Orban party Fidesz wins election in Hungary

This has to be a wind-up, surely? The irony, myopia and hypocrisy here is laughable. Your boy Trump has spent 16 of the last 16 months complaining the election was rigged. His supporters stormed government buildings using the 'rigging' as an attempt to stage a coup. So, tell us, who are the 'usual suspects'?

Brussels should send a copy of Article 50 to his office daily for the next 4 years.

Sign it and fúck off, not a cent more for Putin Lite.

It's high time these dangerous fuckwíts were dealt with hastily.

The 'rules of the club' are always up for discussion.

That the most pro-EU countries won't hold a continent-wide referendum with your simple 10 word question is hardly a negative - it seems completely sensible to me to not have such a clusterfcuk of a question put to the people. "Go back to the EEC model rather than further unification" seems about as poor a proposition as could be put a vote (even ignoring that it's nonbinary and needs three possible answers with 'stay as we are rather than either of the listed options').

It's the sort of question that would need about 200 tonnes of supporting documentation to explain what 'the older EEC model' would actually mean and what timescale it could be achieved in. People may be quite surprised with what they lose out on when the rules go back to some undefined point in time within the 30 year lifespan of the EEC, whose rules were continually evolving over it's lifetime anyway. And a continent wide vote is bizarre as well - like are we deciding on a simple majority of votes, or a majority of countries, or weighted voting.

And the biggest kicker - it's not actually needed. The UK exit proved that the EU isn't actually a prison. If the French people want some form of 'out' then they have a starting point of voting for Le Pen. An impending famille Le Pen presidency has been promised pretty much since 1984 though.

He's also gerrymandered electoral districts so they are almost impossible to beat. Ranked at 92 on RSF World Press Freedom Index just a few places above Ukraine.

Yeah, the world really needs more leaders who love Putin and hate gays.

Which party?

And yet they'll still push to allow the even more nationalist Serbs into the Union, and then pull a surprised Pikachu face when they show their true colours....

That all seems pretty unrelated to your idea of having an EU wide referendum with an oddly worded question, with no explanation of how the votes are counted nor any explanation of how a vote 'to go back' could be binding on those countries who vote for 'going forward' or indeed vote for status quo.

But to answer your questions to the best of my ability (and with zero clue how they relate to your referendum idea which I would have loved to see you tease out).

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Would the crash have happened if we could set our own interest rates? Probably, as there is scant evidence to suggest countries with that ability were able to avoid the crash.

Single currency a success for Ireland? Moderately so.

Would our national debt have swelled to the extent it has? The total would certainly be less, though the interest payments would be tougher - having to both borrow and subsequently re-pay in a foreign currency at rates (fx and interest) that could fluctuate wildly.

Would our cost of living be so high? Probably lower, though a lot of the factors which influence our cost of living are external (price of oil/gas, shipping costs etc).

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/rte-apologises-to-paschal-donohoe-over-manner-in-which-childrens-shoe-question-was-put-to-him-on-morning-ireland-40263165.html

I thought the only Party involving RTE, that got an apology was ...that impromptu going away party during Covid Restrictions , and the Grovelling apologies were quite enjoyable at the time 😁