Poor bloody Germany, Chapter 94

So Gisela Stuart MP agrees with Prodicus. I always said she was bright. Pity she's a Labour MP, but nobody's perfect. 

The euro crisis is economically bad for us all, but in the long run worse for Germany. Hostile reactions in Greece and Italy are unlikely to go away. If Germany is seen as responsible for removing democratically elected governments and replacing them with bureaucrats, imposing economic disciplines that won’t work in the long run, then it will be demonised again.  

The 17-state eurozone won’t work even if every country in it behaves like the Germans. They can’t all export their way out of trouble and German pockets aren’t deep enough to make the year-on-year transfers that would be necessary. The peripheral countries will take the pain and, rightly or wrongly, Germany will be blamed. Times (£) 

But she also says this:

What the British also forget is that the entire European project is, and has always been, about the relationship between France and Germany (though it wasn’t the EU that ensured peace, it was Nato). Whatever happens, Germany will always ultimately side with France. This was as true for Helmut Kohl during the 1990s as it was for Angela Merkel last week, and this is a problem for Britain.

And while she's right on the main point, I think she puts far too much trust in France.