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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate The UK Politics discussion

Discussion in 'Community' started by Ender Sai, Jan 6, 2015.

  1. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001
    We still wait for the Chilcot report into the Iraq adventure. I suspect now that we won't see it until after the election. Rumour has it the report will be very critical but of who and what remains to be seen...

    I think many of the difficulties the politicians find themselves in with the public goes back to Tony Blair and the disappointment people now feel about his time in power. The hope and euphoria of 1997 to the lies and evasions of Iraq have left people tremendously disillusioned with politics.
     
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  2. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    Yay G-FETT is back! I miss the old days when the British politics thread was really humming. It was educational.
     
    KnightWriter likes this.
  3. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    GFETT, and in earlier days, DarthKarde. The faces of the UK politics thread?
     
  4. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014
    When David Icke first claimed that the world is run by a cabal of extraterrestrial, human flesh eating lizards, I thought he was a nutjob.

    Blair's reptilian grimace suggests I may have been wrong.
     
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  5. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    It might just be that I've listened to 16 hrs of him reading his autobio - twice - but I rather like him.
     
  6. Darth Punk

    Darth Punk JCC Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2013
  7. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Well I for one wouldn't draw any conclusions from an article which deliberately misleads readers by equating turnover with profit. Turnover in his case would refer to accounts receivable, but profit would be net capital after you factor in costs to run the business. I'm not surprised he has a high OPEX, given the image he wishes to project - whilst there is probably tax minimisation at work you can't really draw any accurate conclusions without access to his balance sheets and/or an auditor report.
     
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  8. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014
    In 1997 I voted for my local (moronic) labour candidate on the basis that I thought Blair would make a good PM. I was seduced by the combination of sound fiscal policy and the promise of a more caring social agenda. Maggie had gone too far with the poll tax and interest rates had too often been manipulated for political ends.

    As much as I want to rant at length about the irreparable damage he and the mentalist he had in Number 11 have done to this country, I'll stick with:

    [​IMG]

    Don't listen to the reptilian ****.
     
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  9. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001

    Yes! Karde was the other I was trying to remember. I remembered the Darth part. :p
     
  10. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001
    Back in the day, every year was a big year, for British politics. ;)

    As a UKIP supporter it would be great to hear from Darth Karde given then progress UKIP has made over the past 2-3 years.

    Maybe he'll return for the election. :D
     
  11. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001

    Oh yeah, that's right. He was a UKIP supporter. In fact, I think we witnessed his move from the Tories to UKIP.
     
  12. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001

    We did indeed. When the Tories chose David Cameron over David Davis, Darth Karde abandoned ship to the party of "loons, fruitcakes and closet racists" ;)
     
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  13. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    He was mainly anti-EU, right?
     
  14. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001

    Karde? Yes if I remember right.
     
  15. Darth Punk

    Darth Punk JCC Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2013
    i agree it's tax efficiency as opposed to avoidance. i bet what he's doing with his taxes is within the letter of the law, if not necessarily in the spirit of the law. love him or hate him, i'm sure we can agree, he's as slippery as an eel in a bucket of snot?
     
  16. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001
    Yes, he was anti-EU. Then again I'm not that crash hot on the EU myself, but I don't regard it as the be all and end all. ;)
     
  17. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Oh god yes, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, of Fettes College and Oxford, Labour statesman, is properly lubed up.

    I was talking to my Brit friends last night - surprisingly, across a variety of parties, there wasn't much enthusiasm for the EU. How do you guys see it?
     
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  18. Darth Punk

    Darth Punk JCC Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2013
    It's a flawed construct, and we may actually see it start to unravel this year.
     
  19. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    The possibility of Greece's exit has come up again here stateside. I say again because the news of it subsided for a few years here where it might not have over there. Merkel and Sarkozy also acknowledged a few years back that an exit of Greece might be unavoidable. The fear of a exit from Greece creating a domino effect is very real. But the EU has had troubles with the peripheral nations for years and I don't see the EU core(Germany,Low countries,France) unraveling or going away.

    But the north-south divide(richer north/poorer south) will continue.
     
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  20. Darth Punk

    Darth Punk JCC Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2013
    It's so brutal because these countries have no control over their currencies. And Germany has never had it so good. It's a manifacuring based economy, and it's currency is trading 117 to the $. Where do you think that would be if they still had the Mark?

    The people of Greece are experiencing roughly 25/26% unemployment and are in their sixth year of recession, they have a chance to vote at the end of the month, and they could well say enough is enough. Germany has been saying that a Greek exit is manageable for the EU. The event even has its own cutesy name - Grexit. But there will be a Greek debt default, and there will be contagion risk.

    At the top of the tree, I can't stand all the chinless career politicians. Van Rumpoy is the EU president, he gets paid more that Obama, and he's a toothless dog, a bloated bureaucrat completely ignored by any head of state with any clout. Barroso, is another maggot. I'm not even sure what he does, but he's always front and centre at the photo call. EU's Ashton is a strange one, she's the EU's John Kerry. Her big job at the moment is to get an agreement from Iran that they will only develop the nuclear industry for energy only. And I think behind closed doors all they do is smile, nod, and bend her over. She's getting nowhere with them, and in a year or so they'll have weapons grade plutonium. She was a Blair crony just a few years ago. She's as useful as a chocolate teapot. Junkers a vindictive lush, and all in all their lives are just on big expenses paid moveable feast. The EU hasn't had a balanced budget in years, lives well beyond its means, everyone speaks a different language, and every country has hated it's neighbours for centuries .

    No way it lasts.
     
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  21. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 18, 2002
    which parties have committed to move towards unbanning female ejaculation?
     
  22. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    I like the idea of the EU, and frankly it's nice to be able to potter around using one currency (which nobody will accept once you hit the €50 and above notes) and one visa. But it expanded to non-traditional areas (Turkey? Eastern Europe?) and has found out how nice being able to devalue currency is (or how wickedly wise Messers Blair and Brown were to stay with pounds sterling).

    I would like to see more EU like entities, but when the EU was just Western Europe and manageable.
     
  23. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    The world before Blair? Ah yes, the world before his tyrannical gutting of the House of Peers. It was surely a better place.
     
  24. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    Well, you might get more than your wish if the unstable south countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece all jettison(some of those are doing better than others). It might end up northern European Union.

    As for more EU-like entities, I think we will see more trade and travel barriers continue to fall and formalized trade blocs forming in the western hemisphere(more extensive than NAFTA, which lack labor and environmental provisions).

    The success of NATO as a collective security arrangement might continue to foster further integration of military forces in Europe and the west as a whole.
     
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  25. Darth Punk

    Darth Punk JCC Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2013
    after the way we were screwed by germany in the early 90's in the ERM, i don't think blair and brown's decision required too much wisdom. in the early 90's the UK was in recession and the gov made a personal plea to the germans for help, one of the things we asked was for them to keep their rates on hold - they raised them. it's a carbon copy of what they're doing now to italy, spain, and france. the words brown, and wise should never be used in the same sentance - you ever see his gold trade? man doesn't even know what his favourite biscuit is.

    unless poots calls their bluff, and exposes their deficiencies
     
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