Eu Vote

[steptoe]

There are positive aspects then!!!!

john...

I don't think they outweigh the s hit tho,

But, as I said, go there, see for yourself, it's a beautiful country, and, if you do see anything untoward, you will probably be in the maybe <1% of tourists that ever do, unless you go looking for it.

My missus 1st ever visit was for the 12th,  she was ****tin it, she couldn't believe it when my mum put the patio table out the front and most of the neighbours done the same, like a street party festival thing,

Was even a few catholic visitors at my mums, she couldn't unferstand the contrast between the reality and everything she had seen on TV. 

 

[NozSpark]

When I first went over to the ROI 24 years ago I was a bit worried TBH,,,, especially as I was working for the MOD at the time,,, I even talked to the security officer as I needed permission to go there..

When I got there I wondered what all the fuss was about,,,, lovely country and lovely people... even though I still can't understand what they're saying

 

[steptoe]

When I first went over to the ROI 24 years ago I was a bit worried TBH,,,, especially as I was working for the MOD at the time,,, I even talked to the security officer as I needed permission to go there..

When I got there I wondered what all the fuss was about,,,, lovely country and lovely people... even though I still can't understand what they're saying

My missus has been a few times now, she can't understand a lot of it either,

I have no idea how she will cope at my sisters wedding, she can't understand the groom to be at all, :slap

And a lot of the guests are worse than him, add alcohol to the mix, well, you can imagine, it'll be like being on Mars for her,

She gave up on my side half way through our own wedding, all she could understand was every 3rd word being F***   msl1:

 

[septiclecky]

If we do vote to leave would the rest of the EU try to get DC back to the table with more concessions knowing that if we left they would loose a large chuck of their fiscal income?

 

[Sharpend]

Truth is they won't allow him to let us leave, look at how they conceded to Greece and they were a liability, how much more will they concede to an asset such as the uk? 

 

[NozSpark]

We cannot compare the UK leaving the EU to Greece....

Greece was given concessions because they almost no other course of action,,, if they didn't Greece would have gone bankrupt, had to leave the Euro and the Euro would have fallen.

IMHO this referendum should be a part of several referendums... the first one being "we want a radical overhaul of the governance of Brussels, or we will leave in 12 months" and then another at that time... "are the changes enough? Should we stay or leave as promised?"

 

[DiddyFA]

If we do vote to leave would the rest of the EU try to get DC back to the table with more concessions knowing that if we left they would loose a large chuck of their fiscal income?

Cameron has actually laughed at this idea...yesterday in the commons during his attack on boris. He said that in the even of an out vote he would "immediately" invoke Article 50 of the EU membership treaty, His reasons being that it would be unfair on the out voters if he did not do so right away. Invoking the article 50 starts the process (Which im sure is long) of leaving the EU and the framework for setting up trade agreements and bi-lateral agreements at the same time. BUT once invoked there is no way to undo it apart from reapplying as a "new" entrant.....Even if the EU nations desperately wanted us to stay we ALL know how pig headed they are in Brussels about following the protocols to the letter no matter the time nor the perceived outcome - It is one of it's strengths and at the same time one of it's weaknesses. For once in my life I agree with Cameron lol, you can't fault him for playing hardball and ramping up the odds here and his reasons are pretty valid.

 

[binky]

I've yet to hear a solid argument from the Etonian twit for staying in. All he keeps wittering on about is 'security' OOOHHH it's all so scary if we leave. We managed fo sevral millenia without the EU. Veryinteresting footage from the last vote on the late news. "better to lose a little sovreignty than a son or daughter" was one of the campaign slogans. Well we seem to have lost a lot of sovreignty, and I couldn't really see a world war starting in Europe again, maybe a fight with the Russians????

 

[Murdoch]

I've yet to hear a solid argument from the Etonian twit for staying in. All he keeps wittering on about is 'security' OOOHHH it's all so scary if we leave. We managed fo sevral millenia without the EU. Veryinteresting footage from the last vote on the late news. "better to lose a little sovreignty than a son or daughter" was one of the campaign slogans. Well we seem to have lost a lot of sovreignty, and I couldn't really see a world war starting in Europe again, maybe a fight with the Russians????

I can just see the newspapers for the year after the UK leaves the EU  "Germany invades Poland (again)" - this is scaremongering at its worse. no developed country is going to invade its immediate neighbour (unless you include Russia and some of its former "states")!

 

[apprentice87]

We should be friends with Russia.. It is the americans that are the aggressors invading any country that they think they can get away with invading. When was the last time the Russians invaded anywhere??

Makes me laugh all the stuff about putin being behind killing that Litinvenko bloke. So tango'd what!!!! "OUR" lot went and hung Saddam Hussein.

If they had left him alone there would be no such thing as "ISIS" Iran would not be making atom bombs, the world would be a better place....

RIP Saddam.....

john..

 

[M107]

its ingrained into the society,

So true steps...............for example .... while taking some sort of cover in a garden gate way in Lurgan, I had a 10ish year old lad tell me how to strip my SLR.

How do you know that then mate?

Me darr has one ye Brit bastard.

On the same VCP we were threatened with a drive by shooting............ 1989 loved it

I was always surprised when I phoned home & my parents knew nothing about some of the troubles that were on going, it was a bit like a news black out was in force.

 

[binky]

John, I seriously hope you are just being sarcastic.

 

[apprentice87]

Err, no....

There was none of this religious warfare in Iraq when saddam was there..... Guess where ISIS are based now???? The trouble with the USA and the UK is that they always back the wrong side. The supposed "oppressed" people, are the rabble that WANT oppressing.... Iraq might not have been perfect under Saddam, but it was a sight better than it is now..

Saddam was a brilliant leader and set up the ONLY welfare system in the middle east, had mass literacy programmes set up, connected up electricity to just about ALL the outlying areas, [gave them all a fridge apparently]

Saddam modernised the country, and, unless you were a religious loony, was just great. He made Iraq into a secular country, no northern ireland style religious skirmishes there, he saw to that....

"Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.

At the centre of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation [UNESCO]"

The only thing wrong with the above, is, that as far as i know, the oil prices did not rise as a result of any "energy crisis" at all, but because Saddam nationalised the oil industry there, and then, in conjunction with other oil producing countries, just charged more for it!! [and thereby CREATING the OIL crisis [muppets did not witter on about "energy" in them days] to raise money to modernise Iraq and do the other great works i have mentioned....

So, there you are, Saddam was a brilliant leader and modernised the country, BUT if you were a nutter that wanted to drag it back to being a medieval dump like ISIS are creating, then Saddam would have you dealt with, and rightly so...

john..

 

[ProDave]

I agree with John.  The crisis in the ME is largely our making.

Syria is the latest disaster. When all the waring factions started to take over in Syria, instead of Backing Assad and helping Syria regain control of the whole country again, we chose to "support" the opposition.

Then one faction of the opposition turned into ISIS and turned out to be not very nice.

So now we have the situation where we oppose ISIS, Oppose the legitimate Syrian government, yet still support some of the other "good" opposition.

You could not make it up.

We have this cosy ideal that we should give every country "democracy" and they will use it rresponsibly and all will be peace and hapiness.  Unfortunately recent history has shown they neither want, or know how to handle democracy and respect it. So having removed the dictators who used to keep things under control we have anarchy and war. 

And we don't even have the balls to admit we C***** it up.

And my last rant is that it all comes back to religion.  In spite of just about all religions teaching love thy neighbour in some form or another, that is not what they do in practice.  If we could eradicate religion from the world, most of the wars would end, or not start in the first place.

 

[apprentice87]

Syria is the latest disaster. When all the waring factions started to take over in Syria, instead of Backing Assad and helping Syria regain control of the whole country again, we chose to "support" the opposition.

Then one faction of the opposition turned into ISIS and turned out to be not very nice.

So now we have the situation where we oppose ISIS, Oppose the legitimate Syrian government, yet still support some of the other "good" opposition.

You could not make it up.

Exactly, could not have put it better myself..

We should be supporting Putin in his efforts to back up Assad and restore normality to Syria..

john..

 

[Sharpend]

Let's have the religion of Dave and John- love thy neighbour! 

 

[binky]

Saddam was a complete tyrant who murdered his own people in very large numbers. He may have started off well, but ended up as bad a tinpot dictator as any other fruit cake you can think of. 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. He even went as far as draining the Marshlands in the south of Iraq because the marsh Arabs had dared to stand up for themselves

 

[Sharpend]

Power in the hands of any one person equals disaster, I don't care how democratic they are or not. 

 

[DiddyFA]

Saddam was a complete tyrant who murdered his own people in very large numbers. He may have started off well, but ended up as bad a tinpot dictator as any other fruit cake you can think of. 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. He even went as far as draining the Marshlands in the south of Iraq because the marsh Arabs had dared to stand up for themselves

Question if you were an ordinary Iraqi citizen going to work each day paying his tax and not breaking ANY of that countries law would you have been better off before we invaded and removed Saddam or would you be better off now with foreign bombs STILL dropping on your population to this day ?...Not even mentioning the internal unrest and domestic nut jobs on the loose.

 

[binky]

everday citizens not breaking the law were not safe from Saddam, he used to send out his 'security staff' to investigate people at random, if you failed to accuse at least one neighbour of wrong doing, you disappeared....people soon ran out of enemies, and friends! He operated a regime of total terror along the lines of East Germany, possibly worse, at least 250,000 disappeared under these circumstances. Todays situation is pretty lettuced, but it's better than living under those conditions.