Also Normal Lamont lost the UK taxpayers over £3 billion by speculating against the likes of George Soros. What an unmitigated disaster ! So at that time the UK's long term aim was to eventually join the Euro, we half-heartily tried by joining the ERM but got our fingers burned instead.
What is the eventual aim of the EU? Since the early days when trade was the real issue they seem to me to have moved on to what I find a bit disturbing, they seem to want countries with lower living standards to join? When was the last country with a fairly high standard of living offered the chance to join? Ultimate aim, I can only think can be either to stop Russia getting "friendly" with such countries or on the other hand, those countries provide cheap labour, to prop up the EU economy, hence the free movement of people being paramount in all things they do. I'm just thinking aloud or at least in text.
To be an unified European State, pete. That's always been the declared aim of the unelected Bureaucrats that run the EU at the moment. It started off innocently enough in a bid to stop the warring between the European nations with it being founded by France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and the Netherlands. But the price of unification has changed to the ultimate loss of all the Nation members independence, control of political decisions, financial decisions, and, of course, border control, with all those being controlled by a body of Bureaucrats that won't be elected but appointed by the same body. At the moment, some of the member nations appear to be drifting away from that agenda, being driven by a rising desire for Nationalism because of the near financial collapse of the Mediterranean States, and the rise of the far right extremists. It's an interesting time.
I think the notion of a European Union is a lovely, sweet idea, that can simply never work. What do we always learn about human nature when it comes to interacting with each other, be that in an ancient empire, or something modern and non geographical like the Internet? We always learn that there are some, usual a minority but a big enough minority, that want their own way at the expense of all others. In short, whenever you put people together, they argue and fight or steal from or rip off each other. When Tim Berners Lee took credit for the Internet, it was going to be a utopian online community. 20 years on or thereabouts, and we've already heard of hackers from the UK and US breaking Iranian nuclear equipment with a cyber attack, Iranian hackers retaliating by taking down many major websites, and today the queen officially opened Britain's brand new cyber defence centre. We can't even play nice on the Internet, and platform designed for all to play nice on. So when history from ancient times shows every empire ever collapses sooner or later (China has cling on for a long time, but it's far from a model solution), and when a whole new domain (cyberspace) was invented, we start fighting and robbing on that too, it's crazy to think some kind of utopian idea of a European Union could ever exist.
Perhaps. But it's been China for just a little bit longer than that. The UK has only been conservative for 7 years. Are we a young country?
It was a tribal and dynasty country before then for centuries. China has only one political party, clueless, which has absolute power over it's subjects which brings it into a "new" country status as that absolute power is, unlike normal dictatorships, unlikely to change for the foreseeable future and basically killed off the old traditions and beliefs. the UK has several political political parties, and is reigned over, symbolically, by a Head of State, that has done so for centuries. ,
I know. It was still China though. Different dynasties ruled in different periods, but it was still China. Incidentally, trivia alert, the okinawan people called the precursor to karate, T'ang Te. The 'te' part is the old okinawan term for hand, or striking system. The T'ang part refers to the Chinese. The latter point I find interesting because this was still the case as late as the 1800s, approx 1000 years after the rule of the T'ang dynasty in China. A purely political move saw the symbol for T'ang being swapped for the symbol for 'kara', the Japanese for 'empty' to remove any hints of Chinese influence, but over in Korea, they chose to keep, and still to this day keep the term 'Tang soo do', meaning the way of the Chinese hand. The point of my little diversion in martial arts is to show that regardless of who is in power, culturally China is recognised as the same entity now as it was over a thousand years ago. However none of this contradicts my earlier point that no empire has ever lasted, except China but it's hardly a model example. While it has always tenuously held together, it has a long history of infighting, which still continues today. There's something in the news today that reminds us of that. Yet another brutal attack by suspected separatists in one of china's slightly less unified regions.
I'm not so sure of that, clueless, because the Communists have deliberately changed/outlawed the culture of the old China to obliterate any other values than those the Communists hold, and what is left of it is strictly for the tourists. The industrial evolution and technology drive has changed the culture beyond recognition. Those people who think that culturally China is the same "entity" now as it was a thousand years ago are somewhat romantically misguided, even the Chinese people who live in the UK will tell you that, culturally, the old China disappeared during WWII.
I don't know about that. Some maybe. Those that look at beautiful tai chi forms perhaps and associate it with art (art as on aesthetic art, as opposed to the more historically accurate definition of the word art, meaning set of skills). China has now, and historically always has had, and horrible cultural regime. Girls being nothing more than objects, brutal demise for anyone that opposed the system, the inability to escape poverty if you were born into it, no matter how hard you work, the burden of responsibility to do the right thing even by your ancestors and descendents, with severe punishment for stepping out if line, even for young kids, the routine use of brutal training methods even for the very young. All of these are there in the culture now, and were a thousand years ago.
That mirrors the cultural history of many countries, clueless, including that of the UK over the centuries. The UK has, hopefully, moved forward as have several other countries. I think you'll find that the Communists using strict socialistic values, political control, deliberate destruction of the historical culture and beliefs have changed your assessment of Chinese culture. Yes, they've put less value on Human Life and Rights but, in their own mind, put the theory of the holding of all property in common and the actual ownership of everything being with the community as a whole ahead of all other things. But I think you can apply your assessment more to the Middle East, in some areas, than the present Communist China.
Tony Blair calls for people to 'rise up' against Brexit - BBC News Tony Blair is on another one of his missions Does he actually think he has any credibility left with the UK voters, the man is deluded .
Here's is the biblical definition of Satan. All he ever does is appear every now and then to tempt people to fight one another. There is never peace where he speaks up.
