I’ve decided not to read Peter Mandelson’s self-serving memoir, or even name it here. He might imagine he’s Harry Lime, but some of us think more of lemons when he pops up.

After enduring 13 years of Labour’s rancid internicine warfare, conducted within the portals of the British Government, it’s a relief not to be a political historian and have to crawl through the muck and the ricocheting bullets all over again.

God knows what they got up to in Downing Street in that time. Only a combination of Mandy’s pandemonium and Andrew Rawnsley’s The End of the Party gives us fleeting glimpses of the Devil’s Kitchen that our centre of government became under those putrid, fake personalities.

Former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, became a Baron last week. After a lifetime of condemning the House of Lords he recanted in his own interest, even blaming his long-suffering wife Pauline, who “wanted to become a Lady.”

As some sort of exculpation, he cited Lord Hoffmann, once a Law Lord, for a complex speech he gave on a point of law. “We don’t get speeches like that in the Commons,” he wailed.

What does he expect with characters like him entrenched there?

Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons (PMQs), is taking on a familiar pattern. Acting Leader of the Opposition, Harriet Harman, asks a narrow, niche question about a topic she knows has not yet been fully resolved, or is part of a much wider, complex issue that doesn’t allow a simple answer.

When David Cameron talks around it, she accuses him of not answering the question. This continues for most of the session, with the PM appearing to flounder. Eventually he gets angry and accusations start to fly. However, the impression remains that Harman has won the encounter.

Today, it was about whether the Coalition will stick with Labour’s two-week consultant appointment target for cancer patients in the NHS. Cameron’s obvious retort was: On past form it’s unlikely that the target would be met and that quality of treatment would suffer because of dishonest reporting. This area, he could have said, is still under review, as she well knows.

Instead, he waffled and claimed that for some patients, two weeks was too long, implying an even tighter target.

There aren’t many of these PMQs left now until a new Labour leader takes over. He needs to improve his technique before the autumn when replying to questions of this type.

Annoyment of the Week

William Hague’s instructions to the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, in which the British Tories sit, were decisive in securing a crucial positive vote on the European External Action Service (foreign embassies), according to EurActiv.

“The Tories, known for their Eurosceptic views, helped to save Europe’s future diplomatic service, Parliament officials said.”

Why is William Hague now supporting a European diplomatic service in direct opposition to our own?

I suspect some stitch-up has been arranged behind the scenes whereby Britain gets something it’s persuaded it wants in return for letting go of something it already has.

Don’t British politicians ever do the maths? The overall result of these deals is that we lose core competencies, and hence sovereignty, in exchange for trivial hand-outs in matters of the moment.

I believe William Hague is now fighting to keep open some British embassies threatened with closure. How does this square with his support for a very expensive EU diplomatic service?

Anyone who is still wondering how the financial crisis could happen in a reasonably regulated world, should read economic historian Niall Ferguson’s recent article on the subject. Here’s the bit with the eye-opening revelations:

We know from the hubristic emails of the Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre just how out-of-control things were on the eve of the financial crisis. Tourre positively gloried in selling the quintessential toxic assets – “synthetic abs” (asset-backed securities) and “cdo2s” (collateralised debt obligations “squared”) – to “Belgian widows and orphans”, knowing full well that the subprime mortgages on which these assets were based were already “totally dead”.

With its sly winks and surplus exclamation marks, Tourre’s email perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the age – an age in which clients were merely “counterparties” and conflicts of interest were there to be “embraced”.

Terrifying, isn’t it?

How fast this summer is passing by. Punctuated as it is in England by great sporting occasions: the Test matches, Wimbledon, Royal Ascot, I usually feel a chill in the air when the Open Golf hoves into view, quickly followed by the First Night of the Proms.

With the hottest weather normally yet to come, for some reason mid-July always feels like a slippery slope back to winter.

We’ve been lucky this year. The Cathedral Green in Exeter is a straw-coloured desert. Not a sight many of us have seen before.

Nevertheless, the Open is about to begin. Batten down the hatches, and prepare for autumn’s gales.

Video of the Week

Some shaky video of the dragonboat racing at Exeter’s Quay on Sunday by yours truly.

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

The result of the General Election is inconclusive overall, but with a substantial Conservative lead over all other parties.

Weakness is the message, indecision and a reluctance to tackle deep-seated problems, the cause.

Unless something is done to repair the damage in quick time, the markets will apply their chilling verdict next week. That is not vengeance on the part of the markets, but a simple reaction to the hopelessness of self-serving politicians who have deceived us for more than a decade.

As with Northern Rock and other failed financial institutions, if governments borrow from international investors, they are subject to the rules laid down by market fundamentals.

But the underlying story is one of opportunities missed. I have been scribbling here until my arms ached that the offer of a trade-only referendum on our membership of the European Union would have given Cameron the edge in a tight election.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail concluded that the Tories lost 10 seats to pointless UKIP votes.

Polling gurus Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher writing in the Sunday Times agree: “If just half those who voted UKIP [United Kingdom Independence Party] in the 19 seats that the Tories most narrowly missed had voted for Cameron instead, he would have had a majority of two.”

It follows that a referendum offer would have opened the way to a comfortable majority for the Conservatives. David Cameron and his inner sanctum must be held responsible for that.

Of course, Cameron is now effectively Prime Minister of England, representing 85% of the UK population. Whatever the merits of the various theories on electoral reform, if England can’t get the Government it wants, something is seriously wrong with the system.

There is nothing sacrosanct about an arrangement which denies a major nation like England its own administration and imposes alien government on two fronts.

Clearly, the union with Scotland should now be examined in this light. Instead of waiting for the spendaholic Scots to separate from England and the rest of the UK, the English should ditch the northerners first.

These are huge issues to grasp at a time when the debt markets are eyeing up the country for a sovereign downgrade. But great Prime Ministers are made in the heat of battle.

I believe Cameron must bid his new best friends, the LibDems, farewell. They will represent a veto on all policy decisions with the EU at a time of eurozone disintegration. Conservatives must also deal with the matter of Scotland instead of consenting to be held to ransom by the crafty Alex Salmond.

David Cameron can rule via a minority Government, ultimately blaming the others for any problems, and going to the country in the autumn to ask for a new mandate.

The alternative “rainbow alliance” between Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and various “nationalist” parties, plus the greens, contrary to perceptions, would be manna from heaven to the Tories, if not the country. It would fail in months and lead to a big majority for the Tories in a new election. This really could be a good election to lose.

Only 16,000 votes separated the Conservatives from an overall majority in Parliament. It should be easy to make that up in a second round of voting while Labour tears itself apart over the leadership, and the LibDems are seen to be losers.

That’s the way forward for both the Conservatives and, more importantly, the country.

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It was a moment of clarity that has been missing from the discourse of the European Union for years. The Chancellor of Germany, increasingly impressive Angela Merkel, announced in Berlin that the future of her country “in Europe” is now at stake.

It could have been a bluff, of course, designed to frighten member states back into line. But surely events have gone beyond that now? In Athens, the Government is under siege by rioting protesters. Three people are reported dead as I write.

Contagion is not just on the horizon, it’s here now, stalking the streets of Portugal, Spain and Italy. On some measures, Ireland and Britain are in there too.

We are in a situation where most countries are facing fearful debt crises, with public debt rising to 100% of GDP, and well beyond in many cases, Greece being a good example. And yet, the tottering Club O’Med countries are being forced to contribute to the bailout of Greece, as is Britain through the IMF segment of the deal. Can’t you just picture a snake eating its own tail here?

Fantasy economics is at play now. The point about debt is that the money has aready been spent. It can’t be reclaimed from an empty pot. Neither can it be magicked away by a debt amnesty. Someone always loses.

When Gordon Brown makes out that “the recession is over”, he fails to convey the fact that the recovery has been bought with staggeringly unsustainable levels of indebtedness, both public and private.

The real level of Britain’s public debt, which includes off-balance sheet items, such as engorged public-sector pension liabilities, plus PFI projects used to build all those schools and hospitals he boasts about, is now around 2.2 trillion pounds. That’s 157% of GDP.

The notional liabilities of nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland alone is said to be four times UK GDP.

Private indebtedness also exceeds Britain’s annual income, and will have to be paid down or written off at some point.

When Brown makes his spurious and profoundly dishonest claim about the recovery, he fails to mention the costs and liabilities he will leave behind when he vacates his office in 10 Downing Street on Friday, or in the weeks to come.

British voters are not stupid. They know his spending promises are as void as any vacuum, which will be Gordon Brown’s bequest to the nation. Inheritance tax was never his strong point.

Many of us have written off the EU in the past, but it’s hard to see how it can survive if its strongest member decides that further participation could bring down its own hard won economic position in the world. As one of the few surplus states it has great strength. But, like China it’s being constantly assailed by debtor nations.

I sense the coming of a new hard core of European states, led by Germany and France on terms that will not attract a Tory Government in Britain.

Glorious isolation is preferable to bedding down with the quarrelsome gang on the Continent.

Whatever results from all this, it’s going to be a turbulent journey.

John Evans

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Hard to imagine, I know, but sometimes it’s a useful exercise to don someone else’s consciousness to see what the world looks like through their eyes.

Okay, on with the Armani suit and brown leather shoes — I’ll leave the sandals for another day. Hair cut into a schoolboy look, with just the hint of a point in the front and spiky behind.

Good God, it’s uncanny. I am Nick Clegg!

Now, what am I going to do to win this election in just 11 days from now, or at least end up the senior partner in the aftermath? No good going after Gordon Brown, he’s slain in the water anyway. For him, things can only get worse.

I must be wary of attacking David Cameron full-on, the electorate doesn’t like argie-bargie. I could outflank him to the right, of course. He wouldn’t expect that. We’ve tried it before in local scraps and voters have responded. It would mean ditching a favourite policy or two, but it would be worth it if it got us into power.

What then would cause maximum pain to Team Dave and possibly peel off a large chunk of his support?

Got it! Here’s a speech I’ll give just before the third debate that will throw the election wide open and not give his team time to respond:

For some years now the Liberal Democrats have been tagged the most Europhile party in British politics. Indeed that has cost us many votes in the past. Because I once worked in Brussels it’s assumed that I am in some way — possibly financially — in thrall to the Eurocrats and all their works.

It isn’t true. I am aware that the eurozone will eventually split, with either Club O’Med (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland) forced out by the strength of German public opinion and its Constitutional Court, or Germany and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) voluntarily withdrawing from the single currency to form a new Deutsche mark zone. One or the other looks inevitable.

A split in the eurozone will shatter the fragile esprit de corps of the European Union itself. The outcome will be chaotic and the pull of euroscepticism in Britain, Ireland and possibly Germany will be irresistible.

Think also of France, perhaps left in the eurozone with only Club O’Med and a handful of Eastern European client states. Not even French vanity would be enough to compensate for the horrors of constant demands for bailouts from its neighbours.

So you see, as a former insider I’m better placed than my colleagues to spot the writing on the wall. If elected, I will offer the country a referendum on a trade-only arrangement with Europe. I will support a new trade treaty, but Cabinet members will be free to argue for either side in the referendum.

I hope that clarifies my Euro credentials, which are, at all times, subordinate to the British national interest.

Now that would ruffle some feathers. It would toss a grenade right into the cosy stitchup over the European Union. It would put Nick Clegg in the driving seat and reinforce the powerful message of change he concocted in the first election debate. David Cameron would be forced to respond to hang onto his core vote.

For Clegg, it would be Pure Genius.

John Evans

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