuse to take our rightful place in Europe then

perhaps the EU should put us on notice to quit and invite Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to be individual members of the EU.

Well the UK is a Federal country, and federations can be ended!