Quote of the Day

Janet Daly gets it mostly right:

George Osborne – who was once a proud Eurosceptic himself – has rounded on the sceptic tendency within his own party. “I told you so,” he says sulkily, “is not an economic policy.”

Well, no but it’s a start. It is, in the present crisis, a necessary precondition for any realistic economic policy: we need some brutal honesty here about the staggering mendacity and utter stupidity of those who concocted this conspiracy against the peoples of Europe, this folie de grandeur which appeared to be based on ideological wishful thinking and economic illiteracy. Those of us who were pilloried and ridiculed by the political establishment of the day and its camp followers at the BBC are demanding apologies, not because we enjoy the sight of people on their knees (well, maybe we do in this case) but because we want definitive proof that the lessons have been learnt.

The thing is, if the Certified Super Geniuses keep screwing up, in what sense are they actually, y'know, smart?

The fabulousness of the Euro wasn't some side issue these guys occasionally referred to in passing. Until five minutes ago you couldn't shut these guys up about the single currency. More to the point, the whole Euro thing was a litmus test: there were the smart people who supported the Euro and then there were the knuckle-dragging morons too thick to get it.

Anyone who claimed the Emperor was 100% deficient in the drapery department was told in no uncertain terms that he was, in fact, clad in a very finely-woven cloth. Now it turns out that there really was no there there, we're still morons for being crude enough to point it out. Win , lose or draw, it turns out these people are better than us.