So it comes to pass that the revered Jim O'Neill, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, reaches down and spews out his words of wisdom for all us lesser mortals to imbibe, offering us his recipe for resolving the financial crisis.

The great Jim thus tells is, "…the tripartite mechanism for monetary and regulatory policy needs to be rebuilt. Having had a knife cut through it by the events that led up to Northern Rock, there still seem to be political ramifications from that development and no cohesion between the major UK policy players."

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Do you think that Brussels will use this occassion to push through British membership of the Eurozone?

I've said this before and I'll say it again, no PM/Government is dumb enough to try and take the UK into the Euro, any referendum on it would be lost and if they took us in without one they would never be elected again, people may not understand the EU constitution and what it gives away, but everyone understands the difference between a pound and a euro, and just how bad giving away control of our currency would be.

Quite. But the creation of the current finanacial services supervisory structure has a great deal to do with the preparations for joining the euro, partially being a consequence of the independence of the Bank of England.

This is a horrendously complex issue, and I am working up a new post to go up sometime later today ... I hope.

Are you sure about that Grey? What makes you think people care about anything to do with the EU? Do people really have loyalty to the pound or to their favourite consumer item (however wholesome or not that might be)? What if the Labour government decided to lock us into the Euro so that any pullout would be short-to-medium term pain? Do you seriously think that could be presented in an opposition party's manifesto?

You just need to look at the Metric Martyrs situation, most people see the larger parts of governence as something that happens somewhere they cannot see, it makes very little difference to them which group of politicos in which country are screwing them over, but when it comes down to pints, pounds (both stering and spuds) and the other little things which impact their lives directly they can kick up one hell of a stink, and that's not taking into account the fact that the vast majority of this country needs little excuse to be eurosceptic as it is, it's only those on the gravy train who favour the EU, oh, and a few old commies.