British right it ‘world’s stupidest’

PRIME Minister David Cameron proved the British political right is the world’s stupidest by refusing the European summit deal on fiscal reform under pressure from narrow financial lobby interests, the head of France’s financial sector regulator said yesterday.

“For a long time it was said that the French right was the world’s stupidest,” Jean-Pierre Jouyet, head of France’s AMF regulatory agency, said on France’s Inter state radio.

“I think the English right has shown it is capable of being the world’s stupidest, in serving purely financial interests and not the national interest. That’s regrettable because we need our British friends in Europe,” he said.

Mr Cameron’s refusal to sign up to the deal agreed at a summit in Brussels last Friday was a “rare example in the history of the EU” where financial sector interests prevailed over broader British interests, he said.

It was all the more striking, said Mr Jouyet, given that more than two million British workers recently protested against austerity measures in a country with a public deficit worth 8% of GDP and debt worth 80% of GDP but pay rises averaging 49% this year on average for bankers.

“[Former prime ministers] Blair and Brown would not have made this error in negotiation,” said Mr Jouyet.

Mr Cameron was left out in the cold last Friday when France and Germany refused to give him the safeguards he wanted for the powerful City of London financial services industry during the EU summit.