I find it odd that they love France and the French to bits but are anti-EU. I think it's something they've learnt from the press and the party rather than something they really believe.
I find very odd that you cannot differentiate between a country and its people and a political idea !
Point taken. tbh it's more that my parents are very intelligent and generally well-informed and insightful and pretty open-minded, but when it comes to EU they seem to lose a lot of that and come out with generalised soundbite-type complaints rather than their usual well-informed insights.
As said above, they're Conservative in that they like small state government and are pro-business and EU is largely the opposite and so they rail against it...
My uni dissertation (written in 1995) concluded that UK needed to stop ranting against EU and get in amongst it to try and reform it rather than sitting on the outside sulking. In essence I still hold the same view, although given the current state of the Euro-area and how it's responded to the credit crunch etc you do wonder if the EU is beyond reform now and would be better off as a free trade bloc rather than a political and social one (which probably puts me in traditional Tory territory!)
tbh it's more that my parents are very intelligent and generally well-informed and insightful and pretty open-minded, but when it comes to EU they seem to lose a lot of that and come out with generalised soundbite-type complaints rather than their usual well-informed insights
Well maybe...just maybe your parents have both the intelligence as well as a good dose of common sense and experience to realise the absolute tosh and jibble, jabble spoken by politicians both for and against the EU.
Net immigration keeps going up, a good thing?Will help pay for my pension one day but makes buying houses more expensive plus losing green belt.
So you want me and my future children to pay higher taxes, so you can keep your greenbelt?
That's the problem with UKIPers and Conservatives in general, the right lost the mantra of building a better world for the future/their children and only care about their own lives at that point in time.
A common market was and remains a great idea. The rest of the nonsense is just that.
Can you really have a common market without the rest? I don't think so.
Try selling something to a Norweigian (EEA) vs a Swede(EU) for example.
So you want me and my future children to pay higher taxes, so you can keep your greenbelt?
That's the problem with UKIPers and Conservatives in general, the right lost the mantra of building a better world for the future/their children and only care about their own lives at that point in time.
so you want to build over green belts so you and your kids can pay fractionally less in tax?
(I don't understand how your post and the one you quote relate to each other at all, frankly)
Because when they're shoving bananas up one another's arses in their London clubs, they bloody well like a gentle curve.
The Tories simply find a lot of the decisions and rules just a bit lefty for their taste.
It's pretty black and white to a lot of them, being a member of the EU you're either exploited or the exploiter.
They want the ability to exploit but aren't prepared to have to bend over occasionally and share the love.
An awful lot of them understand the need to give up a lot in order to get back much more but there is a core that don't or won't and their numbers swell and ebb with the political tide.
When a super wave builds, it creates havoc for them.
it's about being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. applies equally to consevatives vs europe, and snp vs UK. IMO.
come on lads, we'll have more of our own money to play with that we can squirrel away in to our own projects/back pockets, without anyone looking over our shoulders.
That's the problem with UKIPers and Conservatives in general, the right lost the mantra of building a better world for the future/their children and only care about their own lives at that point in time.
Yep... that pretty much sums it up. They ramble on about individualism, the rights of the individual etc, but in reality they just epitomise greed and selfishness. Thatcher was quoted out of context when she said 'theres no such thing as society', but this shower of ****s interpreted it literally. And the problem with Europe is that those pinko, commy bastards still have some quaint, outdated notion that we shouldn't all be spending our lives trampling over everyone else to grasp as much as possible for ourselves. You know... workers rights and stuff. Rather than a race to the bottom on wages and rights. Thus the natural hostility of the landlord/employer class, looking to maximise their own pile at the expense of everyone else
TBH it depends on the size of the employer as to whether Europe is good for it. In many instances, the rules are stacked in favour of (often lobbied for by) big business, with whom politicians of various colours have cos relationships and post-political consultancy work.binners - Member
Thus the natural hostility of the landlord/employer class, looking to maximise their own pile at the expense of everyone else
Right now we are looking back on a very brief window of history where the levels of welfare and public spending were sustainable in Western Europe and mistaking it for the norm, or our right.
You're right about levels of public spending. I think most people are now fairly resigned to that now. Hence the weary acceptance of the stagnation of the British economy.
When I say most people are resigned to it, that obviously excludes the French. Who always seem to have had the impression that they were entitled to be subsidised by everyone else. Hence the alarming rise of Le Pen and the neo-nazi's in France. Offering simple crowd-pleasing solutions to complex problems. Much like Farage, only scarier
binners - Member
I'd love to say theres a rational, reasoned, theory about deeply held beliefs, etc. But there isn't. Basically its because they're all terminally small-minded, stupid, ignorant, insular, racist, little Englanders, who view everything through some weird prism of a colonial utopia that never actually existed anywaybencooper - Member
Because Europe does annoying things like introduce human rights and worker protection legislation, which means they can't treat the plebs however they like.
The 2nd and 3rd posts deftly and succintly summarise all you need to know about this. With the addition of one minor fact: the whole thing is frothed up by the Murdoch papers - ie a US agenda to prevent Europe from coalescing into something that could compete on economic and military terms with them.
Let's be clear on this, the EU has done a good job of breaking things from within and is now at the stage where forces are beginning to pull in very opposite directions.dbcooper - Member
a US agenda to prevent Europe from coalescing into something that could compete on economic and military terms with them.
The whole Euro entry criteria was flawed and riddled with fraud (Google for Goldman Sachs input with Greece and Germany - try "debt warehousing") and the EU itself has never produced a set of accounts that [i]any[/i] auditor would put their name to.
You cannot share a currency without also sharing fiscal, tax and legal policy. It will never work.
Right now we are looking back on a very brief window of history where the levels of welfare and public spending were sustainable in Western Europe and mistaking it for the norm, or our right.
That's what they want you to think.
Let's be clear on this, the EU has done a good job of breaking things from within and is now at the stage where forces are beginning to pull in very opposite directions.
That may well be true, but it just means we need reform, not a xenophobic withdrawal.
so you want to build over green belts so you and your kids can pay [s]fractionally[/s] considerably less in tax?
(I don't understand how your post and the one you quote relate to each other at all, frankly)
Not wanting to see greenbelt built on is a purely selfish motive.
Right now we are looking back on a very brief window of history where the levels of welfare and public spending were sustainable in Western Europe and mistaking it for the norm, or our right.
Is that how you justify inequality then? I suppose we should go back to being a monarchical state run by religious loons, seeing as historically speaking, that's totally normal as well.
Britain is still expected to be a top 10 economy by 2050, it's not like we're going to become a 2nd world nation unable to afford some level of welfare anytime soon. As long as you know, we have a young enough population to work and support everyone else.
e Murdoch papers - ie a US agenda to prevent Europe from coalescing into something that could compete on economic and military terms with them.
It all sounds a bit conspiracyish, but the yanks have always secretly hated the EU.
fiscal, tax and legal policy.
The American States seem to have plenty of autonomy to govern these.
It all sounds a bit conspiracyish, but the yanks have always secretly hated the EU.
It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact, do you think that newspapers do not push an agenda?
The last thing the Americans want to see is a genuine United States of Europe. You can tell they're not worried that it'll actually happen though, as they haven't started any protectionist trade wars yet
Not wanting to see greenbelt built on is a purely selfish motive.
how would building on greenbelt land lead to lower taxes?
how is turning England's semisuburbia into total suburbia building a better future?
I present it as nothing other than fact.Tom_W1987 - MemberRight now we are looking back on a very brief window of history where the levels of welfare and public spending were sustainable in Western Europe and mistaking it for the norm, or our right.Is that how you justify inequality then?
As for inequality, inept, left-wing economic policy (QE for example) has done more to make the top 1% better off than just about anything in history. When even billionaires are complaining that it is unfair, you know something is wrong.
Eurosceptic (against the currency rather than the union) AfD party has ousted Angela Merkel's CDU party in Saxony: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29006799
@digga
Are you saying quantative easing (QE) is a left wing policy, if so how so ?
The "rich" are complaining about QE as it's lowering investment returns generally
The top 1% were much better off on a relative basis 100 and 200 years ago than they are now. Also you need to work out what you mean by better off, with free education, pensions, property ownership, health care and decent life expectancy I think the broader population have never had it so good.
As for inequality, inept, left-wing economic policy (QE for example) has done more to make the top 1% better off than just about anything in history. When even billionaires are complaining that it is unfair, you know something is wrong.
That's a complete joke and possibly an outright lie. We haven't had proper left wing policy in this country for 30 odd years, whilst Scandinavia has far lower levels of inequality than us.
how would building on greenbelt land lead to lower taxes?
how is turning England's semisuburbia into total suburbia building a better future?
Provides more housing for more people of working age, if we can no longer build on brown sites.
It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact, do you think that newspapers do not push an agenda?
I was agreeing with you there.