Verbal

Well that's your choice and your problem that I'm a 'target for vitriol' - this a discussion forum not an excuse for the socially inadequate to spunk 'vitriol'. I just wish you could resist blubbering, foaming-at-the-mouth digressions into personal abuse and stay on topic. If not, fine. I'll just have to skip over your posts. Somehow I don't think I'll be missing much.

Just can't resist can you. Pity about the spelling though. How about debating the issues rather than using every opportunity for childish ad hominem pokes.

If you read that carefully you should be worried. How badly do you want to get into bed with Greeks (nation-wise)?

Left or right, Sweden is and has been for ages a very well run welfare state with still high rates of taxation compared to the UK.

You distribute your sarcasm so liberally and aimlessly it's hard to know who you're directing it at. I'm just reporting a fact, not commenting on it.

Neither is in the eurozone, so once Britain split, it was bound to be difficult to keep them onside.

It wouldn't, because the conditions of the tax would be that euro-denominated trades would have to be transacted within the eurozone - precisely for the reason you suggest, that it otherwise give London what to them is an unfair advantage.

Sweden is not in the eurozone, and is a well-run welfare state, so it stands to lose if the EU-imposed budgetary constraints are applied. Ireland, as far as I know, is just muttering about a referendum. But yes, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the imminent victory of the Left in France. Even they won't 'veto' the financial straitjacket - just work around it the way they always have.

The terms and conditions of the proposed euro-denominated transaction tax, as agreed (or so they say they will) by the 26 - an agreement reached outside the formal legal framework of the EU. If it happens, the first fruits of Cameron's veto will be the transfer of billions of euros worth of business from the City to Frankfurt.

There have been a number of assassinations in Tehran - some of them drive-by motorcyclists attaching explosives to cars - of prominent nuclear physicists and nuclear personnel, as well as mysterious explosions at military installations and cyber-attacks on nuclear-related software. So it's already happening.

But you shouldn't be able to tell, with the head in the wrong place.

But they will, thus helping to shore up an eventually stronger euro, and with many more financial transactions shifting from London to Frankfurt.

Why don't we get back to the thread rather than indulge your childish digressions? And why don't you offer a credible explanation for the non-collapse of the euro?

"A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness". How is that 'not really'? And books aren't all bad, you know. Agreed, compared to the internet and youtube they don't add up to squat...

Hmm. Deluded implies some sort of mental illness. So is that how you want to progress with your argument?

The euro, present tense, isn't screwed. It's still there, trading reasonably well given all that's happened. The euro, future tense, is likely to be stronger if the flaky economies are jettisoned from it. Deal with what, by the way? Wake up to whose reality? What's with the aggression? Got stuck in your chair?

Has anyone run this by Dave? Because, veto aside, he sounds as strongly committed to Europe as anyone in the House - and he's certainly made it clear that the veto is not a first step to exiting the EU.

Someone grab something of yours? The point I was trying to make is that surely the euro should be in the toilet by now, after months and months of eurozone crisis. The fact is that it IS still trading so strongly, despite everything that's gone on within the zone.

I thought you were too busy to read books. And honestly, I think left and right can unite (good slogan?) on Frank's posts being in need of an editor (No hostility intended). It's his choice - but I'd recommend the guy who edits Jeffrey Archer.

I really must get an iPad for one of those page-turning thingies.

And yet Labour lead in your favourite opinion polls.

I liked this comment from the Guardian. "Dave, stop. Stop, will you. Stop Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" HAL 9000 2001 Nick Clegg 2011

That's nice dear, shall I put the kettle on?

Try googling 'delusions of grandeur'.

That's saying (a) the NoW probably DID delete but didn't do so consciously; and (b) the NoW DID nonetheless hack Millie Dowler's phone and listen in on her parents' and others' gut-wrenching messages. Hardly an exoneration, is it.