Just to say I think Labour has made a big mistake on this. Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander are calling this a disaster for Britain. I'm not sure the country will agree at all. I think Ed will be seen as a weak cop-out for this stance.

"Britain may assume it will benefit from extra business for the City, should the euro zone ever pass a financial-transaction tax. But what if the new club starts imposing financial regulations among the 17 euro-zone members, or the 23 members of the euro-plus pact? That could begin to force euro-denominated transactions into the euro zone, say Paris or Frankfurt. Britain would, surely, have had more influence had the countries of the euro zone remained under an EU-wide system."
- today's Economist

Quite interesting to read the article and comments from the other side of the world.

Some of you still believe you are an empire. Well most of the former colonies are doing quite well since they got you of their back.

In many of those countries you don't find any British products. First you have nothing worthwhile to sell. Second one can buy things cheaper from Asia.

Now you have pissed off all your trading partners in Europe you might even get another shock, at least economically.

You got the declining US left which has even more debt than all of Europe.

Why would anyone want financial services from the city of London lot. They are all crooks and are part of the cause of the mess that now exists.

We have strict financial regulations in my country and the banks are not stuffed. Since they are doing very well a super profit tax on bank earnings is being considered.

Well if the banks can rip the people off, the people through the government can put the squeeze on the banks. if the banks don't like it one can nationalise them. It is called expropriation without compensation.

It works because greedy shareholder, once the know what is coming, prefer to get something rather than lose the lot. That is that they accept lower dividends as a result of higher taxes
instead of losing all their shareholdings.

Perhaps you people should consider that approach for the city of London crooks. then you would have money to wind back some of the cuts in govt spending which you have to endure now.

If you want to get hold of an omelette you have to break a few eggs.

Now don't tell me that this isn't democracy.

In case you haven't noticed it, real power in a democracy is exercised by money. Just look at all the examples around you.
You can see that governments are afraid to tackle the moneyed lot, also called the financial services industry.

Power to the people for the people
is an illusion.

Anyway I hope the world will muddle through this mess in time.

Perhaps it will be the recession we had to have....to knock a bit of sense into some people.

Look at it this way.
The important question of our time are not resolved by endless discussions or majority decisions but by hard work and industry.

Just look how far the Chinese have come in the last 20 odd years using this approach.

The West has become lazy and flabby.
it can't even pull together to save itself.

A comment from the world outside of Europe and the US.

I stand corrected you are not all insane just 99.9%. The Euro will still go down the plughole and maybe Sterling but not so fast. Thank you Gordon Brown for not letting Blair sign us up to this nightmare fairytale!!!!!!!!!!!

He's Rafael Behr and he speaks for himself.

Well done Dave!

Now, let's have a referendum in the spring, and to ensure a good turn out, let's have a General Election too.

Personally, don't know what all the fuss is about really.I think the P.M. has done a good job in making sure safety comes first. We're still in the same position as we were five or six years ago when the "four red lines" treaty was thrashed out during Mr.Blair's office of P.M...which in todays eventual context means were probably ahead of the curve. So that's good enough for me.

Bulldog spirit?

'Safeguarding' the greedsters who wrecked the economy while lusting after the power to do down the pay and conditions of ordinary British workers--is there to be found anywhere a less patriotic creature than the eurosceptic Tory?

If this is 'bulldog spirit', the dog in question was neutered and then ate its own gonads. It's high time we were rid of this blithering idiot and his millionaire chums.

I also find it highly amusing that he seems happy to see the breakup of the EU while wanting the same thing not to happen to the UK. I'm sure the irony is completely lost on him though.

Are you people insane? What has Call me Dave opted out of? We are not in the deeply flawed, troubled, failing Eurozone, which Gordon Brown has to be thanked for. What Germany and France were proposing was to save that Eurozone "for a while" with £78 billion Tobin Tax £57 billion of which would come from the UK, nice!

You might not like the Fat Cat owners of most of the City of London but don't forget all the British jobs that would be lost as a result. Sweden tried this tax years ago and it nearly bankrupted them. Do you want this country bankrupted saving a currency to which we never belonged, to which countries were allowed in after they fiddled their figures and are themselves not paying one iota of Tobin Tax?

If you do, you are in a very small minority within this country!

As I understand it, a few other countries do have a financial transaction taxes, such well-known econonmic failures as Switzerland, China and Singapore (oh, and Hong Kong). And according to Wikipedia, "The state of New York levies a stamp duty on trades taking place on both the New York Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ."

Wow, how about that, eh?

UPDATE, UPDATE;

It is no longer the Eurozone plus 6. It is now 26 countries with only Britain left out.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister just contacted the BBC and said they had no such agreement to veto, and that only Britain is left out.

Sarkozy actually said it was Britain who scappered the deal but the British media as usual miss-intepreted his speech in their haste to get the news out.

Good headlines in the Sun, Mail and Telegraph etc and the good opinion - and continued bankrolling - by banker wankers and other tory backers are all that count. Of course, the eurosecptics and other little englanders everywhere are delighted. The consequences of our isolation - and much worst if the Euro fails - arent taken into consideration. Cameron and gideon and clegg are probably looking around for future scapegoats to blame for the (new) problems they have created to join the exisiting one's they already have.

I agree with above - in fact Denmark is thinking of joining - as those who watched it's Prime Minister on Newsnight the other night will have gathered. It was good to see Paxman flabbergasted. Feisal Islam has he been gavelled ? His stomach looks like a foie gras and his mouth like the derriere of a canard ? I forgot he's Channel 4's inexpert expert.

This is Fergus Pickering: 'I grew up in North London and had a North London accent. I went to Scotland at ( and had an Edinburgh accent - bloody sharpish I can tell you. I went to Oxford and spoke posh. Now I live in Kent and have reverted to North London. I can do the others at the dropof a hat. Can't anyone?'

He is, in short a chameleon.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/7442365/outrageous-outrage.thtml

Marvellous move by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Great to see a Statesman who put that french little fellow in his place.

Good time here again for Great Britain. Let the Eurozone go bust.

Bankers are scum but and I would love to see them hit with a transaction tax but Cameron is right to say no. There is no way we should be giving any more powers to europe.

Dodgy Dave has outed the Tories.

Who are the Tories looking out for, no matter how much it damages our national interest;

THE THIEVES, SORRY I MEANT THE BANKERS.

Gas
We will be bailing out the Eurozone anyway, through our contribution to IMF, recently increased by 40%.

And guess what the mafia in the city will still be taxed because they trade globally.

What angers me is that Dodgy, did not even try and use the negotiating tools at his disposal. He was so focused at saving the Wankers, sorry a mis-spelling but I will not correct it; he immediately went into flashman mode and refused to support the treaty instead of continuing his negotiations in a matured manner.

If Cameron had suggested a tax based on per bottle or per bottle equivilent of wine exports , would France and Germany jumped in? A financial services tax not applied world wide is against our national intrest. These countries do not have the volume of trades passing though London.

@Lady J, 14.10. At what point does common sense kick in and this banker bashing business end? In 2010 the financial sector is estimated to have contributed 11.6% of total UK tax receipts. Are they thieves any more than the IT services charging the government billions of dollars for an incomplete project? Or the military contractors billing the state billions for an undelivered aircraft carrier? Or the thousands of people stealing billions in fraudulent benefit claims? Or the millions of households across the developed world whose irresponsible borrowing triggered the last recession? The OPEC nations sat at a desk deciding world energy prices, or the Russian billionaires deciding how much gas to send to Europe to fund their next superyatch? The panicky investors whose fright has led to debt prices rocketing around the world, causing governments to slash spending and cut millions of jobs? Or the UK consumers happy to spend borrowed money buying consumer products manufactured in the far East by exploited workers? I'm not a banker but its irritating for every discussion to be distracted that pointless train of thought.

this website is very good, you can go and see it

===www shoes4world com===

I think many people have missed the point about the position in which we find ourselves. As far as the EU is concerned, Britain is an irrelevance. We flatter ourselves that we are any more than that to Europe. Our financial contributions have been welcome to help with their expansion, but that's all.

Whatever Cameron does now will make no difference to the Germans, but may affect in some small way how badly we come out of it all. His posturing about protecting British interests and sovereignty is farcical. What 'sovereignty'? We are at the economic mercy of the Germans and, more importantly, the very financial markets that we have fostered over the past 25 years.

As for the 'Eurozone crisis', the Germans are not stupid. They knew all along that these smaller nations wouldn't have any proper fiscal discipline and they allowed it to happen so they could assume complete control of the EU sooner or later.
They also knew that Britain would never play ball. It's in our DNA.

Europe was always going to belong to the Germans, no matter how important the French think they are or how much it was dressed up as a 'union'. The best that we can hope for is that Germany doesn't go for the kill and decide to completely destroy the British economy. Now that we are well and truly out of the loop, the 26 EU nations can put up all kind of trade and other restrictions for the UK. If you think the Eurovision Song Contest is rigged these days, you haven't seen anything yet.

Frankfurt will soon replace London as the hub of European financial transactions and many of the institutional players in London will relocate. The way America is going, Germany may well control all Western money markets within a few years.

If we're not prepared to embrace Europe and the Euro, which of course (foolishly) we shall never do, the best we can hope for is to negotiate a dignified and diplomatic withdrawal from Europe without upsetting anyone.

No, my old beauty, I am a man that can do accents. It's called having an ear. I can speak French and Latin too. This is a talented man. But a chameleon? No,no, I have been conservative since Mrs Thatcher swept to power. That's a whole lotta years.

Arrrrr poor little Europeans are up set that we didn't surrender more sovereignty .

Good point Ryan, that's because the true Finns party have a big influence with over 20% of the national vote and they are Euro sceptic, don't forget Wilder's Freedom party in the Netherlands they are euro sceptic too. This drama has along way to run yet.

Forget all the little europeans there is a big wide world out there !!!