Terry Smith Straight Talking

New Zealand New Year Honours List

In the New Zealand New Year Honours List HM The Queen has graciously appointed me a Member of The New Zealand Order of Merit for services to New Zealand-United Kingdom relations.

I was honoured to receive this award which acknowledges the success of the Campaign I was proud to lead to commemorate New Zealander Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, and I would like to thank all those who contributed to the success of the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign.

I hope this award like the Campaign reminds people of just the sort of efforts that some people put in to defend the freedoms, rights and privileges that we enjoy today.

UK should leave the EU and join NAFTA

There is a good article in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the UK should consider leaving the EU, which has strayed a long way from its free market origins and is set to go further, and join NAFTA:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110163558996698.html

Exchange controls may be introduced within the Eurozone

There is an interesting article by Bill Jamieson in The Scotsman. He discusses preparations for the possible introduction of exchange controls and controls on the international movement of capital in Europe which I have been saying for a while may be a necessary response to a run on Euro deposits in the other PIIGS if or more likely when Greece exits the Eurozone:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts-blog/bill_jamieson_apocalypse_could_be_now_for_euro_1_2028344

Michael O'Leary on the EU

This presentation by Michael O’Leary in Brussels to the EU is worth 15 minutes of your time. It is ostensibly about airlines but he also offers some insight into the EU:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4HYSsrlcq8&feature=player_embedded

Cameron's veto was consistent with history

There was a wonderful letter in the FT yesterday from a Mr Shenkman. He has clearly got a better grasp of history than those who have claimed that David Cameron’s veto of changes to the Lisbon Treaty and the UK’s alleged isolation as a result is in some way a reversal of British foreign policy towards the Continent.
 
I have a strong interest in history as I have a first class honours degree in the subject and in my view Mr Shenkman is right. For hundreds of years Britain’s successful policy with regard to the Continent has been to ally with the weaker powers to prevent a single power dominating the Continent. This which would have been to our detriment as an island off the coast of mainland Europe whose prosperity has depended upon trade with the wider world.
 
This policy was implemented during the Napoleonic Wars when the successful military intervention of Nelson and Wellington prevented the Continental System from being imposed upon Europe, and again in the twentieth century with two world wars fought against Germany.
 
There may no longer be a military dimension to the current problems in Europe (although I think we should hesitate before dismissing that possibility given the historic instability of south east Europe). There is, however, little doubt that the Eurozone has been used as an instrument for Germany to dominate the Continent through productive might and David Cameron’s veto is consistent with the aims of centuries of successful British policy on Europe which it would be foolish to abandon.

 

Financial Times, Letters to the Editor
Long tradition of holding other powers in check
From Mr Gregory Shenkman.

Sir, Perhaps the history I studied at Cambridge was different to that absorbed some years later by Jonathan Powell at Oxford (“Cameron has betrayed 200 years of history”, December 12). Mr Powell suggests....

Read the full text at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f1ca328-1c4c-11e1-af09-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gJnGZzdi

 

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