I remember when Assange was originally refused bail. I was having dinner with a lawyer friend with whom I share an interest in civil liberties and we both agreed it was a complete disgrace as obviously Assange posed no flight risk.
So, that was a load of shit
Considering that he fled to London and now has asylum in Ecuador, it would seem to me a confirmed flight risk!
It is peculiar that lefties are so protective of a fugitive suspected sex criminal. It is not often the case.
Interesting that so many Tory posters seem anxious that the ultimate libertarian Julian Lasange should be punished for letting the public know what goes on in our name.
When it comes to freedom of information rather than following the David Davis model the Stasi system is the prefered option among PB Cameroons
I understood that he was wanted in Sweden on sex crime charges? Or does 'being on the right side' mean you don't have to answer for allegations of that sort?
'A case of female genital mutilation is reported in England every 109 minutes'
Cyclefree was right on this a few days ago. This should become an offence of strict liability, with any child found to have suffered this removed from the parents and the latter prosecuted automatically.
Law of unintended consequences -- parents won't take FGM'd daughters to the doctor. Can more be done to wipe it out at source? There are not many countries or communities that practise FGM.
But they go to school. Make it mandatory for the school nurse to make an examination.
Faisal Islam Also Schulz tells @skynews "nothing is irreversible" when I ask if the EU deal is, as the PM has argued "legally binding and irreversible"
Given he's EU president, he's dumping all over our draft deal.
Regarding a "Vow" style intervention, is this possible in the EU referendum and, if so, what form might it take?
In the Indy ref it was enough to get Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to agree. In the EU ref it would, in theory, be necessary to get all the 27 heads of government to agree. Not going to happen over a weekend.
Might a Vow take the form of a mere pledge from Merkel, Hollande and Juncker? Not sure that would have any impact.
Also, what simple,.eye-catching stuff could be put into a Vow, which the rest of the EU would possibly agree to. I mean, some technocratic tinkering wouldn't work. It would have to be something big and simple.
I don't see that a Vow can be cooked up this time.
That would be M Juncker who said something about having to lie when required? Or have I got that wrong?
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
'A case of female genital mutilation is reported in England every 109 minutes'
Cyclefree was right on this a few days ago. This should become an offence of strict liability, with any child found to have suffered this removed from the parents and the latter prosecuted automatically.
Law of unintended consequences -- parents won't take FGM'd daughters to the doctor. Can more be done to wipe it out at source? There are not many countries or communities that practise FGM.
But they go to school. Make it mandatory for the school nurse to make an examination.
And it is a crime not to send your children to school
Faisal Islam Also Schulz tells @skynews "nothing is irreversible" when I ask if the EU deal is, as the PM has argued "legally binding and irreversible"
Given he's EU president, he's dumping all over our draft deal.
Regarding a "Vow" style intervention, is this possible in the EU referendum and, if so, what form might it take?
In the Indy ref it was enough to get Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to agree. In the EU ref it would, in theory, be necessary to get all the 27 heads of government to agree. Not going to happen over a weekend.
Might a Vow take the form of a mere pledge from Merkel, Hollande and Juncker? Not sure that would have any impact.
Also, what simple,.eye-catching stuff could be put into a Vow, which the rest of the EU would possibly agree to. I mean, some technocratic tinkering wouldn't work. It would have to be something big and simple.
I don't see that a Vow can be cooked up this time.
That would be M Juncker who said something about having to lie when required? Or have I got that wrong?
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
Interesting that so many Tory posters seem anxious that the ultimate libertarian Julian Lasange should be punished for letting the public know what goes on in our name.
When it comes to freedom of information rather than following the David Davis model the Stasi system is the prefered option among PB Cameroons
No - what I want is that he submits himself to the law just like anyone else. Instead he seems to think himself above the law. A law which requires him to answer serious sexual assault allegations.
It is those who support him who seem to think that the law should only be for the little people not the Assanges of this world.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
Very relevantly, the EU parliament president (Speaker? Chair? CEO? Head shaman?) Martin Schulz is putting a big German spoke in the wheels of the "deal".
@traynorbrussels 3m3 minutes ago #brexit @schulz on cameron deal - emergency brake effectively discriminatory
The European Parliament won't even ratify the pitiful pledges Cameron brought home t'other day.
It's not news. If it weren't discriminatory - the UK could just do it. We wouldn't need a renegotiation.
It is news. He is clearly saying that the European Parliament could block our deal, feeble as it is, after we vote REMAIN.
This is pointless. Let's just get OUT.
From a technical point of view, if the treaty is changed (as it's supposed to be), then the European Parliament is irrelevent.
Faisal Islam Also Schulz tells @skynews "nothing is irreversible" when I ask if the EU deal is, as the PM has argued "legally binding and irreversible"
Given he's EU president, he's dumping all over our draft deal.
Regarding a "Vow" style intervention, is this possible in the EU referendum and, if so, what form might it take?
In the Indy ref it was enough to get Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to agree. In the EU ref it would, in theory, be necessary to get all the 27 heads of government to agree. Not going to happen over a weekend.
Might a Vow take the form of a mere pledge from Merkel, Hollande and Juncker? Not sure that would have any impact.
Also, what simple,.eye-catching stuff could be put into a Vow, which the rest of the EU would possibly agree to. I mean, some technocratic tinkering wouldn't work. It would have to be something big and simple.
I don't see that a Vow can be cooked up this time.
That would be M Juncker who said something about having to lie when required? Or have I got that wrong?
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
Interesting that so many Tory posters seem anxious that the ultimate libertarian Julian Lasange should be punished for letting the public know what goes on in our name.
When it comes to freedom of information rather than following the David Davis model the Stasi system is the prefered option among PB Cameroons
No - what I want is that he submits himself to the law just like anyone else. Instead he seems to think himself above the law. A law which requires him to answer serious sexual assault allegations.
It is those who support him who seem to think that the law should only be for the little people not the Assanges of this world.
In Rogerworld, the law doesn't apply to the famous and artistic.
'A case of female genital mutilation is reported in England every 109 minutes'
Cyclefree was right on this a few days ago. This should become an offence of strict liability, with any child found to have suffered this removed from the parents and the latter prosecuted automatically.
Law of unintended consequences -- parents won't take FGM'd daughters to the doctor. Can more be done to wipe it out at source? There are not many countries or communities that practise FGM.
But they go to school. Make it mandatory for the school nurse to make an examination.
And it is a crime not to send your children to school
Its not a crime to send your children to school. It's a crime to not give them an education but you can home school them...
Harry Cole FWIW Vote Leave refusing either on or off the record to attack Leave.EU or the Labour lot. Meanwhile Banks is press releasing his grenades..
By the time any treaty changes might come around, Cameron probably won't be PM, the Tories may not be in office and other European governments may have changed and have different views as well.
Hanging everything on the possibility of treaty change in the distant future is just a hostage to fortune. Just another way in which this 'deal' is worthless.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
Terrorism takes a lot fewer people than conventional war though?
'A case of female genital mutilation is reported in England every 109 minutes'
Cyclefree was right on this a few days ago. This should become an offence of strict liability, with any child found to have suffered this removed from the parents and the latter prosecuted automatically.
Law of unintended consequences -- parents won't take FGM'd daughters to the doctor. Can more be done to wipe it out at source? There are not many countries or communities that practise FGM.
But they go to school. Make it mandatory for the school nurse to make an examination.
I used to work with school nurses, I could never understand why they weren't told to check.
The number of school nurses has been cut back, though.
I remember when Assange was originally refused bail. I was having dinner with a lawyer friend with whom I share an interest in civil liberties and we both agreed it was a complete disgrace as obviously Assange posed no flight risk.
So, that was a load of shit
Considering that he fled to London and now has asylum in Ecuador, it would seem to me a confirmed flight risk!
It is peculiar that lefties are so protective of a fugitive suspected sex criminal. It is not often the case.
He'd already done a runner from Sweden, hadn't he?
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
If you ALEURP the poll then that puts remain on 55% to Leave's 45%.
Do you actually have any justification for your assumption that "don't know" = "remain"?
Only for Online polls, you add them to Leave for phone polls.
My justification is that it's a good sounding acronym and slightly more seriously it brings the phone polls and online polls into perfect alignment.
I'm almost certainly wrong but my SMAPS (Simplistic Moronic Analysis Predictions for Scotland) system which I made as a joke got SNP vote shares in each constituency almost spot on.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Treaty change isn't envisaged for years. Until then we're on a promise..
No, we're not (assuming the binding protocol gets agreed by the 27 countries).
Still, it's amusing to see the moan change from 'it doesn't change anything and Cameron was a patsy for not asking for more' to 'they'll never let us make the change'.
The two most interesting features of a 'Leave' vote would be the resignation of Dave and half his cabinet and the certainty of another Scottish referendum which would likely produce the opposite result to the last one.
My fear is that from becoming gradually more outward looking Endgland would revert to it's old xenophobia self again and the new cosmopolitan spirit that 's emanated from London would start to disappear.
I'm in France at the moment and that cosmopolitan feeling has always been here but it was much later coming to England and it would be a great sadness if we lost it
I share your desire that Britain not be xenophobic but really you protest too much. Britain has been a remarkably outward looking nation for much of its existence. A country that created an empire and sent its population all round the globe is not xenophobic and has always been pretty cosmopolitan. I think that will continue regardless of whether it is in or out of the EU.
I half agree but I listened to a phone-in on radio 5 yesterday and it was quite depressing. The overwhelming sense I got was either a fear of foreigners behaviour or a fear that the old country would lose its character.
Things have changed so noticably for the better in the last two decades that I fear those phone-inners will start to assert themselves in the event of 'leave' winning.
Instead of sneering perhaps you might stop and wonder why people express such views. It is not despicable to have an attachment to home - and Britain is home to people here - and to want change to happen slowly, over time and with peoples' consent. How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?
Nor is it despicable to worry about the differences in behaviour given what has been happening in other countries and in some of our cities and what that means for our home and our family i.e. Britain and the people here. Britons are remarkably tolerant people but that "live and let live" tolerance comes from unspoken but shared assumptions about who we are and how we behave. And when you disrupt those unspoken assumptions by bringing in those who do not share those assumptions then it is much harder for the tolerance we all value to happen.
Britain is a home. It is not a hotel. Too many of the political elite see it as the latter. This is wrong, disruptive and condescendingly dismissive of those who live here.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
'A case of female genital mutilation is reported in England every 109 minutes'
Cyclefree was right on this a few days ago. This should become an offence of strict liability, with any child found to have suffered this removed from the parents and the latter prosecuted automatically.
Law of unintended consequences -- parents won't take FGM'd daughters to the doctor. Can more be done to wipe it out at source? There are not many countries or communities that practise FGM.
But they go to school. Make it mandatory for the school nurse to make an examination.
I used to work with school nurses, I could never understand why they weren't told to check.
The number of school nurses has been cut back, though.
The school nurses used to check our growth and whether we were developing properly at my school. Never understood why those checks stopped. They should certainly be reinstated.
The tables are up for the Times/YouGov Scotland poll. It also asked how people would vote on the question of Scottish independence (brackets indicate change on last month). No 55% (+3%), Yes 45% (-3%).
Interestingly, while both Con (93) and SNP (92) retain their support from 2015 on the seat vote - unlike Lab (77) and LibD (65), when it comes to the List vote, only Con (93) holds up, while SNP (78) sees support fall to the same level as Lab (74) with the Greens (10) the main beneficiaries....
Meanwhile Nicola's stratospheric rating slips slightly to +30 (-8), but still comfortably ahead of Keiza at -18 (-5) and Ruth on +4 (+3).
Ruth's direction of travel is interesting though...
She is appealing to quite a lot of people who are not traditional tories, particularly women. I am not sure that has happened with a Scottish tory leader for decades. Annabelle Goldie as very good at making the Tories comfortable with themselves but had very little reach beyond that.
At the moment there are a number of Scots who were in the centre right, establishment wing of the Labour party, people who often held senior offices in local government and other public bodies. I know quite a few of these and they are in despair at what has happened to their party both in Scotland and with Corbyn. They are giving Davidson a listen.
They really don't like Tories but she does not sound like one or, increasingly, have a policy agenda like one either. It is early days but there is a chance. They are committed to the Union and unhappy with Labour's recent equivocation but Cameron's response to the SINDY result is still seen as a slap in the face. I am really not sure how this will go.
The much larger share of working class Labour have gone SNP and they are simply not coming back.
She was Murphy's deputy. That's Jim "The Nats are mocking him because they are frightened of this Westminster Titan who is destroying them during this General Election campaign" Murphy.
Still, it's amusing to see the moan change from 'it doesn't change anything' to 'they'll never let us make the change'.
All that is being said is that the already miniscule fig leaf is yet smaller still. That shouldn't be too hard to understand.
That said, I doubt Schulz's huffing and puffing amount to very much.
It shouldn't be hard to understand that it can't simultaneously be true that Cameron didn't ask for enough and that it's going to be hard to get final agreement on the proposal.
@BillNeelyNBC: More than 50 TV cameras from all over the world wait for Julian Assange to not walk out of his self imposed stay at UK's Ecuador Embassy.
''How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?''
British people are actually quite intolerant of that Downton Abbey type picture of 'the old country. John Major's 'back to basics' campaign was shot down in flames.
Treaty change isn't envisaged for years. Until then we're on a promise..
No, we're not (assuming the binding protocol gets agreed by the 27 countries).
Still, it's amusing to see the moan change from 'it doesn't change anything and Cameron was a patsy for not asking for more' to 'they'll never let us make the change'.
That isn't the complaint and you know it. The complaint is that the deal is not very significant in its achievements and risks not being enacted in any case.
''How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?''
British people are actually quite intolerant of that Downton Abbey type picture of 'the old country. John Major's 'back to basics' campaign was shot down in flames.
At the moment no Treaty change is specified by date, or even envisaged, we'll get our bit when they decide to overhaul a Treaty, or have a new one. Until then it's protocols and gentlemen's agreements and Lend Me A Tenner til Tuesday. It's a vividly macabre spectacle. It's a game of who can knowingly lie the most, the EU to the UK, or Dave Cameron to the British people.
Until then it's legally binding protocols (assuming they get signed, of course). If they don't get signed by all 28 countries, we're in a pickle, I guess. Dunno what happens then.
Faisal Islam Also Schulz tells @skynews "nothing is irreversible" when I ask if the EU deal is, as the PM has argued "legally binding and irreversible"
Given he's EU president, he's dumping all over our draft deal.
Regarding a "Vow" style intervention, is this possible in the EU referendum and, if so, what form might it take?
In the Indy ref it was enough to get Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to agree. In the EU ref it would, in theory, be necessary to get all the 27 heads of government to agree. Not going to happen over a weekend.
Might a Vow take the form of a mere pledge from Merkel, Hollande and Juncker? Not sure that would have any impact.
Also, what simple,.eye-catching stuff could be put into a Vow, which the rest of the EU would possibly agree to. I mean, some technocratic tinkering wouldn't work. It would have to be something big and simple.
I don't see that a Vow can be cooked up this time.
That would be M Juncker who said something about having to lie when required? Or have I got that wrong?
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
- Tusk - Juncker - Schultz
Yes.
President of the European Council President of the European Commission President of the European Parliament
In addition the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU is currently the Netherlands.
Still, it's amusing to see the moan change from 'it doesn't change anything' to 'they'll never let us make the change'.
All that is being said is that the already miniscule fig leaf is yet smaller still. That shouldn't be too hard to understand.
That said, I doubt Schulz's huffing and puffing amount to very much.
It shouldn't be hard to understand that it can't simultaneously be true that Cameron didn't ask for enough and that it's going to be hard to get final agreement on the proposal.
Still, I agree with you on Schulz.
We've asked for Peanuts and Schulz won't even give us that.
That isn't the complaint and you know it. The complaint is that the deal is not very significant in its achievements and risks not being enacted in any case.
The two are incompatible. If it wasn't significant why would it be hard to get it enacted?
@Maomentum_: People seem to forget that my good friend Julian Assange has NEVER BEEN ARRESTED or CHARGED with ANYTHING since running away from the police
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Faisal Islam Also Schulz tells @skynews "nothing is irreversible" when I ask if the EU deal is, as the PM has argued "legally binding and irreversible"
Given he's EU president, he's dumping all over our draft deal.
Regarding a "Vow" style intervention, is this possible in the EU referendum and, if so, what form might it take?
In the Indy ref it was enough to get Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to agree. In the EU ref it would, in theory, be necessary to get all the 27 heads of government to agree. Not going to happen over a weekend.
Might a Vow take the form of a mere pledge from Merkel, Hollande and Juncker? Not sure that would have any impact.
Also, what simple,.eye-catching stuff could be put into a Vow, which the rest of the EU would possibly agree to. I mean, some technocratic tinkering wouldn't work. It would have to be something big and simple.
I don't see that a Vow can be cooked up this time.
That would be M Juncker who said something about having to lie when required? Or have I got that wrong?
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
- Tusk - Juncker - Schultz
Yes.
President of the European Council President of the European Commission President of the European Parliament
In addition the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU is currently the Netherlands.
Also Koen Lenaerts, president of ECJ and Mario Draghi, president of ECB.
The mood I pick up elsewhere in my social media world is that the draft deal is a dud and that there seems little to commend the EU.
It is an opinion coming from both left and right.
The left see the EU as negative for workers' wages and do not like the idea of TTIP.
The right see the EU as interfering and a root cause of problems with migration and the application of UK sovereign law.
I really struggle to believe the big leads being given in phone polls as they do not chime with anything I see or hear, both personally and professionally.
I get confused: does the EU have three Presidents?
- Tusk - Juncker - Schultz
Yes - like the US it's designed to have separation of powers. Tusk is current president of the European Council,who bring national leaders together. Juncker is head of the Commision, who draft detailed laws. Schultz is head of the Parliament (not an especially powerful role, like a politicised Speaker). For most things to happen, the three bodies have to agree. It's why compromise/fudge (depends how you look at it) is the archetypal Euro-outcome and also why they didn't want Tony Blair to be Commission President, since his "follow me, chaps!" style is completely antithetical to the EU.
Instead of sneering perhaps you might stop and wonder why people express such views. It is not despicable to have an attachment to home - and Britain is home to people here - and to want change to happen slowly, over time and with peoples' consent. How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?
Nor is it despicable to worry about the differences in behaviour given what has been happening in other countries and in some of our cities and what that means for our home and our family i.e. Britain and the people here. Britons are remarkably tolerant people but that "live and let live" tolerance comes from unspoken but shared assumptions about who we are and how we behave. And when you disrupt those unspoken assumptions by bringing in those who do not share those assumptions then it is much harder for the tolerance we all value to happen.
Britain is a home. It is not a hotel. Too many of the political elite see it as the latter. This is wrong, disruptive and condescendingly dismissive of those who live here.
Interesting post.
Not sure the home analogy is accurate. Homes are personal, private and largely earned. Your country is inherently shared, public and largely inherited. The sense of ownership is certainly common.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
Yes I have, it was both interesting and depressing at the same time as it confirmed a lot of the views I hold of both ISIS and the Islamic justification they have through religious texts.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Does it really require training to shoot unarmed people in a crowded space?
I agree that their aims are bigger and on a different scale. They want to be a state, essentially, with all the resources and reach that implies.
''How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?''
British people are actually quite intolerant of that Downton Abbey type picture of 'the old country. John Major's 'back to basics' campaign was shot down in flames.
You're rather missing the point I was making.
Let me repeat it.
''How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started distressing the walls and throwing out your trendy new furniture and replacing it with antiques?"
Oh wow. "Legally binding protocols". From the EU. Fantastic. That's as good as folding money on Oxford Street.
So what was your suggestion? You seem to have an immense knowledge of how European law operates, so presumably you can tell what mechanism should have been used instead of legally-binding protocols? Your expertise could be very useful in the post-Brexit negotiations.
The mood I pick up elsewhere in my social media world is that the draft deal is a dud and that there seems little to commend the EU.
It is an opinion coming from both left and right.
The left see the EU as negative for workers' wages and do not like the idea of TTIP.
The right see the EU as interfering and a root cause of problems with migration and the application of UK sovereign law.
I really struggle to believe the big leads being given in phone polls as they do not chime with anything I see or hear, both personally and professionally.
You might be right. But after the experience of the GE, where social media showed Labour were going to romp home, I take social media as a poor indication of public sentiment. It's even worse than polling.
That isn't the complaint and you know it. The complaint is that the deal is not very significant in its achievements and risks not being enacted in any case.
The two are incompatible. If it wasn't significant why would it be hard to get it enacted?
No they're not. What may be insignificant to one party may be significant to 1 of 28 others. And if you need the agreement of all 28 there's your difficulty right there.
Idiot. It can be insignificant enough to us - which it is - and yet symbolically significant to enough Euro-Federalists that they won't even give us this dreadful compromise, if enough of THEM think Let Britain Go, or They Will Never Vote Leave.
Ah, so you are now saying that Cameron got the best deal he could have got.
That isn't the complaint and you know it. The complaint is that the deal is not very significant in its achievements and risks not being enacted in any case.
The two are incompatible. If it wasn't significant why would it be hard to get it enacted?
No they're not. What may be insignificant to one party may be significant to 1 of 28 others. And if you need the agreement of all 28 there's your difficulty right there.
Indeed. As I've said all along to those who claim, quite absurdly, that Cameron hasn't been ambitious enough.
Oh wow. "Legally binding protocols". From the EU. Fantastic. That's as good as folding money on Oxford Street.
So what was your suggestion? You seem to have an immense knowledge of how European law operates, so presumably you can tell what mechanism should have been used instead of legally-binding protocols? Your expertise could be very useful in the post-Brexit negotiations.
Have you been able to speak to anyone from CCHQ to enable you to make a decision on whether we paid that £1.79bn bill from the EU?
In the small village in the Lake District where my husband's family are, a village so small and distant that the next landfall is America, there have been Czech and Polish immigrants since before the war as well as, more recently, Kurds. No-one would comment in the way you suggest.
Don't assume that everyone - even in the "dreaded sticks" - is as narrow-minded as you appear to be about your countrymen.
Mind you, while they embrace Eastern Europeans they can be pretty scathing about pompous Metropolitan types.
You're generalising too,though, aren't you? Broxtowe is reasonably suburban and outward-looking, but I certainly know people who are annoyed to hear Chinese students talking to each other in Chinese, Paksistanis talking Urdu, and so on. I remember one constituent - bafflingly a supporter of mine - proposing that foreign language should be illegal in Britain (even for tourists). I'm a bit sceptical whether your husband's family village really hears a lot of foreign languages spoken,or that they'd react well if they did.
As an example of the risks of preconceptions, when I saw someone replying to a comment you made about people marching in and wanting to change the furniture, I thought you were referring to the lofty British attitude to the EU, and I thought "Yes, there's something in that..."
Very relevantly, the EU parliament president (Speaker? Chair? CEO? Head shaman?) Martin Schulz is putting a big German spoke in the wheels of the "deal".
@traynorbrussels 3m3 minutes ago #brexit @schulz on cameron deal - emergency brake effectively discriminatory
The European Parliament won't even ratify the pitiful pledges Cameron brought home t'other day.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Does it really require training to shoot unarmed people in a crowded space?
(Snip)
If you want to kill the maximum amount of people possible, then I'd think you do. The same thing with bomb making. Any fool can use the weapon: to use it well, reload, unjam, and evade capture / being shot yourself (which appears to have happened in a couple of cases after the November Paris attacks) is much harder.
And why escape after an attack? Not only does it mean that you might be able to attack again, but also that it ties up the police and creates a greater media storm.
(Although I'm not a military man, and I'd bow to superior knowledge from people who are/were).
That isn't the complaint and you know it. The complaint is that the deal is not very significant in its achievements and risks not being enacted in any case.
The two are incompatible. If it wasn't significant why would it be hard to get it enacted?
No they're not. What may be insignificant to one party may be significant to 1 of 28 others. And if you need the agreement of all 28 there's your difficulty right there.
Indeed. As I've said all along to those who claim, quite absurdly, that Cameron hasn't been ambitious enough.
Richard, you often surprise me given your intellect and profession, how badly you get things wrong sometimes.
In negotiations, there are many factors that effect the outcome and whether there is an outcome. Framing is critical at the outset. The EU have been very effective in framing the UK's demands, forcing temerity upon Cameron on the basis of needing all 28 to agree.
An alternative UK strategy, rather than allowing our ambitions to be framed by our opponents, would to have been to have laid our entire wish list on the table and offer the credible threat of leaving if they were not largely or satisfactorily addressed. Ambiguity as to what would be satisfactory would have help the UK's negotiations.
Then the 'requirement' that all 28 agree would be offset in framing the discussions with the logical conclusion of the UK leaving if the whole were not negotiated seriously.
Instead, we removed most of our aspirations before the negotiations even started and then accepted very thin gruel.
God help us if Cameron is in charge of the divorce negotiations.
Very relevantly, the EU parliament president (Speaker? Chair? CEO? Head shaman?) Martin Schulz is putting a big German spoke in the wheels of the "deal".
@traynorbrussels 3m3 minutes ago #brexit @schulz on cameron deal - emergency brake effectively discriminatory
The European Parliament won't even ratify the pitiful pledges Cameron brought home t'other day.
In the small village in the Lake District where my husband's family are, a village so small and distant that the next landfall is America, there have been Czech and Polish immigrants since before the war as well as, more recently, Kurds. No-one would comment in the way you suggest.
Don't assume that everyone - even in the "dreaded sticks" - is as narrow-minded as you appear to be about your countrymen.
Mind you, while they embrace Eastern Europeans they can be pretty scathing about pompous Metropolitan types.
You're generalising too,though, aren't you? Broxtowe is reasonably suburban and outward-looking, but I certainly know people who are annoyed to hear Chinese students talking to each other in Chinese, Paksistanis talking Urdu, and so on. I remember one constituent - bafflingly a supporter of mine - proposing that foreign language should be illegal in Britain (even for tourists). I'm a bit sceptical whether your husband's family village really hears a lot of foreign languages spoken,or that they'd react well if they did.
As an example of the risks of preconceptions, when I saw someone replying to a comment you made about people marching in and wanting to change the furniture, I thought you were referring to the lofty British attitude to the EU, and I thought "Yes, there's something in that..."
Do you not think that the EU could be run better? And if so, isn't it probable that those who'll put the case to make it better will be those who are not overly enamoured of it at the moment?
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Does it really require training to shoot unarmed people in a crowded space?
(Snip)
If you want to kill the maximum amount of people possible, then I'd think you do. The same thing with bomb making. Any fool can use the weapon: to use it well, reload, unjam, and evade capture / being shot yourself (which appears to have happened in a couple of cases after the November Paris attacks) is much harder.
And why escape after an attack? Not only does it mean that you might be able to attack again, but also that it ties up the police and creates a greater media storm.
(Although I'm not a military man, and I'd bow to superior knowledge from people who are/were).
I'm sure that evading capture (or more likely death) is far more challenging.
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Does it really require training to shoot unarmed people in a crowded space?
(Snip)
If you want to kill the maximum amount of people possible, then I'd think you do. The same thing with bomb making. Any fool can use the weapon: to use it well, reload, unjam, and evade capture / being shot yourself (which appears to have happened in a couple of cases after the November Paris attacks) is much harder.
And why escape after an attack? Not only does it mean that you might be able to attack again, but also that it ties up the police and creates a greater media storm.
(Although I'm not a military man, and I'd bow to superior knowledge from people who are/were).
This is worrying. ISIS are getting fighters into Europe:
www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0VE0XL
If you were ISIS, wouldn't you be making use of the open door?
No, I suspect I'd want to keep all my fighters where they could help keep ISIS alive. It'd be like us sneaking Spitfire pilots into Germany during the Battle of Britain.
But they aren't a conventional military force, they primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels. Exporting fighters/terrorists to Europe and creating a fifth column must be one of their goals.
But we are exporting fighters to them. They can just tell some of their British recruits to stay put and work here.
Training would be an issue. It's hard to train to be an *effective* terrorist in the UK (or at least to do so and not be discovered). It's much easier to do so in an active warzone.
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
Does it really require training to shoot unarmed people in a crowded space?
(Snip)
If you want to kill the maximum amount of people possible, then I'd think you do. The same thing with bomb making. Any fool can use the weapon: to use it well, reload, unjam, and evade capture / being shot yourself (which appears to have happened in a couple of cases after the November Paris attacks) is much harder.
And why escape after an attack? Not only does it mean that you might be able to attack again, but also that it ties up the police and creates a greater media storm.
(Although I'm not a military man, and I'd bow to superior knowledge from people who are/were).
Agree on your points. I got to have a go on a gun range in Slovakia a few years ago. With an AK47 some practice would certainly be needed or most of the ammo would be wasted as the barrel naturally rises when firing. A wannabe jihadist would stick most of the rounds in the ceiling of wherever their target was. A 9mm semi is far easier to keep on target but has far less oomph.
Good.....the only people that sound like they are brainwashed are the parents who are still trying to claim their son isn't a Jihadist and he is just there doing good work.
The tables are up for the Times/YouGov Scotland poll. It also asked how people would vote on the question of Scottish independence (brackets indicate change on last month). No 55% (+3%), Yes 45% (-3%).
Interestingly, while both Con (93) and SNP (92) retain their support from 2015 on the seat vote - unlike Lab (77) and LibD (65), when it comes to the List vote, only Con (93) holds up, while SNP (78) sees support fall to the same level as Lab (74) with the Greens (10) the main beneficiaries....
Meanwhile Nicola's stratospheric rating slips slightly to +30 (-8), but still comfortably ahead of Keiza at -18 (-5) and Ruth on +4 (+3).
For those betting on the US Presidential election, this may be of interest. Red states now outnumber Blue states for the first time since Obama's first election. The logic is that this swings the electoral college maths towards the GOP:
Stakeknife inquiry will investigate over 50 murders. That's one serious serial killer - revealed in 2003 as Freddie Scappaticci, head of the IRA’s internal security unit.
When you reach that ridiculous point, on an internet forum, with some old twit you've never even met, it is time to seek argumentation elsewhere. I shall do that.
Very wise. You obviously find logical thinking distressing.
Very relevantly, the EU parliament president (Speaker? Chair? CEO? Head shaman?) Martin Schulz is putting a big German spoke in the wheels of the "deal".
@traynorbrussels 3m3 minutes ago #brexit @schulz on cameron deal - emergency brake effectively discriminatory
The European Parliament won't even ratify the pitiful pledges Cameron brought home t'other day.
They are telling the UK to F off.
I think you were a Blair supporter, back in the day, Plato? Was that despite his euro-love, or did you change your mind?
Instead of sneering perhaps you might stop and wonder why people express such views. It is not despicable to have an attachment to home - and Britain is home to people here - and to want change to happen slowly, over time and with peoples' consent. How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started repainting the walls and throwing out your old shabby but comfortable furniture?
Nor is it despicable to worry about the differences in behaviour given what has been happening in other countries and in some of our cities and what that means for our home and our family i.e. Britain and the people here. Britons are remarkably tolerant people but that "live and let live" tolerance comes from unspoken but shared assumptions about who we are and how we behave. And when you disrupt those unspoken assumptions by bringing in those who do not share those assumptions then it is much harder for the tolerance we all value to happen.
Britain is a home. It is not a hotel. Too many of the political elite see it as the latter. This is wrong, disruptive and condescendingly dismissive of those who live here.
Interesting post.
Not sure the home analogy is accurate. Homes are personal, private and largely earned. Your country is inherently shared, public and largely inherited. The sense of ownership is certainly common.
A home is more than just your house. It is the community you are a part of: your town, the public spaces around you and the people you share all this with. The wider community, if you will.
Britain is our home. And we are generous hosts to our guests. And we have been a home to many peoples who were not born here. But for a community - any sort of community, whether a family or wider grouping - there need to be shared assumptions about what we are and how we behave to each other. And generally it is the guests and those who are invited in who are expected to adapt not vice versa. When that does not happen - when the guests behave as if they have an entitlement, when the hosts are criticised, when our generosity and openness is or is being perceived as being abused or taken advantage of - then it creates tensions.
The attachment to home is strong and valuable and not something to be sneered at.
And more. It doesn't matter how crap the LEAVE campaign is, they could be led by Mr Tumble and a retarded cucumber, news like this just makes their job too easy:
Absolutely disgusting. Honestly, normal execution is too good for these people. Death by firing squad in a public square where the rest of these people can see the consequences of these actions.
Clearly sickening. But we should remember that most Syrian refugees are decent people and are badly tarred by these outrages.
What don't help is the local mayor saying we should respond to brutal gang rapes by 'explaining our values' to them.
I remain unconvinced on the first statement.
On the second, well liberal wets have been turning a blind eye to Muslim rape gangs for years in this country and now they are being as stupid in Europe. I don't see what value these people bring to Europe or even the world. Removing them from our society is the only way forwards.
As phrased it looks like you are suggesting removing liberal wets from our society!!
In the small village in the Lake District where my husband's family are, a village so small and distant that the next landfall is America, there have been Czech and Polish immigrants since before the war as well as, more recently, Kurds. No-one would comment in the way you suggest.
Don't assume that everyone - even in the "dreaded sticks" - is as narrow-minded as you appear to be about your countrymen.
Mind you, while they embrace Eastern Europeans they can be pretty scathing about pompous Metropolitan types.
You're generalising too,though, aren't you? Broxtowe is reasonably suburban and outward-looking, but I certainly know people who are annoyed to hear Chinese students talking to each other in Chinese, Paksistanis talking Urdu, and so on. I remember one constituent - bafflingly a supporter of mine - proposing that foreign language should be illegal in Britain (even for tourists). I'm a bit sceptical whether your husband's family village really hears a lot of foreign languages spoken,or that they'd react well if they did.
As an example of the risks of preconceptions, when I saw someone replying to a comment you made about people marching in and wanting to change the furniture, I thought you were referring to the lofty British attitude to the EU, and I thought "Yes, there's something in that..."
Trouble is we've had our furniture rearranged without being asked since 1975 whether we agreed or not and hence there's a lot of latent pent up frustration at the condescension that has been shown to us for decades as slice after slice of salami has been handed over to Brussels.
A Brussels, I might add, which does not look anything like the shiny future I imagine it did in 1973 when we had self evidently been performing less well than our W European counterparts economically since the 1940's. Now having been told a load of rot by many that we were in danger of missing various busses if we didn't get on board with further integration (of which the Euro really was the mother of all whoppers), there are those of us who are really genuinely disappointed that this opportunity for real reform for both us and the rest of the EU has been so horribly flunked.
I have no desire to rearrange others' furniture but if they are going to make a pig's ear of arranging mine and won't listen at all to my suggestions then, reluctantly, I'll have to arrange it all myself as the better of the two options that exist, as the third one I wanted clearly isn't on the cards.
Comments
Merkel's thick as two short planks.
It is peculiar that lefties are so protective of a fugitive suspected sex criminal. It is not often the case.
Given this sort of stuff, it just makes you wonder how we can stay in. The sides appear just too far apart.
- Tusk
- Juncker
- Schultz
He asks for a decent broth, and gets a very thin gruel.
That's then taken off the table and he's given a nettle soup.
He's getting a lot of airtime right now
Exactly
It is those who support him who seem to think that the law should only be for the little people not the Assanges of this world.
FWIW Vote Leave refusing either on or off the record to attack Leave.EU or the Labour lot. Meanwhile Banks is press releasing his grenades..
Hanging everything on the possibility of treaty change in the distant future is just a hostage to fortune. Just another way in which this 'deal' is worthless.
The number of school nurses has been cut back, though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35496893
He'd already done a runner from Sweden, hadn't he?
My justification is that it's a good sounding acronym and slightly more seriously it brings the phone polls and online polls into perfect alignment.
I'm almost certainly wrong but my SMAPS (Simplistic Moronic Analysis Predictions for Scotland) system which I made as a joke got SNP vote shares in each constituency almost spot on.
So basically I am a polling savant.
It sounds like something he's been wanting to say for some time.
Maybe there should be a radio phone in for Eurocrats...a sort of 'call Clegg'
Still, it's amusing to see the moan change from 'it doesn't change anything and Cameron was a patsy for not asking for more' to 'they'll never let us make the change'.
Nor is it despicable to worry about the differences in behaviour given what has been happening in other countries and in some of our cities and what that means for our home and our family i.e. Britain and the people here. Britons are remarkably tolerant people but that "live and let live" tolerance comes from unspoken but shared assumptions about who we are and how we behave. And when you disrupt those unspoken assumptions by bringing in those who do not share those assumptions then it is much harder for the tolerance we all value to happen.
Britain is a home. It is not a hotel. Too many of the political elite see it as the latter. This is wrong, disruptive and condescendingly dismissive of those who live here.
On #euref @MartinSchulz says any UK deal which caters 'to narrow self-interests...will meet with resistance from the European Parliament'
He's on ITV at 1330
All that is being said is that the already miniscule fig leaf is yet smaller still. That shouldn't be too hard to understand.
That said, I doubt Schulz's huffing and puffing amount to very much.
I found it very interesting
The Indy has replaced No More Snow with something more absurd. And quotes a horse.
Ben
The Independent actually quoted a horse... Game over.
https://t.co/ZLMudtM9mM https://t.co/yl3ikCSmeG
Still, I agree with you on Schulz.
British people are actually quite intolerant of that Downton Abbey type picture of 'the old country. John Major's 'back to basics' campaign was shot down in flames.
President of the European Council
President of the European Commission
President of the European Parliament
In addition the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU is currently the Netherlands.
Benjamin
274 days since Tories gloriously triumphed over Weird Ed & his band of subpar comrades & we still haven't privatised a hospital. Unlike them
(Although there is a question how effective someone needs to be as a terrorist to get the desired attention and reaction - sometimes just a failed attack would do the job)
But I think Max is wrong in two ways: firstly, they don't "primarily exist to carry out terrorist acts on western infidels." Their aims and desires are so much larger - and in some ways more worrying - than that.
Secondly, they've proved to be a very effective conventional military force: one that has seen off a large part of the western-trained and equipped Iraqi army, and large parts of what remains of the Syrian army.
The mood I pick up elsewhere in my social media world is that the draft deal is a dud and that there seems little to commend the EU.
It is an opinion coming from both left and right.
The left see the EU as negative for workers' wages and do not like the idea of TTIP.
The right see the EU as interfering and a root cause of problems with migration and the application of UK sovereign law.
I really struggle to believe the big leads being given in phone polls as they do not chime with anything I see or hear, both personally and professionally.
Not sure the home analogy is accurate. Homes are personal, private and largely earned. Your country is inherently shared, public and largely inherited. The sense of ownership is certainly common.
I agree that their aims are bigger and on a different scale. They want to be a state, essentially, with all the resources and reach that implies.
Let me repeat it.
''How would you like it if someone marched into your home at the invitation of others and promptly started distressing the walls and throwing out your trendy new furniture and replacing it with antiques?"
http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/10-wartime-dos-and-donts
As an example of the risks of preconceptions, when I saw someone replying to a comment you made about people marching in and wanting to change the furniture, I thought you were referring to the lofty British attitude to the EU, and I thought "Yes, there's something in that..."
And why escape after an attack? Not only does it mean that you might be able to attack again, but also that it ties up the police and creates a greater media storm.
(Although I'm not a military man, and I'd bow to superior knowledge from people who are/were).
In negotiations, there are many factors that effect the outcome and whether there is an outcome. Framing is critical at the outset. The EU have been very effective in framing the UK's demands, forcing temerity upon Cameron on the basis of needing all 28 to agree.
An alternative UK strategy, rather than allowing our ambitions to be framed by our opponents, would to have been to have laid our entire wish list on the table and offer the credible threat of leaving if they were not largely or satisfactorily addressed. Ambiguity as to what would be satisfactory would have help the UK's negotiations.
Then the 'requirement' that all 28 agree would be offset in framing the discussions with the logical conclusion of the UK leaving if the whole were not negotiated seriously.
Instead, we removed most of our aspirations before the negotiations even started and then accepted very thin gruel.
God help us if Cameron is in charge of the divorce negotiations.
All I see is massive and insulting disrespect for us and our genuine concerns.
And I'm voting Leave whatever.
How is your meningitis? Better I hope.
No one left to betray their fellow travellers seems most convenient.
I got to have a go on a gun range in Slovakia a few years ago.
With an AK47 some practice would certainly be needed or most of the ammo would be wasted as the barrel naturally rises when firing.
A wannabe jihadist would stick most of the rounds in the ceiling of wherever their target was.
A 9mm semi is far easier to keep on target but has far less oomph.
NBC/WSJ/Marist Trump 30, Rubio 17, Cruz 15, Kasich 10, Bush 9, Christie 4, Fiorina 2, Carson 4
ARG (Tracking) Trump 36, Rubio 15, Cruz 12, Kasich 14, Bush 8, Christie 6, Fiorina 2, Carson 2
Each would deliver 12,3,3,2 delegates
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35499960
Good.....the only people that sound like they are brainwashed are the parents who are still trying to claim their son isn't a Jihadist and he is just there doing good work.
Another 40% off their May hammering.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/188969/red-states-outnumber-blue-first-time-gallup-tracking.aspx
Stakeknife inquiry will investigate over 50 murders. That's one serious serial killer - revealed in 2003 as Freddie Scappaticci, head of the IRA’s internal security unit.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4683147.ece
A home is more than just your house. It is the community you are a part of: your town, the public spaces around you and the people you share all this with. The wider community, if you will.
Britain is our home. And we are generous hosts to our guests. And we have been a home to many peoples who were not born here. But for a community - any sort of community, whether a family or wider grouping - there need to be shared assumptions about what we are and how we behave to each other. And generally it is the guests and those who are invited in who are expected to adapt not vice versa. When that does not happen - when the guests behave as if they have an entitlement, when the hosts are criticised, when our generosity and openness is or is being perceived as being abused or taken advantage of - then it creates tensions.
The attachment to home is strong and valuable and not something to be sneered at.
A Brussels, I might add, which does not look anything like the shiny future I imagine it did in 1973 when we had self evidently been performing less well than our W European counterparts economically since the 1940's. Now having been told a load of rot by many that we were in danger of missing various busses if we didn't get on board with further integration (of which the Euro really was the mother of all whoppers), there are those of us who are really genuinely disappointed that this opportunity for real reform for both us and the rest of the EU has been so horribly flunked.
I have no desire to rearrange others' furniture but if they are going to make a pig's ear of arranging mine and won't listen at all to my suggestions then, reluctantly, I'll have to arrange it all myself as the better of the two options that exist, as the third one I wanted clearly isn't on the cards.