Eurow

The BBC is always on a hiding to nothing in reporting the early stages of big Euro stories - and needs common sense and nerve to face down the usual suspects, who are already nipping at its ankles.

Nobody really knows the detail of what France and Germany want in a new treaty/accord/agreement. Cameron, stiffened by Bojo, sought a guarantee he knew Sarkozy would not give - no new taxes that might affect the Stock Exchange. But saying the UK would play along with a new deal would have been really unlikely - why sign up blind to a new tighter common financial regime, and end up with all the problems of a common currency, without actually joining the Euro ?

In the long term, the test of Cameron's stance is the health of the UK economy; others would have you see it as the value of sterling against the Euro. And that's where, eventually, we need some global thinking. At the moment, the value of any currency is determined not against absolute judgements, but the opinions of currency speculators, who, through computer algorithms or whim, can drive a currency down to make handsome profits - and by so called "credit rating agencies", whose record is partial. The gold standard and petro-dollars, corn futures and the rest are no more stable as measures. The world's politicians need to move towards an agreed formula to appraise any currency, and move speculators away from the evil profits of money-changing, and back to an honest job of investing in companies that make and do things.

Meanwhile poor old Patten will have to face at least one daft bequest of the Lyons era before his time's up at the BBC - an impartiality seminar on Europe.  What fun !