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gerardmulholland

Listed below are comments made by gerardmulholland between Friday, 10th October 2008 and Wednesday, 10th June 2009.

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Newsnight neologisms needed 00:58am on 10 Jun 2009 Drunch - Liquid Lunch.
Newsnight neologisms needed 00:46am on 10 Jun 2009 Drunch
MPs' tax muddle 1:16pm on 16 May 2009 I think it's vital to clear this matter up with a full-scale emergency police enquiry into the expenses of every single member of both Houses of Parliament.
Every one of them -and their staff- must be treated as suspect to ensure that the enquiries are rigorous.
This will, of course, entail the police taking DNA samples from each MP, each Peer and each of their staff and holding those samples for 20 years as per the legislation on that subject that these same parliamentarians were so anxious to inflict upon us all only last year.
It will also be interesting to see how many of these DNA samples turn up a match in the 'unsolved crime' section of the police databank - and for what sort of crimes.
Ivan's death 11:19pm on 26 Feb 2009 I did not understand the despair and grief of losing a child until I saw my parent's faces -particularly my mother's face- at my brother's grave side.
It is a fate I would not wish on my very worst enemy.
Words are dreadfully inadequate to express the depth of the sympathy I feel for a couple with whom otherwise I have very little in common.
Time will heal.
No Bible for second oath 7:14pm on 22 Jan 2009 I'm always mystified by the insistence on Oaths of Office. In this case surely it really ought to be the vote of the people that makes him President, not the recitation of some magic formula? It's almost like a christian's belief in the apostolic succession of priesthood. That the oath must be recited precisely as worded in the constitution is just plain silly. Does the fact that Princess Diana got Prince Charles' many names all mixed up at their wedding mean that the marriage was invalid and Wiilliam and Harry are, er, well, er ... well, not Princes, but I digress. Another weirdly catholic thing that recent US Presidents have taken to doing is leaving their successor a letter. The Pope's have done that for centuries. Even now Pope Benedict's letter to his successor is sitting in a drawer in his desk. I wonder which US President cottoned on to that idea?
The next enlargement: Iceland? 6:46pm on 15 Jan 2009 Quite right.
I've been to both north and south Iceland and I love it.
The Euro would help stabilise their wacky prices.
And their membership may persuade the Norwegians, the Greenlanders and the faroese to think again.
Icelanders are ferocious defenders of democracy.
The EU needs them.
Green's arrest draws parallels 10:19pm on 28 Nov 2008 Euripedy-do-da Euripedy-dad
Those whom the gods would destroy
They first make mad ....
The sanctity of the Commons 10:14pm on 28 Nov 2008 Euripedy-do-da Euripedy-dad
Those whom the gods would destroy
They first make mad ....
Europe - ticking time bomb? 5:31pm on 30 Oct 2008 Winston Churchill was right. Europe must -and will- become a United States of Europe. But he spoke of a democratic USE. What we now have -and the Treaty of Lisbon irrevocably enshrines- is an undemocratic USE in which a top heavy bureaucracy pursues the wishes and intentions of big business. That's what corporate fascism means. Winston Churchill would have been horrified. He spent his whole political life fighting that. That's what the father of fascism, Gabriele d'Annonzio, forsaw. That's what Benito Mussolini in Italy, Francisco Franco in Spain and Oliveira Salazar in Portugal set up. And that's what Adolf Hitler partly copied in Germany. Whilst Hitler and Mussolini were racists, Franco and Salazar weren't. Fascism isn't racism. A fascist State is a State governed by and for big business. Both Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower warned that America was also going down that road but nobody listened. The Conservatives must persuade the EU to democratise itself. We need direct elections for the President of the Commission, a two-chamber Legislature consisting of a directly elected Council of the Nations and Regions and a directly elected Parliament of Europe. The Legislature needs to have the joint responsibility of vetting Presidential nominations to the Commission. Each House needs to have the power to sack individual Commissioners or the entire Commission. Each House needs to have the power to amend or reject all financial measures. Without these powers there can be no democracy. Specialised interest bodies (such as the European Central Bank or the big business mouthpiece, the Economic and Social Committee) should have neither legislative function nor veto powers over anything. They are the motors of fascism in the present constitutional arrangements and they must be neutered. All constitutional arrangements and changes from hereon -including further expansion of the Union- should be subject to Referendum by all the citizens of the Union. If the Conservatives can secure that, all Europe will bless and praise them. If they cannot secure that, UK should leave this Union and invite like-minded nations to join her in starting another which all european nations and all countries that were once colonised by European nations should be invited to join.
A global solution needed 7:39pm on 10 Oct 2008 The inexorable laws of economics are leading us to worthless money, no-value assets and debt that is unimaginable and unpayable! Half-measures like bailouts will merely prolong the ever-deepening agony. UN should convene a new Bretton Woods Conference of G8 plus China, India, IMF, World Bank and WTO. With a global economic freeze to calm things -temporarily nationalising everything without payment and cancellling all debts- we can start again with a new agreed international basis for currency, markets, business, international relations, international law and trade. The new basis of value cannot rely on the dollar which has been wantonly destroyed. The new basis must be the value of the one thing that is permanent and indestructible - all the land on earth.

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