Senior sources say the coalition has dropped plans to tackle the so-called West Lothian question because of fears it could fuel Scottish resentment
I am fed up with England being treated as a second class nation in the UK an I will not vote for any party which does not promise parity in self government in England and Scotland.
The Conservatives are planning to replace it with the West Derry question by hoping to form a coalition with Ulster Unionists post 2015 GE .
Socrates Some of those yes, although New Zealand has a relatively low gdp per capita, behind France, Germany and the UK. Luxembourg has a higher GDP per capita than all the nations you mentioned
Pulpstar Exactly
Antifrank Enjoy your travels
New Zealand is one of the laggers in the non-EU bloc, but it is still wealthier than half the western EU: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta, etc. Luxembourg is a completely dodgy number because many of the workers contributing to the GDP aren't resident there, so don't count in the "per capita" division.
From what I can see NZ is 30th and the UK 23rd. Spain and Italy are imediatgely behind NZ. Several EU countries are ahead of NZ. Given the varying reasons for the figures I am not sure what they are worth. The USA is a vast continental wide country and internal trading block with significant areas of poverty and a big problem with illegal immigration. Australia is a massive country with massive mineral resources and a relativly small population. Norway is in effect in the EU - it is a large country with a small population and great mineral reserves.
Any sensible population-weighted average would clearly show of developed democracies, EU countries are below non-EU countries. Your list of excuses is embarassing - listening problems with illegal immigration as if that's not endemic in Europe. This is all an exercise in self-deluding to avoid the obvious facts. Of developed countries like us, on average those not in the EU are richer, have higher growth and have lower unemployment. The belief that the EU means prosperity is about as justified as believing it causes peace. One quick look at how other developed democracies are doing shows that to be made up too.
Ooh, it's all lovey-dovey make up time; kisses all round in this EU pantomime. Yet some people get suckered in and that there will be a reform that Cammo want's so desperately. Get real guys. If it looks like a panto, smells like a panto and tastes, ugghhh, like a panto, it's a panto. More of taking Britain for a long ride, with the acquiescence of it's present leaders. For shame!
@rcs100 The idea that Ireland doesn't benefit from undercutting its neighbours with a low corporation tax and dodgy transfer pricing accounting is ludicrous.
Ooh, it's all lovey-dovey make up time; kisses all round in this EU pantomime. Yet some people get suckered in and that there will be a reform that Cammo want's so desperately. Get real guys. If it looks like a panto, smells like a panto and tastes, ugghhh, like a panto, it's a panto. More of taking Britain for a long ride, with the acquiescence of it's present leaders. For shame!
I look at it this way,a ed miliband government would have done what,follow the majority,that's what.
I don't get the long term viability of 'Immigration = prosperity'
For how long? It is a continuous cycle with no logical end always needing more population or immigrants to support the previous record generation who are retired r the kids of the new enlarged working generation.
Learn to live with and prosper with a static or smaller population makes far more sense.
Well, I think we need to differentiate between two types of immigration.
Many, perhaps even most, of the Poles who come here, are here because wages are higher than back home. Often, the wife and kids are in Krawkow, and they live in bunks earning cash for six to eight weeks at a time, before heading back home for a couple of weeks. These are the Polish descendents of Auf Wiedersein, Pet. These people are probably net beneficiaries to the government in terms of tax take, but - as isam notes - they do exert downward pressure on wages, particularly for the lesser skilled.
Likewise, American fund managers, Italian derivatives specialists, French engineers, and Spanish lawyers are probably here because that's where the job they're working on right now is. They might stay, they might go, they probably send their kids to private school and get private medical insurance but by-and-large they are not drains on the state (although they certainly bid up house prices).
On the other hand, people who come here from Pakistan or Bangladesh are usually expecting to be here for ever. Home is fucked up, and they want to be somewhere less fucked up. Perfectly understandable. However, these people (unlike the Polish builder) probably will be drawing pensions. And they are much less likely to come with marketable skills (plumbing is definitely a marketable skill). While EU immigrants - as a group - earn slightly above average wages; immigrants without from outside the EU - as a group - earn more than a third less than average - and that's despite the Russians oligarchs and US hedge fund managers pushing the average up.
More of this type of thinking is sorely needed. It's absurd to average out the three groups and claim immigration is always good.
Reading Rentoul's piece on CamJunk.... the sheer dead handed vapidity of Ed is breath-taking... what is he talking about?????
Ed Miliband's criticism of the Prime Minister yesterday: "The choice is between Labour, which would win the argument and build alliances for reform , or David Cameron, who by his own admission is taking the country towards the exit door, threatening three million jobs across the UK."
Senior sources say the coalition has dropped plans to tackle the so-called West Lothian question because of fears it could fuel Scottish resentment
I am fed up with England being treated as a second class nation in the UK an I will not vote for any party which does not promise parity in self government in England and Scotland.
The Conservatives are planning to replace it with the West Derry question by hoping to form a coalition with Ulster Unionists post 2015 GE .
Ulster Unionists ?
Sweet Jesus... They'll get 2 seats at the most maybe.
Nick Clegg's devolution plan to English regions is mad. Hertfordshire and Norfolk have very little in common, either in identity or economics. Neither do Bristol and Cornwall. We don't want the Balkanisation of England because the Scots are easily upset.
Reading Rentoul's piece on CamJunk.... the sheer dead handed vapidity of Ed is breath-taking... what is he talking about?????
Ed Miliband's criticism of the Prime Minister yesterday: "The choice is between Labour, which would win the argument and build alliances for reform , or David Cameron, who by his own admission is taking the country towards the exit door, threatening three million jobs across the UK."
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How the hell have we engineering a situation where the Conservatives are banging on about Europe again?
Extraordinary.
Because the European Parliament decided to have a huge power grab from national leaders? Do you think the UK should just not raise British concerns because it might help UKIP? Cameron took a moral and decent position here, while your Miliband was particularly craven, suggesting that he would have stopped Juncker through magic.
What do you mean a power grab? It was in the Lisbon treaty.
No, it wasn't. The Lisbon Treaty says the Council should propose the candidate. The Parliament just has approval. What happened was the Parliament announced that it would only approve its favoured candidate, and the Council buckled to them, because, except for the UK and Hungary, they were all cowards.
Are you suggesting the Council should have submitted a candidate who (whom?) the Parliament would have rejected? If so, a) who should they have submitted and b) why would that person volunteer for a predetermined rejection?
Lisbon says the Council proposes and Parliament disposes, yes? Then it's a joint decision: both sides have to agree. If the Council were aware of another candidate that Parliament could have approved, they could easily have submitted one. They did not, which leads me to suspect that there was no such candidate. The only one I read suggested was Lagarde, but Hollande refused to propose her (she's right wing, he's a berk) and Cameron didn't propose anybody else (which made his stance all the more puzzling)
As to referring to the 26 Council members who voted "No" as "cowards", well, given that the Christian Democrats, Socialists and Liberals are about as scary as a kitten in woolly socks, it is inherently implausible that cowardice was involved. An alternative suggestion is that they made decisions that they thought was in their best interests: in some cases explicitly ("give me greater fiscal laxity and I will vote for you, love Italy"), in some cases implicitly.
Incidentally, both Hungary and UK were students at Oxford, tho' not at the same time.
My greatest bit of jinxing was announcing back one morning in 2010, that I'd stuck some more money on James Purnell to be next Lab leader after Gordon Brown.
Within a couple of hours James Purnell announced he was standing down as an MP.
Since then, I've considered James Purnell to be a real [moderated]
Just traded my 33/1 on Colombia to win the tournament. Was hoping that given they've played so well I could do better than laying at 14/1, but no dice.
Tony Gallagher @gallaghereditor 9h To the surprise of... er... nobody, press-hating @johnprescott has written his lucrative column in the otherwise excellent Sunday Mirror
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Just traded my 33/1 on Colombia to win the tournament. Was hoping that given they've played so well I could do better than laying at 14/1, but no dice.
I've backed Greece for the shootout at Evens and laid Costa Rica at 130 for £2
Costa Rica win on penalties and Greece are going home.
Twitter Mirror Politics @MirrorPolitics 47m Unite to bankroll Labour during general election campaign that will 'define hopes of a generation' http://mirr.im/1k3j4VG
Just traded my 33/1 on Colombia to win the tournament. Was hoping that given they've played so well I could do better than laying at 14/1, but no dice.
I've backed Greece for the shootout at Evens and laid Costa Rica at 130 for £2
So this was your doing, then?
Congrats to TSE, nice trading on a tough match. I'm off to sleep and try my luck again tomorrow.
Just traded my 33/1 on Colombia to win the tournament. Was hoping that given they've played so well I could do better than laying at 14/1, but no dice.
I've backed Greece for the shootout at Evens and laid Costa Rica at 130 for £2
So this was your doing, then?
Congrats to TSE, nice trading on a tough match. I'm off to sleep and try my luck again tomorrow.
Just a small trade against my overall Costa Rica position.
How the hell have we engineering a situation where the Conservatives are banging on about Europe again?
Extraordinary.
Because the European Parliament decided to have a huge power grab from national leaders? Do you think the UK should just not raise British concerns because it might help UKIP? Cameron took a moral and decent position here, while your Miliband was particularly craven, suggesting that he would have stopped Juncker through magic.
What do you mean a power grab? It was in the Lisbon treaty.
No, it wasn't. The Lisbon Treaty says the Council should propose the candidate. The Parliament just has approval. What happened was the Parliament announced that it would only approve its favoured candidate, and the Council buckled to them, because, except for the UK and Hungary, they were all cowards.
TBF most of the leaders of the member states also took part in the selection of their groups' candidates, so you can't really say the whole thing was foisted on them by the parliament. The main difference here was between what the member states were telling the voters in public ("Vote for us, your vote will make a difference!") and what some of them were hoping to do in private ("Let's shift this guy into a different job once the voting's done, nobody will be paying attention...")
Comments
Ed Miliband's criticism of the Prime Minister yesterday: "The choice is between Labour, which would win the argument and build alliances for reform , or David Cameron, who by his own admission is taking the country towards the exit door, threatening three million jobs across the UK."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/david-camerons-defeat-by-jeanclaude-juncker-has-set-britain-up-for-an-eu-referendum-win-9570461.html
Sweet Jesus... They'll get 2 seats at the most maybe.
We are contacting you in regard to your bet placed on Chile (To Win Outright World Cup 2014). As Chile were eliminated after a penalty shootout, we have refunded your losing bet, thanks to our World Cup Penalty Payback offer. Please note if you had this bet as part of a multiple, this selection will have been treated as a non-runner.
Sweet !
(Says the man who bet on Greece to win...)
Lisbon says the Council proposes and Parliament disposes, yes? Then it's a joint decision: both sides have to agree. If the Council were aware of another candidate that Parliament could have approved, they could easily have submitted one. They did not, which leads me to suspect that there was no such candidate. The only one I read suggested was Lagarde, but Hollande refused to propose her (she's right wing, he's a berk) and Cameron didn't propose anybody else (which made his stance all the more puzzling)
As to referring to the 26 Council members who voted "No" as "cowards", well, given that the Christian Democrats, Socialists and Liberals are about as scary as a kitten in woolly socks, it is inherently implausible that cowardice was involved. An alternative suggestion is that they made decisions that they thought was in their best interests: in some cases explicitly ("give me greater fiscal laxity and I will vote for you, love Italy"), in some cases implicitly.
Incidentally, both Hungary and UK were students at Oxford, tho' not at the same time.
So I'm not in the red!
The Greek Goal wasn't a tragedy for me.
When it comes to jinxing, I'm in a class of my own.
1) Colombia to win the tournament outright at 14/1
or
2) Back Colombia to beat Brazil on Friday at 19/5?
Within a couple of hours James Purnell announced he was standing down as an MP.
Since then, I've considered James Purnell to be a real [moderated]
Widescreen TV on Tomorrow's World in 1986, at 4 mins:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew14Wxj7DXk
Well, assuming Greece score against a totally exhausted CR.
Cannot possibly win
So back them to beat Brazil!
I've backed Costa Rica to qualify.
PhilipH, i've backed both options, so expect Columbia to get pounded like a you know what on Friday.
Twitter
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 2h
Not even @MichaelPDeacon could write satire this good: Murdoch empire finds out what politicians say & reports it http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/29/compass-meeting-private-sunday-times-journalist-recording-it …
Tony Gallagher @gallaghereditor 9h
To the surprise of... er... nobody, press-hating @johnprescott has written his lucrative column in the otherwise excellent Sunday Mirror
sunday herald @newsundayherald 24h
Our splash - Revealed: Cameron's propaganda war to win army #indyref votes ... #scotpapers @suttonnick
Thank you Costa Rica.
Twitter
Mirror Politics @MirrorPolitics 47m
Unite to bankroll Labour during general election campaign that will 'define hopes of a generation' http://mirr.im/1k3j4VG
Congrats to TSE, nice trading on a tough match. I'm off to sleep and try my luck again tomorrow.