Ambrose, as always is exceedingly sombre. "Europe's debt crisis risks escalating out of control as the world economy slides towards a double-dip slump with few shock absorbers left to limit the damage", he writes. For once, I actually think he's understating the problem ...

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Yeah, Ambrose is full of the glooms - of early Autumnal frost, six weeks to save the world [or summat] said George in a flash, not sure what the timescale is, October and Mondays aplenty coming up, I guess he means that.
Cold comfort indeed.

Not another six week crisis! Didn't Brown tell us we had six weeks to save the world? Who writes their scripts?

"Six weeks to save the euro"

'24 hours to save the NHS'

'100 months to save the environment'

"Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!"

From the article about Osborne: "Mr Osborne, in Washington, signalled that he is open to the idea of the Bank ring-fencing some of the cash for direct loans to small or medium-sized firms that are in urgent need of help to expand or simply keep afloat."

No. For crying out loud no. This is as much a waste of taxpayer money and public sector time as giving the biggest companies in Britain their own hotline to help within Government. The economy is aggregate demand not Minister directed demand.

"They were made to recognise that the falls in share markets around the world, which have impoverished tens of millions of savers and pensioners, are fed by fear for future global prosperity and are not the result of some Anglo-Saxon plot to bring down the single currency.

The reality is that months of appalling indecision, driven by some of the mini-countries within the monetary union, had in fact underlined the need for Germany and France to seize the political opportunity to bring the crisis to an end."

Mini-countries? The faults of the design of the Eurozone do not excuse riding roughshod over whatever scraps of sovereignty member nations happen to retain. If Germany and France want more authority let it be broken down start again or eject whoever doesn't want to toe that line.

It is not actually indecision is it? It's that the French and German governments have to wait until the last minute before attempting to gobble up more authority to have the best chance of succeeding. Yet they are sowing seeds of discontent not just in the poorer Eurozone countries but with their own put upon taxpayers as well.

It's as if the major trading blocs and currencies are treading water to see who gets exhausted first so the rest can use the corpse as a float.

Anyone noticed how the Telegraph is not allowing comments on many of the stories now? Charles Moore has written a good item yet no comments are allowed. His last paragraph says it all:

What Europe faces, then, is a disaster that was predictable – and predicted – and is now unavoidable. In the process, millions will lose their jobs, an entire generation will miss the opportunities which their parents enjoyed, and blood will probably be shed. The rulers of Europe have never been so wrong since the late 1930s.

He ( Ambrose ) should be in jail, anybody with a name like that should have killed his parents, and a hyphen to boot. But one of the idiot class, should have gone into politics, his name is enough to get him elected as you know he would be right at home tittering, and saving us all.

You tell 'em George. Towering debts, rising unemployment, negative growth and clueless leaders jabbering away as their world collapses around them. Bloody Europeans eh?

Yeah! Thank God for British pluck and grit! Stiff upper lip, eh wot! That'll show 'em.

Iniquitous, inequality, inequity and why we need to get off this boat. Can you see the problem?

I still say bring it on, I want the euro to sink, bringing about the downfall of the EU.

Because?

Because of many, many things..................Ie, how can it be, that a new arrival [immigrant] can expect thousands [I've seen estimates of full benefits p.a. can be £29,000] in free benefits, when someone, a lowly paid worker, perhaps someone who actually fought for the nation at one time or another can be entitled to only £6k p.a after paying in all his life? IN EU speak - immigrants count more than the indigenous people and you can argue the toss over how, "its not their fault" for wanting to come and being here - just why do they come then...[they know] the way British society is skewed so far in their favour - instantly, immigrants become the 'more exalted' - no exaggeration - a deliberate weighting of the recent law changes in this land = inequality - made 'strangers' on our own soil.
And when they come - they wanna change the way I go about my business - insult to injury and guess which side of the fence the EU and our politicians sit on? Not ours, thats damn certain.

Yet that appalling [man of the elite - he was placed - no doubt in my mind - Davis had no chance] twat, Cameron can glibly say [mumbling on about Foreign aid] "we can and we must pay more", then he continues to send good money [borrowed money really] after bad; we waste billions on idiot wars and send billions more to road building projects in Bulgaria, or pay for these f888ers - what the hell is going on???

Thats the 'wonder' of EU quality, of equality, diversity and our politicians, at every twist champion the EU - for they do know, on which side their bread is buttered, now they are running round like headless chicken littles and soon enough, with the will of God, the sky is gonna come fallin' in.

I've had enough.

Down with the euro and down with this little pillock too:
[...] "and we are the fatherland, or motherland of democracy" FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ravenscar, You have hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head. Trouble is that the green tossers just don't understand ordinary people and their fears,can't really face up to the truth,no matter how nasty it may be.

The trouble with career politicians is that it is impossible to know what they are thinking. Their utterances are always calculated to be the right thing to say, so honest thought is not always expressed, in fact some are so far down the road that they are never honest, even about trivial matters. To a certain extent one can see why this happens. The media are not kind to honesty when that honesty does not fit in with their agenda. The whole AGW debate has be skewed by this behaviour by the media, and the demonising of anti EU opinions were are earlier example.

What is happening to the currency was always predicted, and it was always going to be Greece and the periphery that would get into trouble first. And it was always going to be that Germany would end up footing the bills. And the solution was always a financial crisis followed by fiscal and political union or currency breakup. But all this was hidden from the public when the Maastricht Treaty was going through the Commons. And the politicians all uttered the words and phrases they were supposed to utter.

So what does Osborne think? I expect he thinks now is the wrong moment to be totally truthful, but he can say the train is coming directly at us so after the crash he can tell us he screamed a warning before it hit, so he is blameless.

I think we are heading for social breakdown. My opinion is that we should try to steer away from breakdown because I do not believe it will be followed by something nicer, in fact I think the thugs will take even more control. Sorry to harp on about meme theory, but after reading "the meme machine" a few weeks ago I have begun to take a meme's eye view of what is going on, and it does make sense. I think the problem is that memes, and meme survival and reproduction have taken over the world, and we are living with the consequences.

The fear factor, I wonder if that is so for Osborne. He has so much money he never needs to worry.

This situation is like watching the finale to some taut drawn out thriller of a film.....as the hero dangles perilously by a thread from the edge of a cliff in the proverbial storm,he is beaten, tired and aching but still clinging to life...just.....all attempts at salvation have come close but failed and now the last agonising seconds are passing away...will the recue attempts to reach our hero get there in time?........erm...maybe when the 17 rescuers take a vote on it late Autumn ...............

The biggest fear of ordinary people is that they might miss the X-Factor on a Saturday night, and that's why they're ordinary. Cameron, thick as he is, understands this very well, as do the others of the Establishment-owned parties.

Today they are talking of leveraging up the 700 billion already lent to the ECB to 3 trillion. Three experts all said this is in the interests of the citizens of the EU. They never learn.