It’s that quadrennial time again when our football supporters and top players, with their WAGS in tow, leave our shores for foreign climes.

Far from leaving us in peace, they get at us by dominating TV and radio airwaves with their inane chanting and drunken rowdiness.

Definition of the World Cup: People getting excited by people getting excited.

William Hague and David Cameron have a chance to exploit the bitter split between Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarko wants to set up an economic government for the European Union — a council of the eurozone — to regulate the EU’s “economy”. Merkel is set against such a move, which would be heavily resisted in Germany.

Note the intrusion of eurozone affairs into the EU. Britain, Sweden and Denmark, along with newer members of the EU, are not in the eurozone at all, although some have applied. It has to be said, it’s very unlikely that any of these applicants will be granted access to the top table. Hungary’s woes, made public last week, have certainly put the kibosh on its future membership.

Britain should not be hesitant in all this. It’s in the UK’s interests to break up the big, cumbersome bloc of Western European nations and its “European Model” that is likely to retard growth worldwide for decades to come.

As suggested here before, Britain should aim to drive a wedge between the eurozone proper and the wider European Union.

A new loose bloc, without a common currency, involving some northern European states: UK, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic and Ireland, would challenge the spendthrift power of the rest of the eurozone.

Is the Coalition up to such bold politics? Will Nick Clegg abandon his europhilia in the face of its slow-motion collapse?

These are questions that will tell us much about the sustainability of our new Government.

Dick Cheney, the former US Vice President, was reported by Francis Fukuyama to have told President George W. Bush that “deficits don’t matter”. At the time, even large deficits were easily handled by selling American bonds to China and by incoming investments in dollar assets.

It’s not so easy today, even though China has partly reversed its retreat from the dollar. It has nowhere else to go now that the eurozone is in its death throes.

Even so, the idea that deficits don’t matter means that governments’ stock of public debt grows year by year and has to be paid for through increasing interest payments. The danger point is breached when a debt compound spiral adds costs that can’t be met out of income or yet more borrowing.

Venice has been selling off its Palaces (palazzos) to all-comers just to service its spiralling debts. Britain may approach that point within this Parliament as national debt hits 100% of GDP.

But back to Dick Cheney. He was also the prime encourager of US involvement in Middle Eastern wars. Trillions of American treasure has been spent in Afghanistan and Iraq, making the United States one of the world’s deficit basket cases.

Now we hear that the company Cheney ran, Halliburton, was the supplier of the faulty cement for the BP oil well and is deeply implicated in the current Gulf of Mexico catastrophe.

Is Dick Cheney the worst disaster to happen to the United States in recent history?

Annoyment of the Week

Two or three months ago, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek diary piece about a building near where I live named Casting House. I imagined Cheryl Cole popping in and out of a back door and a queue of would-be starlets.

Last week, behind that rear entrance, a store of road-making materials blew up. A enormous plume of black smoke caused by burning bitumen soon hung over the adjoining residential area, including Syntagma Towers. The cloud could be seen from as far away as Dawlish.

Fifteen fire engines and 84 firefighters burst upon our tranquil scene. Many of us were evacuated by the police because of toxic fumes and the danger of a “massive explosion” of gas cylinders stored on-site.

Was Casting House getting its own back on me for casting aspersions against its industrial honour?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Met Office woes are reprised. Despite the rash of criticism over its performance, after forecasting the direct opposite of what our weather actually turns out to be, the Met Office Wet Office has just got worse.

Hoteliers on the English Riviera are complaining again that the bad weather forecasts for two recent sunny Bank holiday weekends, have cost them a fortune in lost revenues.

During the recent ash cloud disaster for the airline industry, guess which institution was gathering and number-crunching the data for Europe and beyond. Yes, our old chums at the Met Office.

As far as anyone can remember, when they operated off the Air Ministry roof with a few thermometers and a rain gauge, they were a national treasure. They even got the weather spot on for the D-Day landings.

Those of us who live in the West Country suspect it was their move to Exeter that broke the back of this once fine body of cloud watchers. Some believe that many of the boffins are lounging around on the beaches rather than compiling their charts.

Actually, it seems to be their involvement with international affairs and global problems that has destroyed Met Office credibility.

The United Nations and NASA relied heavily on Met Office-sponsored research at the University of East Anglia for the climate change outrage, just as the European Union trusted them with Icelandic volcanic eruptions.

Megalomania probably comes near to the truth.

Quote of the Week

“Quiet effectiveness is what I aspire to. There has not been some frenetic round of the media. This is one of the first interviews I have done.”
David Cameron, speaking to The Sunday Times

Have a good week.

John Evans

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Updated 4.20pm

It’s almost like old times. The House of Commons is sitting through half-term — what an affront to democracy Labour’s close-down was, especially as the circumstances (children at school) only applied to a fraction of Parliamentarians.

And PMQs is at 3pm, not noon — which was a crazy time to have it, forcing members to get worked up before lunch. Mind you, I expect the occasion will be more lively at the new post-prandial time.

Better still, no Gordon Brown. What a relief, although sloppy, silly Harriet has to be sat through instead.

More later, if I can get to a TV on time.

Update: PMQs was strangely bloodless, with impeccable manners on the Government side. Questions were answered as fully as they can be on such an occasion, plus the odd “don’t know yet”, which was at least honest.

Harriet Harman stuck to her feminist brief — what a monomaniac she is. There were no third party questions, Nick Clegg sitting next to the Prime Minister.

It was all very worthy, with few jokes and much politeness from both sides. I suspect this could get tedious after a few outings.

As for a scorecard: it wasn’t really a scorecard sort of day.

John Evans

Last week I wrote a rather alarming piece about the euro currency: Is the eurozone about to collapse?. Some significant commentators are doing likewise, notably, Will Hutton, Liam Halligan, Edmund Conway and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

These guys don’t mess about. If they are nervous, we should be too. My antennae have been twitching for some considerable time.

And yet, and yet … Where are the front-page stories in our national press warning us of the calamity to come? Today’s Sunday Times does have a mini article, “Greece urged to give up the euro” on page 11 of the main paper, squashed into a bottom corner next to a large advert for Hyundai cars, and cut into by a promotion for “Britain’s Best Picnic Walks”.

What comes next will not be a picnic, nor a drive in a spanking new motor.

We are informed, in around 250 words, that the British Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) “has warned Greek ministers they will be unable to escape their debt trap without devaluing their own currency to boost exports. The only way this can happen is if Greece returns to its own currency.”

As Greece’s debt is denominated in euros, it will increase as the local currency falls. Thus the debt must be “converted into the new currency unilaterally.” I’m sure that will go down a storm with holders of Greek euro bonds.

Doug McWilliams, chief exec of the CEBR, thinks the move is “virtually inevitable” and other members may follow. “The only question is the timing. The other issue is the extent of contagion. Spain would probably be forced to follow suit, and probably Portugal and Italy …”

He ends ominously, “Could this be the last weekend of the single currency? Quite possibly, yes.”

At least the ST lifted that out of the Business section. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

David Laws is gone, having entered the annals of the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest occupier of a Cabinet seat in British history. I’m talking about time here, not stature. Someone should check that out too.

Eighteen days is not a long time in politics, whatever grumpy old Harold Wilson might have said. One thing made Laws stand out. His vanishingly small career is filled with superlatives.

Apart from the length of his stay on our political radar, he has been elevated to the status of “the star of the coalition government”, a Prime Minister-in-waiting, the best brain in Parliament, the ablest candidate for the job, and “a good and honourable man” (David Cameron).

If he can manage all that in 18 days, what might he have accomplished in 18 months?

Can we afford to lose such concentrated talent in these hard times?

If you have ever watched old British films, you will know what a charabanc is.

Charas (pronounced “sharabang”, suggesting a French connection) were old buses designed for long-distance outings to the seaside and, more often than not, pub crawls through the countryside. They were usually painted a drab green, or cream with brown highlights. Very public sector.

Charabancs were the quintessential working class form of transport right up to the 1960s. When in Malta a few years ago, I had the misfortune of travelling in one on a tourist trip to Medina in the centre of the island.

It was a very uncomfortable journey, especially when the engine caught fire, filling the bus with thick, black smoke. Alarmingly, the Maltese driver regarded this as perfectly normal.

I mention all this because while out walking in Exeter the other day, I came across a perfectly preserved example of a charabanc. By wonderful serendipity, it was parked alongside a luxuriously modern German coach with every facility and comfort known to man. Here’s my pic:

Doesn’t it just warm the cockles of your heart?

Annoyment of the Week

One of my pet aversions of the late, unlamented Labour government, was Yvette Cooper and Ed Ball’s constant use of the phrase, “It’s the right thing to do”.

Where do I start?

The word “right” is a value judgement, so should always be prefaced with “In my opinion …”. Instead it was used as a fait accompli, an argument stopper.

The gruesome/winsome couple (you decide who gets which adjective) were claiming infallibility of decision, something even the Pope would be wary of these days.

Imagine then my surprise when our shiny new leader, David Cameron, started using this verbal tic in putting his points across.

Dave, it’s not the right thing to do to say it’s the right thing to do.

Here in East Devon we’ve had a major sporting triumph, something we’re not used to, or geared up for.

Our local rugby club, the Exeter Chiefs, won a splendid two-leg final against formidable Bristol, 38-17 to win promotion to the rugby Premiership. That is a huge event for the club, for next season it will be hosting the like of Wasps, Leicester, Bath and Northampton, giants among the rugger crowd.

Yesterday the entire city centre was filled with an enormous crowd welcoming our heroes in their open-topped bus as they were greeted by the Lord Mayor of Exeter.

My photo is a bit blurred, but it was the best I could do in the circumstances.

Hail to the Chiefs

John Evans

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Updated 7.50pm Saturday 29/05/2010: See foot of this piece.

I must admit, when I heard this story last night on the paper reviews, I was adamant David Laws must resign as Chief Secretary to the Treasury for bringing the new Government into disrepute so soon into its short life.

This morning, John Humphrys’ precision interrogation on the Today programme reinforced my opinion that the last thing the Coalition needs, a couple of weeks into its 5-year term of office, is a return to the parliamentary expenses scandal.

The counterweight is that Laws is a Gladstonian Liberal, promoting small government, low taxes, free trade — a localist born and bred. He’s undoubtedly closer to Margaret Thatcher economically than to Charlie Kennedy, Ming Campbell and Paddy Ashdown. Clearly, he’s made for the job.

So, what has he done? By his own admission, he claimed £40,000 for a second home in London, to which he was perfectly entitled under the rules prevailing at the time. Indeed he claimed much less than was available to him.

However, the person to whom he paid the rent was his long-term male lover and, when he moved to another property, so did David Laws. It was kept very quiet because neither Laws nor the “significant other” wanted their circumstances made public. The argument now turns on whether the landlord was Laws’ “partner”.

Frankly, I don’t much care what word is used, they’re all meaningless anyway. So-called human rights law has mangled the whole field of relationships under a pile of euphemisms and silly labels that make little sense to people outside the cosy metropolitan consensus of London. Not everyone is a Notting Hillbilly.

My own view of the case is this: David Laws is the dream candidate for Secretary of State for Cuts. He has a double-first in economics from Cambridge and has actually worked in some starry financial institutions, J.P. Morgan and an investment bank. His qualifications, work experience, and political orientation (if I can use that word) make him virtually irreplaceable in his post — one commentator even thought him a future Prime Minister.

In the end, the country must come before insignificant reputational matters. Although nobody is ever indispensable, for reasons of mortality, Britain needs David Laws more than he needs the rest of us.

The Prime Minister will be mortified about this, and is probably in more than two minds about what to do. He is nothing if not adaptable though, as recent extraordinary events have proved.

I believe Laws should be left in post — although the views of the Chancellor, George Osborne, should be respected. The thought of Vince Cable in the post is enough to short circuit any change, surely?

For once, we must put aside Labour’s fiddly ways and means, and take a broad decision based on the national interest. As I type this, I’m aware that Philip Hammond could be dusting off his old briefcase, or John Redwood preparing himself for a really top job in Government — which he has deserved for a very long time.

However, to err is human, and good Prime Ministers know when to stay the axe.

Update: David Laws has just resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Lib Dem Danny Alexander is to take over his role. This is not a good day for our Coalition Government.

Update: Nick Clegg hopes that Laws may rejoin the Government at some later date.

John Evans

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When the eurozone goes, it will go suddenly. One moment it will be there, and then it will have vanished into the historical annals of catastrophic human vanity projects that disappeared.

Gordon Brown, who claimed to have “saved the world”, was partly instrumental in all this. He it was who transferred the massive private debts of the ailing banks onto the public balance sheet, thereby creating the current crisis: Sovereign Debt.

The world followed the sorcerer’s apprentice into universal contagion. Brown made his claim for glory, now he must bear the approbrium of putting the world’s financial systems at deadly risk.

Europe is the epicentre of the new Armageddon, and the euro currency is its central cause. Britain did well to stay out of it, but, as an EU member, we are still trailing in the wake of this approaching cataclysm, subject to bigoted laws and restrictions from Brussels.

To make matters worse, regulators are depressing the money supply right around the world by their insistence on higher capital ratios in the banking sector.

Moreover, Britain is being contaminated from the Continent in ways that are not being explained to the general population unless they read the FT or the business section of other newspapers, notably, the Telegraph. We are in the eye of a storm, and it’s relatively calm … for the moment.

If Greece, Spain, or Portugal collapse, banks across the European Union will be left holding almost worthless sovereign bonds. It will be the end of the road if trillions of sovereign debt is written off, or “restructured” in the jargon. Major banks and corporations will fail.

Such contagion would leave governments helpless to respond. Theoretically, the IMF would be bust. The US Senate has already made its position clear by 94 votes to 0 — no more American dollars.

Almost the minimum that can happen now is an awesome deflation across Europe and America — already the US money supply is shrinking at an alarming 10% on an annualized basis. A double-dip recession is at the benign end of the spectrum.

The worst case scenario is that a worldwide contagion begins on the European continent. August 1914 will have its 21st-century anniversary in four years. And the grandiose political vanity of Continental politicians will be at the heart of it.

This sunny spring could represent a kind of Edwardian glow before the chancellory lights go out once more across Europe.

David Cameron should use his new leverage to negotiate the UK out of the danger zone and back to full independence.

John Evans