All Queen visit related discussion goes here.

sensibleken · 26-05-2011 11:58am

hardCopy wrote: »

What a crap gift

agreed.

"so sorry about all the civilian casualties. to cheer you up heres a bust of a man who advocated experimenting on arabs with poison gas"

Luxie · 26-05-2011 12:02pm

Has Philip insulted us yet?

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 12:30pm

hardCopy wrote: »

What a crap gift

It was a gift to Bush who was a big admirer of Churchill

Nodin · 26-05-2011 12:32pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It was a gift to Bush who was a big admirer of Churchill

....though he was probably referring to the dog on the ad.

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 12:51pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

It was a gift to Bush who was a big admirer of Churchill

What's the problem then?

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 12:55pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

What's the problem then?

I didn't think there was one. A couple of the papers made a fuss on a quiet news day, but other than that no one cared.

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 12:56pm

Nodin wrote: »

....though he was probably referring to the dog on the ad.

Oooohhhhh yessss

mikemac · 26-05-2011 1:04pm

Luxie wrote: »

Has Philip insulted us yet?

Still hasn't but I wouldn't give up hope yet

Soon enough he'll be spotted around the palace with the hurley looking for darkies who deserve a good beating

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 1:09pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I didn't think there was one. A couple of the papers made a fuss on a quiet news day, but other than that no one cared.

Come on, it was a far bigger deal than that. The British media are preoccupied with their "special relationship" and any perceived slight from the USA. They're a bit like the class swot. They demand teachers attention at all times and becomes jelaous if another gets any.

gigino · 26-05-2011 1:22pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

They're a bit like the class swot. They demand teachers attention at all times and becomes jelaous if another gets any.

Nope. Read Obamas speech to the UK on Tuesday and you will see he refers to the special relationship, common bonds etc The US + UK have borne the brunt of the war , and been allies in , the fight against Nazism, the cold war, the war on terror etc ...
We are more like the class swot, acting as a tax free haven for their companies to launder money through / avoid paying their taxes in US + UK,
We have also received a certain amount of charity and handouts from both countries. They have that in common too.

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 1:31pm

gigino wrote: »

Nope. Read Obamas speech to the UK on Tuesday and you will see he refers to the special relationship, common bonds etc The US + UK have borne the brunt of the war , and been allies in , the fight against Nazism, the cold war, the war on terror etc ....

Ah, that's exactly what I mean. It's Obama's way of saying, "The Brits, a great bunch of lads". The British lap it up.

gigino wrote: »

We are more like the class swot, acting as a tax free haven for their companies to launder money through / avoid paying their taxes in US + UK,

You're making less sense that usual there. What is that supposed to mean?

gigino wrote: »

We have also received a certain amount of charity and handouts from both countries. They have that in common too.

What charity or handouts?

end a eknny · 26-05-2011 1:33pm

gigino wrote: »

Nope. Read Obamas speech to the UK on Tuesday and you will see he refers to the special relationship, common bonds etc The US + UK have borne the brunt of the war , and been allies in , the fight against Nazism, the cold war, the war on terror etc ...
We are more like the class swot, acting as a tax free haven for their companies to launder money through / avoid paying their taxes in US + UK,
We have also received a certain amount of charity and handouts from both countries. They have that in common too.

we have a lot to thank britain for not least 800 years of occupation

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 1:40pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

Come on, it was a far bigger deal than that. The British media are preoccupied with their "special relationship" and any perceived slight from the USA. They're a bit like the class swot. They demand teachers attention at all times and becomes jelaous if another gets any.

There's your mistake right there. Believing the British press. No one in Britain does.

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 1:50pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

There's your mistake right there. Believing the British press. No one in Britain does.

Wow, I guess "Broken Britain" is correct! They can't even believe the media!

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 1:58pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

Wow, I guess "Broken Britain" is correct! They can't even believe the media!

No one believes the press (as opposed to the media in general) because they sensationalise things. As you are now.

getz · 26-05-2011 1:59pm

Batsy wrote: »

Obama didn't endear himself to the British right from the off when, as soon as he became President, he removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. It was a gift from Britain to America in the wake of 9/11.

keep on jumping to the wrong conclusions,every president puts the bust of their favorite in the white house and removes the other to storage,obama replaced winston with abe lincoln,george bush removed the bust of kennady a put in the bust of sir winston churchill,who was a hononary citizen of the united states,

Luxie · 26-05-2011 2:07pm

getz wrote: »

keep on jumping to the wrong conclusions,every president puts the bust of their favorite in the white house and removes the other to storage,obama replaced winston with abe lincoln,george bush removed the bust of kennady a put in the bust of sir winston churchill,who was a hononary citizen of the united states,

Honorary? I thought his mother was American and that he had dual citizenship.

gigino · 26-05-2011 2:41pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

It's Obama's way of saying, "The Brits, a great bunch of lads".

They have been the driving force allies in the war on Nazism / communism / gulf wars / war on terror etc. Auld buddies.
They are also both multicultural, English speaking democracies.

"a tax free haven for their companies to launder money through / avoid paying their taxes in US + UK"

Opelfruit wrote: »

You're making less sense that usual there. What is that supposed to mean?

Obama - like the Brits - do not like their companies going offshore laundering their profits through our very low corporation tax / light touch regulation regime ....because it means the tax is not paid in their countries

"We have also received a certain amount of charity and handouts from both countries. They have that in common too."

Opelfruit wrote: »

What charity or handouts?

various peace + reconciliartion fund packages from the USA, , 4 decades of EEC + EC grants / handouts / structural funds / common agricultural policy payments ( which Britain is the 2nd biggest contributer in Europe to ), ...etc etc

sensibleken · 26-05-2011 2:57pm

gigino wrote: »

various peace + reconciliartion fund packages from the USA, , 4 decades of EEC + EC grants / handouts / structural funds / common agricultural policy payments ( which Britain is the 2nd biggest contributer in Europe to ), ...etc etc

you have trotted this out constantly and have been asked to back it up every time. Can you provide links to these handouts. Prefereably against what we have paid into the EU through our own trade agreements and relitive to other member states. In order to show that we are the sucking parasites you are so keen to portray us as

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 3:03pm

sensibleken wrote: »

you have trotted this out constantly and have been asked to back it up every time. Can you provide links to these handouts. Prefereably against what we have paid into the EU through our own trade agreements and relitive to other member states. In order to show that we are the sucking parasites you are so keen to portray us as

Do you expect a response? This is the fourth time you asked this troll for a reference.

gigino · 26-05-2011 3:05pm

sensibleken wrote: »

you have trotted this out constantly and have been asked to back it up every time. Can you provide links to these handouts. Prefereably against what we have paid into the EU through our own trade agreements and relitive to other member states. In order to show that we are the sucking parasites you are so keen to portray us as

and I give you a fourth reference

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/after-30-years-our-eu-structural-funds-are-leaving-us-72891.html

getz · 26-05-2011 3:05pm

Luxie wrote: »

Honorary? I thought his mother was American and that he had dual citizenship.

yes his mother was a american,but that in itself will not give you citizenship .he was made a hononary citizen of many countries,but the united states made him a honorary citizen,only the second foreigner they have ever handed it to,...john f kennedy president of the united states said,under the authority contained in the act of the 88th congress i do hereby declare sir winston churchill an hononary citizen of the united states of america, rather strange in a way because he was made a hononary citizen with a knighthood,

sensibleken · 26-05-2011 3:21pm

gigino wrote: »

and I give you a fourth reference

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/after-30-years-our-eu-structural-funds-are-leaving-us-72891.html

no. thats not even....oh nevermind

Opelfruit · 26-05-2011 3:23pm

gigino wrote: »

and I give you a fourth reference

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/after-30-years-our-eu-structural-funds-are-leaving-us-72891.html

Which is the facepalm Smilie?

Guess this will have to do. :rolleyes:

getz · 26-05-2011 3:34pm

Opelfruit wrote: »

Which is the facepalm Smilie?

Guess this will have to do. :rolleyes:

if it looks like a duck.quacks like a duck. you can be sure its a duck

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 3:44pm

sensibleken wrote: »

you have trotted this out constantly and have been asked to back it up every time. Can you provide links to these handouts. Prefereably against what we have paid into the EU through our own trade agreements and relitive to other member states. In order to show that we are the sucking parasites you are so keen to portray us as

Ireland is a net receiver of EU funds, the UK is a net contributor.

Are you claiming otherwise?

sensibleken · 26-05-2011 3:54pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Ireland is a net receiver of EU funds, the UK is a net contributor.

Are you claiming otherwise?

I am disputing that posters constant attempts to portay ireland as a charity case when in reality our economic history with the EU is far more complicated. i am also disputing the position of the uk as charitable donators who have not received massive benifits from their co-operation in the EU. something no serious comentator would argue.

the arguement can not be made in a simple parragraph as it involves countless trade agreements and treaties to be analysed. so im not going to bother getting into it in detail with you

Fratton Fred · 26-05-2011 4:06pm

sensibleken wrote: »

I am disputing that posters constant attempts to portay ireland as a charity case when in reality our economic history with the EU is far more complicated. i am also disputing the position of the uk as charitable donators who have not received massive benifits from their co-operation in the EU. something no serious comentator would argue.

the arguement can not be made in a simple parragraph as it involves countless trade agreements and treaties to be analysed. so im not going to bother getting into it in detail with you

Thank god for that.

I just wanted to get a check on where we are in this thread, I drifted off half way through.

gigino · 26-05-2011 6:08pm

sensibleken wrote: »

I am disputing that posters constant attempts to portay ireland as a charity case when in reality our economic history with the EU is far more complicated.

I never said Ireland was merely just a charity case, just that the US and UK have supported us in various ways. ( various peace + reconciliation fund packages from the USA, , 4 decades of EEC + EC grants / handouts / structural funds / common agricultural policy payments ( which Britain is the 2nd biggest contributer in Europe to ), ...etc etc )

To quote from the link I provided
"At the end of this year, Ireland's 30-year love affair with EU money comes to an end. The country's current programme of structural funds comes to an end, and there will not be another one.
Ireland's farmers continue to get substantial EU support. As a result, it will be another couple of years before we actually pay in more than we receive. But the structural funds were once one of the hottest political topics, and people still argue about what they did for the economy.
This is not surprising, given that the total received came to almost €20bn in today's money. "They were the seed capital of our economic development," says Albert Reynolds who, as Taoiseach in the early 1990s, was most associated with Ireland's success in getting substantial transfers. "They were the foundations on which we built today's economy," he says.
Some commentators, especially abroad, went further, saying the funds were, not the foundations, but the cause of the Celtic Tiger economy. London analysts were prone to say the whole thing would collapse when the funds dried up.
"The British were quite sniffy and the Germans, who paid for most of it, felt they owned a bit of the Celtic Tiger," says John FitzGerald of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), one of whose tasks was to assess the spending of the funds.
"But it was more the case that the structural funds had a walk-on part in the Irish economic success story. They gave the economy a push, and helped recovery come earlier, but they probably did not change the overall amount of investment by much in the end." German politics played a key role in Mr Reynolds' finest EU hour, when he secured over €10bn at a fraught EU summit in Edinburgh in 1992, despite widespread scepticism that such a deal could be done.
In the previous phase of funding, that old Francophile Charles Haughey had cultivated Commission President Jacques Delors to secure an average 1.9pc of national income (GNP) for Ireland.
Mr Delors was pushing the single market. But Mr Reynolds did a deal with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who wanted the EU to open up to the eastern countries which had just escaped from Soviet domination. The French and British were dubious, but Ireland sided with Germany, and got its reward.
Ireland received over 2pc of GNP annually from 1993-99, with the total hitting 3pc in the early years. That is a lot of money by any standards, but the general view now is that the process did even more good than the money.
Those old enough can remember when government investment in Ireland depended entirely on whether there was a few bob in the annual Budget. Roads would be started, and work might stop for years because budgets got tight. To get EU funding, there had to be a plan.
Brussels officials could also delicately query useless bits of investment inserted for Ministers' favourite constituencies. And then there had to be evaluation, to see how the money had been spent.
Once forced into it, Ireland proved very good at planning. One reason it did so well out of the funds was that Brussels felt the money was better spent than in the other "developing" members, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Now the fear is not so much that the money is coming to an end, but that the EU oversight is coming to an end as well. Will Irish politicians and civil servants slip back to their bad old ways, the former putting politics above economics, and the latter budgets before development and efficiency?
Certainly, the EU money is no longer a big deal. For the last three years, it has been less than 1pc of GNP, and tailing off as the deadline approaches. Even so, the Border, Midland and Western region may well feel the passing of its under-developed status which allowed bigger EU funding in projects, as well as higher State aid.
But there are few other regrets. "In a sense, it is a coming-of-age for the economy, and people should realise that," says John FitzGerald.
"We are in a very strong position, when you look at where we have come from and where we are today," says Albert Reynolds.
"But, of course, you would always take more money if you could get it." "

sensibleken · 26-05-2011 6:12pm

gigino wrote: »

I never said Ireland was merely just a charity case, just that the US and UK have supported us in various ways.
"

gigino wrote: »

We have also received a certain amount of charity and handouts from both countries.

yawn

All Queen visit related discussion goes here.

Comments