I thought we all agreed it was to be: “who gives a pig’s ass what David Cameron’s opinion on anything is any more”
Even Chirac is an énarch and a former reserve officer. Hollande is an énarch. Both studied in the US. Merkel is a PhD, Juncker is an advocate, Schulz I give you (though contrary to Farage’s bombast, Schulz had a “proper job” before politics). Buzek is a professor of engineering.
Cameron has a first degree with 3 majors and a job in PR. Miliband did the same degree and went straight into politics. Boris Johnson read classics and became a journalist. Gove read English and became a journalist. Farage left school at 16.
I know education is no proof of absence of stupidity, but I think these examples go some way to make my point.
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nah, I don’t think the level of formal educations proves anything about stupidity or intelligence in politics.
take Joschka Fischer: no university diploma or apprenticeship, imo a very clever and compelling minister in Hesse, got very stupid when he was deputy chancellor under Schröder.
he’s my example for “power corrupts”, one of the more nasty types of politicians.
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Good job!
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The EU Council is made up from democratically elected heads of government from member states. The EU Commission is appointed by the Council. The Parliament is elected directly using proportional representation by the electorate and has the power to reject proposals introduced by the Commission and to dissolve the Commission.
So yeah, pretty damned democratic compared to the UK’s first past the post Commons, completely unelected House of Lords and an over powerful executive who have powers such as statutory instrument and royal prerogative that allow them to change the law without any democratic debate or indeed mandate.
The referendum was a stupid decision by a PM who was thinking tactically rather than strategically. It has major consequences to the ramshackle make-it-up-as-you-go-along British constitution and takes effect on a simple numeric majority, rather than a supermajority required in most democracies. Nor is there any requirement for Parliament to make a considered decision on the result. Instead, we’ve been bounced into a disastrous decision by a frankly ignorant electorate who have been lied to for years and the government has decided to ignore any off ramps.
Britain is a a Parliamentary democracy. As MPs like reminding us Parliament is supreme, it is for Parliament to decide our relationship with the EU, not referendums.
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But we are well aware it’s a feature and not a bug.
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Interesting how that mic makes Farrage look like he has a Hitler mustache. Fitting.
Oh, I thought he had just forgotten to take off his stillsuit’s nose-clip.
Same way I blame people who were lied to and supported the iraq war. It’s not an excuse. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me every single fucking time, for my entire fucking life, shame on me.
If you’re going to make a decision that affects other people, the onus of thinking it through and not being a complete fucking idiot is on you.
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Man, that is one unfortunate camera angle.
I only just got here and dove in to grab the moment.
I assume it was very well framed.
So the fact that photo is composed so as to make the mic look like a Hitler mustache is just coincidence, right?
Farage attracts these glitches in a “like attracts like” kind of way.
I’m kind of surprised at how many people replied as if Cory hadn’t obviously chosen his post’s image intentionally.
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The EU was never a good project and Brexit is not a bad idea. As the waterboarding of Greece all too aptly shows. What’s bad is that it was pushed by the Right.
But I suspect that those (Farrage, Johnson, etc.) that pushed Brexit for bad reasons would never have achieved the majority if it hadn’ẗ been for all the people who voted Leave for good reasons. One being, the EU is a neoliberal and essentially colonist project.
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No, it mustn’t be respected. Because the main advertisement for it was completely fraudulent. If you trick a population into voting one way by plainly lying, then they find out, the one doing the lying should swing from the gallows.
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And who went to a school where he probably came across these lines, from Macaulay’s Lay of Horatius, but didn’t get the memo:
Then none were for the party
And all were for the State
And the rich man helped the poor man
And the poor man loved the great.
Then lands were fairly portioned…
Macaulay says in his preface that he was trying to write from the perspective of an Imperial Roman looking back on an imaginary golden age, but his words are relevant today when exactly the opposite applies. What he would be writing today about Cameron and co. I dread to think - his writings on India were a kind of early Chilcott report, destructive to the reputations of both Clive and Warren Hastings.
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Unsupported statements rarely get upvotes here, I notice. I would be interested to learn what proportion of the Leave voters could explain what either neoliberal or colonist means.
Perhaps you too need to acquaint yourself with the definition of a colony. In the case of the EU the events have been the Eastern and Southern countries trying to join, and a proportion of their population moving inwards. I haven’t noticed the retired soldiers of the EU Army, or the younger sons of the European aristocracy, invading Poland et al and carving out territorial holdings while exploiting the remaining inhabitants.
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My offer is this…nothing
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