I spent today at the University College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at Bunso and the nearby Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. Those who have read my memoir The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and other Conflicts I Have Known will know that rural development in Africa has been the abiding passion of my working life. The good news is that for the first time a paperback edition of The Catholic Orangemen should be out in a week or so.
The abiding impression of today was the extent of local awareness of environmental issues and the need to maintain a fragile but wonderful ecology. This faces enormous challenges. I was intellectually aware of the extent of illegal gold mining in Ghana but unprepared for the evidence of its scale. Rivers that provide the drinking water for millions have been transformed into dead sewers of brown sludge. Having known them as live rivers, I was really shaken.
Ghana is looking to develop its bauxite industry and finally bring its aluminium smelters to life. This will impact the precise area I was visiting and I know from Jamaica that the environmental impact of bauxite mining is hideous. It is perhaps the most destructive of all extractive industries. It is a horrid irony that the bauxite scheme should impact the exact area where local traditional leadership (the Okyenhene) has pioneered environmentalism.
I feel conflicted. Our standard of living in the developed world has been based on the destruction of the forests which we conveniently forget once covered our lands. We wish to keep what remains of wild Africa as untouched as possible, because we know that otherwise it impacts us. But we are not prepared to expend serious resources into raising the standard of living of those who would be denied the immediate material benefits of industrial mining. My instincts are all to oppose the bauxite extraction on environmental grounds. But I am not so intellectually dishonest as to pretend that, with all the pollution and illnesses and destruction, the industry would not bring important wealth and employment. It would. I do not feel morally able to lecture poor communities on why they should remain undeveloped when they are excited by rare hope. I suspect many of you will think I am wrong.
On a more positive note, I was inspired by the commitment of the faculty of the University College, their research interests and their ability to deliver a first class curriculum to the students with minimal resources. It struck me how a major improvement could be made to their efforts by the injection of comparatively modest sums into laboratory equipment, for example. I shall be working on this and in the longer term on developing possible academic collaborations.
I loved the new canopy walk at Bunso built to promote eco-tourism.
It has five of these bridges, all of which are high, and one very high indeed as it crosses a valley. It is a great deal more adventurous than the one at Kakum. And yes, I did cross them all.
I am often very critical of the FCO, so it would be churlish of me not to note that Jon Benjamin leaves Accra this summer after an extremely effective and principled tenure as High Commissioner, including playing an effective and helpful role behind the scenes in the third peaceful transfer of power between political parties since Ghana became a real democracy in 2000. The more so since, most unusually, the UK was acting against the desires of the USA, and I suspect Jon was pivotal in that.
The worry now is that, having been activated by the attacks in recent days, RoPers will start kicking off randomly all over the place. Something in the ole religion just kicks in, even in relatively harmless types, and they start stabbing wildly at everything in the vicinity or mowing down pedestrians on the pavement. It does happen, you know. I believe the phenomenon is called ‘sudden Jihad’.
I think you’ve confused Islamist with Ukippers there.
Wasn’t it you yesterday claiming that a car had just crashed into a fence and you couldn’t see what all the fuss was about?
Yes it was him. What a fool.
Do you know how many people have been killed in Syria, Iraq and Yemen today? (to name a few)
Here’s a very small taste of what lunatics like you actually support…
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/22/war-correspondents-describe-recent-u-s-airstrikes-in-iraq-syria-and-yemen/
I’m not going to make any more grandiose statements, but I will once again remind certain posters here that they are guilty of promoting criminality of the highest order.
And you will be held to account.
Make no mistake about that.
You mean, how many Muslims have been killed by Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen today? Many I should think.
I’ll repeat Republicofscotland’s link from the last posts of the previous page…
http://yournewswire.com/60-false-flags-admitted-by-presidents-politicians-generals-and-spies/
(things tend to get lost when one page rolls over to another)
This isn’t ‘conspiracy theory’, it’s fact.
It’s also a fact that the USA and UK are not democracies; they are criminal entities that are run by complete psychos.
These criminal entities can only exist because a majority of egits believe the propaganda.
Sorry, what were you saying about twerrorists?
I’m sure you don’t give a shit about anything, which is why you’ll be one of the egits sleepwalking into the police state.
I’ll repeat again, the Nuremburg trials are the cornerstone of all modern international law, international law that Uncle Sam and his poodles completely ignore.
Ah, but, it’s the twerrorists, innit!
For feck’s sake grow-up.
Understand what’s happening here.
What’s happening here, Rob?
“Do you know how many people have been killed in Syria, Iraq and Yemen today?”
They seem to have been killing people in those places…well since the year dot.
Is it our fault that they somehow can’t, or maybe lack the initiative to go a week without killing somebody? Have you ever actually picked up an “Old Testament”?
http://www.bartleby.com/108/05/1.html
I mean, would you let your children read that shit?
yes indeed, here in Europe, our very own terrorists, sons of high ranking diplomats, can get arms in a jiffy and shot at Palestinian supporters, find solace in the writings of Mad Mel, conduct an email exchange discourse with Pam Geller, and once tried, end up in a three bedroom apartment in jail.
There are more terror inducing cretins inside the house than outside, those who sell arms to the Saudi’s are as bad as anybody who carries out terror attacks, they should be prosecuted. Only idiots blame religions for violence, they are as brainwashed as those who believe in religions.
“Only idiots blame religions”
You’re taking about Anon1 here you know? One of the keenest minds this side of the battery chicken farm.
“Only idiots blame religions”
Hey, today I some have time to spare so here goes 🙂
https://www.sott.net/article/290236-Monotheistic-religions-Playground-for-psychopaths
Why would anybody sane be begging some god for forgiveness? If his creations didn’t turn out right, it’s his bloody fault. That god is so totally incompetent.
The candles have been lit. The banners unfurled, proclaiming “Together we are stronger, hatred will not divide us”. The Trafalgar Square vigil has started.
This is how the left deals with reality when it is forced upon them. It’ll all be forgotten tomorrow, until the next time. And then the hashtags and candlelit vigils will start all over again.
I’m not going to deal with you anymore, and the non-stop spewing of hatred.
I’ll just say that the online press, almost entirely across the board, have not allowed any reader’s comments on the avalanche of pieces about the ‘Westminster attack’.
This is because many reader’s will call it out for the total bullshit that it all is.
But carry on believing that you live in a democracy, where everyone’s allowed a voice.
Fecking egits.
Absolutely no one I know has any interest in any media vigil, so I would imagine they’ll have to exaggerate the numbers
Of course we do, otherwise why would Craig, and RoS be wanting another referendum? If we all not allowed a voice then why would they be doing that? You’ve been spending far too long on conspiracy sites.
If they believed in democracy they would respect the referendum we already had.
Left/alt right should not be a zero- sum game of chance/opportunism. Unless your objective is destructivism/scorched earth.
Not much left for Materialists, though.
Kinda like old whatsisname who came back with a piece of paper saying “Peace in our time!”
Now me, I kinda like the speech made at Tilbury by Elizabeth Ist. It is far better that our enemies should live in fear!”
Hermann Goring, Joseph Goebbels assistant, of the Nazi propaganda machine, was addictec to morphine, but was lucid enough to state this.
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Hermann Goering.
George Galloway is to be a parliamentary candidate in Gorton
Yet we can’t quote his show, even though it is about Scottish Independence – how so?
George Galloway will say he is the real Labour candidate for Manchester Gorton, but not even Corbyn supports him
Even among the desperately unpopular far-left Labour leadership, Galloway is persona non grata, despite his wealth of experience, charisma and public profile
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/george-galloway-election-manchester-gorton-not-real-labour-a7645471.html
I rather agree with George’s gust, that the economic case for an Independent Scotland is falling away, the moment has past.
George’s Guest Brian Wilson
Brian David Henderson Wilson (born 13 December 1948 in Dunoon, SCOTLAND) is a politician in the United Kingdom. He was Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003 (Scottish Office 1997–1998, Department of Trade and Industry 1998–1999, Scottish Office 1999–2001, Foreign Office 2001 and Energy Minister, DTI 2001–2003). After standing down as a Minister prior to his departure from Parliament, he was asked by Tony Blair to act as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Overseas Trade.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/caltonjock.com/2017/03/22/brian-wilson-labour-party-agitator-a-sad-and-deluded-ex-politician-who-really-should-be-relaxing-and-enjoying-his-football-in-paradise/amp/
Brian Wilson is truly horrible. In the pocket of the nuclear power industry for decades, including (especially) while he was a minister.
michael, as I always say, I have a lot of differences with Mr Galloway, but at least the guy has integrity.
I’d rather vote for Galloway above any of the neo-con muppets, who are all a complete joke.
The red pill or the blue pill.
But you can’t vote for George Galloway because you live in a gite in France. If you want to vote for him you have to move to UK. Simples!
Heh. I thought you quoted Jeff Sessions.
Was I that far afield?
Göring was never Goebbels’s assistant. Except for the last couple of years of World War Two, when he was in semidisgrace with Hitler because of the failure of the Luftwaffe and his own personal failings, Göring always outranked Goebbels.
It really is amazing, not that there is such ignorance about basic facts like these but that rational people leap into action to publicise their ignorance long before being asked to do so.
Does RoS not realise, for example, that it discredits him to trot out this rubbish? Thank you for the correction.
Bevin.
Goering did help Goebbels out in propaganda speeches, before he fell out of favour with Hitler in 1943.
This being a prime example.
“To celebrate Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, Goebbels organized a torchlit parade in Berlin on the night of 30 January of an estimated 60,000 men, many in the uniforms of the SA and SS. The spectacle was covered by a live state radio broadcast, with commentary by longtime party member and future Minister of Aviation Hermann Göring.”
There are other instance when Goering aided Goebbels before he became Aviation Minister. Especially in Willam Carr’s A History of Germany 1815-1945.
Robert Lewis Koels The SS A History 1919-1945 and Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich.
What are you saying RoS? If you truly believe that then why are you talking about another referendum? Surely you are saying that a politician with a mission, such as Nicola Sturgeon, could pull the wool over all you intelligent Scottish persons, at will. And of course, the same goes for CM, who is currently on some guilt about being an ambassador for HM.
Endorse that about Brian Wilson. Proves Robert Frost’s adage to the hilt: “I never dared be radical when young, for fear I would be conservative when old”.
His dedication to nuclear power (arguably better than coal power, but I agree this is debatable) didn’t stop him keeping an interest in coal, though:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/20/coal-m20.html
Scottish Coal was one of the private operators the emerged from the sale of state-owned British Coal in 1994. It is now in the hands of bankruptcy administrators KPMG.
In total, some 4,500 workers are directly or indirectly employed in the Scottish mining industry, which in 2012 produced 4.8 million tonnes of coal—30 percent of the UK total—all from open cast operations. The last underground mine closed in 2002.
Of those being sacked, the largest numbers are at Douglas Water, Lanarkshire and Muirkirk and Patna in Ayrshire. Mining centres for hundreds of years, these are all isolated villages with alternative local employment almost nonexistent. Scottish Coal workers have previously been forced to accept a 10 percent wage cut, on the pretext of this being the only means to save their livelihoods. Scottish Coal is owned by Colin Cornes, who features on the Sunday Times Rich List as controlling a personal fortune of some £90 million. Another of the company’s directors is a former Labour energy minister, Brian Wilson.
Happy to note that the West Highland Free Press, which he founded when still a socialist, and now under workers’ control, fired him as a columnist in 2015. Probably says it all.
Brian Wilson, once the great hero figure of the radical left in Scotland and now a public relations man for the nuclear industry.
From lionization to ionization.
“Weʼre raising £300,000 to give to the Family of PC Keith Palmer”
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Keith-palmer
Somebody please open a page for the children of the Spanish lady who was killed too. Indeed for the children of all victims.
What about all the people you’ve butchered in the Middle East?
What about all the war crimes..? extensive use of depleted uranium munitions, white phosphorus and all the rest of it. You can also go look up ‘double tap strikes’ if you really want to know the level of murder that we carry out.
It’s so disgusting and sick, much like the child sex abuse that never gets properly investigated.
But you vote for all these sickos and complete lunatics.
Why?
Sometimes the best thing to do is just to laugh at the terrorists.
https://youtu.be/4F2pOQiskXM
(Graphic content)
1:03 is a great classic of the genre.
From Jenny McCartney in the Spectator.
“It was a pity for Northern Ireland that McGuinness failed his 11-plus. He was undoubtedly intelligent, and early academic success might have directed his talents towards something fruitful. Instead, those energies poured into the zealous dispensation of death for Irish republican ends. During the Troubles, McGuinness firmly believed that the cause of a united Ireland could be furthered by killing, and he was broad in his selection of targets.
“One illustration: according to Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston’s book Martin McGuinness: From Guns To Government, ‘McGuinness personally supervised the Derry IRA’s first major success of 1987.’ That ‘success’ was for two IRA men first to murder a psychology student called Leslie Jarvis, who taught leatherwork to inmates in Magilligan prison and was therefore deemed a ‘legitimate target’. The killers then used the dead man as bait, switching his briefcase with one containing a bomb. When two policemen arrived on the scene and examined the case, they were both blown to smithereens. An IRA volunteer interviewed by the authors explained that ‘McGuinness was in the house opposite watching everything. He quite often liked to be close when things went off to watch and see… it was part of his strategy, his way of refining operations.’
“I suppose it will be considered bad form to mention this kind of detail in the immediate aftermath of McGuinness’s death, when we are awash in eulogy. Sorry, chaps.”
Are you sure you aren’t confusing him with Obama watching Bin Laden being murdered?
It is fairly well established that the reason that Martin McGuinness, and many other young republicans, turned to violence was the murder of thirteen unarmed civil rights demonstrators on the 30 Janaury 1972 – ‘Bloody Sunday’ – by the Parachute Regiment. Which is a far more convincing reason for turning to violence rather than failing his 11+.
By 1972 Martin McGuinness was already second in command of the Provisional IRA and they had already committed murders, including the murder of two Scottish soldiers in 1971.
For those who can handle the Truth…
It’s not rocket science..
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/roger-stone-and-guccifer-913684
Craig? Bueller?
Leave us not forget the World. It’s large…not sequestered into the higher cultures…lol.
Hey Benny, you are supposed to be with the Jets.Not Joe McCarthy. It gets so cold in old Wisconsin maybe it effects the brain, who can say.
Yes Neville. We all know what becomes of the authors of surrender for the sake of peace.
They eat their own entrails to sacrifice their ‘point’, not that you understand a syllable.
Has there been any development in the case against Frank Kitson bought by the widow of one of the Cathokic men taken from a building contractors van and shot by a Loyalist gang that had the tacit support of the security apparatus. Kitson was a major force in developing Brit and later NATO ‘counter insurgency operations involving the formation of false gangs and the infiltration of others(Loew Intensity Operations). His defence case propiunded by The Telegrah is that he only devised strategy and did not directly direct these operations even if condoning them (‘the end justifies the means’).Certainly his moral responsibility is great.
I was doing some research on FCO expenditure. The schedules of their monthly outgoings are in the public domain on pdfs as they should be as it is our taxes that are being spent.
This is the list for December 2015. See £1.65m to G4S for ‘security services in Afghanistan’. That’s a total of over £3.5m in just one month to G4S. There is even a payment of £31,800 for guarding services in Ghana. The embassy I assume.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/599169/December_2015__revised__Spend_Report_CPG.csv/preview
Yet there is AUSTERITY here and there are cutbacks in this country’s education and health systems and local authority services are falling apart.
Did you know that total UK debt (including unfunded liabilities, PFI etc) exceeds £8.6 trillion. Think about this and realize the sheer idiocy of claiming that the government is spending taxpayers money. What they are spending is something altogether different.
If the government is not spending taxpayers money then what the government spends money has nothing whatsoever to do with the taxpayer. Why should it spend money on public services if it does not want to. It is not your money – so it is not your business.
Who care if public services are falling apart? Not the government obviously, and not the taxpayer otherwise they would have insisted that the government only spends taxpayers money.
This is what you get when you do not pay attention. If you don’t like the outcome blame yourself. After all who else is there to blame?
Well medieval taxes were gathered by the sheriff coming round and taking what he wanted, and if you didn’t pay he hit you over the head, so I guess it’s improved. They still spent most of the money on weapons and war cost then
Both the USA and UK are totally bankrupt (because of their absolutely crazy and corrupt monetary system).
The only way they can get out of jail is to steal the resources of other nations.
This means war,
Which is what you’re all being prepared for.
Those who swallow the propaganda should bear in mind that this will be the final war on this planet.
Well named @ 21.55
Oh come on Loony, you know the score, as long as the population get their episode of Eastenders, and/or Coronation Street every evening their lives are complete.
How does the public object to state policy? It isn’t as if the British state is democratic>
Should consultates, embassies, trade missions and international schools go unprotected?
Something tells me we are seeing the final offensives of the head-choppers in Syria. The big pushes in Hama and Damascus are about it so far as major operations are concerned. They’ll both fail (the Damascus one is already on the ropes) and then it’ll be down to low grade skirmishes for a while with the occasional suicide bombing (very few if any in Latakia).
Meanwhile the Yanks are now ensconced on the road to Raqqa. Once the endgame is here, if it isn’t already, they’ll want to hang on that. The original neocon plan was Balkanisation, after all, so maybe a Lite version of that is still on the cards.
We salute the lions of Syria.
The Donald has just committed 2000 ground troops to Syria, and with this latest nonsense ‘terrorist attack’ in London I guarantee that the UK Parliament will also put ‘boots on the ground in Syria’.
Wanna take a bet on it?
This one is not so straightforward. The Russians want Raqqa, and the US is trying to get there first – mostly to provoke Russia. The US is surely due for a “success” soon and may well get it when their forces are slaughtered by the Russians.
Should this come to pass then the way will be clear for an all out assault on Russia, and the end of the debt problem. Some collateral damage is to be expected, in this case the end of the human race, but the bigger victory will be the elimination of the debt.
Yeah I am so sophisticated that I realize there is no God in the sky, so I pray to real things like money. Surely the money will appreciate my sacrifice of all of humanity – I am so much more devout than the Aztecs could ever dream of being.
But, but I thought the singular virtue of Trump was NO WAR WITH RUSSIA!!.
Has his nimbus slipped?
The US is surely due for a “success” soon and may well get it when their forces are slaughtered by the Russians.
Oh come the day; it’s only about a century overdue. Let’s face it, even Vietnam kicked their arses, and now some of them are even talking of taking on the Koreans,,,,again. ROFL
Yes. Donald Trump…
How long was thy slumber, Rumplestilskin?
Yep, our well paid head chopping cadres have failed now it will be the sons and daughters raised on council estates who’s life’s get battered.
And If Israel continues to attack Syria, carries on with stealing Syria’s resources and occupying its land, then this might turn out to be another war for oil, gas and, off course, more stolen land.
“Something tells me we are seeing the final offensives of the head-choppers in Syria.”
Don’t be too sure: Westminster and Washington are deeply invested in this enterprise. And the only thing that can stop them is public protest at home-of which there is bugger all.
Take the cretins, for example, who are howling with grief over what happened yesterday outside the Commons while millions of Yemeni children are dying of malnutrition because the UK and US have shut down the air and seaports needed to import food for the victims of a famine made to amuse the Saud family.
The shameless politicians who gather to pledge their support for the Sauds and enable them to pursue their genocidal terrorist campaigns are real terrorists, of the worst kind, cowards who hide behind lies as they urge their idiotic minions onto ever greater crimes.
The red pill or the blue pill.
How fecking dumb are you people?!
The blue pill’s better at Anon1’s age. Ain’t no other way he can get it up when he’s staring at young men kill each other onbyou tube and pulling himself sore! ?
“How fecking dumb are you people?!”
Put it this way Rob, we are smart enough not to get our undies in a twist over things we have no chance of changing. The rich landowner has been shafting the poor working man since the beginning of time and what gives you the stupid idea that you are going to rock his boat?
I don’t know if May will go down that road, Rob. If the Blairites would remember who their twice-elected leader is, then the opposition to the Tories would be stronger. But May knows there is no threat to her, not with Brexit to deal with. She’s safe, for the time being, and doesn’t need a war. Plus, for all her elitist iniquities, she doesn’t have the gleam of the Messiah like Blair or the derring-do of the Sahib like Cameron.
But Trump is busy going native. He might give the neocons the reins so they leave him alone.
The neocons are stupid. Now there’s a direct physical connection between Tehran and Hezbollah. Probably the one thing Israel didn’t want, especially with an ascendant Russia (with some very nifty kit) in the frame.
I will stick to the revolution (no other word for it) that’s been happening in France, a revolution that the presstitutes will never tell you about.
The Establishment are quaking in their boots (hence you get the efforts of certain posters on boards like this).
Marianne.
We’re coming for the vermin.
And the vermin are terrified of us.
Who’s this ‘we’, Lone Ranger?
“And the vermin are terrified of us.”
Yawn! Of course they are not! This world is run by psychopaths, who know full well that they will only be brought down by their fellow psychopaths, after all, it’s the very essence of psychopathy.
http://barbariansinsuits.net/
“Countries we seek to dominate, from Indonesia and Guatemala to Iraq and Afghanistan, are intimately familiar with these brutal mechanisms of control. But the reality of empire rarely reaches the American public. The few atrocities that come to light are dismissed as isolated aberrations. The public is assured what has been uncovered will be investigated and will not take place again. The goals of empire, we are told by a subservient media and our ruling elites, are virtuous and noble. And the vast killing machine grinds forward, feeding, as it has always done, the swollen bank accounts of defense contractors and corporations that exploit natural resources and cheap labor around the globe.”
investigative journalist Allan Nairn
“They have pillaged the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy; if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of ’empire’. They make a desert and call it ‘peace’.”
Publius Cornelius Tacitus – a historian of the Roman Empire
“The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing America for quite some time.”
Morris Berman
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss
Author unknown.
Can you at least try and say something intelligent. I mean that against the backdrop of all the usual lunatics who preach racial hate and obedience to the state.
Oh-my-Gawd, does anyone have anything remotely intelligent to say?
Are we all brain dead?
Rob, no matter how bad things get I will alway extend a hand of friendship and support to anyone I meet who needs it.
As for this forum, it seems to me that it’s just a place to blow off a little steam.
Good luck to you and your nearest 🙂
Ben isn’t brain dead. It would be a mercy if he were. It is just that his brain works only to spew out talking points from the Clinton propaganda laugh factory. Which like all other Clinton fabrications destroys those who support them while occasioning only mirth in the world of grown ups.
What do you think people in Beijing make of the Putin elected Trump thing, Ben? The whole world is pissing itself with laughter and incredulity at these ‘revelations’ that you pull out of the hat with a dlourish every few hours.
It is madness, mate. Get a grip!
O dear. No-one thinks for themselves, eh. Anyone who disagrees with Putin and Trump is echoing Clinton. If your brain works, can you not see how that sort of thinking affects it?
Bubble mentality. Pop the bubble, Bevin. Think for yourself.
Pete Townsend
“Author unknown.”
Wrong! Author Pete Townsend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYMD_W_r3Fg
H.T.H.
Who ?
bevin and Shatnersrug, if you’re ever in my part of the world I’d be delighted to buy you a glass of vin rouge.
But you don’t seem to be understanding what’s going on in France at the momernt.
The mainstream media in France are worse than those in the US. It’s all an illusion.
Hence, you’re not really being told what’s going on.
I don’t have the energy to go into all this right now.
Listen, watch and understand what a revolution really is.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s first words to a crowd of more than 100,000 were: “I knew you would come”.
This is real history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YiRoYiucJ0
You will never see anything like this reported in the MSM. This is the real deal, and it directly addresses the lives of ordinary people.
“a glass of vin rouge”
But Aussia vin rouge is so much cheaper and much better quality than that French stuff.
No, zed, it’s just made for the thickos with a nice screw top lid for you to open in the park.
Yes, but Kangaroo feet are far better for treading grapes than sweaty French peasants.
I live in Bordeaux country and would respectively say that what you lot drink in the rest of the world is over-priced crap. You wouldn’t know a decent wine if it bit you on the nose, inbetween scoffing down GMO food crap and all the rest of it.
But no NO. it’s all NORMAL! This is how we MUST live. I am a complete moron and LOVE being subservient to corporations.
Actually Rob, I used to make my own.
Surprisingly, Rob G has a point. “Keep the best and export the rest” applies to more countries than France, too.
My tastebuds have not been yuppified enough to really worry about it, though. Any old Rioja around a tenner will do me, and for the rest, Chilean is more than adequate (can be exceptional in Chile, btw)
Tilll they started putting blue dye in the meths
It’s Israeli for me, from the Golan Heights region. It can hold its own with the best, but what makes it a winner is the sweet bouquet of lefty tears in every drop. I order it by the caseload.
It’s not lefty tears, Anon. It’s what the makers put in it in the hope that lefties will drink it.
Fat chance though. BDS rules.
This is what life is like for an 8yr old Palestinian child living under Occupation.
Soldiers drag 8-year-old from home to home looking for stone-throwers, Hebron, March 2017
https://youtu.be/erZKXJOkV9s
BDS harms Palestinians and immigrant workers, Ba’al. Go to Israel and see for yourself. It’s not Israelis working the fields.
Key Israeli industries such as technology, pharma, security and military are unaffected by BDS.
But thanks for reminding me. I promised that every time I see ‘BDS’ posted approvingly here, I would go out of my way to buy Israeli products. So a celebration of Israeli produce it is at this week’s Waitrose shop. Seven nights of Israeli-themed cuisine. Yum.
Just my way of helping Palestinian farmers and immigrant labourers in Israel. 🙂
@Sharp Ears – You want to sharpen up a bit. It is not only Palestinians that are being mistreated.
Here is an entertaining little story of a 64 year old man being thrown alive into a crocodile pit
http://newobserveronline.com/sa-farmer-thrown-alive-crocodile-pit/
Or how about a middle aged lady having her eyes gouged out
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4219230/South-African-mother-naked-EYES-gouged-out.html
Maybe you are feeling a bit cold and think that being blow torched to death may warm you up.
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-24/british-woman-tortured-with-blowtorch-and-killed-in-south-africa/
There are no demonstrations or protests for these people. No international outcry, no collections, no aid, no empathy, no saccharine blog posts, and absolutely no sanctuary. What it is, what it is, when we elevate the lives of some above those of others.
Shatnersrug, CNN, MS-whatever-bollocks, the BBC, etc, don’t tell you what’s really going on. They’re just propaganda outfits.
Then someone like me comes along and tells you that there’s a revolution going on in France, the country where modern democracy started.
But you don’t want to listen to me, someone who’s lived in France for decades, who is trying to tell you what’s really going on.
So let’s slew back to the BBC, CNN, et al. Remember, they will tell you how to think. They are ‘experts’, and you are egits if you don’t take the red pill or the blue pill.
Glad to hear it. It is just a question of the revolutionaries agreeing that Mel is the cat to put among the pigeons while the media is boosting LePen by howling that she is dangerous- like you I suspect that she won’t change a thing.
The future for the UK.
Armed police
Railings by the mile
Bollards on every pavement
Gated communities
Private security goons
…..
Ultimately. No NHS. No elections. Just one ruling group….forever.
Should we have Sharia, Mary?
I have detected that we are being told that The Westminster Attack was not Islamic.
The attacker was not a true Moslem, just a British convert, therefor Islam is not the problem.
I beg to differ, I think it is THE problem, for the world.
It will increasing try to dominate and crush the freedom out of the world.
World domination by Islam is the goal.
Fourth victim in Westminster attack named
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39377883
A 75-year-old man killed in the Westminster attack has been named by police as Leslie Rhodes.
Mr Rhodes, from Streatham in south London, was one of three people hit by a car on Westminster Bridge. The fourth victim was PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death outside Parliament.
Police said two more “significant arrests” have been made in the West Midlands and the North West.
They said 50 people were injured and two are still critical.
Updating reporters outside New Scotland Yard, Mr Rowley said two police officers remain in hospital with “very significant” injuries.
The attacker, Khalid Masood, 52, used a number of aliases and was known to police. Mr Rowley said his birth name was Adrian Russell Ajao.
Mr Rowley appealed to “anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited”.
Born in Dartford, Kent, he was known to the police and his previous convictions included causing grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences. He was believed to have been living in the West Midlands, and had previously spent time in Crawley, West Sussex, and Rye and Eastbourne, both in East Sussex.
I fail to see the relevance of that comment from the t…l’s apprentice aka Villager.
I was talking about risng fascism.
Armed police, railings by the mile etc.pretty much IS Sharia.
So listening to you and Mary, Sharia = Fascism?
If I may add Sharp Ears, the increasing use of Civil Enforcement as a generator of revenue, both for Local Authorities and their stakeholders. All backed up with enhanced use of CCTV coverage & ANPR. Last week I was parked on a retail park in Crewe, and was informed by the attendant that if I left the car park, on foot, for any reason, even if I had visited the shops the car park served, that he would ticket my car for an FPN. As, that was indeed what I intended to do, it was decent of him to let me know. But some people had already been ticketed, and were obviously furious.
The solution to that one is simple. Stay at home and shop on-line and let them deliver to your door.
Facile response from one of the sheeple. Do food banks do deliveries now? Yes. Let’s have more vans whizzing around delivering groceries where the drivers get little in return for long hours. Self employed too.
Food banks are great. They enable you to have the latest iPhone AND feed your kids! ?
“Facile response from one of the sheeple. Do food banks do deliveries now?”
Do people who use food banks have cars? I think you need to read from the beginning my facile friend. If somebody can afford to run a car then they sure as hell ought to be able to buy their food.
If it wasn’t permitted to use the car park for shopping what is it actually there for?
Parking attendants these days have targets of how many tickets they’re expected to give out so you were very lucky.
Clearly, the Car park is now for the sole use of B&M and Dunhelm customers, as they are the only outlets of the site. The point is that, once you have visited either of those stores, you are expected to leave. You cannot pop across the road to Tesco or visit the nearby (newly built) Community & Leisure centre. However, it appears this is a recent development, maybe the Owners felt they needed to if people were parking for a few hours and clogging up the car park. However, it illustrates the point I wished to make earlier about the growth in civil enforcement by the corporate sector.
Dreadful little Hitler’s. At the conclusion of treatment following cancer where the radiotherapy ( which saved my life along with surgery) caused damage to my teeth and jawbone, I came home from my 21st dental appointment. On my way and feeling groggy, I called into a Lidl for mi!k, etc. I was in the shop for 18 mins but completely forgot to enter my car reg. number on a screen.
Three weeks later, a letter in red printing with a photo of my car entering and leaving the car park, arrived from one of these parking shark outfits with a demand for £90. The DVLA are allowed to give such entities drivers’ names and addresses.
So I paid up not feeling up to a law case and increased costs. I complained to Lidl. Nothing and I have never been to one of their shops since.
Just one tiny speck of what is happening.
Fascism was originally defined by Benito Mussolini as a partnership between government and corporations.
For the time being, these attacks are not very well planned or coordinated, hence they slip through the net. Those that are well planned make the basic error of using the internet and mobile devices to communicate, hence they are easily thwarted by the security services. The recent pipe bomb plot by a jihadist group from Birmingham was picked up because they used mobile technology to communicate.
Dozens of terrorist plots are thwarted in this way each year. Sooner or later these groups are going to wise up to the fact, and that is when it is going to become extremely difficult to stop them.
It is worth contemplating what might have happened if it had been two vehicles and four jihadis. They easily would have overwhelmed the Palace security. Using Mumbai or the Westgate shopping mall attacks in Kenya as a blueprint, in a properly planned and coordinated attack, avoiding use of the Internet and mobile phones, the results would have been devastating.
….and will be in the future. Innocent people are their targets, not necessarily the halls and palaces of power. While Mary is worried about street furniture (whether she is on or off her rocker), the whole of our cities are utterly exposed. As good as every single building.
Or this…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4338508/Child-suicide-bomber-caught-Hazard-Chelsea-kit.html
My name is Sharp Ears Villager.
Why do you want me to know?
“My name is Sharp Ears Villager.”
So what made you think Alcyone was talking about you?
LOL. Checkmate.
I wonder if it’s fashionable to have multiple-aliases these days?
Reflection/perception: Full-marks to every corner of the security services to have kept the cuckoos at bay. So many cuckoos, so few incidents; that says something.
OK, Anon1, I appoint you emperor of the world. How are you going to deal with the Muslim menace that you enthusiastically and repeatedly describe? If the answer includes “send them all back where they came from,” please define “them.”
Thanks, Node. ☺
First thing would obviously be to crush Scotland.
Can you appoint me dictator of the UK instead? If I’m emperor of the world then there would be little point to the deporting, would there?
First thing would obviously be to crush Scotland.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, what an uproarious rib tickler. Right, now that we’ve got the jokes out of the way, how are you going to deal with the Muslim menace that you enthusiastically and repeatedly describe?
You’d only wet your bed if I told you, Node.
So you have no solution. You see the problem as caused by fear and hatred between cultures, and you repeatedly and enthusiastically seek to increase the fear and hatred.
I see.
Alright, you’ve got me. I’d ask Philip Schofield to do the return leg of his defiant walk to the end of Westminster Bridge. That would really show them.
So, Node if you were God, how would you eliminate fear and hatred?
Yes, I can see why you think that’s funny.
Remember D.S.K. Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn?
French elections: Hollande rejects claim he orchestrated media leaks to derail Fillon’s campaign
https://www.rt.com/news/382110-hollande-fillon-leaks-scandal/
French President Francois Hollande has rebuked accusations by conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon, who accused him of ordering leaks of compromising materials about Fillon’s wife getting a “fictitious” job as a parliamentary aide.
Fillon has seen his ratings plummet since the revelation by satirical French magazine Le Canard Enchainé in January that his wife, Penelope Fillon, has received some 700,000 euros ($757,000) over 15 years allegedly working as his parliamentary assistant. The report came under heightened media scrutiny and allegations of a fictitious character were put forward, eventually prompting a formal investigation into purported fraud.
Earlier this week, reports emerged that the investigation has been broadened with Fillon now facing allegations of “aggravated fraud, forgery and use of forgeries,” with the latest additions to the case relating to him reportedly falsifying documents to prove his wife’s employment.
In an interview to France 2 television channel on Thursday, Fillon has appeared to put part of the blame for his electoral woes onto the French government and, personally, on Francois Hollande.
Sobering thought for the day: ‘peripheral’ threat Masood wasn’t even in the top 3,000 that MI5 considers to be threats.
They will expand their emphasis on ‘converts’, and so they should.
The converts are often the worst. They feel they have something to prove.
Richard Reid
Germaine Lindsay
Michael Adebolajo
Michael Adebowale
Adrian Russell Ajao.
Perhaps Giyane, or any other muslim scholars who regularly comment here, can explain why their religion is so attractive to UK resident black lumpenproletarians and petty criminals, and why these converts then go on to perform (or attempt to, in Reid’s case) such bloody deeds in the name of their new found faith ?
They can’t, but I can. It’s derived from the perception by Afro-Caribbean descendants (the Caribbean and many African grandparents were usually pretty good Christians) that whitey is oppressing them. To some extent justified by some posters here. Lacking a suitably militant black power movement in the UK, its natural members are suckers for the message of radicalising imams, who feign sympathy. Add to that gang culture, veneration of American street criminals aka rappers, and what do we expect?
Useful idiots, literally. In the good ol’ days of the 7th century, they’d have been slaves under Islam, too.
Are you referring to Adrian Elms aka Adrian Russell, brought up in Kent by his mother?
This is another example of a giant corporation distorting the truth and scientific fact, poisoning the people in the process.
‘New report shows glyphosate producers are “buying science”
European and US regulators used industry-sponsored reviews with fundamental flaws in their evaluations that found glyphosate is not carcinogenic
Monsanto and other glyphosate manufacturers appear to have distorted scientific evidence on the public health impacts of glyphosate in order to keep the controversial substance on the market, according to a new report released today by GLOBAL 2000 (Friends of the Earth Austria member of PAN Europe) with the support of Avaaz, BUND, Campact, CEO, GMWatch, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, PAN Germany, and Umweltinstitut München.’
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17518-new-report-shows-glyphosate-producers-are-buying-science
But hey! it’s OK folks. Princess Anne is in favour.
Genetically-modified crops have benefits – Princess Anne
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39329933
STOP PRESS!
It’s all over! We have defeated them !!
Philip Schofield has walked across Westminster Bridge “in tribute and defiance”.
Thank God this fu***r doesn’t post here. God forbid he would arrive on Mary’s raft.
http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1490348504.html
It’s a moment to thank Craig and his team.
Sadiq Khan has got some cheek, hasn’t he?
This is the man who called “moderate” Muslims “uncle Toms” !!
Certainly beats your being a ‘false flag ‘ runner for WikiLeaks.
Blog favourite, Aangirfan, has called out the London attacks as a “false flag” (shocked, I was).
Something to do with MI5 mind control techniques apparently.
Perhaps some of this blog’s many fans of Aangirfan could tell us all about it?
Mind control techniques are well-developed. Certain types of people are more susceptible than others but unfortunately there are a lot of them around. Darren Brown once hypnotised someone to kill Stephen Fry. He would have succeeeded had the planted gun not been loaded with blanks.
” Aangirfan, has called out the London attacks as a “false flag” ”
I also notice the sun came up this morning.
Just because mind control is or might be possible isn’t evidence it was used on Wednesday besides Angrifan seems totally confused (as always) as to who the perpetrator(s) were. Was it the mind controlled Masood or the two bald white guys? Did it really happen at all or was it staged?
A superb essay by Kevin Myers on the latest food crisis in Africa.
http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
This is crude and very nasty hatred posing as a kind of dispassionate peudo-science. Pornography.
Myers is clearly demented to the point that he is thoroughly ignorant of history. There is nothing new about famine relief, which has been among the first priorities of every community or society ever organised.
There are those in Ireland who still celebrate the bracing effects of the potato famines- the idea of poor people dying of starvation and of babies in particular having their lives cut short gives them a real feeling of relief. No doubt Myers once owned stolen property in Kenya or Rhodesia.
Your recent postings suggest that it will not be long before you pull on the old black shirt that granddad left to you and go into the streets to bash muslims.
As
Crude, nasty, dispassionate, demented, pornography, no less!
Notice, no counter-argument.
If you want to make a conservative angry, tell him a lie. If you want to make a leftist angry, tell him the truth.
So Trump’s a leftist? Interesting. Or maybe he’s just angry at everything.
Ah bevin – You use so many words to say so little. Why not just confirm that either you believe the exponential function to be a false construct or that you believe it to be racist that is capable of being reformed through purity of thought.
As for people who have stolen land in Kenya or Rhodesia then who are these people? Could you possibly have in mind white settlers? If so then on what logical grounds are we unable to describe people in the UK of African or Asian origin as having stolen land in the UK. Once your observation is parsed for its true meaning then the racist content of your thoughts is clear for all to see.
With regard to your devotion to Marx I leave you with this thought:
“Aint it hard when you discovered that he really wasn’t where its at.
After he took from you everything he could steal”
” No-one thinks for themselves, eh. Anyone who disagrees with Putin and Trump is echoing Clinton. If your brain works, can you not see how that sort of thinking affects it?
“Bubble mentality. Pop the bubble, Bevin. Think for yourself.”
Ba’al you obviously don’t read the guff that is being peddled by the Democrats these days. It makes McCarthyism look subtle in comparison. You read the links that Ben sends and you would realise that there is nothing funny about ther ;lynch mob mentality being developed in the States.
As to either Trump or Putin, I have said repeatedly that Trump is nothing more than a con man and a chancer while Putin is simply engaging in diplomatic manoeuvres to prserve what is left of his country’s strategic position.
You are being very foolish by slipping into conformity with the CIA world view, but perhaps your job depends upon making such obeisances? If so my commiserations, I have the luck to be independent, which allows me to think for myself.
“I have the luck to be independent, which allows me to think for myself”
Lol. You are hopelessly wedded to your ideology, bevs. The last thing you are capable of is independent thought.
I see nothing coming from the Democrats that isn’t closely mirrored by the Republicans, let alone by Trump. Debate, in the US, is becoming obsolete in favour of hurling accusations at each other (some of which, on both sides, are under investigation by the law)
I’d still like to see Trump’s tax returns, in something like full. As to Putin, were the annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing infiltration of Ukraine, ‘diplomatic manoeuvres’? How many dead so far around Donetsk? You’re too kind to both of them.
No, my job doesn’t depend on my opinions, which are irrelevant to it. Nor are my opinions conditioned by my job, except for some mutual agreement on priorities. Having made the slur, can you say the same?
Our burden in the US is Progressive wankers whose soft bigotry has little to offer except reducing liberties.. They have initiates across the Pond for cold comfort unfortunately.
Brussels mayor: All our mosques are controlled by Salafists
https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-mayor-all-our-mosques-are-controlled-by-salafists/amp/
The newspaper article they censored.
This is the page which was removed from the Evening Times web site and Facebook page after the paper was harassed and intimidated by Nationalists.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170322173817/http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15173786.Hilarious_Nicola_Sturgeon____missing____posters_appear_around_Glasgow_Southside_constituency/
Stand up for freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Scotland.
What unionists mean by a First Minister “sticking to the day job” is a First Minister who meekly accepts all the austerity and all the moves against Scottish democracy that come from Westminster.
That Scotland would have nothing but that kind of First Minister was the hope of Westminster when the Scottish Parliament was set up.
Sturgeon and colleagues work hard at the day jobs – as did Salmond – which is why the SNP is polling more than the unionists parties put together after 10 years as the Scottish Government.
But part of that day job of First Minister is to look after Scotland’s best interests as regards how Scotland is governed and not just to take any old shabby treatment from London.
The unionists are desperately playing the card that independence is just some political obsession that has little relevance to people and their concerns. On the contrary if Scotland is to preserve free health and education and build a better society then independence is a necessity and not a frivolity.
Westminster has often been accused of treating Scots as second class citizens. The truth is that with perpetual hard right Tory – or even Labour neoliberal government – that ignores Scotland’s wishes and seeks to overturn devolution, Scots will be citizens in name only and will be de facto colonial subjects of the Metro elites.
Real Scots want Nicola to stick to the day job – her conception of the day job – because that entails fighting for social justice and democracy against the authoritarian hand of Westminster.
Health and education are devolved and have been for some time.
The massive cuts in services which would be necessary for an independent Scotland to reduce our fiscal deficit to reasonable levels are the greatest threat to free health and education.
Staying in the UK means having May’s government squeeze the block grant so that Scotland does not embarrass England by retaining free health care in glaring contrast to the privatised NHS down south.
If Scotland leaves the EU then it opens up a huge staff shortage in NHS Scotland.
If Scotland stays in the UK and brexits then devolution will be worthless as powers will be taken away or nullified and the budget reduced by degrees.
It was EU pressure that forced Westminster to reluctantly accept bringing in a second devolution referendum in 1997. With the EU gone from Scotland’s political scene Westminster will continue the project of effectively scrapping devolution. A process already underway.
Westminster’s continued cuts to the bloc grant are the greatest threats to Scotland’s health and education.
Next Tuesday Holyrood will pass a indyref vote.
May’s council elections should see the SNP take more positions including Glasgow.
Whilst Labour and the Tories once again unite to try and thwart them.
The council election results should be a good indicator, of the mood of the people with regards to the political parties in Scotland.
But The Scottish people
do not want another referendum,
tis only the psychos in the S. N. P. who want another once in a life time referendum
Who say the Scots don’t want another referendum, the Tories? Labour? The Libdems? Or the unionist media?
Michael
Either the unionists win indyref2, in which case you’re not going to complain any longer about it having taken place.
or
The nationalists win indyref2, in which case you can’t say there was no demand for a referendum.
What about the harm a referendum does to Scotland and Scotland’s people? What about the divisions, friends and families split onto different sides. At a time when Scotland should be coming together, it’s people uniting and uniting with the rest of Britain the Nationalists want to drive the wedge in deeper.
We can complain about that can’t we? The permanent splitting apart of the people in a neverendum.
Fred, the proposed referendum may close the divisions that already exist, with these differing opinions arising from the most unsatisfactory position Scotland currently finds itself in, with UK debt spiralling out of control. These exist whether there is a referendum or not i.e. the referendum is a symptom, not the cause of division. You may disagree but, if so, we’ll need to agree to differ. It’s not important to me that you change your opinion or listen to alternative thoughts or proposals. What is important, is that we don’t call each other “retards”! Enjoy the weekend and hope your brolly doesn’t end up in St Margaret’s Hope!
“Sturgeon and colleagues work hard at the day jobs – as did Salmond”
All were slacking when it came to sorting out the currency issue.
Working hard, in the House of Lords as well after quaffing, a three course meal and washing it down with fine wines and spirits (very hard work) a couple of hours sleep on the red benches, followed by picking up their £300 quid fee.
One feels extremely sympathetic to towards those overworked lords.
It’s the best funded carehome in the country. ?
It’s peerless.
No Branches.
It’s RIDICULOUS. ?
This is the page which was removed from the Evening Times web site
….. and here’s the page on the evening times website which proves that it wasn’t removed :
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14749915.Nicola_Sturgeon_urged_to_focus_on__day_job__and_rule_out_a_second_vote_on_independence/
Get a grip, Fred.
No it isn’t. That is a completely different page from September 2016.
The removed page was dated 22 March 2017.
The clue is that your page has a completely different URL to the one which was removed.
Oops, my mistake. It’s so difficult to tell one burst of anti-SNP false outrage from another.
Today’s ‘Telegraph’ (!) at least mentions the US slaughter of 230 civilians in Mosul yesterday. The article says they were mostly women and children.
There is not a single mention of this atrocity on the BBC.
If it had been Russia doing this, it would be on every front page and would be the BBC’s top story. The phrase ‘war crime’ would have been brandished.
“EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said Brexit is “a failure and a tragedy”
“The European Commission President also confirmed Britain faced a divorce bill of around £50bn”
https://www.964eagle.co.uk/news/uk-news/2253660/brexit-a-failure-and-a-tragedy-says-eu-boss-jean-claude-juncker/
Well Juncker is not wrong there Brexit will be a typhoon, that will smash into HMS Brexitania, causing untold damage to a already stagnant economy.
Still I’m sure those that are struggling to make ends meet, will feel comforted, knowing more armed police and CCTV cameras will be watching our every move.
The European Commission President also confirmed Britain faced a divorce bill of around £50bn
And if we don’t pay what then ? As this study of infractions of EU law by Member states states –
When a Member State does not want to comply with EC rules, it can escape punishment for about a
decade.
http://www.eipa.eu/files/repository/eipascope/20070622102127_pniSCOPE2007-1_internet-7.pdf
Given that record of compliance and enforcement, any ‘bill’ Juncker or his succesor sends the UK on leaving can be parked on the mantelpiece for a good 10 years- during which time the EU, starved of UK budget contributions, will likely implode.
Old Mark.
So you think the largest trading bloc on the planet will implode, whilst Britain will do what exactly, once outside the Single Market and into a possible WTO?
This is Britain not Singapore or Hong Kong, where the work ethic is much stronger.
Tell me Old Mark, how much further would British wages need to be cut to become competitive in the WTO?
Firms already widely out sources to China, India, Bangladesh etc, where goods can be made for a fraction of the cost, of what it would cost in Britain.
Add in that Trump has loudly stated that American protectionism comes first, and things don’t look so rosy in the Brexit garden.
RoS-
A trading relationship with the EEA based on WTO rules is certainly not the ideal outcome for the UK, and May’s apparent refusal to consider possible EFTA lite arrangements is petulant and short sighted on her part.
The point I sought to make earlier was that Juncker, to use Maoist terminology, is essentially a ‘paper tiger’ – his threats to impose a hefty ‘divorce bill’ on the UK are, as the relevant Lords’ committee concluded recently, bluster, and he has no means of enforcing payment.
If you take another look at the paper I linked to you’ll notice as well that it is Eurosceptic countries such as the UK that have the best record in ‘following the rules’, whilst the ‘communitaire’ members by and large don’t give a flying fuck about compliance and paying ‘fines’ in good time. No wonder therefore Juncker is worried about other net contributor states, who have hitherto been Brussels’ teacher’s pets when it comes to compliance, reconsidering their participation in the ‘project’ in the light of a UK withdrawal.
Yes Old Mark your link was very interesting, in that compliance is based around EU law.
I suppose there’s no real precedent when it comes to a country seceding from the EU, and as you say the EU couldn’t enforce the payment.
However, I’d have thought not paying the divorce bill, would only inflame matters. Though logic determines that trade comes before feelings.
Still I feel the EU has the ball in its court, whilst May’s lack of movement on the notion of a hard Brexit, does Britain no favours whatsoever in my opinion.