A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
Non-sequitur alert.
Not really. Just an anecdote that Germany isn't the shining beacon of joy he was making out.
I can give other evidence, if you like. We could start with their actions over Ukraine?
(This is not to say that Germany is uniquely bad; just that every country has flaws.)
All the shops being closed here today isn't great, especially as our self catering place was a bit stingy with the toilet roll supply. However, a nice man in the local petrol station gave me a roll for free, which was nice. Also, Germany has almost 10 times as many refugees as the UK and hasn't proposed deporting them to genocide hotspots in Africa as far as I know.
Who do Britons want to win the French presidential election?
All Britons: Macron 37% / Le Pen 19%
Con voters: Macron 24% / Le Pen 37% Lab voters: Macron 53% / Le Pen 8%
There they are again, that 20%, same people - Trump, Hard Brexit, now LePen. Will also, if asked, be very keen on the idea of decanting refugees to Rwanda. What a horror show. Should be packed off to Rwanda themselves imo.
Looking at those figures confirms for me why I left the Conservative Party. People who can endorse Le Pen have nothing in common with me. Shows the unfortunate distance and direction the Conservative Party has travelled in its desire to appease and please those who voted for Farage.
I agree with you completely (you can share the smelling salts).
Macron is an abject, awful, inappropriate, disaster of a quasi-effective President.
He's also the only option on the ballot and needs to win. Anyone backing Le Pen is either ignorant or has very unpleasant politics, or both.
Although I believe you once also voted for Farage, in some respects Le Pen is now more the French Farage than the French Nick Griffin, with economic policies closer to Labour than the Tories
For the umpteenth time I never voted for Farage.
I cast a protest vote to get rid of a failed Prime Minister and to expel Farage from the European Parliament.
I have never and would never cast a vote to get Farage into Parliament, I voted to get him out of it.
Smelling salts no longer needed. You voted for Farage. Your excuses are no doubt similar to those people in France who will use similar excuses for reasons to vote Le Pen. There are no excuses that excuse voting for fascists IMO.
By accusing Farage of being a fascist you degrade your whole argument. But then when it comes to the EU you never had much of an argument anyway.
It is an area where we disagree Richard, though we agree on many other areas I think. Farage is most definitely a Fascist IMO. You voted for him once I believe so I am sure you are sensitive on the subject because you are clearly not.
PS. If by "my argument" you mean my position regarding Brexit, then I have been proven 100% correct. It was a complete and utter waste of time. It was pointless and has benefitted but a few. I am not in favour of re-join, so my "argument", old chap, is far more rational than yours, which was built on fairy tales.
Why aren't you in favour of rejoining? Seems like a good option to me.
IMO it isn't practical, certainly not in the short to medium term. My main objection to Brexit was that it was pointless and divisive. I think rejoining would certainly be the latter. A better half way house would be to have a strong trading relationship with EU, which might be an EEA type solution if not in name, but in practice. I suspect that maybe one day we will rejoin, but the other 27 will only allow that if there is a clear massive majority in favour. It will take many decades for that to happen.
I'm going to give you some unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it. Don't focus on what other people want. Implicit in your post there is that you feel an obstacle to rejoining is lack of current support for it. Well you aren't wrong about that, but that shouldn't affect your opinion. Even if only 1 in 1000 agreed with me about something I would still hold true to my opinion. Obviously there's a practical element here, and I don't waste any time talking about rejoin, but if it comes up in conversation hell yeah, why not. Sign me up today. Do I think it's going to happen soon? No. But don't let the perceived unpopularity of an opinion prevent you from even having it.
Thanks for the unsolicited advice. As a humble chap I am never too proud to ignore it. My post was an opinion based on pragmatism. Most of my political view is right-centrist and pragmatic. Change for the sake of change is pointless. One of the strengths of the British (relative) democracy is the fact that it has evolved through the application of pragmatism . Show me one ordinary person who has benefitted in their every day life from Brexit. You will struggle. The same will apply to Scottish "independence". A few will benefit, but they are mainly the people that tried to convince others the change was essential or desirable when in truth they knew it was pointless.
I hear what you're saying, but I think you and I agree that there's a little more to the idea of rejoining the EU than "change for change's sake". That doesn't mean agree with it as a prescription for the short term, but it IS emphatically a practical and evidence-based policy idea. Opinions may diverge, and it's certain that there will be both benefits and drawbacks. But it's not a wild step into the unknown for no good reason.
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
The EU is the mean-spirited one. They could let Brits cross their borders without let or hindrance. They choose not to. We are friends and allies, we just choose not to be a member of their expensive club.
Yes if only they granted us rights that we have refused to grant them, like good chaps, what. Don't they know who we are?
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
Non-sequitur alert.
Not really. Just an anecdote that Germany isn't the shining beacon of joy he was making out.
I can give other evidence, if you like. We could start with their actions over Ukraine?
(This is not to say that Germany is uniquely bad; just that every country has flaws.)
I was just thinking earlier today that the Britain-is-awful-Germany-is-perfect crowd on social media had gone rather quiet in the past few weeks. Perhaps I thought too soon.
I preferred the Britain-is-awful-Sweden-is-perfect period of the early 2000s. Halcyon days.
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
No problems for us, everyone very friendly.
Well, bully for you. That obviously negates the experience we had. Not.
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
Non-sequitur alert.
Not really. Just an anecdote that Germany isn't the shining beacon of joy he was making out.
I can give other evidence, if you like. We could start with their actions over Ukraine?
(This is not to say that Germany is uniquely bad; just that every country has flaws.)
You’d have an argument if he’d said Germany was perfect, which he didn’t.
You cannot see the generalisations he was making in his post?
The logic there is almost too fncked up to comprehend, but it does strongly suggest that the Russian public have no idea of the scale of their losses to date if this incident is such a trigger. The desperate anger is palpable.
Harder to hide the loss of a ship, especially such a famous one, than the loss of a unit. Unless you are running a Pals Battalion system you can tell each casualty!s family that they were one of the unlucky few.
It's rather difficult to see how Putin can remain after cocking this up so royally.
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
Non-sequitur alert.
Not really. Just an anecdote that Germany isn't the shining beacon of joy he was making out.
I can give other evidence, if you like. We could start with their actions over Ukraine?
(This is not to say that Germany is uniquely bad; just that every country has flaws.)
All the shops being closed here today isn't great, especially as our self catering place was a bit stingy with the toilet roll supply. However, a nice man in the local petrol station gave me a roll for free, which was nice. Also, Germany has almost 10 times as many refugees as the UK and hasn't proposed deporting them to genocide hotspots in Africa as far as I know.
Carnyx said: "You forgot some of the First Nations lands, with beads, blankets, and bullshit lies."
No, I didn't. But I recognize that the interactions with hundreds of tribes, over hundreds of years, can not be summarized briefly. Three examples, which you are unlikely to find in, for example, the Guardian:
When William Penn established a settlement in what is now Pennsylvania, he bought a stretch of land along the Delaware River from the Lenape, with an option for more. When it came time for the option -- as far as a man could walk in a day -- to be exercised, he took a leisurely stroll, and then stopped in the middle of the afternoon.
Second, after the Mexican-American War ended, the Hopi immediately contacted the American government asking whether they would be protected against the Navajo and the Apache. (They were, which is why there are still Hopi, today.) The tribes are not friends, by the way, so much so that some years ago the Hopis asked to be in a different congressional district from the Navajo. (The re-districters obliged, and, for a while, Arizona 2nd had a small square on its eastern end (the Hopi reservation) and a long skinny stem attaching it to the bulk of the district in northwestern Arizona.)
Third, after the purchase of Alaska, the United States banned slavery there, which was common among the coastal tribes, just as the American army had ended it earlier in the Puget Sound area.
(The Lenape were probably hoping to get some protection from other tribes, as the Hopi certainly were.)
Carnyx said: "You forgot some of the First Nations lands, with beads, blankets, and bullshit lies."
No, I didn't. But I recognize that the interactions with hundreds of tribes, over hundreds of years, can not be summarized briefly. Three examples, which you are unlikely to find in, for example, the Guardian:
When William Penn established a settlement in what is now Pennsylvania, he bought a stretch of land along the Delaware River from the Lenape, with an option for more. When it came time for the option -- as far as a man could walk in a day -- to be exercised, he took a leisurely stroll, and then stopped in the middle of the afternoon.
Second, after the Mexican-American War ended, the Hopi immediately contacted the American government asking whether they would be protected against the Navajo and the Apache. (They were, which is why there are still Hopi, today.) The tribes are not friends, by the way, so much so that some years ago the Hopis asked to be in a different congressional district from the Navajo. (The re-districters obliged, and, for a while, Arizona 2nd had a small square on its eastern end (the Hopi reservation) and a long skinny stem attaching it to the bulk of the district in northwestern Arizona.)
Third, after the purchase of Alaska, the United States banned slavery there, which was common among the coastal tribes, just as the American army had ended it earlier in the Puget Sound area.
(The Lenape were probably hoping to get some protection from other tribes, as the Hopi certainly were.)
Hence the old Apache proverb: it’s the Hopi that kills you.
Wife and I have just come back from our first night away without kids since my 7-year old was born. A night away in the Peak District, for no particular reason. Lovely. Actually, arguably it was for our tenth wedding anniversary, three years late, having been postponed by first the need to disimpact my youngest daughter's colon and then by covid. Anyway, a super little break. The hotel was just setting up for a wedding as we were preparing to leave, and we briefly met the groom. Delightful that even among the tumult of the early 2020s here are young people with reason to look to the future with excitement. A morning in Bakewell mooching amiably about before returning home, joining apparently the entire population of the East Midlands in a delirious quest to spend money on unnecessary things.
Arrived back at the grandparents where the kids were staying; 7-year-old enthusiastically greets her mother thus: "Are you pregnant?". Sadly the list of reasons that the answer to that question is "no" is long and lamentable but can largely be summed up by being 47 and knackered.
Wife and I have just come back from our first night away without kids since my 7-year old was born. A night away in the Peak District, for no particular reason. Lovely. Actually, arguably it was for our tenth wedding anniversary, three years late, having been postponed by first the need to disimpact my youngest daughter's colon and then by covid. Anyway, a super little break. The hotel was just setting up for a wedding as we were preparing to leave, and we briefly met the groom. Delightful that even among the tumult of the early 2020s here are young people with reason to look to the future with excitement. A morning in Bakewell mooching amiably about before returning home, joining apparently the entire population of the East Midlands in a delirious quest to spend money on unnecessary things.
Arrived back at the grandparents where the kids were staying; 7-year-old enthusiastically greets her mother thus: "Are you pregnant?". Sadly the list of reasons that the answer to that question is "no" is long and lamentable but can largely be summed up by being 47 and knackered.
May I ask where you stayed?
I find Bakewell a bit 'meh'. If you go to the Peak District, you want countryside, not a town. I feel the same way about Buxton and Matlock (although both of those are just outside). Then again, I spent far too long in all those places in my youth, so am probably a little jaded.
Some years ago, there was an elderly lady who lived in the Park Lane area, who took a very miniature horse for walks in Hyde Park. It was literally 2 foot tall. Looked exactly like a horse - not a miniature pony or something.
I saw it fairly close up - she’d ever had miniature horse tac made up, so it was on a lead rein.
There used to be a lady who would walk her pet ocelot in Hyde Park. Probably illegal nowadays because of the rules on keeping exotic pets, but I'm told it looked happy enough.
The miniature horse I saw seemed happy - shiny coat, head up and interested in the world around it.
Top ten empires judged by might, scale, impact, romance, prowess, victories, astonishingness, pivotality
1. British 2. Roman 3. Ottoman 4. Mongol 5. American 6. Chinese 7. Portuguese 8. Spanish 9. Inca 10. Persian
Roman before British, surely.
That was a close call.
However the sheer scale of the british empire - the biggest ever - edges it for me. Also the global impact of English and industry, springing therefrom
A slightly better exit from Empire too, although the jury might still be out on that.
Is 50 years not enough for you?? Most was gone by 1972....
Brunei and Belize endured till the '80s. And Hong Kong went in 1997.
Falklands, Gib, ... the former still has an Imperial Satrap aka Governor.
Edit: And they still hand out Imperial orders like smarties in London.
Don't they all?
Oz and Canada both have Governor-Generals. I'm not sure if the have ostrich feathers and run the army, however.
A lovely day walking in the Black Forest. Germany is such a well-functioning, prosperous country, the roads full of cars and trucks from all over Europe carrying people and goods across seamless borders to boost trade and mutual prosperity. Mean-spirited, incompetent Britain, obsessed with securing its borders (an impossible goal in any case) while trade whithers and the country falls even further behind, seems very far away. People drive bloody fast on the autobahn though, don't they. 170 was all I could tolerate.
About a decade ago, Mrs J and I drove down through Germany to attend a wedding on the Austrian border. We stopped on the first night halfway down the country, and Mrs J experienced a large amount of racist abuse from some youths and men outside our motel.
She has never experienced any gratuitous racial abuse in several decades of living in the UK.
So perhaps Germany has a few more issues than you think?
Non-sequitur alert.
Not really. Just an anecdote that Germany isn't the shining beacon of joy he was making out.
I can give other evidence, if you like. We could start with their actions over Ukraine?
(This is not to say that Germany is uniquely bad; just that every country has flaws.)
All the shops being closed here today isn't great, especially as our self catering place was a bit stingy with the toilet roll supply. However, a nice man in the local petrol station gave me a roll for free, which was nice. Also, Germany has almost 10 times as many refugees as the UK and hasn't proposed deporting them to genocide hotspots in Africa as far as I know.
TBH that's a nasty comment wrt Rwanda. Beneath any of us. They have made a hell of a lot of progress.
The Rwanda genocide is as far behind them now, as Mrs Thatcher being PM was from Post-WW2 Rationing.
Comments
Also, Germany has almost 10 times as many refugees as the UK and hasn't proposed deporting them to genocide hotspots in Africa as far as I know.
I preferred the Britain-is-awful-Sweden-is-perfect period of the early 2000s. Halcyon days.
https://www.dw.com/en/five-years-on-how-germanys-refugee-policy-has-fared/a-54660166
https://www.france24.com/en/20180928-focus-germany-turkish-community-immigration-far-right-racism-tensions
And many more.
(BTW, aside from that incident, we loved our time in Germany. It was a bit of a rude introduction though.)
No, I didn't. But I recognize that the interactions with hundreds of tribes, over hundreds of years, can not be summarized briefly. Three examples, which you are unlikely to find in, for example, the Guardian:
When William Penn established a settlement in what is now Pennsylvania, he bought a stretch of land along the Delaware River from the Lenape, with an option for more. When it came time for the option -- as far as a man could walk in a day -- to be exercised, he took a leisurely stroll, and then stopped in the middle of the afternoon.
Second, after the Mexican-American War ended, the Hopi immediately contacted the American government asking whether they would be protected against the Navajo and the Apache. (They were, which is why there are still Hopi, today.) The tribes are not friends, by the way, so much so that some years ago the Hopis asked to be in a different congressional district from the Navajo. (The re-districters obliged, and, for a while, Arizona 2nd had a small square on its eastern end (the Hopi reservation) and a long skinny stem attaching it to the bulk of the district in northwestern Arizona.)
Third, after the purchase of Alaska, the United States banned slavery there, which was common among the coastal tribes, just as the American army had ended it earlier in the Puget Sound area.
(The Lenape were probably hoping to get some protection from other tribes, as the Hopi certainly were.)
launched missiles against a cruiser, which purely coincidentally later caught fire and sunk due to the stupidity of its crew.
A morning in Bakewell mooching amiably about before returning home, joining apparently the entire population of the East Midlands in a delirious quest to spend money on unnecessary things.
Arrived back at the grandparents where the kids were staying; 7-year-old enthusiastically greets her mother thus: "Are you pregnant?". Sadly the list of reasons that the answer to that question is "no" is long and lamentable but can largely be summed up by being 47 and knackered.
May I ask where you stayed?
I find Bakewell a bit 'meh'. If you go to the Peak District, you want countryside, not a town. I feel the same way about Buxton and Matlock (although both of those are just outside). Then again, I spent far too long in all those places in my youth, so am probably a little jaded.
Oz and Canada both have Governor-Generals. I'm not sure if the have ostrich feathers and run the army, however.
The Rwanda genocide is as far behind them now, as Mrs Thatcher being PM was from Post-WW2 Rationing.