Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

David Cameron has confirmed that he will do anything to keep us in the EU

Every continent on the planet is experiencing economic growth except Europe. We can do better than this





By Daniel Hannan

10:02AM BST 08 Jun 2015



EU leaders are giddy with relief. They had expected a series of tough demands from David Cameron, armed as he was with a new electoral mandate. They knew that the Euroscepticism of the British electorate had hardened. They understood that, unlike in some Continental countries, there is no appetite here for political union, as opposed to commerce and collaboration, with neighbouring states. They were, accordingly, prepared to make big concessions to the British leader. Jacques Delors emerged from retirement to propose a “privileged partnership” for Britain, based on free movement of goods and services but not political integration. Guy Verhofstadt, the federalist Euro-liberal leader, made a similar offer, calling it “associate membership”.


But, to the incredulity of Continental Europhiles, David Cameron is pushing only for token changes, most of which can be achieved through domestic legislation without requiring treaty change. He has ruled out campaigning to leave the EU. He has told Jean-Claude Juncker that he intends to use the referendum to, as the President of the European Commission puts it, “dock Britain to the EU”. He has altered the question on the ballot paper, disregarding the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to pick the form of wording which opinion polls show is likeliest to elicit a Yes vote. He is even altering the rules to allow the government to campaign, with taxpayers’ money, to stay in.


His EU counterparts get the message very clearly. No serious concessions are being sought. All they are being asked to do is play along with a charade, to feign annoyance, to talk of “tough negotiations”, to tell British journalists that something had to be dragged out of them.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11658810/David-Camerons-has-finally-confirmed-that-he-is-pro-European-and-wants-us-to-stay-in.html

some (fred!) will bray that it's a cop-out, but in truth, nothing that required an actual treaty change was ever likely to be achieved or even likely to be pursued ..... it's very much a case of how far one can push the boundaries of variation ....

for example, and certainly perceived as very important by the public at large, will be the question or ability of refusing benefits to migrants for an extended period of time or until certain other criteria have been met

I believe this requires no treaty change, but will certain ruffle the feathers of some eu members

Manuel,

I was wrong about the outcome of the GE.

Like many I expected a coalition with a overall labour led government.

But your crowing about a Cameron led government with a 12 seat majority is laughable.

He can't even control and lead his own party.

Also, I was well aware that Cameron claimed to be preferred to be in the EU. and although I think he is a psychopath, he is a realist, unlike yourself and the reactionary neo-cons in the present tory party.

But what Cameron seems to be proving to me, is that he is an implausible liar who will do anything to appear to be in control.




----=-=-=-=

fred - i have never crowed, and unlike you i do not keep droning on and on and on and on and on with the same old monotonous mantra

get a life while you still have a little breath in your body and live with the hand of cards you have been dealt, whether you like or not .... i would have said "learn to live" but i fear you are far too entrenched in your ways to even dare to try

Manuel.

Thanks for you advice.

I am content with my life and feel very lucky with the hand which has been dealt me.

But a little reflective insight on your part might relieve of your own delusional qualities of yourself.



=-=-=-=-=

PS.

Everyday your icon Cameron appears to be more a more a clown.

Have a better day!

Jeremy Corbyn is standing for Labour leadership, supported by Diane Abbot, Dennis Skinner plus the usual lefty suspects. He has said that Milliband was brilliant but the voters were 'Racist and Confused'.

http://order-order.com/2015/06/09/corbyn-miliband-was-brilliant-voters-were-racist-and-confused/

Good on you Fred for hitching to Paris all those years ago ,must have been a very different experience from today , I did the same when i was a kid although in the US .

Take cynics advice , if you were once a lad of adventure try to live a bit rather than droning on ,although i suppose we all get older and kind of lose some of our original free thinking .

One of my daughters hitch hiked around USA and into Canada and another around Australia for 3-4 month periods they were in their twenties.

They enjoyed themselves.

I think my wife lost weight.

-===-==-=-

Politics and hypocrisy has always interested me and those who know me also know that I have always challenged "false" beliefs. Often with tongue in cheek, as my grandson says "Oh Gramps hmmmmmh".

But with a shower which is "governing" at the moment and incidentals like Manuel around, somebody needs to challenge them!

Otherwise their delusions, or beliefs may become another religion!

From FT.com

June 9, 2015 12:41 pm
Greeks chose poverty, let them have their way
Francesco Giavazzi

It is clear that citizens have no appetite for modernising society, writes Francesco Giavazzi

For more than five years, Greece has been Europe’s biggest concern. Instead of focusing on employment, or immigration, or the challenge of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the continent’s attention has been on a country that represents 1.8 per cent of the eurozone’s economic output. It would be interesting to calculate how many hours Angela Merkel has dedicated to Athens in the past five years. Imagine President Barack Obama taking part in high-level talks for months on end, where little was on the agenda except the state of Tennessee. That, in effect, is what Europe’s heads of government have been doing.

In these five years the world has changed. China and India are undergoing profound transformations. The jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) represents a new and serious threats to the west, as does Mr Putin’s revanchism. But European leaders, instead of devoting their summits to the question of how to best defend our economic and military interests, agonise over what to do about Greece.

Five years of negotiations that have achieved virtually nothing (the few reforms that had been adopted, like a small reduction in the inflated number of public sector employees, have since been reversed by the Syriza-led coalition). It is pretty clear that the Greeks have no appetite for modernising their society. They worry too little about an economy ruined by patronage.

Europeans, too, have made mistakes. Since Athens joined the monetary union, we have lent Greece €400bn, 1.7 times the country’s gross domestic product in 2013. It is time for a reality check: they will never be repaid. And it is an illusion to imagine, as the Finns sometimes do, that we could receive compensation in kind by acquiring a few Greek islands. The age when the British empire would do that is, luckily, over. Bygones are bygones. The sooner we accept this and forget those loans the better.

If the Greeks do not want to modernise, we should accept it. By a large majority, they have voted for a government that, six months after the election, remains vastly popular. Its popularity with the electorate signals a wish to remain a nation with a per-capita income half that of Ireland, less than that of Slovenia. In a few years it will be overtaken by Chile. I only hope that no one in Athens dreams that debt forgiveness and Grexit offer an alternative path to growth.

Without economic and social reforms, Greece will remain a relatively poor country. But it is not for the rest of Europe to impose reforms on Greece. It should merely make crystal clear that without serious reforms, new official loans are over. The only way for Athens to borrow will be to convince the markets that it will pay its own bills. No more EU guarantees, explicit or otherwise.

We should ask ourselves whether it is really so important to keep Greece inside the EU. (Barring a treaty change, leaving the euro entails leaving the EU.) The criterion should not be the protection of our credit: that is gone, like it or not. Nor should it be the risk that there might be a run on the euro because of contagion: thanks to the actions of the European Central Bank, monetary union today is resilient enough to withstand Grexit.

European leaders should stop treating the Greek problem as if it were merely a financial issue. It goes to the heart of European integration. That project has undoubtedly accelerated as a result of monetary union (just think of the decision to remove bank supervision from national control).

But the euro cannot be a substitute for further political integration. Indeed, without such integration, the euro cannot survive — and today, Greece stands in the way of it.

The writer is professor of economics at Bocconi University in Milan.

IS SALMOND THE SON OF THE DEVIL EVIL IS WHOLE FAMILY ARE EVIL

marK it looks like Cameron was voted in on is lies
we voted conservative to vote to get out of the eu
and migrants must not be allowed to vote

no MrT, you voted for a referendum and that is exactly what you'll get and assuredly you would not have done under labour

i'm unsure of the definition of migrants in this context but i don't see how anyone without uk citizenship could be allowed to vote, any more than a uk citizen working in eu would be allowed to vote in that country's elections

As evidence mounts that Cameron and his allies have decided there will be a Yes vote to stay in the EU, I smell a cynical stitch-up, writes STEPHEN GLOVER

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3116227/As-evidence-mounts-Cameron-allies-decided-Yes-vote-stay-EU-smell-cynical-stitch-writes-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html#ixzz3cZyJjWrJ
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DC was always going to campaign to stay in and never made any real secret of it
however, he retained the potential threat of uk voting to exit if there were no half-way decent concessions
treaty changes were never a feasible option, or at least not in the short term

labour wouldn't have given you any choice at all, not ukip nor snp

at least you now have the choice of voting to exit, and if you and your pals win the day so be it, and vice versa

=========

PS i would scarcely put forward the mail as a purveyor of sensible, objective or even accurate journalism

Manuel,

The referendum is a waste of tax payers' money for party political reasons.

I want a referendum on fox hunting before 2016!

I beginning to think you are an old bull, you certainly produce enough -=-=-===!

MPs have just voted for the EU referendum in the scond reading with 544 in favour to only 53 against. What a change of heart by a lot of people and a couple of parties. It is now off to the committee stage.

https://youtu.be/r7QbmlPrTCk