Scottish Independence ( 'Independence Lite' )

Batsy

meglome wrote: »

The only thing I've seen you mention directly about the EU was about bananas. And that turned out to be just the usual bull from the Sun and the Daily Mail. Your problem with the EU seems to be you think they meddle in UK

I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you that you are wrong. Stop believing the Lefty myth that anything The Daily Mail and The Sun - the two most popular newspapers in the UK - tell you are a myth.

Regulation (EC) No 2257/94 of 16 September 1994 laying down quality standards for bananas is a European Union regulation specifying minimum standards for bananas, which took effect on 1 January 1995. Amongst the many laws it layed down was that retailers were forbidden to sell bananas that were too bent; that peaches below 2.2in diameter must not be sold between July and October; and that carrots must be 0.75in wide, apart from baby carrots.

All this rule did was make thousands upon thousands of bananas and other fruits and vegetables that were were perfectly good to eaten be thrown out and made to go to waste (similar to all those dead fish that the EU makes us throw back into the North Sea every year).

Thankfully, in 2008, we were able to sell bendy bananas again.

Scofflaw

Batsy wrote: »

I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you that you are wrong. Stop believing the Lefty myth that anything The Daily Mail and The Sun - the two most popular newspapers in the UK - tell you are a myth.

Regulation (EC) No 2257/94 of 16 September 1994 laying down quality standards for bananas is a European Union regulation specifying minimum standards for bananas, which took effect on 1 January 1995. Amongst the many laws it layed down was that retailers were forbidden to sell bananas that were too bent; that peaches below 2.2in diameter must not be sold between July and October; and that carrots must be 0.75in wide, apart from baby carrots.

All this rule did was make thousands upon thousands of bananas and other fruits and vegetables that were were perfectly good to eaten be thrown out and made to go to waste (similar to all those dead fish that the EU makes us throw back into the North Sea every year).

Thankfully, in 2008, we were able to sell bendy bananas again.

Um, no, Batsy - the regulation specified the minimum standards for things like bananas to be graded a certain way. And there's actually nothing in the Regulation requiring the famous straight bananas of English folklore - only that they should not be abnormally bent. Things like this are just trading standards.

If you want to know what happened to the bananas you buy in supermarkets, you'd do better to look at the supermarkets themselves.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ardmacha

I have not lived in England now for 10 yrs , but the vibes I get from my family/friends , and from the media is that there is a growing unease about the way Scotland and Wales command their own destiny , but still seem to have their hands out looking for support to pay for their policies

Classic colonial thinking. The UK is run for the benefit of England, and south-East England in particular. This then creates a new for subsidy of other parts, which the English then characterise as begging, although it was their actions in making these other countries as vassals that created this situation.

meglome

Scofflaw wrote: »

Um, no, Batsy - the regulation specified the minimum standards for things like bananas to be graded a certain way. And there's actually nothing in the Regulation requiring the famous straight bananas of English folklore - only that they should not be abnormally bent. Things like this are just trading standards.

If you want to know what happened to the bananas you buy in supermarkets, you'd do better to look at the supermarkets themselves.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I already explained this to him using the text of the EU regs he posted himself. Yet even though he's seen it in black and white he's still choosing to believe the story as printed in the Sun and Daily Fail. Blind nationalism seems to lead to blindness... who woulda thunk it.

Batsy

ardmacha wrote: »

Classic colonial thinking. The UK is run for the benefit of England

Yeah. Apart from the fact that the "Celtic" nations each have their own parliament or assembly and England doesn't; apart from the fact that the people of the three "Celtic" nations get more freebies and benefits than the people of England do (most of them paid for by the English taxpayer); and the fact that the "Celtic" nations are subsidised by England.

Apart from those three things the UK is being run for the benefit of England at the moment.

Batsy

Scofflaw wrote: »

only that they should not be abnormally bent. Things like this are just trading standards.

Throwing away bananas just because they are ("abnormally") bent is a waste of perfectly good food, especially when there are so many people starving in the world today. It is very reminiscent of those EU butter mountains and milk lakes, and the fact that millions of perfectly edible fish are thrown, dead, back into the North Sea every year by EU fishing fleets. It's a waste of food and it needs to stop.

Bent bananas not a Euro-myth after all

Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.

By Daniel Hannan
Politics
November 12th, 2008

Hang on: I thought it was all meant to be a scare story. Whenever Euro-enthusiasts found themselves losing an argument, they would say, "You're making all this up: it's a tabloid Euro-myth, like bent bananas".

"Bent bananas" became a kind of Europhile recognition code. In the mouths (figuratively) of Euro-enthusiasts "bent bananas" were a short-hand for "every untrue allegation ever levelled by sceptics". Geoffrey Martin, who was for a long time the European Commission's senior representative in the UK, used to publish newsletters in which he rebutted these supposed fantasies, these false creations proceeding from the heat-oppressed brains of bigoted journalists. His collective name for the phenomenon was "bent banana syndrome".

Yet it now turns out that, by the EU's own admission, there were rules specifying the maximum permitted curvature of bananas. Now, Commission Regulation Number 2257/94, which lays down that bananas must be "free from abnormal curvature of the fingers", is to be scrapped.

...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/5705717/Bent_bananas_not_a_Euromyth_after_all/

[MOD]Batsy, stop copying and pasting the entirety of other people's articles.[/MOD]

djpbarry

Batsy wrote: »

Throwing away bananas just because they are ("abnormally") bent is a waste of perfectly good food, especially when there are so many people starving in the world today. It is very reminiscent of those EU butter mountains and milk lakes, and the fact that millions of perfectly edible fish are thrown, dead, back into the North Sea every year by EU fishing fleets. It's a waste of food and it needs to stop.

All this has what to do with Scottish independence?

Scofflaw

Batsy wrote: »

Throwing away bananas just because they are ("abnormally") bent is a waste of perfectly good food, especially when there are so many people starving in the world today. It is very reminiscent of those EU butter mountains and milk lakes, and the fact that millions of perfectly edible fish are thrown, dead, back into the North Sea every year by EU fishing fleets. It's a waste of food and it needs to stop.

Batsy, neither you nor Hannan have bothered to look a millimetre beyond your own prejudices. Bananas with "abnormal curvature" are not "dumped" and never were - they were simply not classed as Extra or Class 1 bananas, but Class 2. Hannan hasn't bothered to check this, and neither have you - you've just accepted what he says as gospel.

Please aim for more accuracy in future - ideally, read up on an issue beyond your usual bubble before holding forth on it.

regards,
Scofflaw

Batsy

Scofflaw wrote: »

Batsy, neither you nor Hannan have bothered to look a millimetre beyond your own prejudices. Bananas with "abnormal curvature" are not "dumped" and never were - they were simply not classed as Extra or Class 1 bananas, but Class 2. Hannan hasn't bothered to check this, and neither have you - you've just accepted what he says as gospel.

Please aim for more accuracy in future - ideally, read up on an issue beyond your usual bubble before holding forth on it.

regards,
Scofflaw

The majority of bent bananas would have been dumped. They weren't allowed to be sold in EU shops so the chances are they would have been dumped and not eaten.

And I'll always be prejudiced against the EU. I'll go on complaining about it until we leave the monstrosity.

getz

i just dont know what to make of statment;we will put the referendum for scottish independance in five years,there is me thinking,the man is mad by saying this now,how is he going to get any long term investment in scotland,from westminster ,now what large private companies are going to invest in a country that they are not sure it can run its own economy,its not as if its got a big enough consumer population, should of kept his mouth shut fo another three years,

Scofflaw

Batsy wrote: »

The majority of bent bananas would have been dumped. They weren't allowed to be sold in EU shops so the chances are they would have been dumped and not eaten.

Anyone could have sold Class 2 bananas at any time - there was never any ban on their being sold. Supermarkets by and large only sold Class 1 and better, because that's what their customers preferred.

About the only victim of the lack of madly bent bananas was Esther Rantzen.

Batsy wrote: »

And I'll always be prejudiced against the EU. I'll go on complaining about it until we leave the monstrosity.

Try to do so more accurately, then.

regards,
Scofflaw