Thanks for the new word.

Poor old Royal Society
 

Hands up, I absolutely hate the RSPB with the deepest of hatred and I am out to shoot them down at every opportunity.
YMMV.
I have a bit of a downer on the RSPA also by the way. :innocent:
PDSA is OK though.

I've just checked the bird feeders outside and all 5 of them are at least half full and doing just fine - only a few pigeons are getting a bit less than the tom tits though.
:rofl:

Par for the course of the ECB; the bank we were told to join back in 2003.
That vid leads on to another of just a few minutes duration (posted on youtube 2011) that comes up with Goldman Sachs, yet again:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoJthzxpn7A

Naturally, the current head of the ECB used to work for Goldman Sachs.

Should Britain leave the E.U. ???
 

As Wildman said, it's really no good looking to people or groups whom you usually disagree to make a decision on brexit. Not only is it a logical fallacy, the brexit has split right down party lines. For me I'd either be in bed with Murdoch or Cameron, not exactly moral bed fellows.

Thing is though Ted, will it look any better if we walk away? For us or for Europe?

Notice you failed to mention that two large hedgefunds are bankrolling the brexit campaign. Talk about cherry picking!

Spoil sport! I saving that one.

UK shenanigans
 

For a minute I thought you were going to let rip and really tell it how it is.

The post in here of 4 march is worth your consideration.
Vote to Leave the EU
the earlier posts in that blog are also relevant to your distress.
e.g.

“We should be bloody angry about the way Cameron on the one hand, and ignorant Parliamentary bench stuffers on the other, are stealing our people’s referendum away from ordinary voters. There is nothing grassroots about the campaigns to date. They are all by politicians, for politicians, with the grassroots asked to clap and cheer them in the right places, and get out and do the donkey work with clipboards and leaflets, while the political star turns waltz in and out of TV and radio studios parading their stupidity.”

There is common ground and I will come back to the matter - I've been reading other places, again.

Should Britain leave the E.U. ???
 

You're so heavy on the brexit stuff- but why do you believe we should leave? What are your personal reasons for wanting to go? For every pro-brexit article I could shoot back five pro-remain articles. For me there are many facets of the eu, and while I'm pretty disgusted at the treatment of Greece and little doubt corporations, especially the banks, hold way too much influence over it, seems to me that our press, media and political establishment are so far right, anything which is going to counter balance this is for me, a good thing. As I've said already I believe most of the problems laid at the door of the EU are actually problems inherent within neo-liberal economics which has been dogmatically pursued by successive governments since the 1970's and the EU has made a very useful scapegoat.

I can see that you haven't read the 100+ page report that I posted a few days ago, nor the 33 page report posted more recently.

Right wing, left wing, any old wing means nothing to me personally.

Sure there are many facets to the EU but it is only a part of Europe*, a trading bloc with increasing centralist plans to form it's own single government.
Where the concept of the common market has come from over the past 40 years is not an indication of where it is going in the next 40 years.

I prefer the world wide view of where the UK will stand in the future, rather than the single government of 28, no doubt more in the future, diverse societies.

*A sub-regional entity

By the way - peering through the fog
 

Richard North writes succinctly and quite eloquently in reviewing the current build up to the referendum campaign, including aspects of current media output and the various players who have made their pronouncements.
EU Referendum

Sanctions
 

By any reasonable criteria of thinking mankind we should be trading with, for example, Russia in agriculture alone - but the grand gesture politics of the EU, at the behest of the USA, deem this to be beyond the pale.
?c?

The point of protectionism as the name suggests is to protect your own skills and internal markets. Who to protect depends on the current power base. The leader of the peasants party may sign a deal letting foreign machinery in in exchange for letting agricultural produce out but won't keep his job if the opposite happens.

The EEC as a blanket deal where there was no protectionism was great, except it never really happened, it just became an under the table game of subsidies and regulation.

The EU as a single entity looking outwards does not have the leadership required to sacrifice one industry's protection against anothers external trade. They wont let Russian wheat be traded for German cars because the French farmers will want to burn the lot. If they felt like Europeans the French farmers may just give up and go get jobs at BMW, but it would still hurt.

The UK alone can make these deals because we can't be in the business of anything that needs thousands of acres of land to be efficient. Russian wheat for Insurance and design skills upsets no-one. We let our own motorcycle and ship building industries die to protect our financial markets etc.

If we unfortunately stay in, we have to abandon any thoughts of Britishness and get a hundred million other people to also see themselves as Eurostatesians even when that means getting the ****y end of the stick for the common good. Learning their silly games to trample on fellow members to have the cake and eat it is beneath us. Nice guys finish last though.

Andy

How many do you think did?

Representing 68% of Europe as a whole, a market of more than 500 million consumers.

Where's it going?

Thanks for that. I'm not certain I agree that societies will become more diverse within Europe but good to hear your perspective rather than have to read your cut & pastes and links.