American history day in Britain

It's American history week here in Britain. On the right and the left, the name of Herbert Hoover is being invoked.

At the right-wing Daily Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard rails against the tight rules on budget deficits and debts agreed at last week's EU summit in a piece headlined: "Merkel's Teutonic summit enshrines Hooverism in EU treaty law." The sub-head of his piece says it all:

"Angela Merkel’s summit has sealed a 1930s outcome for Europe, further entrenching Germany’s misguided and contractionary policies without offering any viable way out of the crisis at hand."

At the left-wing Guardian, my man, Larry Elliott, writes about the summit outcome, "The real reason for objecting to the creation of the Herbert Hoover Appreciation Society (or fiscal stability pact) created by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy is that it condemns Europe to permanent deflation and high unemployment,"

It's not just HH who is being referred to today. Ike is getting a look-in. His name is being invoked by Labour (I always knew Dwight David Eisenhower was actually a leftie). Labour's plan is to mimic an Eisenhower initiative to provide funding for small business growth.

According to Labour's young star, Chuka Umunna, the schemes were "widely regarded as having fostered a wealth-creating enterprise economy for half a century,' the Guardian reports.