If only we had listened to Denis MacShane just two years ago, we wouldn’t be in the horrendous mess we are now:

“For more than a decade we have been told that the euro was a terrible idea, while the good old pound sterling would protect the British economy from the wily ways of the Europeans. Now more and more people are asking why the pound is letting us down – and whether treating it as a shibboleth that cannot be questioned makes sense any more. All the old arguments against the euro have fallen away. There is no European super-state emerging with its adoption. There is no dictation of economic policy from Brussels.

If the euro were used here as it is without fuss in countries we are close to, including Ireland and the Netherlands, then the next Governor of the European Central Bank could easily be a Brit. But if British voters are no longer going to feel like poor relations whenever they holiday in other European countries, then before long someone is going to have to begin making the case that like shillings and pence, the pound may now have had its day.”

As we know he is an expert with funny money…

After Guido’s scoop this morning about CCHQ’s tactful start to the upcoming Heathrow By-Election, all sorts of other divisions have been emerging today. Many are asking what happened to the Tory love-in with open primaries, or even a basic selection meeting. The Commentator reports further embarrassment for Dave:  one former approved candidate did get a look in for selection, by UKIP:

 ”…the UKIP candidate, highly likely to steal more than the 992 conservative votes that Jerry Shadbolt took in 2010, is none other than former Tory candidate for Edmonton, Andrew Charalambous. The businessman and barrister is also the founder of ‘Surya’, the world’s first eco-nightclub which hosted the official ‘Conservative Future’ party in November 2010. Activists may be confused as to whether to campaign for Cameron, who delivered them government, or for Charalambous, who delivered them… booze.”

With the Tories in a strong second place in the seat, the form set by the Oldham by-election should mean that we will be seeing the LibDems taking a sham role in this race. With the backdrop to this election, we could easily see UKIP coming third.

Talking of Euro-sceptics. Word reaches Guido from his Brusselois co-conspirator that all is not well with the outgoing Roger Helmer MEP. Normally the rules state that whoever is the next down the party list, automatically replaces a resigning MEP. However not everyone in CCHQ is enamoured with the equally Euro-sceptic replacement Rupert Matthews. He is a little eccentric and likes UFOs, but that can hardly render you unfit for selection when Norman Baker is in the government.

Some obscure quirk of the party constitution is being cited as a way of over-ruling the convention, but Helmer is having none of it. He has declared that unless Matthews is anointed his successor he won’t be resigning after all…

Guido has seen a rather excitable internal UKIP memo that celebrates Farage’s “who do you think you are speech” hitting half a million views. It’s been translated into Greek, Spanish, German and Polish. The email decries the lack of press coverage in this country, but notes abroad, on places like Fox News “Nigel is featured more prominently and in much more heroic light than at home”. The original on English version, plus the foreign combined copies, have been seen by nearly 600,000:

Well on target for Guido’s prediction of a million views. Are they listening yet?

Allister Heath asks…

“Who will bail-out the bail-outers?”

Last Friday Guido noticed a speech that Nigel Farage had given in the European Parliament a couple of days previously was creeping up into the thousands of views on YouTube. So he decided to give it a bit of a push. It was one of the most retweeted stories from this blog for months:

The savage take down of the European-elites and their frankly shocking disregard for democracy in the face of a threat to their golden project had all the hallmarks of a Hannan-style sensation. Guido predicted it would hit a million views and he stands by that. Just four days later it’s at 300,000. The truth is powerful…

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg , quips..

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

Nigel Farage’s “What gives you the right?” speech from Wednesday is bang on the money and going viral with nearly 50,000 views in two days:

The officials in the chamber always laugh when Farage holds up the mirror, but those smirks are looking more and more like gallows humour every day. Even Mrs Fawkes, who is not in the least interested in politics, wanted the volume turned up when she overheard this one…

Today Dave is off to see Chancellor Merkel as we learn that advance copies of the proposed Irish budget were circulating for approval in the Bundestag in Berlin before being seen in the Oireachtas in Dublin. Elected Irish politicians will rubber-stamp the budget once German politicians have approved it.

German approved regimes have now been appointed in Italy and Greece, the Irish finance ministry is run by the Bundesfinanzminister with German “advisers” in Dublin acting as financial Gauleiters. In September 2008 the Irish government was instructed to guarantee the bad loans made by German banks who lent to the failed Anglo-Irish Bank and the Fianna Fáil government submitted, sacrificing generations of future taxpayers on the altar of the €uro. The Irish electorate kicked them out bringing in a Fine Gael government which promised to renegotiate the debts. In government Fine Gael too have bent the knee to Berlin.

As smaller sovereign states succumb to the German finanz-blitzkrieg it is difficult to see how the interests of those nations outside the developing German co-prosperity sphere are well served by the EU, particularly given that France’s AAA credit rating looks about as secure as the Maginot Line. It is Britain’s age old role to be a check on German domination of Europe, if Germany wants to reform the EU in its own image the British people should be given a referendum on their continuing membership…

David Miliband doesn’t “know whether to weep or laugh” about the Eurocrisis. He’s taken to the pages of the FT to carefully place a hand grenade under yesterday’s attempts by Ed to rebalance Labour’s position on the EU, bringing it slightly closer to sceptic public opinion. Dougie Alexander got all “realistic” in his speech and the bloggers were dispatched to re-write history; with the most brazen attempt being LabourList’s “Did we even care about Europe ever really anyway?” And then it all started going wrong…

There was Lord Mandelson on Newsnight refusing to rule out ever joining, as well as refusing to apologise for declaring the Euro a wonderful sustainable success, just two years ago. And now in this morning’s FT Brother Miliband twists the knife. Apparently negotiating powers is  ”deluded and dangerous” and the real key issue is the fact that “President van Rompuy is up for re-election in June.” Hardly in tune with the line his brother signed off yesterday for Wee Dougie:

“…any treaty change sought by Germany in response to the euro crisis as a legitimate occasion to look at the balance of powers between Europe and nation states.”

It turns out the most prominent figures in Labour do still care about Europe. Deeply…

The €uro project isn’t even pretending to be democratic any more. Referendums blocked, elected heads of government replaced…