When the leaders of the G8 get together around the dinner table at Camp David this weekend, I hope the protocol chiefs will be seating British Prime Minister David Cameron well away from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. War is brewing between the two nations over the euro-zone crisis, if the British press is to be believed.
"George Osborne: Angela Merkel damaging UK economic interests," read one headline in The Daily Telegraph this week.
"Germans must abolish themselves," said a photo caption accompanying Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's Daily Telegraph blog post detailing the trillions it will cost Germany and France to pay for a Greek euro-zone exit and how that event will ruin the British economy.
This week at Prime Minister's Question Time, Sir Peter Tapsell, the Tory of Tories, asked Cameron, "Does my right hon. Friend suppose that Chancellor Merkel now regrets that she did not take the advice he gave her last October about the big bazooka? If she had fired it then, that would have spared the European Union from its present crisis."
The British government faces a genuine problem. It has cut itself off from any influence over Germany and France. And what good is Cameron's government to the Obama administration if it doesn't have the ability to have a quiet word with Merkel and co. about changing course, throttling down on austerity, stimulating the euro zone's weakest economies and accepting a little more inflation in Germany — for the good of the world economy?
Right now, Britain's main role in the world economy is to be the place where Wall Street traders can do the stuff they can't do in New York because the City of London has fewer rules. It is no surprise that JP Morgan's recent multi-billion dollar losses were made by a trader called the "London Whale." Even less surprise that informed speculation says the problems began with bets against the euro.
Read more: British Prime Minister David Cameron is out of the loop on Europe’s growth-versus-austerity debate. | GlobalPost
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