pewe
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 12:53 PM |
|
|
Freddie Forsyth hits the spot....
I offer this out of interest:
AN OPEN LETTER TO GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL
By Frederick Forsyth
Dear Madam Chancellor
PERMIT me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country.
I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who
spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.
In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I
lived.
I know Germany, Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden, from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows
of the Bavarian Alps. I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.
I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks
and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.
And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.
I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on
the land of my fathers.
We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded.
For Germany it is surely your automotive sector, your car industry.
Any foreign-sourced measure to target German cars and render them unsalable would have to be opposed to vetopoint by a German chancellor.
For France it is the agricultural sector. For more than 50 years members of the EU have been taxed under the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy
in order to subsidise France’s agriculture. Indeed, the CAP has been the cornerstone of every EU budget since the first day.
Attack it and France fights back.
For us the crucial corner of our economy is the financial services industry. Although parts of it exist all over the country it is concentrated in
that part of London known even internationally as “the City”.
It is not just a few greedy bankers; we both have those but the City is far more. It is indeed a vast banking agglomeration of more banks than
anywhere else in the world.
But that is the tip of the iceberg. Also in the City is the world’s greatest concentration of insurance companies.
Add to that the brokers; traders in stocks and shares worldwide, second only, and then maybe not, to Wall Street. But it is not just stocks.
The City is also home to the “exchanges” of gold and precious metals, diamonds, base metals, commodities, futures, derivatives, coffee, cocoa… the
list goes on and on.
And it does not yet touch upon shipping, aviation, fuels, energy, textiles… enough. Suffice to say the City is the biggest and busiest marketplace in
the world.
It makes the Paris Bourse look like a parish council set against the United Nations and even dwarfs your Frankfurt many times.
That, surely, is the point of what happened in Brussels. The French wish to wreck it and you seem to have agreed. Its contribution to the British
economy is not simply useful nor even merely valuable.
It is absolutely crucial. The financial services industry contributes 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and 17.5 per cent of our taxation
revenue.
A direct and targeted attack on the City is an attack on my country. But that, although devised in Paris, is what you have chosen to support.
You seem to have decided that Britain is once again Germany’s enemy, a situation that has not existed since 1945.
I deeply regret this but the choice was yours and entirely yours. The Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax you reserve the right to impose would not even
generate money for Brussels.
It would simply lead to massive emigration from London to other havens. Long ago it was necessary to live in a city to trade in it.
In the days when deals can flash across the world in a nanosecond all a major brokerage needs is a suite of rooms, computers, telephones and the
talent of the young people barking offers and agreements down the phone.
Such a suite of rooms could be in Berne, Thun, Zurich or even Singapore. Under your Tobin Tax tens of thousands would leave London.
This would not help Brussels, it would simply help destroy the British economy.
Your conference did not even save the euro. Permit me a few home truths about it. The euro is a Franco-German construct.
It was a German chancellor (Kohl) who ordered a German banker (Karl Otto Pohl) to get together with a French civil servant (Delors) on the orders of a
French president (Mitterrand) and create a common currency.
Which they did. IT was a flawed construct. Like a ship with a twisted hull it might float in calm water but if it ever hit a force eight it would
probably founder.
Even then it might have worked for it was launched with a manual of rules, the Growth And Stability Pact. If the terms of that book of rules had been
complied with the Good Ship Euro might have survived.
But compliance was entrusted to the European Central Bank which catastrophically failed to insist on that compliance.
Rules governing the growing of cucumbers are more zealously enforced. This was a European Bank in a German city under a French president and it failed
in its primary, even its sole, duty.
This had everything to do with France and Germany and nothing whatever to do with Britain.
Yet in Brussels last week the EU pack seemed intent only on venting its spleen on the country that wisely refused to abolish its pound.
You did not even address yourselves to saving the euro but only to seeking a way to ensure it might work in some future time.
But the euro will not be saved. It is crumbling now. And since you have now turned against my country, from this side of the Channel, Madame
Chancellor, one can only say of the euro: YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT.
Cheers, Pewe10 
|
|
|
|
|
sdh2903
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 02:30 PM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by pewe
YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT.
Well said!
|
|
|
Confused but excited.
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 03:18 PM |
|
|
Right said Fred!
Perhaps in hindsight, we should have glassed Berlin and made friends with the Japanese.
The French have never forgiven us for Agincourt. 180!
[Edited on 21/12/11 by Confused but excited.]
Tell them about the bent treacle edges!
|
|
|
bobinspain
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 03:21 PM |
|
|
Splendid sentiments!
An article in the DT the other day quoted France's average participation in a World War as being of slightly shorter duration than in the
average World Cup.
Sarkozy will be toast in 2012.
|
|
|
Liam
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 03:46 PM |
|
|
For some reason when I first read the thread title I got Bruce Forsyth. To be honest I was pretty surprised that that letter could have come from our
Brucie.
|
|
|
scootz
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 04:44 PM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Liam
For some reason when I first read the thread title I got Bruce Forsyth. To be honest I was pretty surprised that that letter could have come from our
Brucie.
It's Evolution Baby!
|
|
|
omega 24 v6
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 05:46 PM |
|
|
Just read it aloud to the wife and as a letter writer myself of an odd occasion i would classify that as
FEC***G Outstanding
If it looks wrong it probably is wrong.
|
|
|
nick205
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 06:40 PM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by omega 24 v6
Just read it aloud to the wife and as a letter writer myself of an odd occasion i would classify that as
FEC***G Outstanding
I'd go with that - it reads superbly!
|
|
|
TheGiantTribble
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 07:15 PM |
|
|
Fantastic, maybe we should print a few hundred thousand copies and drop them over Berlin/Paris
|
|
|
RK
|
| posted on 21/12/11 at 11:41 PM |
|
|
Be careful. Western Europe has avoided war for a few years now and the rest of the world would love to keep it that way. The EU has been good for
peace. Don't take it for granted.
However, it's true the Germans can end this mess, but won't.
|
|
|
phelpsa
|
| posted on 22/12/11 at 08:03 AM |
|
|
Very well put together, although there are certain groups within britain who are set on destroying 'the city' before europe gets anywhere
near it.
|
|
|
jabbahutt
|
| posted on 22/12/11 at 08:22 AM |
|
|
At last someone says what a lot of people who have no public voice are thinking. Now if only we can get our MP's/PM to have the same sort of
bulldog spirit in all their decision making this country may have a chance.
|
|
|
designer
|
| posted on 22/12/11 at 10:11 AM |
|
|
Wasn't it the ineptness of the 'banking' world that caused all this chaos in the first place?
It's OK for millionaires and, of course, multimillionaires with MP wives to defend the bankers, but the bloke who lost his job and his house
must consider them to be 'public enemy number one'!
It's OK to quote figures of the taxes they pay, the problem is that they don't employ the masses, and the 'bonuses' of
millions are from the pockets of the taxpayer!
|
|
|
adithorp
|
| posted on 22/12/11 at 10:17 AM |
|
|
Some of the opinions FF's has said in the past are so right wing I'd take anything he writes with a pinch of salt.
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire
http://jpsc.org.uk/forum/
|
|
|
