So who's still fighting the last war?

This cartoon was in yesterday's Times newspaper. Presumably our august Journal of record agrees with the sentiment that Nadine Dorries and Nigel Farage are still fighting the last war, almost 70 years after it ended - and 70 years to the day, since the Dambusters' audacious raid which saw the Mohne and Edersee Dams breached by bouncing bombs and the subsequent catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr Valley. Nice one Peter Brookes (whose cartoon this is). 

Trouble is, it's the EU that is still fighting the last war - and actually, if you look closely enough, winning it, on behalf of Germany.

The EU is a 60 year old institution created to solve a 70 year-old problem; an institution that has subsequently become - oh bitter irony - the tool being used by Germany to achieve the takeover of Europe that Mr Hitler couldn't quite manage through force, during the last unpleasantness.

The irony doesn't end there: This time the German approach has been to lend poor people (countries) money; watch them waste it (as was entirely predictable) and then lend them some more, until the poor countries are hopelessly, uncontrollably indebted to Germany. Banks, instead of tanks, if you will. You have to wonder where on earth those crafty Germans ever got this idea from.

Or maybe you don't.

You may think that this is all a bit strong ('old chap') but do me a favour and consider the following:

Do you think Germany didn't know that the Greeks pay hardly any tax; have 5 hour lunches, retire at 52 and enjoy sunshine, wine and ouzo, before they (the Germans) made the EU's cheap money available to them (the Greeks)?

And if you lend money that is not paid back, why would you lend even more, unless you had an ulterior motive? 

Do you think Germany didn't know that, with a single currency eliminating the possibility for weaker countries to devalue and rebalance their economies, German companies would 'eat the lunch' of their southern European rivals and at the same time enjoy a 30% exchange rate advantage compared to where they'd have been with the Deutchmark - effectively fucking UK industry as well as the rest of the Eurozone? German companies are currently buying up Spanish, Greek and Portuguese businesses like it's going out of fashion; Germany is booming while there's 30% unemployment in Spain.

Mr Brookes and the Times think UKIP and it's supporters are still fighting the last war. You know what? I hope they're right, because unless more people take up the fight against this German takeover of Europe, the millions who died in the last war will have done so in vain. 

And then we'll all be German. And none of us will be allowed, or have the time, between sleeping, working and death, to enjoy even a small amount of that Greek lifestyle. Old chap. 

Thanks for reading.

Mark