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The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
"you don't care more for the freedoms of England, said it yourself you want Scotland out the UK, then you'll no longer care about England."Not true. I used to live in England for a number of years - a great nation full of great people and great places. Yes, I'm a Scottish nationalist, but I also freely admit to being an Anglophile.
Even post Scottish independence, should that day come, England will always be a close friend and ally, as far as I'm concerned.
Just because I want of the UK, doesn't mean I don't respect and admire England.
eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "how ?"The country's going to the dogs - further EU integration won't help.
why don't you emigrate then and do us all a favour.
eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "why don't you emigrate then and do us all a favour."I do like your neck of the woods. Durham's a lovely town, and the Mackems are a good bunch of lads.
Maybe I should head down your way? :)
Thought you don't like the place "country is going to the dogs".
R.M.F wrote: "eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "the majority of jocks will vote to stay in, fact."That may be, but my personal preference is Scotland out of the UK and out of the EU, a MacSw..."
And we all know about Swiss bank accounts - a stealth road to economic independence and stability for the Scots?
eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "Thought you don't like the place "country is going to the dogs"."This is our chance to turn things around.
it just won't happen though being realistic, I will be voting to exit but I think the buffoon known as boris Johnson will actually sabotage the campaign, surely they could have found someone more credible.
Ballots are open for a credible spokesman for either side of the debate.Any suggestions?
peter kay.
Credible?That rules out every politician then.
not bent then, that's also pretty difficult.
for exit or staying in ?
I'm totally uninfluenced by what other people try to tell me how to vote or think. They can all get lost as far as I'm concerned and if they are a 'celebrity' they can eff off and when they get there, keep on effing off.
sitting on the fence then. :-)
No I'm leaving my fence seat for others, I made my mind up about the EU in 2003 before the 2004 enlargement. I used to have an international freight company and just thought enough was enough. I wasn't wrong then either :o)
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "No I'm leaving my fence seat for others, I made my mind up about the EU in 2003 before the 2004 enlargement. I used to have an international freight company and just thought enough was enough. I wa..."Yes, having had a working lifetime of trying to cope with the EU and work within EU policies and regulation, I had my mind made up for me as well. The whole thing isn't worth the candle.
Actually when you think about it, the real sign of EU failure is that those in favour of staying in cannot actually point to anything positive to say about it. The only selling point is that we'll be sitting in the dark eating rats if we leave.
(Some do say the EU has prevented war in Europe. But then NATO has also done that)
Tell that to the Serbs :(
Don't worry, that is one of the things I pointed out to the pro EU people who've raved at how the EU keeps the peace. Screwed up in the Ukraine as well
Russia invading the Ukraine had nothing to do with the EU.
Michael Cargill wrote: "Russia invading the Ukraine had nothing to do with the EU."That's arguable. The fact that the EU was dragging the Ukraine out of the Russian sphere did cause tensions.
But it also highlighted internal tensions between those in the East who tended to regard themselves as generally Russian and those in the west who didn't
It might have fired up anyway but the EU didn't help
Oh and an interesting pollhttp://www.farming.co.uk/news/article...
Given that it's assumed that farmers are likely to vote to stay in the EU because they know which side their bread is buttered, I'm left wondering whether it's more a case that having been directly subject to EU regulations and having to cope with and EU inspection regime, the industry has decided the money isn't worth the hassle?
The Ukraines made a democratic choice to get involved with the EU and it's pretty obvious why any nation would want to move away from Russia.
It might be obvious to us Michael, but there is clearly a sizeable chunk of the people of Ukraine who do not agree. And they have the oil and gas.
There is a sizeable chunk of people here who don't want to move away from Russia toward the EU as well.Lots would rather have the best of both worlds. Not gonna get it, mind.
A large part of the eastern area of Ukraine are native Russian speakers and look to Russia to be their guide.We see it as bizarre, but we are looking at it from a western perspective.
Right, but it's incredibly disingenuous to claim that the EU had anything to do with Russia invading the Ukraine.
Russia always jealously guards its spheres of influence and see any political or financial influence from outside as a military issue. The EU does not understand that and as a result of their desire to bring Ukraine under western influence, the fomenting of discord in the east was inevitable and a direct response to what Russia sees as western expansionism.From that, the EU has been the trigger for the problems. They were naive to believe that Russia would sit quietly and watch Ukraine become part of the western bloc. This was the same reason that the USA fought in Vietnam. It's Russia's domino effect.
So we're agreed that the EU isn't to blame for Russia's foray into the Ukraine.
The blame has to be Russia's, but that doesn't mean that the EU did not provoke it by their behaviour.
Their behaviour of allowing the Ukrainian's to vote to join the EU?I don't see how that's provocative.
Would you consider the Berlin Airlift of 1948 to be provocative?
I've been speaking to the older generation (parents and grandparents) and asking them why they're voting to leave. My father voted for Britain in the EEC back in the 1970s for the benefits of free trade, but thinks the EU has turned into a German racket, so now he wants out.
That and the fact he now despises Ted Heath!
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Apr 20, 2016 05:49AM)
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Michael Cargill wrote: "Their behaviour of allowing the Ukrainian's to vote to join the EU?I don't see how that's provocative.
Would you consider the Berlin Airlift of 1948 to be provocative?"
The Berlin Airlift was caused by the provocation of the Russian refusal to allow provisions into West Berlin so they could undermine the agreed demarcation of the capital. The Allies re-supply was as a consequence of that blockade, which was considered illegal.
The Chinese and Soviet support of North Vietnamese insurrection was a provocation as far as the USA was concerned as it was creeping communism, which they saw as a deliberate plan to destabilise East Asia and support communist overthrow.
The Russians probably see the EU as a proxy of the USA, in the same way that China was seen as a proxy of the USSR. Therefore, when seen from that perspective, it is clearly provocative to a Russian president that saw the fall of Communism in Western Europe and a number of Eastern European nations.
You also have to remember that the president of Ukraine, who was pro-Russian, was ousted in a coup after being elected. He was replaced with a pro-European president in a new election.The EU was seen to support that.
So provided you twist things around and squint hard enough, the EU provoked Russia into invading the Ukraine.That president was ousted some four years after he was elected and happened because he changed his mind at the last minute about signing the EU agreement.
And that coup is known as the revolution inside the Ukraine.
Michael Cargill wrote: "Their behaviour of allowing the Ukrainian's to vote to join the EU?I don't see how that's provocative.
Would you consider the Berlin Airlift of 1948 to be provocative?"
The Russians did, to quote from the wiki
During the early months of the airlift, the Soviets used various methods to harass allied aircraft. These included buzzing by Soviet planes, obstructive parachute jumps within the corridors, and shining searchlights to dazzle pilots at night. Although the USAFE reported 733 separate harassing events, including flak, air-to-air fire, rocketing, bombing, and explosions, this is now considered to be exaggerated. None of these measures were effective.[73][74] Former RAF Dakota pilot Dick Arscott described one "buzzing" incident. "Yaks (Soviet plane) used to come and buzz you and go over the top of you at about twenty feet which can be off putting. One day I was buzzed about three times.. The following day it started again and he came across twice and I got a bit fed up with it. So when he came for the third time, I turned the aircraft into him and it was a case of chicken, luckily he was the one who chickened out."
I wasn't asking the question from the Russian point of view.
The Russian point of view is the one that matters, they're the ones who actually care enough to fight
You have to remember that Putin is an unashamed Stalinist. Add into that his time spent with the Stasi in East Germany and you have a man who is determined to stop the rot that he perceives is currently being suffered by Russia. He is determined to project Russian might beyond its borders, for example Syria and Ukraine.His popularity is dependent upon this view of Russia as a great power.
well hacked offWas doing my bit as FCN coordinator today, got three helpline phone calls in
All three were dairy farmers within a hour's drive of here who were in deep financial trouble.
Business overdraft maxed out, haven't paid themselves (or anybody else) since January, cannot sell because if they sold now their assets would struggle to cover their liabilities (dairy cow prices, their largest semi-liquid asset, have crashed, and their land isn't worth what it was because it's been flooded and is still a sea of mud or covered in gravel) credit card stopped, owed money by government but thanks to Margaret Beckett choosing the most complex and unworkable system in the EU, they've still not been paid when it was supposed to come in December.
To show how bad it is, the Inland Revenue are accepting, "Look, when government pays me, I'll pay you," as an adequate reason for non-payment of tax!
They sound desperate Jim, is there any help available.
Very little. Not the sort that will cover the sort of money they need.If they were paid 1995 prices for their milk, allowing for inflation, they'd be getting 44p per litre. They're actually getting less than 20p. In fact even if they got the 1995 price they'd be getting 30p per litre.
You know all the white goods, IT stuff and phone contracts that nobody had 30 years ago. Well 30 years ago a higher proportion of your income was spent on food. Some sectors are losing out as the money from them goes to fund other lifestyle choices.
With food government steps in and pays farmers to keep producing because if we stopped the economy would crash.
But government has created a system so complicated that it cannot work which means not only is food production uneconomic, the money that's supposed to help cover the gap isn't coming in either. (And the money to help cover the gap was the gap between the 30p they got to and the 44p it should have been, not the 44p it should have been and the 14p some of them are getting
Sorry to hear about these farmers in trouble, but I'm not surprised to hear about the nightmare combination of red tape and bureaucracy spiralling out of control. Years ago, when I was applying for help with housing costs (I was at university at the time) I had the ridiculous situation of the government asking me how much the government paid me! I was getting a student loan at the time.
We seem to have got to the stage where government can no longer afford the cost of the bureaucracy it has created and is offloading it onto industry. From the inspectorate placed in this happy position it's party time, because any costs can just be placed on the industry
There was a case in France recently where the farmer killed the young inspector when she turned up at his farm.http://www.thelocal.fr/20160217/farme...
It is a sad case that, whenever one of our administrations creates a nonsense, the next lot in are keen to make it even worse.
For example, it took this lot months to accept the monies for flood relief/aid that the brussels beaurocrats kept asking if we wanted. Why didn't that just take it at once and use it to help?
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We're in danger of sleepwalking into a United States of Europe - the nation needs to wake up.
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you don't care more for the freedoms of England, said it yourself you want Scotland out the UK, then you'll no longer care about England.
Personally I think we should be more federalised not less, but I realise this is a minority view. It would civilise the UK, knocking off our selfish rough edges that see us return Tory governments time after time, it would uphold rights and make us less insular in our attitudes.