as time goes on, jessica is orienting herself further and further towards the looney right. the idea that the eu is the cause of the economic stagnation in europe, or that leaving it will benefit the british economy, is the most absurd economic ignorance from the least educated sectors of the british public. it's not the kind of perspective that deserves any kind of serious analysis. watching jessica conduct these interviews from positions of extreme ignorance (and yet unplaced confidence that is really simply arrogance) with people that are much smarter than her is increasingly like watching the village idiot walk into the local university with a bible and use it in a debate over equations. it's becoming painful, paul. this is a bad combination....

will the uk leave the eu? the conservative position is about two things: (1) leverage and (2) sovereignty. and, while it may be true that socialism is dead in europe, it has died along with "socialism" in russia. the underlying fear was never socialism, exactly, but that the continent would realign with the russians. this fear is no less valid today, socialism or not.

the various tensions playing out in the world are no doubt exacerbating this old fear. a german swing to russia would put the uk in a bad position, where they would have to make some choices they don't want to.

that's what this issue is about: not getting pulled into a german realignment policy, and rather maintaining the sovereignty to remain the junior partners in the anglo-american empire. we'll know how serious the british concerns about german alignment truly are by whether the referendum runs or not; if it runs, there's some serious movement going on. if it doesn't, it's just continued leverage.