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Posts Tagged ‘The European Union’

I suppose and in often strange ways, we sometimes discover “the fatal flaw” in most ideas. Having started my commercial life as a designer concerned with engineering and production, there was a very amusing story about a “new mousetrap”, I will not bore you with the tale but the ‘punch line’ was quite simple:

The basic concept behind the design was obviously flawed and when called upon to deal with this, the designer instead of having a total rethink, just “improved” upon or refined his own flawed original concept. To engineers, this was all very amusing because it was something that we had to deal with on a daily basis and knew that it was far too easy to be led astray. I have an awful feeling that Scottish independence is the same…

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I was slightly amused by Chris Huhne giving an opinion on the motives of the “Tory Right Wing” with regard to the EU the other day but more than that, I also read a number of articles on Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/international/ with regard to the current Euro Crisis which gives an interesting insight to some German thinking on the whole thing.

What struck me about these articles and however ‘reasonable in tone’ they are, the authors completely miss any basic understanding of a “British Perspective” which has been shaped over a long period of time and is largely influenced by us being “island races”. By the same token, I don’t suspect that we can easily understand Continental Europe with its contiguous land borders either that have shaped their present day views in both peace and war.

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There is a proposal by a UKIP Peer Lord Pearson of Rannoch to set up a House of Lords Committee to examine the value of the UK belonging to the European Union. It is envisaged that the membership of this committee would be made up of seven people, two “For”, two “Against”, two of no strong view on the matter and, an independent chairman.

The idea would be by diligent examination of the issues, it must be possible to arrive at a firm view, backed with facts that says that it is either “In” or “Against” the UK’s interests to be a member of the European Union. This is a fine ambition I might suggest but there are quite a number of obvious problems with the whole idea…

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For all the fuss over the EU, we really must concentrate on more important things like Christmas because the farce over last Friday, is emerging into a Pantomime in it’s own right. There was a LibDem MEP called Sharon Bowles who is chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, declaring that she wished she could change her nationality to Irish to show support for the Euro – daft cow !

What made it all the funnier was she both looked and sounded like Julie Walters playing her role as “Mrs Overall” in the mock soap “Acorn Antiques”, I almost wet my pants watching the woman being interviewed, it was hilarious…if also slightly sad too.

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I really do find John Rentoul who writes for The Independent, a great read even when I disagree with him and today, fell about laughing with the opening paragraph of his article:

“If we are isolated and we are in the right, then that’s the correct position.” The Prime Minister was emphatic. Just because he had used Britain’s veto, he said, did not mean that he, or the British, were anti-European.” It was apparently what Tony Blair said after using a British Veto in Helsinki back in December 1999.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-any-pm-would-have-done-as-cameron-did-6275402.html#disqus_thread

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Whatever else may be said or written, as an Englishman, I am just so ‘stoked’ that for once, a British Prime Minister has returned from an EU Meeeting having made a positive decision and without excuses about why they were mugged by the ‘other big boys’, that is something even the ‘sainted Maggie’ never did. Well done David Cameron, I say.

Well we have the overnight fallout from the EU Conference on Treaty Changes to accommodate the Euro Crisis although these “changes” obviously don’t require a Treaty Change, they are just a further strengthening of the so called stability pact rules that everyone has already disregarded, led by Germany and France in the first place. What a load of bullshit this all was !

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A couple of recent stories, which may seem rather disconnected at first glance set me thinking about the way politicians “manipulate the truth” and whilst it is easy for the electorate to condemn them as “Liars prepared to say anything to get elected…” The real question I suspect should be asked of ourselves: “Are we being realistic in our demands and expectations of them ? Do we even listen properly or is our hearing both selfish and highly selective ?

There were two ‘stories’ this week that highlighted this for me, the Unison strike over pension benefits and Angela Merkel’s speech to the German Parliament promising to save the Euro etc… To my mind behind both of these events sits a damn big lie or, a rather large Elephant sitting over there in the corner of the room…

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Although not one of my favourite writers, Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph wrote an interesting piece on why right now, David Cameron is unlikely to be able to repatriate any significant powers from Brussels on the back of the Treaty Changes that Germany wants in order to support the Euro, a good article and worth a read. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8910266/The-eurozone-crisis-an-opportunity-for-Britain-Dont-bet-on-it.html

With disaster almost inevitable due to the incomprehensible slowness to comprehend and then total inaction of Eurozone Leaders to meet the challenges, we do indeed live in ‘interesting times’.

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I must confess to be totally bored with the “Euro Crisis” and feel distinctly “Euroed Out”, how much more can there be to write about it ? I looked at an article I had written last week but not published, it was all the same old stuff I had written months ago. The latest episode was David Cameron visiting Angela Merkel in Berlin from which absolutely no agreement or common ground was found.

The funniest part of this visit was a anti-British campaign in some of the German Press and “noises off” from from some German politicians in a similar and antagonistic vein which should be viewed in a rather positive light I personally feel, it seems to indicate that finally, the Germans are starting to wake up from their stupor and started to become aware how serious this all is…

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Right now I’m having to master PHP programming and am working from several different books. I was amused by one author who having ended an introductory chapter and about to launch into the real world coding examples, wrote “…and bring a shovel with you…”

The implication being that it will get harder and you will need to dig deep to get through this… It struck me just how true that is of the World Economy right now too with a G20 about to start, one wonders whether they will be smart enough to avoid the pending economic disaster. If the unrealistic fudge we saw in the Eurozone last week is anything to go by and the uproar caused by the Greeks holding a Referendum, one suspects not.

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