Ireland and the death of European democracy

Speaking of things appearing to happen before they in fact do (see below: this blog has the earlier posts shown later - oh, never mind) but speaking of that, the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny went to see Angela Merkel the other day and, would you believe it, next month's Irish budget is published in Germany more than a fortnight before it is due to be discussed in the Irish Parliament. Reuters reports the details having been given to the German Parliament's budget committee, and that they include a rise in VAT.

So now the European establishment is running Greece, Italy, Ireland and to those we can add Belgium which still doesn't have an elected government. Don't think so? Let's see if we can answer two questions: first, would the rescue plans have continued if, say, the Italian President had nominated a caretaker government headed by someone who didn't have the 'correct' view of the euro?

Second, before being offered a bailout, were these countries told it would spell the end of their democracy, so that they could at least hold a referendum?

This is a bad time for Europe: not since the 1940s have we seen formerly independent countries run by foreign delegates.