High Cirrus,
You can interpret it as you will. Fact is, as I wrote, it is easier to make an angry noise than to take action. Apart from mentioning the Chancellor's name, I made no mention of the present efforts towards or against a war in Iraq. You can interpret that as you will too.
As regards spine, or the lack of it, I don't think you can generalise about "Europeans". There are and have been historically, large differences.
As regards what the easy crews have got, I think it is fair to say that they have made a choice. Whether this collective choice was based individually on fairness, greed, pragmatism or fear, who can say? The moment has passed, the world loses interest and the shares now react to the market, rather than Pprune.