Row over who saddled British taxpayers with £6bn debt to bail out Portugal

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-Portugal.html

Row over who saddled British taxpayers with £6bn debt to bail out Portugal

A row erupted last night over who is to blame for saddling taxpayers with a potential £6billion bill for bailing out debt-laden Portugal. The Tories have always suggested that Labour’s Alistair Darling agreed to a bailout scheme to prop up the euro in his final days as Chancellor. It has also repeatedly been said that his then opposite number, George Osborne, objected to Britain signing up for the deal – hammered out in May last year in the days between the election and the formation of the Coalition.

Darling, Cameron and Osborne: Who to blame?

Now a leaked memo signed by a Tory Treasury minister last year has suggested that ‘cross-party consensus had been gained’ on the deal. Its existence emerged hours after David Cameron insisted in the Commons that Mr Osborne did oppose the deal. Under constitutional rules, ministers remain in place in a hung Parliament until a new administration can command a Commons majority.

Mr Darling therefore represented Britain at a Brussels summit two days before the Coalition was formed. It was then that a deal was signed committing the UK to taking part in a £50billion EU bailout scheme for stricken economies.
Under the agreement, Britain is responsible for 13.6 per cent of the fund, mirroring the rate of its overall contributions to the EU. Mr Darling yesterday hit out at Mr Cameron for blaming Labour over existing arrangements. He said: ‘When you referred to the discussions that took place in May of last year in relation to the eurozone fund, you gave a somewhat incomplete account of my conversation with the now Chancellor (George Osborne).

‘We did indeed agree that we should do everything we could to keep Britain out of the main part of the rescue fund.’ But, Mr Darling added, ‘What we discussed was not voting against, but abstention, recognising that Britain could have been out-voted. ‘So when you next refer to it, perhaps you would give a whole account and not a partial account.’ Mr Cameron said: ‘I have had a full discussion with the Chancellor about this issue and he was absolutely clear it was not something Britain should agree to, and nor should we.'

Under the deal, which runs until 2013, Britain will have to stump up to £6billion if Portugal goes bust. Last night Eurosceptics called on Mr Osborne to provide a full explanation of what happened last May. Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘Either the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House this afternoon, or the Treasury minister’s written memo to the House last summer was incorrect. ‘It is now urgent and vital that government ministers publish the official advice they received.

Oh dear oh dear, been caught out telling lies yet again - and over the issue of Europe, all three of them [the political parties] have a terrible record with the Liberal Democrats promising an all-in or out referendum (I remember some of you advised me to vouch Liberal Democrat before the General Election telling me that if I did, we would have a chance of that referendum - how right I was in not taking up that advice!) and then we've had cast-iron promises from the Conservatives over the issue, along with 'no more power/we need a referendum' gurantees by Labour along with the other two. And I always go on about how they are all the same but often pretend they disagree with one another - this is yet another example.

Thoughts on the bill Mr Osborne and Mr Darling have landed us with?

[Special]

don't see why we want to bail out these countries all the time - we need bailing out ourselfs!

[GommeInc]

Chucking money at the problem isn't going to solve it anyway. As far as I see it, Government in general is guilty of bailing out and chucking money at the EU, rather than an individual party. Hopefully people will see some sense and just not vote for Labour, Lib Dems or the Tories, they're all lousy :/

[Eoin247]

I'm not even sure if you can classify these things as really "bailouts". Considering that the money given is on loan+ interest. Nothing is given for free. Unless the country defaults the countries contributing to the bailouts benefit in the end anyway.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Well firstly the United Kingdom is in deep debt itself, and the problems of the doomed Euro are not our problem to fix - thankfully we stayed out of it.

I'm not even sure if you can classify these things as really "bailouts". Considering that the money given is on loan+ interest. Nothing is given for free. Unless the country defaults the countries contributing to the bailouts benefit in the end anyway.

Which they will [default] - these debts are unpayable especially in the case of Ireland, they are simply taking on more debt (in the terms of bail outs because the bond market will not lend them anymore money as all confidence has gone) and its going to get worse and worse and worse.

I heard that Spain went to the bond markets the other week and the EU Central Bank said "hey good news, Spain raised x amount and it shows that there is confidence in the Eurozone and the economy of Spain" - guess who bought a large chunk of the debt? the ECB itself did.

Buying your own debt with loans you can't afford will only prolong the suffering.

[Agnostic Bear]

along with 'no more power/we need a referendum' gurantees by Labour along with the other two. And I always go on about how they are all the same but often pretend they disagree with one another - this is yet another example.

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/...peanunion.html ¿que?

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/...peanunion.html ¿que?

http://www.ukip.org/content/westmins...an-irrelevance

That bill is nothing but window dressing, the Lisbon Treaty (which the Tories promised a cast iron gurantee on) has excluded the need for any more large treaties, and this is aided by the fact that a clause of the Lisbon Treaty was changed just last year and David Cameron ruled out a referendum on the basis that it was just a technical change - just as the government beforehand said 'the Treaty is nothing like the Consitution' - complete nonsense.

The Conservative Party, which is unconservative, has a few token eurosceptics within it (Daniel Hannan, Roger Helmer) so it keeps people such as yourself believing that it still believes in national sovereignty and the independence of this nation - coming from the party which took us into the EU in the first place without a referendum, signed the Single European Act (then threw out its leader when she woke up to what the EU was all about), took us into the ERM (Black Wednesday), signed the Maastricht Treaty of which John Major then went on to describe opponents of the treaty as 'those *******s' - followed by vague promises by Mr Cameron for referendums on treaties which he knew, by election time would already be signed.

We then we had the pledge that 'we would not let matters rest there' in the 2010 manifesto - they were right in a way, because ever since gaining office they have been signing more powers away at a faster rate than Labour ever did says one Tory MEP, the big one being the European Investigation Order which hands the EU more control over justice along with the bailouts.

Don't judge them by what they say, judge them by what they do - which is exactly the same as the Labour Party.

[Agnostic Bear]

http://www.ukip.org/content/westmins...an-irrelevance

That bill is nothing but window dressing, the Lisbon Treaty (which the Tories promised a cast iron gurantee on) has excluded the need for any more large treaties, and this is aided by the fact that a clause of the Lisbon Treaty was changed just last year and David Cameron ruled out a referendum on the basis that it was just a technical change - just as the government beforehand said 'the Treaty is nothing like the Consitution' - complete nonsense.

The Conservative Party, which is unconservative, has a few token eurosceptics within it (Daniel Hannan, Roger Helmer) so it keeps people such as yourself believing that it still believes in national sovereignty and the independence of this nation - coming from the party which took us into the EU in the first place without a referendum, signed the Single European Act (then threw out its leader when she woke up to what the EU was all about), took us into the ERM (Black Wednesday), signed the Maastricht Treaty of which John Major then went on to describe opponents of the treaty as 'those *******s' - followed by vague promises by Mr Cameron for referendums on treaties which he knew, by election time would already be signed.

We then we had the pledge that 'we would not let matters rest there' in the 2010 manifesto - they were right in a way, because ever since gaining office they have been signing more powers away at a faster rate than Labour ever did says one Tory MEP, the big one being the European Investigation Order which hands the EU more control over justice along with the bailouts.

Don't judge them by what they say, judge them by what they do - which is exactly the same as the Labour Party.

http://www.publications.parliament.u...m#pt1-pb2-l1g4
¿que?

Laws is laws.

[Eoin247]

Well firstly the United Kingdom is in deep debt itself, and the problems of the doomed Euro are not our problem to fix - thankfully we stayed out of it.



Which they will [default] - these debts are unpayable especially in the case of Ireland, they are simply taking on more debt (in the terms of bail outs because the bond market will not lend them anymore money as all confidence has gone) and its going to get worse and worse and worse.

I heard that Spain went to the bond markets the other week and the EU Central Bank said "hey good news, Spain raised x amount and it shows that there is confidence in the Eurozone and the economy of Spain" - guess who bought a large chunk of the debt? the ECB itself did.

Buying your own debt with loans you can't afford will only prolong the suffering.

I agree with you that as it is the interest doesn't really look payable. However it seems the interest rate will be lowered, and perhaps there is some hope if it is lowered sufficiently.

Sarcozy of course more than anybody else wants the corporate tax rate raised. He had quite a heated argument with Enda Kenny not too long ago over this.

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.publications.parliament.u...m#pt1-pb2-l1g4
¿que?

Laws is laws.

Well i've just explained that its nothing but mere window dressing (see below for more proof) - there will be no large treaties coming into force again in the near future, Lisbon was the mechanism for this, the small hooks where they will hang more legislation on and creep into yet more areas. David Cameron already broke his own referendum lock, because, as I said before, he simply pushed through a change to the Lisbon Treaty and dismissed it as a 'technical change' when he could have (under the referendum lock) put it to a referendum.

The law is the law, and it all depends on how vague the law is - something they excel at.

http://www.talkcarswell.com/show.aspx?id=1664

EU referendum "lock"?

Door. Horse. Bolted.

Since May, there have been five new transfers of power to Brussels - creating the European External Action Service, extending the European Arrest Warrant, increasing our EU budget contribution, EU regulation over the City, and EU oversight over British budgets.

On not one of these occasions have ministers admited that power was being transferred. So what hope is there in a "referendum lock" that can only be triggered if ministers are prepared to admit that what their civil servants have agreed to ceded to the EU is significant?

Posted on 11 November 2010 by Douglas Carswell MP

Need I say more?

I agree with you that as it is the interest doesn't really look payable. However it seems the interest rate will be lowered, and perhaps there is some hope if it is lowered sufficiently.

Sarcozy of course more than anybody else wants the corporate tax rate raised. He had quite a heated argument with Enda Kenny not too long ago over this.

I just think you are near enough buggered, and its rather sad the 'opposition' of Enda Kenny I heard supported all of the previous governments spending plans right until the crisis broke - just like in the UK, the same people running the show but with different coloured rosettes.

Ireland should simply look into defaulting its debts and regain monetary independence by bringing back the Punt.