Theresa May....... good or bad { so far }

My protocol as a moderator insists that I remain neutral,so No Comment seems to be my best option

 

Hi Sandy, your view is quite understandable, and I assure you no offence is taken and, as previously said, it's good to get your frank opinion. But, I beg you, take a step back and think what's really happening in the UK.
Firstly, did you really think that the European EU members would not pour scorn, mockery, disparagement on our decision to leave the EU??? I don't think there's been any European Media, of any sort, that has not attacked the UK. But at the same time they are attacking and ridiculing the UK they're also acknowledging that they will lose at least a 13% contributions to the EU coffers.
Putting that issue aside, let's take a hard look at what has happened in the UK since the Referendum. I think the decision to leave was a shock, even to the OUT campaigners and supporters and that shock caused a lot of confusion, anger, joy, and a whole gamut of differing emotions in the UK. It was a catalyst for what happened next.
The Labour Party, already suffering major leadership problems, has fallen apart with the far left extremists Labour Party members, [not the MP's] taking control. That has caused the moderate left MP's to disassociate themselves from the Labour Leader and his Shadow Cabinet cronies. That was no more apparent than today when Labour MP's stood up in the Commons during the Trident debate when the MP's publicly criticised and disowned their Leader's policies and announced they would vote with the Conservatives/
How is the new Government dealing with Brexit??, quickly, appointing David Davidson to oversee the procedure of leaving the EU, appointing Liam Fox to oversee the trade negotiations and agreements with the EU after Article 50 is triggered when the UK see's fit.......not when the EU says so. Boris, despite all his failings, he is an intelligent man, will be more than able to stand up for himself and the UK despite the dislike and antagonism he has created by his stated remarks and opinions of the EU. We do not want some bland, appeasing, Politician to confer with a mixture of hostile, resentful, EU politicians who had poured scorn and sarcasm on the UK when the danger of us leaving the UK became a reality. So there many political nation shaking events that have taken place and that still have to take place in the UK. But, if you look back, over the decades with hindsight..........they been inevitable and a long time coming.

 

I guess that's part of a PM's job to a certain extent, merleworld. But, from what I've seen she doesn't appear not to make hard decisions and say it "how it is". We're in early days yet so it's, to me, a bit previous to judge how she will manage. But she does appear to have asked questions on the Nuclear Station being built, in particular the more than doubling of the present rate that we pay per megawatt, before she gets landed with the future criticism of people bemoaning the cost etc.

 

Re the nuclear power station:
There are many questions about it and I think that she is taking time to review the situation. There is the argument about whether it's the right type of reactor (some 'experts' say it's the wrong type), the possible problems with the overvalued agreement of which rate we shall pay for our electricity, the precarious state of EDF itself, the worry of having it built by the French and Chinese and the length of time it's projected to take to build it (varying from 2025 - 2035 ).

Then there's a possible situation that I'm surprised the conspiracy theorists (come back "Dim", all is forgiven ) haven't pounced on.

Junker (president of the EU) hates our guts and has put Michel Barnier in charge of negotiating Brexit for the EU. Barnier hates our guts even more than Junker because he blames us for him losing his job of French Foreign Minister. So it may even be that May is waving a warning finger at France that adversarial negotiations (as Barnier has already proposed) could adversely affect the French economy. Apart from France having a two thirds stake in the project (with corresponding profit) they are expecting at least 5,000 of the projected jobs to be their own citizens (some pundits are saying it may be double that amount).

On the subject of how others see us:
I've just returned from touring through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. Most of the comments (and I had many comments and discussions) were favourable.

In Germany they were mainly 'we'll wait and see'. (We weren't affected by the shootings in Munich apart from even tighter controls at the airport.)

In Austria they were almost totally just interested in what may happen and said that they would expect there to be confusion amongst our politicians for a while - and applauded the delay on Article 50. All except for one waiter (from Holland) who thought we were being silly to come out when we had such a high national debt - until we had our discussion about the real meaning of national debt. In its simplest form the national debt doesn't mean anything (if you total up all the national debts of all the countries there isn't that amount of money in the world!). All that is of importance is whether each individual country is able to service their debt. We can, Venezuela can't! As an oversimplification, it's just like you running up debt on a credit card, or bank overdraft, and whether you can pay the instalments or not. Similarly, and possibly a better example because of the size of it, is borrowing money to by a house and whether you can continue to make the mortgage payments.

In Hungary everyone I met, without fail, applauded Brexit and said that they would love to be able to leave. They weren't allowed to join the Euro as their country didn't qualify under the fiscal calculations (Greece didn't qualify either, so Germany backed them - something they have lived to regret). Hungarians are hoping that it this make it easier for them to get out. They're also not happy that Slovakia were allowed to join the Euro!

The Slovakians that I spoke to seemed to be confused about why they joined in the first place!!!

 

@CanadianLori

An excellent book.

Not such an intellectual thing but there was a 1959 film called Ferry to Hong Kong where the main character (played by Curt Jurgens) gets deported from Hong Kong by being put on the ferry to Macau. Macau wouldn't take him so he became a man without a country. It was more of an adventure film. The ferry captain was played by Orson Welles and the love interest by Sylvia Sims. Noel Purcell played the chief engineer.

I don't know how many of you remember Noel Purcell but he made over 100 films and was in some TV series as well. He was Irish and played many Irish and Scottish parts, mainly sailors and similar parts (plus monks, vicars, priests and rabbis!!).