It almost makes you ashamed to be British. Blair has just landed the British taxpayer with another £1 billion a year bill to fund the charade that is the EU budget. And in return? He gets a 'promise' from the French that they will 'review' the CAP in three years time. You can imagine the conversation...
Chirac: “OK, so we are reviewing the CAP”
French Farmers: “Looks fine to us as it is”
Chirac: “OK, it’s reviewed, we kept our promise…”
But that's OK, Gordon Brown will have to cope with that... IDS was ahead of his time. He used to say of Blair "No one believes a word he says". Remember the promise a few months ago that he wouldn't negotiate away Margaret Thatcher's hard-won EU rebate "period"? Chirac must be cracking open the champagne...
Hat tip for the conversation - The Milky Bar Kid on PoliticalBetting.com
4 comments:
Good on him, the old fox.
Congratulations Liam.
I think you're being far too soft on our PM.
He may have given up £7bn of rebate over the next seven years (equal to a one year hike in the basic rate of income tax of two pence), but far worse than that, while doing so he's agreed to an increase in the EU development budget.
That leaves us paying about £100bn more over the next seven years, or the equivalent of a one year increase in the basic rate of income tax of 28 pence.
Iain, can you clear something up. Does this fall in our rebate mean we have to pay more to be in the EU and thus does that add to our tax bill? So, in the words of Labour, does it mean either higher tax or spending less on schools 'n' hospitals?
Anonymous, our taxes will undoubtedly go up...but no doubt very stealthily so they think we won't notice. A Labour government cutting spending would be a first...
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