The Furrowed Brow.
The place for some serious talk.
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The blog for the afternoon news and current affairs programme presented by Eddie Mair.
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Now that Ireland had voted no to the Lisbon treaty. And as it needs ratification by every member state, the treaty is now dead. Unfortunately it is likely the measures in the treaty will be introduced by stealth and we will end up where the political elite like, regardless of public opinion.
David Miliband, and other EU politicians, have said their countries will go on with the ratification process, presumably in the hope of some workaround or second vote in the future. They tried a second vote over the Nice treaty in Ireland, but as plenty of opposition to Lisbon seems to have been due to the perception of disconnected politicians trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes, I can see this being highly unpopular.
EU leaders meet in the next few days, and I think one thing will be dominating the agenda. How to get around this result. EU leaders have no respect for public votes, they will explain that the voters didn’t really mean it, as they did with French and Dutch nos for the original constitution. They will push through policiy anyway. Politicians in general are out of touch, but in Europe it is worse. What they need to realise is that if their dreamed of EU superstate is ever to come about it will be with the consent of the people.
The voters need to be won over, there needs to be mutual trust built over time, and this is not achieved by moving too fast. More moves in the name of ‘the man in Brussels knows best’ will long term set back the European project.
They must respect this vote and realise that No Means No.
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Extraordinary isn't it?
Twenty seven democracies in Europe elect their own politicians and government.
Twenty seven elected governments agree on a Treaty and reccommend ratification.
And yet it is not seen as democratic. Extraordinary!
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How come all the articles on the Lisbon Treaty and the Irish Referendum start with "The treaty cannot be implemented unless approved by all 27 EU states" when this is clearly untrue?
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Funny how our government is bleating about the cost of David D's by-election but doesn't mind ratifying a treaty that cannot proceed in its present guise. Can't they wait for the next (dis)guise?
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Prime Minister's Question Time.
Mr. Speaker: The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister:
Mr Speaker, the outcome of the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has convinced me that there may be genuine concern amongst the people of this country about the treaty. I know that Leader of the Opposition has been banging on about it for months but, frankly, no one believes a word that he says and, like me, stopped listening to him months ago.
This genuine concern has now convinced me that there should be a referendum on the treaty in the UK. This referendum will be held before a decision by Parliament and the Government will be bound by the decision of the people.
I know that Leader the Opposition will say that this is a cynical move, effectively a get out of jail free card, but I would like to say that the Government can be as cynical as the next man when it suits us and, anyway, if there is any quarter to be made from France and Germany we aren’t going to let the Irish be the only ones to get their snouts in the trough.
Mr Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.
The Leader of the Opposition: Mr Speaker, we may have wanted a referendum on the Treaty whilst we knew that the Prime Minister didn’t but, now he does, we don’t want to raise the hopes of the closet UKIP nutters in our party that we might actually leave the EU so I would be grateful if he would leave the cynicism to me in future.
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I wish I could pop out for a pint of Guinness to celebrate.
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To PM.
Did you know that BBC North West news presenter Gordon Burns. Caught two shoplifters in Guildford recently? Chased them up the street he did. The BBC it's what you do.
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BBC North West news presenter Gordon Burns doing in Guildford?
Was he discovering how the other half live or does he commute to the North East because he thinks no one in their right mind would live there? Could there be an innocent explanation?
Anyway, did he catch them and down them with a rugby tackle? Do tell us the conclusion of the story.
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So consign the Lisbon Treaty to the historical dustbin.
Serious talk then? The Royal meeting tomorrow too. No de-briefing at Ascot now I am told without sanctions. It would be frowned on? And male wearers of the kilt, sans underwear?
Frowned on? The brow furrowed?
The Crooked Furrow! Every time I see the above title I rudely perhaps but albeit briefly think of the author, Jeffery Farnols title.
He alway had a dense but honest hero who won fair maid when SHE decided he would and not before.
Hardly justice for the fictional chump to know meanwhile serious talk is going on somewhere out of earshot about his marital future. The Broad's Highway perhaps.
Pardon? Was that what was said?
I still cannot hear and my serious face is on too.
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Germany may well have more wind farms
It also has twice the land area of the UK.
The "windest country" in the EU is not the UK. It is Denmark.
We in the UK have more vehicles than there are people in Scandinavia.
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Does not the idea of Britain being a "client state" (ie one whose foreign affairs are entirely dictated by the requirements of another more powerful state) ring even more true now than it has ever done in the past???
Just before the Iraq war Britain bought 95 US-made Cruise missiles. Along with the deal came an agreement that they could not be launched without US permission, were targetted from the US and were maintained by US contractors.??
A similar arrangement exists with Trident, Britain's so-called 'independent' nuclear deterrent.??
We have no power to expel the US from its bases on British territory and have no control over what goes on there.??
Britain and the US attack Iraq in circumstances we are all now only too familiar with.??
And now, Bush visits Brown and the next day Brown announces more troops to Afghanistan, for purposes most of the British public are still unclear on, Des Browne describing the situation vaguely as "more complex than first thought". ??
The idea of 'client statism' is well established for others, can anyone suggest why it should not necessarily apply to Britain?
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We need more troops because the helicopters the Americans sold us don't work...... What goes around eh ??
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RGM (5)
Nice work, is "PMQ's" scripted by you?
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Thunderbird @ 12, if the helicopters don't work I assume it isn't their rotors that go around...
I thought that the argument being put forward amounted to 'We are doing so well that we need more troops'?
Slightly embarrassing that it had to be made on the same day that the British dead in that conflict reached 100.
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RJMolesworth (8), Guildford is nowhere near the North East.
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Are they really attempting to teach Mathematics to 11-year-olds?
Or are we really talking about 'Arithmetic'? I distinctly remember being taught THAT at primary school?
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Fifi @ 16, at age eleven I really enjoyed doing lots of stuff that I assume was 'mathematics' rather than 'arithmetic'. Nodes and sets and how to work out the area of a room for painting when it had irregular walls or how much canvas would be needed to make a tent (which I suspect may have been calculus in disguise) and things like that. Why not?
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Ah, Calculus,
I was taught by a very old-fashioned teacher (who used a T-Square to admolish punishment, which I very narrowly avoided on more than one occasion by quick thinking; on his retirement, it was rumoured he received a gold-plated one), that calculus had one over-riding principle; "what one fool can do, another can".
Apparently this was the foreword on some calculus text in the 1930's (I guess), but it was also how I was taught, and it's served me well. No greater fool than I, so I'm ripe for some of my greatest triumphs based on the calculus.
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Fifi (16) It's called Mathematics even at the Nursery stage - and I hear they would like Nursery teachers to play with numbers and do baking!
Excuse me while I go and learn how to suck eggs......
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Chris (17) : My otherwise brilliant Scottish primary education didn't extend to calculus! We parsed sentences to within an inch of their lives but nothing about the area of an irregularly-shaped wotsit...
Other irregularly-shaped savoury snacks are available.
;o)
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Gillianian - they don't have time to do anything with the kids in nursery these days - too busy ticking boxes. Oh dear.
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A society that sends its womenfolk to do the work of its men is one which I think is profoundly corrupt. In fact, I would prefer that teenage male nerdowells be conscripted into the armed services before a single woman is sent on active duty. No nation that fails to honour its women by doing its utmost to keep them safe from harm can be considered a nation of men.
It might be said that this is discriminatory and unfair. So what? Biology heaps the most savage discrimination upon human beings at the point of their conception. It is in that instant that God or nature decides whether a person will be either male or female. Life begins with an act of gender discrimination; in most cases, human beings will not fail to perform the roles in which they have been cast by a hand other than their own. Why should we seek to reverse those roles at a later date, and for entirely unconnected purposes?
It's my view that it would be better, and more wholesome, for Afghanistan to be left to the Taliban than for a single British woman to lose her life in its defence. Defending ourselves would then require rather more robust and creative policies towards the question of security than the nation's men have seemed able to provide thus far. It would make our politicians do something to which they seem to have no natural inclination, that is, to face reality; and we would be a better people for it.
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m-o-t-p @ 22, ah yes: kirke, kuche, kinder. (Yes, mods, that's furrin. It means church, cooking, kids.)
While we are at it, we'd better reverse the big mistakes someone went and made, allowing these women to wear shoes and teaching them to read. It gave them the extraordinary idea that they might be members of the human race in their own right rather than existing only as adjuncts to the male of the species and nurturers of his offspring.
Better make a rule that they aren't allowed out in the street without a man with them, while we're at it, and make sure they are wrapped in loose blankets if they absolutely have to appear in public places.
(Appers, Fifi: is that a big enough hammer, or should I go out and borrow the 18lb sledge to ram the point home with?)
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Gillianian @ 19
No it's not. It's called Numeracy.
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WhiteSquibb @ 24, could be worse; it could be numerology.
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White Squib (24)
The Foundation Stage of the Early Years Curriculum has numerous(!) leaning goals in the category ''Mathematical Development''. It states that mathematics is not ONLY numeracy.
The Numeracy Hour was introduced into Primary Schools, not nurseries, and even then it is supposed to include ''developing mathematical ideas as methods for solving practical problems'' and comes under the Curriculum Area called Mathematics.
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MOP (22) I find your comment offensive. It denigrates the memory of Corporal Sarah Bryant who was killed after choosing to put herself in mortal danger. Her memory is better honoured by acknowledging her sacrifice, and the pride felt by her family and friends, than by wishing she had been denied the opportunityto do the job she is said to have loved and had the courage and talent to perform so selflessly.
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Gillianian @ 27, I agree with you in finding the comment you mention to be profoundly offensive. At the time of my response to that post I was not aware of Corporal Sarah Bryant's death, having missed hearing the news during today, and if my outburst has added to your offence I apologise.
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Chris, thanks for your kind words. Your response was spot-on! I noticed the offending post this afternoon, but it took me a long time to compose myself sufficiently to put a reasonably polite response together ;o)
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