By John Baron MP

As the eurozone crisis becomes increasingly desperate, it's time for the prime minister to face reality.

All the signs of stress are there. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, is openly talking about the breakup of the eurozone. Even though Italy alone requires 300 billion euros in refinancing next year, eurozone members presently struggle to cobble together a new 200 billion euro loan to the IMF to help rescue the single currency. Several European leaders have warned of the difficulties of pushing the fiscal compact through their national parliaments. Meanwhile, the market continues to demand jaw-dropping interest rates on peripheral debt.

The eurocrats have brought this on themselves. Their response to the eurozone crisis has been too little, too late. The umpteen summits, the various initiatives, the increased borrowing and loan agreements have failed to reassure the markets. This is because the central cause of the problem — that is, a lack of

From riots to phone-hacking, this has been an eventful year - and one which has on occasion provoked a big response from our readers. Here are our top ten most popular articles of 2011 on our Talking Politics blog on Yahoo!, based on reactions through Facebook and Twitter.

10 - Reefer madness in a final frenzy by Peter Reynolds

(290 Facebook recommends, 11 Tweets)

"How can our cowardly political leaders find a way to save face while reversing the dreadful policy they have supported for so long?" asked Peter Reynolds, leader of the Cannabis Law Reform campaign group. His piece criticising the British press for the "lies" it spreads about cannabis just made it into our top ten.

Reynolds wrote: "If any issue exposes the hypocrisy and dishonesty of politicians and the way that the media has an improper influence, then it is cannabis. We have to find a way to let them off the hook."

09 - Reagan statue shows Britain is America's fiefdom by Ian Dunt

(275 Facebook recommends, 27 Tweets)

Nick Clegg's bullish approach to Lords reform is only going to make a tough ask even tougher.

The deputy prime minister seems in a mood for picking fights. The heady rush of his clash with David Cameron over the eurozone crisis was followed by a jibe in today's Demos speech, heavily previewed in yesterday's papers, against the Tories' "1950s" view of marriage. Clegg has the air of man who is Not Going To Take It Any More.

This new spirit of aggression is especially striking when it comes to the Lords. Peers are the "most potent symbol of a closed society", he argued. They spend their time hiding behind a "veneer of experience", but they don't fool Clegg: he condemns them as being "an affront to the principles of openness which underpin a modern democracy".

A death struggle with the Lords is already likely, which probably explains why the gloves have come off. Clegg is able to quote David Lloyd George, who called the Lords "a body of 500 men chosen at random from amongst the

By Edward McMillan-Scott MEP

The PM's veto in Brussels shows he is a child of Thatcher, but without her strategic sense.

At about 3.30 on the morning of David Cameron's fateful decision to veto a new EU treaty to sustain the euro, the PM apparently called George Osborne. Osborne is not only chancellor but was also Cameron's chief tactician and adviser during the opposition years. I sat on his election strategy committee. I suspect that Cameron not only discussed the economic implications of a veto, but also the politics — and especially the effect on the coalition and the chances of winning a 'Union Jack' election outright on a eurosceptic manifesto. Then he went back into the EU summit, exercised his veto — and only then called Nick Clegg.

Besides Clegg's bitter dissapointment, those others chiefly outraged were Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, who had earlier issued a joint call for robust action: "Alongside the single currency, a strong economic pillar is indispensable, building

My local butcher closed recently. It was nothing particularly special, but I liked the fact they wore the old-fashioned butchers outfits — evidence of shameful, middle-class sentimentality, I know. I liked the fact they knew my name, and I knew most of their names, and we would talk about, well, mostly the weather, as you might imagine. I liked knowing I was eating meat from an animal that had been treated well and I felt it tasted better, although that may have been because I thought it had been treated well, rather than the other way round.

In my local supermarket, where I'm now forced to go for my meat, a whole chicken costs £2.07. I'm not much of an animal rights activist, but I can't help but shake the idea that this chicken cannot have had an agreeable life if I can buy it for £2.07. No-one knows my name in the local Tescos, none of the people who take my money receive any of it. I don't feel good about it. I don't talk about the weather.

The death of the British high street is

We sensed something new about Nick Clegg this lunchtime which we haven't seen before: a genuine discomfort at sitting next to the prime minister.

Politics throws up many challenges. Sometimes the only option available is to sit back, grin and take it.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg's political marriage is going through a rocky patch at the moment. Unlike many couples, who are able to hide their rows from the local gossips, this pair is in the middle of a very public bust-up.

We all know what the problem is: Cameron's nocturnal indiscretions with European leaders in the wee small hours of Friday morning. Just to make everyone sure they were getting the picture, a thoroughly gleeful Ed Miliband painted it clearly, to the delight of Labour MPs.

"I think our sympathy is with the deputy prime minister," he said. "His partner goes on a business trip, he's left waiting by the phone and he hears nothing until a rambling phone call at 4am confessing to a terrible mistake."

No wonder Clegg was

What is the deal?

Cameron's veto of the European initiative was not really a veto. As critics have pointed out, vetoes stop the process in question. In Cameron's case, the process simply took a new form, shrugged its shoulders and carried on anyway. The form is that of an intergovernmental treaty. While there is still a lot of uncertainty around it, it is likely to impose rules on all 26 EU members — not just the 17 countries which use the euro.

The treaty will hold members to strict new budgetary rules, including a cap of 0.5% of GDP on their annual structural deficits, a requirement for them to keep public deficits under three per cent of GDP and a rule that insists they must submit their budgets for European approval.

While it originally appeared that just the eurozone countries would be affected by the rules, it is now likely they will be imposed on all the EU countries. Most of the non-eurozone members have plans to join the euro eventually and they want to maintain their

European visitors to the UK are often surprised by how much British people like their countries. British popular culture still perceives the French as sophisticated, the Germans as competent and the Italians as sexy. Scandinavian countries are held up as models by the left and right in British politics, while holidaymakers sing the praises of Spain and Croatia. The combination of a small country, healthy spending power and poor weather back home power make Brits committed travellers. Most return to the UK with nothing but praise about the places they have visited.

But continental readers taking a glance at the British newspapers must conclude something different. In the wake of David Cameron's veto of a euro rescue initiative, the tabloid press has broken out with the predictable Second World War puns equivalent to their worst excesses during international football tournaments. It does not seem as if Britain has much love for Europe.

In truth, there are two Europes in Britain's head.