A topical interlude

So Tony Blair's allowing for the possibility that Britain may have to give up part of it's increasingly anachronistic EU budget rebate and naturally the right wing press has gone into hyperbolic overdrive. Gosh - the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph don't like the idea. Who could have predicted that? Sigh...

I really don't understand the attitude of this country towards Europe, the inherent suspicion towards it held by so many. I suppose I'm being slightly hypocritical - even I've been developing a growing interest in the goings on in my own community, and it's only natural to people to care about events in their direct proximity first. But still, the idea of forging close ties with the rest of the world (ok, the EU, but it's a start). Sounds like a great idea to me - sign me up. Will it bring all sorts of social and economic problems. Quite possibly, but I don't see that as reason enough to dismiss the idea. It smacks of short term thinking for a start. My sense of naive idealism still holds that closer ties will eventually lead to a better world.

As far as the rebate goes, I'm still trying to work out what this means for the soon to be reborn Conservative party (whom I really hope rebrand themselves in the vein of New Labour. Who could resist a party called the Mod-Cons after all?). The issue of Europe seems to have been ball and chain dragging the Conservatives down for years. It's long been the Tory equivalent of a self destruct button - so much as a whisper about Europe would cause the party to implode in a spectacle of squabbling, and it's only now, with the advent of a leader unburdened by any real baggage over Europe (or any other frippery such as party policies - but that's another matter) that the Conservatives have started to emerge from the shadow of the EU. It'll be interesting to watch what happens next and how they deal with the budget rebate. They'll be against it, obviously, but hopefully they'll be able to cope with the issue without fragmenting into feuding factions as is their habit.

Time will tell.