The Westie Election

[Carl]

One item that gets my vote is looking at the Public Sector Employment. From speaking with freinds and relatives working in it (local council, NHS, etc) there seems to be plenty of waste / inefficiency.

See interesting article below.

Interesting Article

[Norman Verona]

Blatman, we can trade with whoever we want and don't need to ask anyones permission.

We were a very powerful nation during the period you refer. You may have noticed we no longer have an empire and our American "friends" did all they could to bankrupt us during two world wars.

Whilst the 3rd world war between the US and China rages we are best off in a safe harbour called Europe.

[Stuart]

Blatman, we can trade with whoever we want and don't need to ask anyones permission.

Sorry Norm but that's not so.  My company ships properly prepared scrap metal (to international specs) all over the world - we are prevented from sending it to many countries because the EU had the arrogance to try to police other countries' environmental standards by asking them (via a 'Note Verbale' whatever that may be) whether they still wanted to take it.   Those that failed to reply to the EU's arrogance defaulted to no.

The EU also designates all scrap as waste.  The US doesn't - treats it as a secondary raw material as it should be.  Again there are many countries in the world who will buy scrap from the US but will not buy 'waste' from Europe.  The EC's reaction - it's up to them to change not us.

I once asked members of UK Rep (anyone know who they are?) to dissuade me of the notion that mandarins sit in Europe looking for things to write legislation about because that's what keeps them in a job.  They told me that I was entirely right.

Europe is a complete money pit whose auditors refuse to sign it's accounts.  Get us out of there tomorrow for me.   But don't get me started..........

[BobS]

Name me one thing that the labour administration have doe that's 'communist style'.

Totalitarian might be a better term. Try the forcible removal/arrest of an elderly protestor from your own party at a conference for voicing his disagreement for a start, then arresting another for reading out a list of names in a public street. There will be loudspeakers on lamposts spouting the wisdom of chairman Gordon and massive portraits of him on billboards of they get back in. It's the overwhelming feeling that HMG wants to know everything about everybody typical of repressive regimes that I find a worry. In case I seem like a little Tory, I tried the political profiler Political Compass the other day, endeavoured to be honest, and came out just below the liberal line and slightly to the left of centre.

I found that site quite interesting.

I came out roughly the same as you, diagonally opposite to Gordon Brown (& Hitler )

And so did I.

Maybe everyone does... Who knows if their surveying system works or not? Would you believe any old web site? Even this one?

I treated it as a bit of fun but with some interesting questions being asked

Just for you, I did it again, choosing the opposite to what i think I chose last time.

And i came out directionally opposite, so it seems to work, within the parameters of the questions asked  

[windy]

Windy, have you deducted from the money we pay in, the money we draw out?

It's still £45 million per day. Probably becoming more as the pound gets steadily weaker.

[Blatman]

QUOTE

You may have noticed we no longer have an empire and our American "friends" did all they could to bankrupt us during two world wars.

And yet they failed. Europe weren't helping out either...

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I treated it as a bit of fun but with some interesting questions being asked

Just for you, I did it again, choosing the opposite to what i think I chose last time.

And i came out directionally opposite, so it seems to work, within the parameters of the questions asked  

As with all multiple guess - sorry 'choice' - quizzes, some of the options are straddling my view or omit it altogether. Computers cannot read essays, unfortunately.  

[pistonbroke]

It puts me somewhere between Pope Benedict XIV and president Castro  

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Pope Benedict the Current is a bit of a moveable feast, though, isn't he?

[echoz]

Speaking of the Pope

Interesting story here.

Interesting Pope story