The Slog looks at the G8’s WOMD, and why Kenneth Clarke is still fighting a lone battle for Britain’s continued EU membership. In both cases, it’s called ‘self-interest’…and not very enlightened.

In order to disguise the clueless nature of their collective wisdom on What to Do Next, the G8 have kicked off proceedings with a major-league squabble about Syria. It’s worked as a weapon of mass distraction thus far, and to be real about this, as the entire game is about access to fossil energy (and fossil energy is 120% of Russia’s profitable exports) it probably was as good a place to start as any.

For a neutral however, it is a bit disconcerting to find oneself hoping for signs of light at an economic summit, only to realise that the main solution they’re working on is a massive  regional war. While as a stimulant, all-out war beats QE hands down (not difficult) it is even more expensive, highly pollutant, and involves killing people – which is of course wrong.

Host David Cameron ‘hailed’ the summit anyway. It’s what people do these days: they hail things – before anything’s happened to deserve any hailing about it. Later there will be a snow-job to pretend that something got done. Determined to be seen as idealistic, Dave said the summit was “a once in a lifetime thing”, which proves yet again that his maths are challenged, and his vision is driven entirely by the triumph of bollocks over experience.

Away from all this, old Ken Clarke decided to have a K1 of his own, and declare that if Britain leaves the EU there will be plagues of locusts, children in our chimneys, and a Belgian invasion within six months. As Mr Clarke has been on the main steering committee of Bildergerger for ten years now, it doesn’t take much to work out who’s working him from behind re this one. He makes this speech, on average, three times every five weeks (at least, that’s the score this year so far) so I’d imagine Big B has an enormous stake in Blighty staying in the Union. Plus, of course, Kenny sat on the European Council (EC) itself until last year, and so will have been a party to all those wise decisions taken at the expense of what used to be the Greek economy.

There being no visible conflict of interest there, I thought I’d look into some other stuff that alleviates the boredom of Mr Clarke’s days now he’s without any portfolio. His main interest is as a director of Canadian Fund producer AgCapita. Agcapita is based on one simple insight: that once the global Ponzi balloon goes up, food prices will surge, national self-sufficiency will be right back in fashion….and the price of arable farmland will sky-rocket beyond any known definition of ‘long term bull market’. Buying farming land is all Agcapita does. So just as the holder of Bear Notes has a vested interest in stock market collapse, Kenneth Clarke has a vested interest in economic meltdown.

This too might therefore explain why Ken is so keen on the survival of the most corrupt, indebted, expensively laboured, and recessed trading group in the entire history of economics….and on chaining us up to its square-wheeled wagon in perpetuity.

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New Party madness as seen in Greece, Italy, Britain and the Netherlands in recent years seems finally to have reached the Fatherland. Some weeks back sources in Berlin told me of data knocking about to suggest that AfD (Alternativ für Deutschland) was already the fastest-growing political movement in recorded German history. Now Bild Zeitung – a tabloid – has run a new poll to confirm this. Voting intentions just before the weekend were as follows:

CDU/CSU – 37%
AfD – 20%
SPD – 18%
Die Grünen – 06%

In the maelstrom that is now national politics within the EU, figures can yo-yo up and down at a dizzying speed. Die Piraten, for example, are now down at 3% and falling. But these figures nevertheless point to a coming earthquake in Merkelian Realpolitik. Equally fascinating is that, if Merkel set up a new Party in her own image, she would romp home – and be able to rule without any need for Coalitions at all. Don’t imagine the thought hasn’t occurred to unsere kleine Führerin Geli.

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As Reuters reported yesterday, the dilemma facing the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 19 policy makers when they meet in Washington later this week is how exactly they start withdrawing the QE addict from the methadone. Although there is a consensus in the Fed’s politburo that the time to get the patient off the $1.1 trillion asset purchasing fantasy is more or less now, in the markets regular visits to the lavatory are required just to even contemplate such a thing. Which, oddly enough, is also what happens when you come off methadone.

One shouldn’t laugh, but the idea that the homeland of anti-State and free-market Friedmanism is only afloat still thanks to zillions of State Dollars and illegally manipulated markets has to be the joke of the new century so far. Less funny is the fact – passed on to me by a well-placed Big Apple source – that discreet Fed-commissioned research among investment opinion leaders has shown that the addict-panic-meltdown factor is still far too severe for methadone withdrawal to be even considered.

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I’ve been getting emails from all points of the compass today following the UK banking scandals Slogposts of recent days. A large percentage of these refer to the upcoming diversification of Barclays Bank into the crewcut haircare sector. In particular, one of the biggest Libor fraud insiders, Marcus Agius – the former Group Chairman of Barclays, and chairman of the British Bankers Association – features prominently in the obviously scurrilous and scandalous allegations.

I’ve been told on umpteen occasions over the last few months that, like the slug he is, Bob Diamond left a trail of slime behind him at Barclays. I’m exceedingly glad tonight that I don’t bank with them.

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So there we are: situation hopeless, international train fully accelerated, cliff-edge danger (SHITFACED). But Mr Clarke is in the last carriage, smoking a cigar and tucking into his fresh-farmland tucker, ejector seat at the ready. Hurrah.

Last night at The Slog: Oh look, the EU lied about having nothing to do with the ERT closure