a bar of Hershey's
Hershey's is truly foul. How could you take something as nice as chocolate and turn it into something so horrible?
nicely summed up
So Theresa May, the British prime minister who was not elected to her post, wants to create something called “Global Britain.” She thought about alternative branding — “Parochial Britain” — but was advised it was unsexy.She wants to achieve this by taking Britain out of the European Union, out of a single market of a half-billion people and into a new “embrace” of the world — excluding, of course, Spaniards, the French, Germans, Italians, Swedes and their ilk.
The prime minister is so keen on the idea that she used the word “global” 17 times in her speech on Tuesday setting out her Brexit plans.
Madam, thou doth protest too much.
The Onion’s headline was: “May to European Union: Drop Dead. May to World: We Love You.” Actually, that was not in The Onion but should have been.
I wonder if May, who studied geography at Oxford University, has ever taken a stroll round London, that inward-looking city where you never hear a foreign tongue. After 43 years in what is now called the European Union, the British capital has become insufferably insular. Its cuisine lacks variety. Its financial institutions have no international heft. Its skyline speaks of stunted ambition. Its culture is provincial, its theater hidebound and its worldview small-minded.
No wonder May felt she had to take London global.
And Britain as a whole! For 43 years the country has been a member of an introverted, stifling little entity called the European Union that has just concluded a free trade deal with Canada, has dozens of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements, boasts the United States as its top trading partner, takes some 44 percent of British exports, and accounts for 22 percent of world economic output.
How could Britain possibly be global within this straitjacket?
No, it had to get out of Europe to go global (and make sure its citizens could no longer work in Europe)! The June 23 referendum, May insisted, was “the moment we chose to build a truly global Britain.”
I know this is a political moment when black equals white, no means yes, two plus two equals five, and post-truth is the phrase du jour. Still, this was a Trump-size whopper from May. She had obviously been steeped in Orwell before her oration.
The vote for Brexit was in fact the moment Britain turned its back on the world, succumbing to pettiness, anti-immigrant bigotry, lying politicians, self-delusion and vapid promises of restored glory.
“Global Britain” is a specious branding effort designed to mask an expensive mistake, opposed by 48 percent of voters.
Now, a memory stirs. May at the Conservative Party Conference last October saying this: “But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.”
So much for May and her global baloney: She doesn’t like people who move from country to country, who may feel allegiance to more than one, and who have concluded that the most useful form of citizenship these days is one dedicated not only to the well-being of a Berkshire parish, say, but to the planet.
Global Britain without global citizens, please!
There was at least one honest sentence in her speech: “Brexit must mean control of the number of people who come to Britain from Europe.” That, you see, is what it was all about: too many Poles and Romanians doing jobs nobody else wants.
May rambled. She does not want the single market (because it entails free movement of E.U. citizens). But, oh, maybe she wants bits of it. Like for the export of cars or freedom to provide financial services across borders. May has already had to make promises to Nissan to stop the Japanese automaker from getting out of Sunderland. She’s terrified financial institutions will quit the City en masse.
Her comeuppance awaits in the form of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who knows global baloney when she sees it. You don’t have your cake and eat it in negotiations with Merkel.
I write as President-elect Donald Trump is about to become President Trump. Nobody really has any idea of what will happen after that. President Vladimir Putin says that Trump would never run after Russian “girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world.”
Good to know that at least.
May seems to see Trump as her global ace in the hole, her counterweight to the European Union. She has been making nice to him. Her government has voiced extraordinary public criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Israel-Palestine, and largely shunned a Middle East conference in Paris the Trump team opposed. In her speech, May pointedly remarked that Britain was not “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal with the United States, as President Obama warned, but at the front in the hour of Trump.
Global Britain! Make America Great Again! Russia for Russians! As Orwell is said to have observed, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/theresa-mays-global-britain-is-baloney.html
DrJ - if only there'd been a bowl of EU (say Belgian) chocolate and a bowl of glorious Brexit future (Hershey's) chocolate and we'd asked people to choose.
Even Jamba would have gone for the EU I think.
I wonder if May, who studied geography at Oxford University, has ever taken a stroll round London, that inward-looking city where you never hear a foreign tongue. After 43 years in what is now called the European Union, the British capital has become insufferably insular. Its cuisine lacks variety. Its financial institutions have no international heft. Its skyline speaks of stunted ambition. Its culture is provincial, its theater hidebound and its worldview small-minded.
What a crock
What a crock
Oh the ironing!
Hershey's is truly foul. How could you take something as nice as chocolate and turn it into something so horrible?
A couple hundred years of practice? They've managed it with many foodstuffs.
As I said before my wife would be happy to hear she (we) couldn't live permanently in the UK as she doesn't really like it.
Can't say I blame her. It is now clearer than ever that the country is half full of gullible racists...
Like me she believes Brexit will make zero difference in practice as to where we can live and work.
What makes you say that? May has said otherwise.
What makes you say that? May has said otherwise.
Otherwise is just for the poor folks. The well off will always find a way. Which is what makes it so dishonest to trick those are the bottom of the pile to vote for something that will only hurt them.
what a crock
I'd assumed that this description of London was some vision of what it will become, or some other literary device too sophisticated for a simple soul. But as you say, it's just a crock.
DO some forumites really need a lesson in irony?
I am not sure how much more obvious they could have made the point that Britain was outward looking etc and i cannot believe so many have missed the sarcasm
Explains why so many forum messages end up with frisson of folk cannot see sarcasm in that piece. 😯
Zokes people need a pantomine villan, you included.
No one has ever used this phrase but you everyone just challenges you on the inaccurate facts and falsehoods you post with a bit of personal when you ignore the point like this as they think its deliberate.
Is anyone else reading this in a Trump voice as he shouts at CNN?Zero intention of replying to any question you may have now or in the future unless it suits me to make a point. None.
The Most surprising thing there was that you think you make [points rather than errors 😉
my wife would be happy to hear she (we) couldn't live permanently in the UK as she doesn't really like it.
Right, fair enough. That's what I was getting at, I couldn't understand why she would be in favour of something that potentially could compromise where she lived. If she doesn't really want to be here, that explains it. Thank you.
And the Aussies are asking for a relaxation of immigration controls
suits me if they are going to relax theirs....i will **** off to oz and set up there
Jambas, mon amis, avez-vous remarqué l'efficacité du logiciel de blocage* allégué par le petit homme qui vit sous le pont? Il ne se repose jamais, n'est-ce pas? 😉
whilst i have been catching upon the whole thing this weekend it dawned on me,may has she double bluffed everyone , she came out swinging with her hard brexit and did a very good job of making people think she was in it to win it but on tuesday at 9.30 the beaks will be announcing wether it needs to go for a vote
will she actually trigger it or will she turn round and go oh well then beaten by the vote its all off , forget it you knew i was pitching for a hard exit....im really really gutted honestly
My french is passable thanks for asking- shall I test your Welsh or Arabic skills?
the irony of you who pretend to ignore me asking about me blocking him is amusing why dont you just ignore me then 😉
as for calling me a troll that is a barefaced and shameful lie with no basis in truth...except for post truth.
FWIW the software stopped working last week - it was on another thread as well btw
I am sure you care deeply about this though
its really is pathetic to engage by doing this either have a go at me directly or ignore me but to do childish passive aggressive stuff is really really sad.
NY Times
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/theresa-mays-global-britain-is-baloney.html?referer
I wonder if May, who studied geography at Oxford University, has ever taken a stroll round London, that inward-looking city where you never hear a foreign tongue. After 43 years in what is now called the European Union, the British capital has become insufferably insular. Its cuisine lacks variety. Its financial institutions have no international heft. Its skyline speaks of stunted ambition. Its culture is provincial, its theater hidebound and its worldview small-minded.
What a crock
THM, that was sarcasm
hence this bit
I know this is a political moment when black equals white, no means yes, two plus two equals five, and post-truth is the phrase du jour. Still, this was a Trump-size whopper
Still amazed that had to be pointed out to him
Explains rather a lot though if he never detects sarcasm and i cannot see how it can be spread any thicker than that piece...you must have spectacularly missed the tone of so many posts on here.
😳 missed the sarcasm - are you sure? I thought sarcasm was peculiarly British!
Was skim reading such a long post but stopped at the para in question - my bad as they say
Sarcasm. Pointing out that London IS global already.
[i] [ edit: oops, missed a whole page of replies pointing this out! ][/i]
Cougar et al - I mentioned my wife so I think it's reasonable to ask a follow up question, if I though that it was personal I would say so. Most of her family are mostly concerned about freedom of movement, Shengen etc. I think it's consistent with UK that the older they are the bigger an issue they see this. Remember Paris has had hundreds if nit thousands of asylum seekers sleeping rough in the city for many months, asylum seekrs turned diwn in Germany are just turing up here. Many of her family voted against the Maastrict Treaty in a Referendum - result was 51/49. I think it's also true that most of them think it's impossible to leave the EU/euro as they are "stuck / in too deep / would be too costly to recreate a proper Bank of France" etc
Stop. Be nice to THM.
When a man admits a mistake that deserves respect.
We all make them, we don't all admit them.
Now, Jamba...
All my French family are pro Eu, against the Front National and think that Brexit is crazy.
Jamba - I think your post sums it up for me. The old folk are worried about losing the countries of the past and are seeking to re-establish the half forgotten borders and barriers of their youth, while the young are looking forward to the challenges, opportunities and downright excitement of living in a bigger world amongst a more diverse community.
That's why you voted one way and your children another.
I'm a little (not much) younger than you and I see both sides - but I'm also the kind of person who loves change and challenge. Hence I voted not to put the barriers up.
The old can **** off and die, frankly. This mess will outlive them by many years, they won't be the ones picking up the pieces.
How old is old? My mates who are mostly 60+ as am I are all remainers.
Jambas, mon amis,
Your French is as bad as jamba's 🙂
[quote=slowoldman ]How old is old? My mates who are mostly 60+ as am I are all remainers.
we all have mates who mostly share our attitudes but the research showed the older you were the more likely you were to vote leave
The older the voters, the more likely they were to have voted to leave the EU. Nearly three quarters (73%) of 18 to 24 year-olds voted to remain, falling to under two thirds (62%) among 25-34s. A majority of those aged over 45 voted to leave, rising to 60% of those aged 65 or over
S.O.M. - and my 72 year old mother is staunchly remain (and no in the other referendum).
I speak in generalities (along the lines of the rough 2/3:1/3 split the polls suggest) when I talk of the old voting for barriers and boundaries; there are decent folk of all ages.
whilst i have been catching upon the whole thing this weekend it dawned on me,may has she double bluffed everyone , she came out swinging with her hard brexit and did a very good job of making people think she was in it to win it but on tuesday at 9.30 the beaks will be announcing wether it needs to go for a votewill she actually trigger it or will she turn round and go oh well then beaten by the vote its all off , forget it you knew i was pitching for a hard exit....im really really gutted honestly
I think she's playing a bluff, yes. The more extreme her position, the more likely people will rise up and protest - and the more people there will be doing it... If enough people are feeling poorer by the time the deal gets finalised and the deal is lousy enough I think a significant % of people who voted out will find they've changed their minds.
Worth looking at this story from BBC. To a degree I'm sure they're cherry-picking her quotes but less than a year ago she understood all the downsides to leaving and was speaking out against them. I believe that she's no history of total reversal of her views within 8 months...
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38653681 ]BBC story comparing Theresa May's quotes from April 2016 to now[/url]
Your French is as bad as jamba's
😳 its a long time since A level French 😳
[blows kiss ar igm]
Probably worth listening to this - Radio 4. I caught the last third of it...
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0890f7j ]How Marx Made The Right[/url]
Makes the point that Neoliberalism started to fall apart once Communism failed as we had nothing to positively compare it to - hence even though it's had many benefits, a significant proportion of the Western electorate no longer support it.
It also makes the point that a homeowning democracy was supposed to be one of the key benefits of neoliberalism to make sure the masses got a share of the wealth - and in that respect neoliberalism has certainly failed in the UK at least... Mind you, it'd be interesting to sit down with those that know and trace back the sources of money that seemed to pour into London from 2012 onwards and see how much came from Russia - making housing unaffordable in the UK is a great way to get us to reject our governing class...
In other news, I find myself entertaining guests of the Department for International Trade.
Who was it said us remainers we're going to be expected to bail the leavers out when it actually came to doing anything constructive?
Me
but but but they need us more than we nee.. oh
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38707997
The distinguished audience members were too polite to heckle. But the eye rolling, frowns and audible tutting made it quite clear how the Brexiteers' message was going down with German business leaders.
Owen Paterson, a former minister and Conservative MP, and John Longworth, co-chair of Leave Means Leave, came to Berlin on Saturday with a clear mission - to persuade German business leaders to lobby Chancellor Angela Merkel to give Britain a good trade deal.
They should have been on safe territory.
The two men are confident, witty speakers with impressive business and free-trade credentials.
Mr Longworth is a former head of the British Chamber of Commerce. Mr Paterson's years spent trading in Germany meant he could open his address with a few remarks in German - which drew an appreciative round of applause - and a well-judged joke about multilingual trade.
But it turned out they had entered the lion's den.The laughter from the audience quickly turned to s****s as they heard the UK described as "a beacon of open, free trade around the world".
Westminster's decision to leave the world's largest free trade area does not look like that to Germany.
When Europe was blamed for spending cuts and a lack of British health care provision, there were audible mutters of irritation from the audience.
The occasional light-hearted attempts at EU-bashing - usually guaranteed to get a cheap laugh with some British audiences - was met with stony silence.
when will the penny drop with the brexies?
Zokes people need a pantomine villan, you included. Zero intention of replying to any question you may have now or in the future unless it suits me to make a point. None.
Not that surprising really. It was quite apparent quite some time ago that any question in danger of proving just how misguided you are was being ignored. Unfortunate nonetheless, as this admission clearly shows you lack the capacity to hold your argument up to scrutiny.
suits me if they are going to relax theirs....i will **** off to oz and set up there
I did wonder this 🙂
Haven't enough polls been shown to be completely inaccurate for you people to stop listening to them?
Oh I forget, if it fits your bias then anything goes.. complaining about people blaming others while blaming others.
kimbers - Member
but but but they need us more than we nee.. oh
Thanks for that link - I found this paragraph particularly illuminating:
Remarkably unitedWhen the audience was asked how many of them welcomed Brexit, only one hand went up - and it turned out that belonged to a businessman who wanted more EU reform and was fed up with Britain slowing things down.
"Go home Britain, you're drunk!" - it's going to be the mother of all hangovers.
As I said before my wife would be happy to hear she (we) couldn't live permanently in the UK as she doesn't really like it.
She joined you in campaigning for us to leave the EU, and doesn't want to live here anyway?
I suppose there is some logic to that.
Like Farage looking to sit out the transition chaos in Germany or USA.
Pity all us fools left behind, working to get us through the unnecessary, unwanted, reorganisations and renegotiations.
Maybe the reality is she figures the EU is better off without us?
theocb - Member
Haven't enough polls been shown to be completely inaccurate for you people to stop listening to them?
You need to understand polls - it was my father's life's work (he's retired not dead) and some of it wore off.
On Brexit the polls were stunningly accurate. There was a difference between the online and non-online polls, which probably reflected the age bias in the eventual voting, but even the online polls were within a couple of percent - which is in line with the normal margins of error. The non-online polls were absolutely in the money.
"Polls were in accurate" is a Brexit fallacy.
In the States, the polls probably got the popular vote about right but were a few tens of thousands (total) out in 120 million who voted in terms of the patterns in the swing states that made the difference.
Polls are a fairly good indicator of what's going on but in events that are a couple of percent either way never perfect.
Which is why the age breakdown with its 2/3:1/3 split is probably a more interesting use of them.
Perhaps your father would prefer 'polls can be used as one indicator of what is happening' rather than this 'fairly good' 'probably' malarkey 😀
I think you may have your facts back to front in the online/non-online part of your post?? or maybe I have misunderstood
And no 'polls are inaccurate' is not a Brexit fallacy (another made up point to suit your own bias) They were all skew-whiff in the GE too
I'm sure your father wouldn't be over happy to see people using basic polling results used as a stick to beat others with. Probably maybe fairly likely I reckon 😀
The old folk are worried about losing the countries of the past and are seeking to re-establish the half forgotten borders and barriers of their youth,
I suspect that nostalgia plays a big part of this. We probably all remember grandparents reminiscing wistfully about the halcyon days of their youths, where everyone knew each other and they could leave their front door unlocked. (Y'know, if they managed to live past 40 without getting dragged under a cotton mill or something.) And now thanks to the media spin they've suddenly got a demon whose fault it all is that times have changed - the EU. Once we leave it'll all be jumpers for goalposts again.
Theocb - the non-online polls predicted a narrow victory for the Brexies. Go check.