Darling: The Greeks Will Be Back (Cap in Hand)
Guido has said it before; history will be far kinder to Alistair Darling than any of his old government colleagues. This morning he’s the boy pointing at the €uro-emperor’s new clothes with vigour. While his Labour colleagues are silent, he popped up on Today to warn that he was “very sceptical” that the Greek bailout will work and that the Greeks could “stick to eight years of austerity”.
He warned that the Greeks will be “back at the table” for more money. Meanwhile Osborne is saying this morning that the Greeks do not have any other option despite how difficult this is. Now that just isn’t true…
“… scabrous site”
Carry on.
The Greeks ought to follow my example in Portsmouth. Take in lots of immigrants and get grants from the EU to so do. They will soon clear their debts if they take in enough.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/asylum_seekers_allocated_to_port#incoming-255690
26.1% of all immigrants allocated to the Southeast, by the Home Office (Border Agency) have gone to Portsmouth from 2003 to date. Someone is clearly making a lot of money out of this.
Someone making a lot of money? So long as its only Handycock’s boys providing the accommodation that’ll be OK then. This scam has been running since Gordon Brown took the brakes off immigration. Handy must have really lined his pockets on the backhanders since then.
Merkel and Osborne are in this together:
Why does Osborne want the euro zone to survive?
I asked that myself but I don’t suppose he can say, as Chancellor The Euro is a heap of shite because it allowed types like the Greeks to do what they did and if it collapses, I don’t give a flying fuck – and the effect on the pound will be negligible
Well, he could say that but …
Who’s the bigger idiots , the Greeks that took the money they couldn’t afford
Or the idiots that gave them it knowing they couldn’t afford it
Politicians don’t care either way because they’er doing fine out of the euro
I remember a saying from my earliest banking days:
The only way that this has changed is with the addition of more zeros than one could ever imagine.
But if you lend them the money at 25-30% then you can give them generous write offs upon which you can claim tax reliefs and still be quids in when you take back some five star hotels and sell them back to your mated dirt cheap.
It’s just workfare for the Greeks.
I firmly believe these politicians have a much higher agenda and personal interest in the Euro project than they have in acting in the national interest.
They are out to make millions for themselves. George being a member of the Bieldberg club along with the likes of Mandelson says it all. A cost club for shady characters that we have unfortunately elected to act in our interests.
You get great business leaders, but never great politicians. As politicians are those that are too crap to survive in the private sector.
Just check the Parliamentary records to see how many politicians made it in the private sector before becoming MP’s. There are a lot of them, and they are mostly Tories – which is one of the reasons that CMD is getting such an ear’olling from his own party. Labour MP’s are almost to a person are Public Sector drones who fervently believe in the money tree.
He was only following orders? Cynical yes, but I just can’t help it.
“Meanwhile Osborne is saying this morning that the Greeks do not have any other option despite how difficult this is.” How many errors involving worldwide catastrophes have been caused by the phrase, he/they do not have any other option?
+1
Osborne is talking complete crap.
The Greeks do have options .
One option is to default. Another option is to have a fire sale. A further option is to cut the state sector by 50%.
Frankly to stand in front of the cameras and say the Greeks have no option is simply taking the piss.
Taking budget advice off Darling, is a bit like taking child care advice off Ian huntley
I agree. And if labour had still been in power we would be in that sinking boat right along there with Greece.
House flipping advice rather than budget advice would be more acceptable from the shy-ster master.
‘the boy in the emperor’s new clothes’ – double dose of mind bleach required.
honour the Cheyenne?
The other option is to bring back the Drachmae. Then we can have some decent Aegean holidays again rather than flying over the Greek Islands to Turkey.
As for starters it will revive their tourism industry.
I doubt it.
1. Sensible Greeks off shored their Euros.
2. Now new Drachma – devalue.
3. Prices rocket, for imported goods.
4. Repatriated money is worth what? Three four times what it is now.
5. Asset prices have crashed.
6. Buy assets with those valuable Euros.
7. Back to where you started
7. … without the debt, and with lower wage rates.
If the Euro survives. They may have to repatriate their Euros quick, because Greece will be followed by other PIIGS out of the Euro,
There was no way the bosses at the EU were ever going to let Greece leave the Eurozone……why, they’d have almost put their hands into their own pockets…or mine or yours.
It would also open a can of worms labelled ”Goldman Sax swaps for European countries wishing to join the Euro but unable to as they don’t meet the criteria”
If Greece did it, who else?
+1
+1.
or each others…
Public School educated,Marxist, Flipper of house has one redeeming feature – he is not a friend of Gordon
anti-car councillor, and just another jock out of office (thank heavens)
Ey up nice to see Little Ed’s Balls have finally dropped
as he’s storms ahead in’th polls
Call me Dave is a gert Apeth in the eyes of’th public now , over his NHS reforms
He’d better start to make the most of his one term in office
coz nart’s so sure Ed’s foot is firmly in’th door now
Camerons on’th ropes “things can only get better”
prepare for’th next three terms of’th Labour party !
By ek Pauline Ha’st not done’t brekky yet lass ?
Git yer own effin breakie laddie
Looking at your post timing, would that be second brekkie or first early lunch?
The EU is playing a game of slight of hand to try and conceal the slow motion train crash that is happening to the euro.
I suspect the euro won’t last much longer than the 8 years of austerity it’s trying to impose on a Greek population deprived of their democratic rights.
tsk ‘sleight’ not ‘slight’
Agreed……however as time of shipwreck approaches on the Euro Riverboat Casino the die hards will cut their losses and try to jump off with their shirts, leaving the Greeks to go down with bad hands.
All in the oggin together….
The Greeks do have an alternative and it is up to the Greek people to vote in large numbers for an anti EU party who would give them independence from the EU.
Of course, that is not going to happen. The Greek people just want their debts written off so that they can go back to overspending like a billionaire who just heard the nuclear 4 minute warning! They will not vote to leave the EU.
You tink zey vill be allowed to vote BWAHAHAHAH!
Denken again.
Of course they will be able to vote. They may not be allowed to count their own votes though.
+LOL++
“Greece is to receive loans worth more than 130bn euros (£110bn; $170bn).
In return, Greece will undertake to slash its debt from 160% to 120.5% of GDP within eight years and accept a permanent EU economic monitoring mission.
The country needs the funds to avoid bankruptcy on 20 March, when maturing loans must be repaid.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17109044
Will the Greeks vote for parties which have accepted the ‘agreement’ or will they string them up after they have voted in anti EU parties? Looks as if the place is turned back into a plaything of The Great Powers.
Does anyone else see that this maths is insane.
“debt from 160% to 120.5% of GDP within eight years”.
This would imply 5% of GDP every year just going to pay down debt!
(Let alone any budget deficit in government cancelling that by adding to it – the 2009 budget deficit was 15.4% of GDP).
It’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. No government can pay down 5% of GDP every year without incredible, unfeasible cuts. Cuts such as closing down half the government and having a fire-sale nationalization of all the government’s assets. IT WON’T HAPPEN SHEEPLE – This is just politicians putting off the inevitable.
Cheap holidays in Greece in 8 years time.
Was Darling like Hauoit not also a Trot in his younger days?
he was an anti-car jock councillor with a beard
(bearded men especially this one are perceived by women as untrustworthy)
he was scum then, and still scum now
There are always options. I heard Darling on the Tosay programme and he was absolutely right. However, for me, his credibility is undermined not so much by what he did as Chancellor but by the actions that were taken during the interegnum period in May 2010 and Gordon Brown and Alisatir Darling committed additional UK money to Europe, an act which should have ben subject to judicial review. Bailouts for Greece will not work. I extended credit to Greek shoe manufacturers in the East End in the ’80′s and they all went off to Cyprus owing me a lot of money. The Greek Cypriots consider themselves to be honest compared with mainland Greeks.
There is still no mention of the largest industry in Greece being taxed – shipping ,it is still tax free , why?
The agreement reached keeps the cash under control of Eurozone paymasters so that if the election goes the “Wrong way” they cut their losses and ties to Greece .
Ships float.
That helps them to move about.
If they move about, so can their ownership and domicile.
Just a few pointers.
The rebellion in the Greek province has been crushed.
Sieg Heil
But wait! Here come the plucky Resistance fighters!
Oh… dear.
Cyprus is exploring for hydrocarbons—why not Greece? Why does a port in northern Greece employ 240 office workers with virtually NO shipping traffic
Cy has hydrocarbon find so far is worth USD 125bn versus a population of circa 750k
Which ‘Cyprus’ claimed the find?
The difficulties of dividing ‘Scotland’s oil’ from the portion belonging to the ‘English’ are trivial in comparison to this.
It’s off the south coast, so firmly within the internationally recognise “greek” government’s control. There has been sabre rattling from Turkey. But the Cypriots are in JV’s with Israel, as the fields are adjacent. Big dimplomatic raprochement between the 2. Also US firm ( Noble ) doing the work. Plus – Cyprus has a communist president – last bailout of 2.5 bn was from Russia. There was talk of Russia beefing up its military presence when the Turks were getting heavy.
PS (well, PS assuming my previous post appears)
The biggest destabilisation on the horizon for Cyprus is another cack-handed attempt by the “international community” to force an unworkable reunification solution down the throats of the locals . Due the year.
Or they could sell their half to the Turks, maybe?
Turkey is more into taking than buying.
The European Union are committing crimes against humanity in Greece, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum:
Crimes Against “are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings.”
No doubt David Cameron will use the Nuremberg defence that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are just ‘honouring solemn treaty obligations’.
Just following orders
Have the talks for third Greek bailout started yet?
They are booked for March.
The Ides thereof?
i just heard that german sounding french woman on tv – head of the imf or similar.
she said that greases debt yesterday was 129 pct of gdp and today it is only 120.5 pct of gdp. this is a significant improvement.
err, yes . . . economics is not for you lady
I thought she said that yesterday it was 120.9 and today it was 120.5. So a lot of fuss over very little.
I could have miss-heard her.
What was that today about Strauss-Kahn and a Hotel Prostitute Ring?
Darling always reminds me of the saying “the mouse that roared” – except in Darlings case it was the mouse who thought of roaring but changed his mind but really, really squeaked a few years later.
Bullfrog Barosso already knocking one out over the Greek bail out
Threatening to go even further to help their small businesses
“Let me be the first to say Well done Greece ” WHAT ?
Well done for being totally bankrupt billions in debt with no chance of ever repaying it making 25% OF YOUR POPULATION UNEMPLOYED
for the riots on your streets and your burning buildings
Yes well done indeed !
All labours best politicians are on the back benches. Just the way we like it!
He warned that the Greeks will be “back at the table” for more money.
Unless, of course, there is a genuine popular uprising and a civil war in Greece?
Or if the Greek Military think: “Sod this for a game of soldiers! We will have to take over, again to save our country!”
What would the EU do then? Install a puppet government in exile? Launch an invasion force to ‘rescue’ Greece, in the way the USSR ‘rescued’ Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
Probably would reprise 1955, and expect the UK to provide the forces.
Which could provide the impetuous for the UK to either leave, or leave and side with Greece.
Great. Germans and the bloody French the cause of World War 3, in that scenario!
You don’t give drink to a drunk.
You don’t hand out drugs to addicts.
So why are we handing out large wads of money to deadbeat spendthrifts.
Greece has made its bed, time to pay for it and use it.
Why should bona fide investors suffer default or “voluntary” losses to support a load of lazy idle shiftless scumbags, yes that’s only the polly’s, but the voters carry blame as well.
Penfold, I think it is a bit worse than that. Greece was given the design for the bed, built it to the specifications provided, using the materials as laid down in the instructions and now it is proving bloody uncomfortable, the designers are saying: “Oh, that’s odd! Here! We can lend you some more blankets!”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/18/uk-sweden-snow-idUKTRE81H0JX20120218?feedType=nl&feedName=ukoddlyenough
A model for Greece mayhap, can we wrap up a whole state…..?
Every single Labour politician who “served between 1997/2010 is culpable.
Every one of them is responsible for the unprecedended and dangerous levels of immigration, anyone see the programme on Luton with Stacy Dooley, last night, aparthied, albeit in infant form is prevelent in Britain today, simply staggering. That scenario is being played out in at least half dozen major Cities across the UK, and major civil unrest is surely on the near horizon.
Our debt levels are horrendous. Every Labour goverment since Ramsey Mcdonald has left a massive deficit, which the Tories have had to clean up, the last lot took it to a whole new level.
Towards the end of 2010 they operated a scorched earth policy. Every Labour goverment is fiscally incompetent, that’s a given, however the last lot were “criminally” incompetent Brown, Ball’s et al, should be in prison.
Politicians are corrupt. Political parties are corrupt, that’s also a given. But from Bernie Ecclestone to the current Public sector tax evasion activities currently emerging from the woodwork,F New Labour took corruption to unprecedented levels, yet the architects of that corruption Blair, Brown, Ball’s, remain at large,making millions, parasitic tendencies intact.
Under New Labour the civil liberties of the indigenous UK population were eroded “almost” to exstinction. People were talking about “Ism’s in hushed undertones, for fear of arrest and incarceration. No party in history has done more to undermine a once proud Britains Democratic make-up, cultural traditions, and values more than New Labour. Worse still we will probably never get them back.
The saner and less indoctrinated amongs us look to the Tories to re-establish what we consider to be the natural order of thing’s, free speech for all, civil liberties for all, fair policing and justice policies, applicable to all. Only a fool or someone of the left would deny the disparity that currently exists in these area, fair tax and spend policies, fiscal competence etc ect.
Things are getting better now in almost all those areas, that’s for sure. But will a goverment under Cameron re-establish the natural order of things, personally i have my doubts.
Steve, do you think this is as if the Captain of the Titanic had said to the First Officer: “By, ‘eck! This is a rum do! Why don’t you take over as Captain and see if you can do any better?”
DB i’m not really sure if your comment is meant to be disparaging of my opinions or not, but i’ll try to answer. If the iceberg is so close that a collision is unavoidable, or if it has already been hit, what’s the point of anyone taking over. The eventual outcome remains the same.
Balls and Brown in prison?? Swingin’ from a fuckin’ lamp post, more like.
Give my Connie his throne back, you Greek c*nts!!
Secretly recorded off – air conversatio in the “Toady ” studio 5.10am :
Jim Numpty : So John what are we leading with this morning ? Iran ,
Romney , Euro disaster , Greek disaster , Putin fallout , Scottish Devo, Korea and WW 3 ??
John Bumptious ( for it is he ): None of those Jim , our listenership are tired of the same old world changing news — let’s bring them our Spring
Initiative .
We’ll devote the whole programme to galvanising the kingdom to a concerted effort on tracing the first sighting of the Greater Spotted Tit — or as you Jocks call it up there the Greater Titted Spot … i e the Trossachs .
Numpty : Harsh John ….harsh.
I mean like do me a favour the Bubble an’ Squeaks fiddled their books right at the Euro start. So how can you expect them to change their ways? The German money geezer is going potty in his wheelchair because of the Bubbles incompetent management in money matters. The German flag gets burnt in Athens as a reply. But they must all know it’s like putting water in a bottomless bucket but instaed of us getting wet we’re gonna pay for this. What will happen in a few years,,,changes in political directions in european governments and someone will want their money back?
SIEG HEIL!!!!!
Well, I thought nothing could be worse than New Labour, but Cameron, Ozzy and Cleggy have proved me wrong. Osborne defending the latest EUSSR rape of Greece is the last straw for me. That and Les Ebdon, and the botched NHS reforms. Ed Miliballs couldn’t be worse. Labour can have my floating vote.
Darling is indeed not a complete plonker. I doubt the Greeks will stick 8 days of austerity, let alone 8 yearss.
It’s all bollox, the Greeks would be better out of the Euro.
It’s the German banks who wouldn’t like that.
Greece is to Europe what Scotland is to England