[GEaston]

Accy - Britain is not bailing out any European country. Euro bailouts are for the European Central Bank to which we do not contribute. The Tory govt rejected the Euro and whatever your politics you must give them credit for that.

We don't have their currency so we don't have their problems. We are free to let our currency depreciate versus all others and that makes the UK competitive in Europe and the rest of the world so we have more tools with which we can recover. In the immediate aftermath of the banking crisis the pound was depreciated (by both statements and policy actions of the BoE) by about 30%. While it might not feel like it the country is in far better state because we can do that.

The problem UK has is that London is the undisputed world centre of finance (particularly Foreign Exchange) and as a result we have something like 1000 banks operating from it. The banking system here is 6x the size of our entire economy so if it so much as sneezes we have a big problem.

Nothing to do with people coming into the country and claiming benefits. That is trivial compared to broken banks. Consider this...... Total annual welfare bill (of all claimants real or bogus is £30bn per year). Fixing the 100% Scottish bank RBS cost English taxpayers £44bn and counting. Scottish bank, Scottish board, Scottish HQ, Scottish failure, English bailout (because the sum involved was same size as the entire annual Scottish budget). Bank of Scotland another £12bn. Not heard a word of thanks or apology from Alex Salmond. Ah but of course the two who made that decision, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are Scots......