Club Arnage

 :-\ SORRY  :'(

I'm not responsible of yesterday's result concerning the referendum and the European constitution.

I feel pretty shameful of such an arrogant and selfish reaction.

Stay quiet, it won't (at least I hope) affect Ferry rates and customs regulations and ACO ticket prices.  ???

Well, Wednesday is my turn to vote. Luckily there are websites nowadays which can point you into the right direction.

No need to be sorry Giles.
Some people on this side of the channel are delighted by the result.

I have obviously not been whatching the news what is all this about?

The French people have told Gistard D'Stang to shove his plans for a European Superstate up his derriere.
Well done France.

Ahh now i know

Too bloomin right. I am proud of being British, and want to stay that way.

Poke it. Go on, Do One

These days it's Jacques Chirac,  But "Up Yours Delors" has such a nice ring to it.  :-)

I'm all in favour of Free and Fair trade.   I don't even mind having Great Britain classed as part of Europe.  But all the stupid beuracratic bullsh*t really gets up my wick.   Who give a **** what shape a Banana is.  If I see a Banana and I like the look of it I'll buy it.  If I don't like the look of it I won't.  I just don't need some jerk in Brussell telling me what I like.  

I'm British I'm proud of it.  I love England it' s the most wonderful place in the world when the sun shines.   (Apart from mid June of course :-)   I want ot keep the pound I rememer when we had real money £/s/d changeing to £.p really pushed up the cost of living cos people didn't have a good handle on the new values.   Moving to the
 € will do the same.

Well done the French Nation.
t.

Bring back the franc and save the £ thats what I say and also bring back Topic and dump the Snickers bar. Long live bent bananas and sprouts from that place in Belgium.

In my limited knowledge about what happened, the little that I know tells me to say, congrats to the French for standing up against their "sell you down the river" president and his European cronies.  The Netherlands has a chance to do the same and protect their sovereignty on Wednesday.  
We tried to do about the same thing 150 years ago.  It was called the US civil war.  Yes it was different in that it was about certain states against other states, but the underlying principles appear to be almost identical.  It was not about slavery as many who rewrite history would tell you.  It's about your right to be who you are as a people, not be dictated to by outsiders and to maintain your cultural heritage.
No apologies to me Giles, I applaud your countrymen for standing up for what they believe to be best for France.   VIVA LA FRANCE.  Damn that sounds good for me as an american to say for a change.

Chirac wheeled the arch federalist D' Stang out of retirement to write the constitution, more jobs on the gravy train for the boys.

"Up yours Delors" had a lovely flow to it, much better than "Shove it Chirac"

See you on the ferry Tom, as we travel to the land of independant thinking. ;D

Off Topic there Lancs! ;) This could turn into a *Marathon* thread...

No shame as far as I'm concerned either. (Though I do worry that it seemed to be rejected for all the wrong reasons.) Let's hope this is the end of the whole wretched Superstate project, but I have my doubts.

Have to confess that I dont know much about this particular waste of money but what I do know is that I dont want a bunch of overpaid pratts in some place in the centre of a state that they want to call Europe telling me what to do with my..............

a) Time
b) Money
c) Life

Millions died to keep this landmass free of pergitory and what are they now trying to do with it all. The French are French the Brits are Brits The Germans are Germans etc etc and so it should remain. We have learned to live in harmony so lets get on with it.

God save the £ and bring back Topic and dump the Snickers Bar

I Agree

We are the only one who tell you what to do with your money- give it to HM Government

I'll add one thing this, I am an ENGISHMAN, and very proud of it.
Ask a Scot, Welshman or an Irishman how proud he is to be British.
There are a lot of proud british people but the don't fall into that catagory as far as I am concerned.
The EEC is a black hole for those faceless beaurocrats that pose as representatives of us all and represent nobody other than themselves.
 >:(

I completely agree.  However, as far as Passports go there are British.  All this Devolution sh*t is just more Beuracatic B*llocks.   If Wales really wants to be separte from the UK fine by me, saw it off and float it out in to the Irish sea.  Same for jockland.
I'm not gonna get in to any talk on NI that's another complete f**k up by polititians and beuracrats.  

t.

This is starting to border on severe xenophobia to say the least.

Shall we leave it there??   :-X

I find it interesting that the very first line of the constitution in the "Definitions and Objectives of the Union" - in Article 1-1 reads:

"Reflecting the will of the citizens......"

Perhaps it should read "Reflecting the will of the citizens unless they vote against something that we want in which case we'll keep asking them to vote till we get the answer that we want and if that doesn't work, we'll go ahead and do it anyway!"

Its all very sad  :(

Well this is obviously a topic which is quite divisive, but seeing as how it's been a little one sided in here I'm gonna try to balance it out  :-\

Firstly I'd like to point out I'm proud to be British, hell I'm proud to be a product of Yorkshire :)

But the old world powers (i.e. Europe) are in trouble, already we're unable to balance the US view on many things, it's only going to get worse once India & China start to gain some worldwide influence. Something does need to be done, maybe this document was not it but hopefully it's the first step in the right direction.

Hey at least we're doing it in true democratic style (mainly, cough..germany..cough) & the people are having a say in the matter.

I want independence, I want to keep the pound & I believe UK laws are held above all else within our borders. An EU beaurocrat, an MP or Lord "my bunk mate at boarding school" they're all the same in the respect & trust they get from me.

Anyway I've had to type this twice as I was logged out after the first time (damn computers) & I've hurt my brain doing all this thinking so soon after a holiday (apparently there's another one starting in a little over 14 days time!!) ;D

But we do need to get along & for more than 1 week in June!! ;)

P.S. Please don't shun me at the poo bar for this rare outburst!! ::)

And as the government has been shouting for years about a single trading state, I want to know where my 50p bottles of quaffing wine are?

is the idea of a single european state really so horrifying. the comments on this thread come across as bordering on xenophobic and racist.

a european constitution would enable a single economic and monetary bloc which would allow europe to rival the US in power. it would continue to facilitate trade amongst the european nations.

this whole thing about sovereignty and 'God save the £' is ridiculuous. exactly why is the pound so important? can somebody explain why the pound gives us a sense of national identity? what excatly is the difference between one piece of metal (the pound) and another piece of metal (the euro)? once the euro has settled and interest rates are aligned, i see no reason why the UK should not adopt the euro.

as for the constitution itself, the idea of being goverened by 'bureaucratic prats' is no different to what we have under the labour government. everybody is worried that we'll end up being governed by brussels but will that really be any different to be governed by downing street. its not like we have a say in what rules of law we live under at the moment.

sorry to rant, and probably upset a lot of people on these boards, but it seems as though the argument has become very one-sided.

I say again

God save the £ and bring back Topic and dump the Snickers Bar  

Bloody marvellous place old blighty and long may it remain in control (almost all) of its own destiny. ) ;D ;D ;D ;D

But what about the Marathon John.

Altsimers getting to you ?

The euro is down 15% overnight against the Canadian dollar.  I anticipate that it will tank further when the Dutch vote "Nee" and I think, personally, that this was excellent timing on the part of the French, Dutch and anyone else who would like to pile a few more cement bricks on the euro in the next two weeks.   ;D

Already in two days I have saved 20% on my trip to Le Mans.

I've read a lot about this French-German "core Europe" concept and what I want to know is, why the heck did my Daddy fight to liberate France from the Germans, anyway?

To get rid of an evil Nazi regime. That's why.

Bollox to the constitution - one hat doesn't fit all and after centuries of differences it will take a very long time to get everyone to agree, far too long to play catch up with the developing countries who we can't compete with in labour costs.

Whilst I'm pro single currency I'm pretty much anti everyhing else, culture is more important than ensuring that all the eggs are the same size! There is such a thing as too mich "progress".

Ah that feels better...............

Well in someways there is no reason.  But, It will be inflationary.  May be some of those who live in € land  can give their account of this.   You see people won't bother to work out what the price was in £ and then you loose track of the value and  inflation runs wild.

OK when we make trips to France it will be easier to compare prices.  

But it's a high price to pay.



We just don't need another layer of Bureaucacy.  We have the local Govt.  Then we have the National Govt.   We got by with that for Hundreds of years.  The in 1973 we Joined the ECC.  Since then things have gone down hill.   (IMHO) now they are even talking about another layer of Govt in England with the Regional Govt thing.

We just don't need it.

A few months ago we went to a Pub Chain for a meal.  After the Meal I said,
"Oh I'd like some Cheese and Biscuits. Please".
"Sorry Sir we no longer serve Cheese.  It an EU directive." Replied the waiter.

FFS I thought?

He went on to say it had somthing to do with keeping food at room temprature.

I don't care where the layers are but we sure as hell don't need four or even three.   So I say perm any two from X.  

t.

F*kin ell !!!!

At least we know who to avoid at the poo bar  ;) A simple how are you could lead to an unstoppable tirade about sweat shops, whales and straight bananas.

When all's said and done, as long as someone enjoys a beer and a laugh it doesn't matter where they're from, as long as they leave politics at home (at least for a week in June)

Vive La Roi

Oops, what have I said  ::)

""sweat shops, whales and straight bananas.""

And square tomatoes to fit boxes!

As long as no-one tries to fit any in my box!!!

;)


Box??? Am I playing cricket?
Am I bally not!


b

Come on Bill, it's time to go home now. Time for your glass of warm milk, that's right, leave the nice people alone  ;D

This is now a Marathon session about a subject that is at the top of the Topic list and yes the memory is faaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddingggggggggggggg.

Bent bananas and Brussel sprouts and what about Coco Pops. We've forgotten about that one. BRING back the monkey I say and let him eat his COCO POPS in peace and quiet in good old Blighty

Ah, that feels better, nice milk. Steralised not yer Euro  type ho.......



Ooh sorry nearly got off on one again then...

Soon be able to get to France and forget all about being run by Brussells there  ;D

A fortnight today, 11.15 Speedferries, here we come.

 :)

bill  

Looks like this was a great day for Paddy_NL as well.  ;D

Imagine having to change his flag this close to the event  :o ;)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/bullocks/paddy2.jpg)

Tink

I read this last week but didn't have time to reply.  So here it is now.

There is a huge problem IMHO in having the Euro, and a little bit of application of common sense and logic is necessary to understand why. A small understanding of basic economics is helpful too.

The whole problem as I see it is this. By giving up the pound we give up control of our economy. I agree that this would not necessarily be a (economic, if not political) problem if all the Eurozone economies were in harmony. However, they are not and probably never will be. By having one currency you must by default have only one interest rate. This means that when a country goes into recession (like Germany, France, Italy etc are at present then it is considered good practice to slacken restrictions on govt borrowing and reduce interest rates to stimulate the economy. However, there are several other countries in the eurozone who's economies are overheating badly i.e Spain Ireland etc and are being too sucessful and therefore inflationary. Ideally, their Govts would like to rein back on borrowing and raise interest rates to put a fiscal squeeze on the ecomomy. However, fiscal control has passed to M. Trichet and the European Central Bank and his job is to try to set a "one size fits all" interest rate. It does not work, as you would know if you have ever tried wearing one size fits all underpants. In the end, no-one is happy. The relative sucess of the British economy over the last ten odd years has largely been as a result of us being able to control and fine tune our interest rates to suit. I cannot see any logic or benefit in giving away this control.

Setting aside the "superstate" argument, clearly it is a pillar of democracy that there should be no taxation without representation. Handing over power to a bunch of un-elected european commissioners, who incidentally would also love to set our direct taxation rates too, cannot be deemed in anyway democratic.

I will forgive your naivety in such matters, you're obviously too young to remember, but I grew up in the seventies when this country was in serious economic decline. The whole place was (mis)ruled by the Unions who wielded massive power undemocratically. The lights used to go out regularly due to somebody being on strike somewhere, we had three day working weeks to conserve electricity and the whole population suffered. It was totally miserable and humiliating and it is why Thatcher was swept to power to sort it all out. Another relatively turbulent decade followed and wasn't much fun either, though I will concede it formed the foundation for our current prosperity. You may even bee too young to remember the ERM debacle in 1992, where my mortgage interest rate went from 10% to 15% overnight, basically because we were stuffed by the German Finance Ministry! We left the ERM and thankfully never got involved in the Euro as a result. The rest, as they say, is history. And a very good one too.

Fianlly, I have re-read this thread and I think your accusations of xzenophobia and racism are totally without foundation. Where is the "fear of foreigners" here? Fear of being ruled by unelected beaurocrats is actually quite admirable IMO. This is a very serious allegation to make of anyone and actually I reckon you probably own a few folk an apology.

Well said Andy in the early 90's I rember interest rates going up 4%

We had that in the 1970s too (when I first graduated from University) and it took Ronald Reagan to sort it out, which he did within two years.  Jimmy Carter (Democrat) had told us the answer was to 'lower our expectations' and put on another sweater.

A country without control of its currency is like a wife with no access to cash save what her husband doles out.  It is a slave.

I remember those times all too well Andy. It was also accompanied by being turned over by the 80's barrow boy business practices of the day ( bankrupt today, back in business tomorrow ) and losing enough money through those f**k*rs that would have easily run a Le Mans team of my own. Thankfully those times have long since passed, and some of those smash and grab businessmen have since met there maker.
Rusty >:(

you seem to know a lot about them going to meet their makers Rusty.Are you sure the Brethren didnt "lean"on a few people on your behalf?
PM