In Friday’s Financial Times Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a former board member of the European Central Bank, argues that Greece may not be able to leave the euro, even if it wants to.

“By exiting the euro Greece would violate the Lisbon treaty,” writes Bini Smaghi. “When adopting the euro Greece committed to a series of obligations, including the renouncement to its own currency, which is irreversible.”

As a result, goes this argument, if Greece were to try and leave it could be sued at the European Court of Justice by any one of the other 26 signatories to the treaty, or by anyone within those other states who felt violated by Greece’s decision to exit.

“Greece could avoid these sanctions only by disavowing the authority of the supranational institutions,” concludes Bini Smagi. “This would mean that Greece would exit not only the eurozone but also the European Union as a whole. There is no exit for the euro without exit from the EU.”

This argument is ludicrous on two counts.

First, a Greece that chose to leave the euro (something, incidentally, that none of the main parties in today’s general election say they want to do) would undoubtedly default simultaneously on its foreign debts, including those to supranational institutions and other EU countries. Under such circumstances, a threat of sanctions from the European Court of Justice is unlikely to carry any weight whatsoever.

Second, and more importantly, how can Bini Smaghi argue that leaving the euro would jeopardise Greece’s EU membership as a whole, when currently ten of the European Union’s member states have not joined the single currency?  Britain, Denmark and Sweden, for example, are all EU members but have kept their own currencies.  To argue that Greece is legally not entitled to enjoy a similar status makes euro membership sound more like a permanent jail sentence than a privilege.

It’s unlikely that bullying arguments from EU bigwigs like Bini Smaghi will have much effect on the course of events in Greece. If anything, such comments are likely to propel more countries towards an exit from the single currency. But they are another reminder of the fundamentally dictatorial nature of the European Union’s integrationists.

“One public official was paid around £80,000 over a period of years and a Sun journalist received more than £150,000 to pay “sources”, the Metropolitan Police’s deputy assistant commissioner, Sue Akers, told the Leveson inquiry yesterday in what the Independent describes as “sensational evidence”. Akers, however, added that the bribery was directed primarily at revealing “salacious gossip”, rather than uncovering weightier stories in the public interest.

If this is the line of inquiry currently being pursued by the police, one imagines that arrests of low- and middle-ranking civil servants will eventually follow those already made of journalists from the Sun and News of the World.

But very little is being said about much weightier issues involving Murdoch and UK politicians of both major parties.

Cameron’s appointment of Murdoch’s ex-editor, Andy Coulson, as his director of communications in 2007, his 26 meetings with News International executives in his first year of office, five of which came in the final run-up to Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB, surely merit further investigation.

The circumstantial evidence of Murdoch’s unhealthy relationship with Blair is cause for even greater concern.

In September 2002 Murdoch’s Sun led with the headline ”BRITS 45 MINUTES FROM DOOM” to publicise the UK government’s tendentious dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, in whose production Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, had the leading role.

On 11 March 2003 Blair and Murdoch spoke by telephone after French president Chirac said that his country would veto any UN resolution sanctioning war against Iraq.  The very next day the Sun referred to Chirac as “a cheap tart who puts price before principle, money before honour.”

On 13 March 2003 Blair and Murdoch spoke again by phone. The following day the Sun intensified its abuse of France’s leader: “”Charlatan Jacques Chirac is basking in cheap applause for his ‘Save Saddam’ campaign – but his treachery will cost his people dear. This grandstanding egomaniac has inflicted irreparable damage on some of the most important yet fragile structures of international order.”

Blair and Murdoch spoke for the third time in just over a week on March 19, the day before US-led forces launched an attack on Iraq.  What motivated the UK’s prime minister to take a call from a newspaper proprietor in the final hours before committing his country to war?

The Leveson inquiry tells us it is concerned with the culture, practices and ethics of the British press. Leveson opened it, in November last year, as follows: “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”

If he’s true to his word, Leveson should widen the inquiry’s scope to examine the overwhelming evidence of corruption and collusion involving Murdoch and the UK’s politicians.

A little bit of history.

When there was a growing movement post-WW2 in Iran to redress the balance of an outrageously unfair concession granted to the British in 1901 (Iran earned only 16% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s net profits), the arrogant response of the British ambassador (Shepherd) to the Iranian prime minister (Razmara) was a letter advising the PM to “take a strong line against the ‘ingrates’ who did not appreciate the ‘immense contributions of the British people’ in recent times”.

Even though in Saudi Arabia, across the Persian Gulf, the Arabian-American Oil Company had agreed in 1950 to split oil profits 50/50 with the Saudis, Britain refused to renegotiate its concession.  The Iranians were also prevented from seeing the Anglo-Persian oil company’s accounts to see how the net profit figure was calculated, amidst widespread suspicions that expenses were being manipulated to minimise the payout to the local partner.

Britain’s intransigent opposition to a fairer share of oil-related revenues backfired.  A newly elected Iranian PM, Mossadegh, nationalised the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1951. Britain’s response was to attempt to prevent other countries from buying Iranian oil, via a blockade of the terminal port of Abadan.  This proved ineffective, but is directly reminiscent of US Treasury Secretary Geithner’s recent trip around Far Eastern capitals to try and enforce a similar embargo on Iranian exports.  In 1953 Britain’s MI6, in a joint operation with the CIA, conspired to overthrow Mossadegh and to reinstall a more pliable local government.

The consequences of this move were historic.  The Shah was himself overthrown 25 years later in the Islamic revolution, with consequences that continue to reverberate around the world.

Steven Kinzer’s book on the 1952/53 events, “All the Shah’s Men”, describes a period of history of which few in the West are aware, but which all Persians know well.  Hague’s comments are par for the course, though they characterise a long-standing, hypocritical and bullying stance from Britain in the Middle East.  People can draw their own conclusions about who is destabilising, and who has a record of destabilising the region.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/23/luxurious-london-properties-foreign-buyers

According to the editor of  Tax Research UK, these loopholes are illegal under the UK’s Race Relations Acts,  since they discriminate between people living in the country on the grounds of national origin – with the discrimination being against the locals.

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/03/02/the-uks-domicile-laws-are-illegal/