That was a rhetorical question as a response to your rant about commissioners.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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There's definitely been an imperial arrogance in the way the British government and Brexiteers have approached the whole issue. Right from the 'easiest deal in history' spiel, the whole thing seems to have been conceived and thus far undertaken by people who think the whole thing is just a matter of time before stupid Johnny Foreigner comes to his senses and realises just how big and important we really are and how much he needs us.
The majority of Brexit voters were elderly so those who are still alive will be protected by triple lock pensions.
The working poor are the group who voted for it and are most affected. They just want their brexit and seemingly don't care how it affects them. This is why we have a representative democracy - reactionary idiots who need protecting from the consequences of their choices and actions.
Ouch indeed. What an absolute horror show this whole thing has been, from the moment the referendum results came in. Fools leading the foolish.
This news was in circulation since a few weeks. What has also perhaps contributed to this stance is the tightening of the Tier 2 visa rules which has certainly affected the IT firms in India.
Will be interesting to see how this will unravel, especially since Brexit was so much about being protectionist and the only way to get free trade deals from new emerging economic powerhouses would be to accept that for these countries their workforce is of highest importance and for this Britain will need to compromise.
I am pretty sure that the average Brexiteer (who had assured us time and time again that they aren't racist) would be happy to replace the French and the Germans with commonwealth people such as the Indians and the Pakistanis
Exactly. If Britain thinks they can get favorable trade deals AND they can also tighten the visa rules, then I guess they're really deluded.
exactly. The elderly won't bulge because its simply not affecting them. The working poor still think that things might getting worse but will soon get better once they get rid of the EU. I wonder if they will still think the same once the benefits get a hit and they get the same working rights of a US worker
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The cabinet ministers in the UK are not elected into their posts, they are appointed by the PM. The Commissioners are not elected either and are appointed as well, one from each country based on their ability to perform the roles they been assigned to.
Yes the ministers are elected as MPs but that's it, to represent their constituents.
Let's take the 3 musketeers as an example . Safe seat MPs, you could put a shop dummy with a party rosette stuck on and they'd be voted as MPs.
Who in the UK has voted for them to be ministers ? Davis( who has no idea how the EU works) Fox (who has no idea about international trade) and Johnson (who has no idea about international relations or diplomacy). If that was put to a vote I doubt even the Brexiters would vote for them but they are leading the Uk towards catastrophe.
You have said again that the commissioners are the masters , how, it's not true. Who are these invisible invented people Brexiters talk about.
Germany and France (the UK did as well) have more MEPs because they have larger populations, that's where they have more influence, the same way as London has more MPs than Exeter or Norwich or Blackpool.
The Santer resignations were in 1999 and the Commissioners resigned before a no confidence vote was brought, even before those dreaded east Europeans joined.
Just as well British politics is whiter than white.
Next elections for the EU parliament are in 2019 just after the UK have left, and the EU commissioners will be appointed later in the year based on the election results, seats etc, Juncker will not be there after 2019.
Hooray. Prince Harry to marry an American lass and not a French, or worse. Another Royal Wedding, with all the pageantry, this time half American too, so probably cheerleaders or something, and Europe will watch on, faces green with envy. Honeymoon rumoured to be in Malta.
Seriously?
TBF Queen Elizabeth is a big fan of the islands too. She describes her period there as the best of her life.
Well I guess they needed to get it done before brexit when uk turns into a dustbowl and there is no tax money for their jolly.
I presume that the royal family will pay the bill right?
Nah, tradition is mother's family pays here. We might bung in a bit of extra pageantry for free as goodwill. The commonwealth countries will fight cat and dog and marsupial over the right to give them a free honeymoon though.
The state will likely pay with the royal family 'contributing'. I found this about the last one..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...d-Charles-to-pay-their-share-of-the-bill.html
Jeez Brit taxpayers do love being taken for suckers.
Oh yes..
Seriously why should the taxpayer pay? She's probably well off and the royal family has enough money (either in the UK or in some tax haven) to foot the bill. FFS Harry is not even heir to the throne and by his looks I sometimes doubt if he's Charles son at all.
I personally enjoyed the part about 'insisted that the Royal family would pay their share'. I might start doing that, next time I buy new clothes. I'll offer to pay 20% as my share, seems reasonable, as the public will be the ones getting to witness the glorious spectacle of seeing me wearing them.
That's the thing. If the UK was filthy rich then by all means pay his damn wedding and let ua get over it. However the UK has been in austerity for years. Soon enough there will be a big political change which even the most staunch of Brexiters believe that it will have some negative impact on the economy (remainers and leavers differ on the scale/time). Why should the taxpayers pay for some rich person's wedding?
The royal family are experts at getting the public to want to pay for things for them. I'm not even anti-monarchy, but it does piss me off.
Apparently she's 36, so it will likely be Royal Wedding followed by Royal Babies. The country will make billions from yanks coming over to see Kensington palace. On the debit side she sounds a bit Welsh, and Jeremy Kyle viewers are complaining their programme was interrupted by a newsflash. Who cares, I'm off to buy shares in Wedgwood pottery.
I was very anti monarchy when I was growing up. I still have little interest in them but it can't be denied that a lot of people take a lot of emotional value from them.
Keeping them is of small cost to the tax payer on an individual level. The Royals add value to the economy, how much I'm not sure but they carry a more intangible value for many people too.
neither am I. Actually it makes sense to have people who are groomed since childhood to represent the country. Malta's president is a decent person but jeez she's all over the place in terms of etiquette, diplomacy etc.
However there should be a limit of how many family members the British taxpayer should fork money for. Maybe 3 (queen/king, 2nd in line and 3rd in line?). Some of the extended family could be employed on civil servants conditions (same salary and perks) while the others should find a job like the rest of us.
And they bring the generations together, which is something we need, apparently. Look at the cheering throngs that gather along the palace railings, they're from every generation. Actually when they're interviewed half of them are foreigners as well, you could say the Royal Family is our gift to the world.
More importantly, she's probably the hottest royal bint in living memory.
I knew a Royal bodyguard who said Princess Margaret and her mates always swam nude in their pool, with the bodyguard and flunkies watching on.
They were alright when they were younger, bit horsey though, long faces.
Smart move by Harry to marry a Yank, they are going to lap it up big time, like you say. Their very own Royal.
Hurrah, at last! thank you.
Paul you can dress it up anyway you want but the people who make the law in the EU are unelected, as you confirm they are appointed, the public has no direct say in who is nominated, who is selected, and to what post in the Commission.
MP's in the UK have to be first of all elected by the their constituents, before they can be appointed by the Prime Minister to cabinet, who (he/she) also has themselves to be elected as a MP. MP's have to retain communications with their constituents, normally through holding regular surgery's in their constituencies and/or via mail/email etc. in short they are in contact with the people who elected them and can be dismissed by them at Election times, possibly in future they can be 'recalled' if they fail to perform their duties.
Commissioners have no such duties to a direct electorate, they receive information from recognised EU bodies, which may be used to underpin policy, but they do not face any kind of selection process via the public, nor do they have to seek approval from the public at regular elections
.
You bet they did, hammered the lid firmly down, no washing of dirty linen here and it took a further six years to bring Cresson to the ECJ and guess what it did?
MEP's can do little more than scrutinise, they cannot initiate policy and represent for many people the best seats on the EU gravy-train.
Yes, with your money
Like everywhere else. It's not as if the public was in a position to evaluate who is able to be the Energy, research and science commissioner. I know that I have no clue.
This would also be her second wedding, so conventionally it makes even less sense to make it extravagant.
I've read up a bit more and it turns out she's old, divorced, half-black, catholic and has a Welsh first name. Oh well, the yanks will still be grateful I suppose.
I'd basically agree with that, but there's been a few occasions when its been too extravagent for my tastes. The Queen spending feck all on the palaces and then landing the taxpayer with hundreds of millions of pounds of repairs would qualify. I think she's worked hard her whole life and I don't resent her being super rich even, but I'm fecked if we should be paying for maintenance on her houses (because lets be honest the guff about them being owned by the 'people' is ridiculous).
Then again a third of Britain is still owned by members of the aristocracy, so that's something I can be more pissed off about.
No, in the UK you can, via elections decide, if you want a particular MP, its then up to the PM to allocate cabinet briefs to their MP's. If after (usually five years) you feel the MP has not done a good job as constituency MP or Cabinet minister, you can vote them out.
In the EU (even if you knew what you were doing) you would not be able to influence who was put forward, for any post, as Commissioner.
Commissioners are the law makers in the EU and they are 'untouchable' as far as the public's concerned, they cannot be nominated, selected or removed directly by the public, that is why the EU is fundamentally an undemocratic organisation that will ultimately fail!
So like I said, you do not have a direct say on who becomes cabinet minister. You have a say on who nominates them, in the EU if you feel that your representative at the EU council hasn't done a good job you can, via elections, decide to not elect him again(see Cameron), you can also decide to not reelect your representative at the EU parliament who might have approved the nomination of the commissioner you don't like. Now, if I understand you well, your problem isn't that you can't nominate cabinet ministers but that you can't eventually punish them, I can understand that logic, but the problem here is that you somehow equate that to democracy and you also give it a strange importance particularly when you still don't have any say on who ultimately gets the job.
The EU like the UK and pretty much every other European country follows the principles of representative democracy, the democratic part is in the mandate that you gave to the head of states to represent you.
Edit: Also the EU is still under foreign policy.
Cabinet ministers are themselves elected though, saying that is 'equating to democracy' is a strange thing to say.
I think the difference might be that the British are used to civil servants providing information and ideas behind the scenes, and elected politicians then deciding, presenting and arguing their worth; whereas in the EU the civil servants seem to decide and present policy, albeit with the permission of elected representatives. They are both forms of democracy of course, just that the British is better.
I'm no expert I admit, I'm quite open to corrections.
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Cabinet ministers are themselves elected though, saying that is 'equating to democracy' is a strange thing to say.
I think the difference might be that the British are used to civil servants providing information and ideas behind the scenes, and elected politicians then deciding, presenting and arguing their worth; whereas in the EU the civil servants seem to decide and present policy, albeit with the permission of elected representatives. They are both forms of democracy of course, just that the British is better.
I'm no expert I admit, I'm quite open to corrections.
The important part is the rest. Cabinet ministers are generally(almost exclusively) selected from a pool of elected representative but it's not a constitutional obligation, Lords can be selected too. But again that's not the important part in that conversation, you still don't have a say on who gets nominated and in reality you can't even systematically sanction them when they do a bad job unless they are in your constituency.
So in both cases you have a representative democracy where the elected head of states, with the approval of the representative organ, nominates cabinet ministers, that's the democratic part.
You could add a criteria that dictates that commissioners have to be nominated from the pool of MEPs, but it wouldn't change anything from the public point of view, I still won't be able to nominate the Energy commissioner and I can't sanction Le Pen.