not at all, I'd be engaged at the very heart of Europe, but only on the things we can actually have comonality over, certain things are sovereign and certain things can be joint and several. Our relationship with Europe needs redefining, but it certainly doesn't need "cancelling"

we are on the right path, once we get the public sector down to the right level, cut the unnecessary legislation that Labour brought in and get us moving we'll be fine, it will just take time and some people will feel pain along the way.

You'd make a great novelist.

Hallelujah, some common sense.

It appears to me that, where trade is concerned, it is only interested in the member states trading amongst themselves, with 'Europe' trading with people outside of it. I really don't like that idea.

Personally I don't see why we can't trade with whoever we can forge trade links with. Why should we be compelled to go to Europe over the United States or of the Commonwealth?

Bleedin' hell – that's a poor excuse even by your standard of finding yourself backed into a corner after making a big, knee-jerk about the previous government and then finding it gets picked to pieces easily.

And plenty of people decide not to have children. They just don't all pretend that makes them into some form of superior being because they judge others for daring not to be able to plan for every possible eventually that may happen to them a decade or more down the line.

Yes, because we don't trade with either of those entities – and that's because the nasty EU stops us.

Can we assume you've never actually heard of anything like NAFTA?

OK.
You'll have heard of BRIC ? These are the economic powers of the future.
Let's say you are an important apparatchik in the Chinese or Indian leadership with a huge and still rising economy built on the backs of more than a billion people ... and there are trade delegations from all four corners of the world queuing up to talk to you ... which ones do you talk to first? Or at all ? The little one off the coast of Europe that has a population (and market) of a paltry 60 million whose business is very handy but by no means essential to you ... or the ones with huge markets like the EU and USA that you really don't want to fall out with? Which would you do trade deals with?

Look at Germany ... even during these recent crises, it has increased its exports to where? To BRIC and especially China, that's where!
Why do you think an important economy like Germany wants to keep Europe intact? To sell to us? Well, yes but increasingly more to have clout in the wider world.
The same applies to us, if we could just wipe our island-monkey eyes and see it.

the previous government SHAFTED the UK, it's there for us all to see.

As opposed to the ones before that, which set in place the core economic approach of the following 30 years?

Or do you need to be reminded of this FACT every single time you have a rant?

Let's face it – in your world, you just stick your fingers in your ears and whistle instead of acknowledging the damage done to the country by deindustrialisation – and let's ignore the use of North Sea gas revenues to pay for that. Or privatisation – all perfect. The bar on new social housing – brilliant and not remotely connected with what has happened in the last few years, oh no.

And anyone who doesn't like it is simply spouting the politics of envy – as opposed to your politics of look-at-me-I'm-so-perfect.

It is?

Go on, show me

Is that an argument?
Maybe it needs fleshing-out a bit ... you know, with facts and that.

I believe in the politics of rewarding effort, not rewarding laziness, it's a fairly simple ideal.

But, as is the way on here, it's become Socialist Worker where the usual suspects just gang up when they don't like someones opinion.

as you well know, I am far from perfect, but I don't sit and whinge about what opportunities other people are afforded, I get out there and grab them for myself, it's called ambition.

... and slagging people off when you don't approve of them for not, say, planning for potential redundancy 10 years ahead. After all – how very dare they! How lazy of them to have been made redundant – their fault, obviously. And how lazy of them to not have planned for a future covering every possible eventuality.

By the way – nice. Now you're posting as though anyone here wants to 'reward laziness'. Well done. You wouldn't be able to find any evidence to support that, but it's another nice little red herring. And good for you for being one in a million on this forum and standing up for decent values against all those (who don't exist) who want to 'reward laziness'.



Haven't you got rid of that chip yet? You never did explain why, as a white, straight male, you were a poor persecuted little individual and should have a support group.

And now you just run away, without being able to support your comments, claiming that everybody who doesn't agree with you reads a paper that I suggest very few on here would read. You really don't like facts, do you?



You know enough about me to know that I would never read the [iSocialist Worker[/i. You know enough about others here to know the same of them. But that doesn't stop you flinging such statements around because people dare to disagree with you. And, as you've done yet again here, you use such tactics when you've been asked to prove one of your rants.

You've done well and you've had some luck. Good for you. But you actively condemn others for not doing what you think they should. How dare people have a family when they can't guarantee, years ahead, that they'll still be in well-paid work, for instance. And you bring up your saintliness on the issue as a complete red herring when you're challenged to back up a knee-jerking rant, as on this thread.

if you say so Mintball, what people CAN do is take out redundancy insurance etc. but they dont.

as ever, politics is proving devisive and you're getting angry and abusive when people don't agree.

Most people have NI.



Irony alert.

I didn't say we DON'T trade with them. I said Europe PREFERS us to only trade with other European countries.

As I am not involved in this discussion, a view from the sidelines:

The pitiful pleas of "people ganging up on me", etc. as a substitute for reasoned response, are pathetic. What has happened is that more than one person has disagreed with aspects of [iyour[/i post, in writing. It's a forum. If [ieverybody[/i on the forum did so, they are entitled. It would not be in any way "ganging up" and you just make yourself look both stupid and paranoid, as well as implying you cannot debate your points, by claiming it is.

The BB equivalent of taking your ball home.

Grow a pair and debate your points, if you can, or withdraw from the discussion, if you can't, but please, spare us this sort of self-pitying, delusional claptrap.

you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. But on more than one occasion (in fact many hundreds) the political bias of Sin Bin has come to the fore on threads such as this, it's a bit like the anti Thatcher threads that are tolerated, but if I were to post "I wish xxx was dead" and said xxx was a Labour politician it would be seen as bad tatse.

The Sin Bin is biased towards socialism and the trade union movement, and you only need look at the list of admin/moderators to see why.

it's fine, it shows the general politics of the support for the game, it's just boring when it's the same old stagers trading insults and bullying tactics, so as you suggest, I'll withdraw from debate, arguing with agendas is fairly difficult anyway.

have fun, play nicely

Simply not true.
Not only not true but way off the mark, I don't know where you got that idea from, the EU has been working to a united message for trade outside the EU for years now.

Bleat, bleat.
What bullying? If you can't put an argument together without just making bald and sweeping unsubstantiated statements, the problem is yours, no-one else's.

Holy shiit, did you NOT read what I said before?

In addition to my post above I said that Europe wants EUROPE AS ONE ENTITY to trade with everyone else, as opposed to its member states trading individually outside of Europe.

And I still think it's a crap idea.

And you still don't understand.
EU does not want to trade as one entity, (see my previous mention of Germany) but to negotiate from a position of strength (i.e. together) so that individual states can trade within that agreement.

You may think it's a crap idea but there isn't any state within the EU that agrees with you, they all see the strength in numbers.
Nothing is shipped from "Europe", it's all shipped from a member state.

Tariffs and restrictions have all been reduced because of EU membership, each state used to have its own and it was a right rats nest ... if you were China what rules would you rather trade under? Individual, confusing and conflicting tariffs or a set of harmonised tariffs and rules?
Harmonised is actually bringing MORE trade.

Of course they can, providing they can afford it and they could obtain cover in the first place. They could also take out health insurance too, again with the above caveats.

What then happens to a self-employed person who, through no fault of his own, contracts a debilitating, chronic illness. What should he do with his kids? Stuff 'em back up his wife?

The "political bias" of the Sin Bin is a figment of your imagination. The Sin Bin is not a person. Whatever the personal views of the mods, there is no "views" qualification for anyone to post on it.

But people in glass houses etc., and you are among the worse offenders. Just a couple of minutes' research worth of your own reasoned debate, with no insults, or bullying tactics, just reasoned posts, nothing even mildly personal or insulting or abusive (no examples aimed at me btw) :



Elsewhere you said to another poster:


It's a shame you don't practice what your preach.

Out of reach of your average working wage, I checked it out when I was earning a substantial salary as a business proprietor and other than the fact that as the business owner I didn't qualify anyway, I would not have considered it then and certainly don't now when I am on a more modest stipend - along with Proprietor Health Cover it was over-priced and so laden with get-out clauses for the insurer that I viewed it as unworkable.

As an insurance policy its as reliable as the credit card protection policies that banks have reserving billions in refund compensation for, something so reliable and robust that they expect to have to give you all your money back because they conned you.

My, you [iare[/i having an off day, aren't you?



If all you're going to do is throw up straw men mixed in with a touch of ad hominem then I'll leave you to it. We both know where this will end and TBH I could do without spending time deleting messages from my PM inbox.