Oh noes! Teh evilz of teh euro!
I'm fairly ambivalent about the jolly old pound. On the one hand, it's the currency that I grew up with, my jammy little hands wedged full of Florins and, occasionally, enormously chunky 50p pieces, as I waddled down to the corner shop to buy a bag of Monster Munch (9 and a half New Pence, as I recall) and a Choc Dip. The joy of a crisp £1 note with Newton on the back! The excitement of wondering what the bloke was saying to Nelson Wellington (sharpen up Vowl, for fuck's sake) on the back of the fiver! Mind you, modern £20 notes have got that bloated old German sow on one side and Adam Fucking Smith on the other, so why should I give a tuppeny toss, to coin a phrase, about them? Why not have euros instead? It'd make it easier to go on holiday. No losing the will in the Post Office while you queue up behind 55 wrinkly crones muttering about immigration. None of that shit - just take your own cash abroad.
My own lachrymose memories of being in an ambulance on the way to A&E after having swallowed a handful of 1p coins don't really matter, do they. I find it hard to rouse much enthusiasm for a currency. At least in other countries they have exciting flora and fauna to stir the blood - jaguars, hummingbirds, that sort of thing. Wouldn't it be nicer to have pictures of blue tits, badgers, otters or great crested newts on our notes and coins? Long gone is the wren-emblazoned farthing, sad to say; wouldn't that be more lovely? It would make me more cheerful than a picture of that parasitic crown-clad bitch staring dead-eyed into the distance like a crack-addled stripper in a sleazy Rotherham titty bar.
I may not care very much whether I pay for things in pounds or euros, but I get the impression that quite a lot of other people do. And it seems to be part of a new narrative to weaken NuLab, and in particular (the startlingly effective since his return to Government) Peter Mandelson, is to link the pipe-and-slippers Rottweiler of politics with teh evilz of the European project.
Some do it in a subtle, understated way. Others are the Daily Express, which today tells us of:
A SECRET SQUAD who are preparing us to join the euro...! Aaargh! What kind of evil is this? Do they have evidence? Well no, obviously not, it's secret. But Mandy's in there, in this squad, which is secret.
Today's effort was nothing compared to the genius of Thursday's splash:
Look at the fear being ratcheted up there! A brown bastard with a beard, and the bloody euro right next to him! Hell/handcart! Just imagine it - not having the pound, and having euros instead - imagine it! Hmm... doesn't sound terrible actually. But maybe I'm in the minority on this one.
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December 5th, 2008 - 12:07
Boris’s latest oeuvre is rather good for dismantling the anti-Euro argument. As whenever I hear him explain why the EU is all bendy and not at all like the Roman Empire, I want to jump in bed with Jacques Delors and let him have his way with my currency that very minute.
December 5th, 2008 - 13:18
Sorry for the by-the-numbers patronising defence of Adam Smith, but I’m not sure he deserves to have “Fucking” in his name outside of the context of “Have you seen what dishonest horseshit the Adam Fucking Smith Insitute have come up with now?”. There was quite a bit more to him than that. An amusing way to troll ASI-esque fans of AS is to claim that Adam Smith offered a proto-Marxist critique of capitalism, which is sufficiently true to be something you can say before running off laughing:
“As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials… The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced.” — Adam Smith (1976, Book I, Chapter VI)
Good to see another two top front pages by the Express – particularly like the outrage about the interest rate cut jihad against savers, one fucking day after they declared victory in their crusade to help out mortgage borrowers.
December 5th, 2008 - 14:01
There seem to be rational arguments on both sides of the debate about whether we should join the euro. I’d be happy to go with whatever experts on economics decide, apart from the minor problem that “expert on economics” appears to be an oxymoron.
But most of the anti-euro people (and, to be fair, a few pro-euro people too) seem to be entirely irrational, and I just don’t understand this. It’s just money, there’s nothing to get emotionally involved with.
December 5th, 2008 - 16:28
I’m with Mark on this. I’m pretty Euro ambivalent, I can see there are sensible arguments on both sides of the fence. What gets me is the irrational arguments, especially the nationalistic “its the pound!” response. I’m not much of a fan of nationalism anyway, but all that says to me is “we may have unaccountable bankers in control of our currency, but by George they’re OUR unaccountable bankers”.
Whereas me, on the other hand, looks at one group of unaccountable bankers, looks at another, shrugs and tries to find a better reason either for or against.
Also with Dan on the ASI. Didn’t they award Bush some champion of the free market award? I know some anarchists who nearly choked with laughter on hearing that.
December 8th, 2008 - 15:24
Oh, and there’s an EVIL SEX KILLER! directly over it. (As opposed to any other kind of SEX KILLER! you may have heard of.)