Taken from the Evening Standard 5 August 2014, Gerald Lyons, Mayor’s Office advisor and economist, stated that’ the time frame over which business looks ahead can only be a few years… in that business model, there is bias towards the status quo, or avoiding unnecessary uncertainty.’ Mr Lyons also quoted from the new ‘Europe Report’, published in Aug 2014 with an analysis looking 20 years ahead and prepared with the help of Volterra economic consultancy. The report stated:
The current size of the London economy is £350B per yr, about a quarter of that in the UK.
1 The Report concludes that the best outlook for the UK and London over the next 20 years would be in a reformed EU. In that scenario, London’s economy could grow to £640B per yr, omitting inflation, so is real growth. This could generate 1M extra jobs in London to 2034. …
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Dr Alf's Blog 
John,
I believe you have described the future!
Dr Alf’s conclusion is intuitively correct provided that the arrangements with the EU can be renegotiated satisfactorily.
1)The EU provides for the free movement of goods, services and people yet it is obvious that poorer countries from Eastern Europe need to catch up economically before we can afford this provision in terms of housing, benefits and infrastructure.
2)The EU since inception has never had its accounts signed off as Kosher.
EU budgets are alegedly riddled with fraud, malfeasance and criminality – the leading example of which is the time when the Mafia apparently stole £6.5 billion Euros out an EU grant, part of which was designed to improve the flood defences for Venice and stop it from sinking into the sea.
Dr Alf may recall the sacking of Marta Andreeson by Lord Kinnock, when she tried to whistle-blow about irregularities in the EU accounts and the expenses of MEPs.
Since then Lord Kinnock’s silence on the matter has been deafening
3)The EU is applying new targets for land fill, pollution and carbon – all of which will mean that ordinary people can expect fuel bills to double by 2020. And 11.5 million diesel car and truck owners, plus owners of vehicles older than a 2005 registration, will have to pay more for fuel, higher road taxes and not be allowed to drive into cities.
This poses the question of how UK cities will run, given lack of housing for low paid and essential workers, lack of 24 hour public transport or adequate policing to ensure safety at those times these people would be commuting to their employment.
4)75% of UK laws are made in Brussels by people we did not elect and effectively the EU is run by Angela Merkel.
Apart from this, Europe has to start doing all the things that Ted Heath told us would happen in 1974,the benefits of EU membership:
a) We would avoid further European wars and meet collective threats collectively
b) Millions of new jobs would be created by the Single Market of 550 million people
c) We would gain greater influence in the world and people in Washington and Beijing would take notice of the European leaders when the “traffic lights” changed.
WHAT HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED
–The EU is effectively bankrupt and has not created a single nett new job in 30 years
–Our military response to crises has been fragmented and as a result of Chancellor Kohl recognizing Bosnia and funneling several billion Euros to the Croats, we had the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Balkans War, complete with ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, subsequent war crimes tribunals, the trial of Slobodan Milosovic and his subsequent poisoning after Serbs had been given 1.6 billion in EU aid and just before he was about to call Tony Blair and Bill Clinton as hostile witnesses in his own defence.
COULD THE TERMS OF EU MEMBERSHIP BE RENEGOTIATED BY DAVID CAMERON
Personally, I doubt it given his poor record and inability to either negotiate or send someone in his place that can.
Angela Merkel is in charge and holds all the high cards so even if he wins the next General Election and keeps his promise to negotiate(which is also in doubt given his record of broken promises),he will come away with little or nothing.
COULD SOMEONE ELSE RENEGOTIATE THE TERMS SO AS TO EFFECT REFORM
Someone else might do a better job than David Cameron but only if the Coalition wins and then not till 2017.
If Ed Miliband wins there will be no renegotiation so again it does not apply
WHAT SHOULD THE UK DO
The EU experiment has failed on any objective measure.
We should leave,become a Singapore style tax haven and ideally a republic or a constitutional monarchy with no powers for the Queen.
We should be neutral develop our own terminator robots,drones and space based weapons to deal with threats from militant Islam without the need to risk the lives of our troops.
We would encourage wealthy foreign investors to come here and have no overseas aid or EU budget contributions.
The Celtic fringe would be granted independence along with Cornwall and they would have to be entirely self sufficient .
A sovereign wealth fund would be set up on Temasek lines funded by the sequestration of all Crown lands and monies(estimated to be £17.4 trillion gbp),except for the last £1 billion gbp.