France and the EU

[carrie]

A poll has been carried out in France which found that over 50% of voters would vote to leave the EU if they had a referendum.
If Britain does vote to leave will that mean the end of the EU since more and more countries seem to be dissatisfied with the whole institution.

[Horus]

I think you are right Carrie, like anything else in life people just wait for others to do something first before they act for themselves. There is no doubt that for a variety of reasons many are becoming disenchanted by the European dream and are only waiting for the first brick to fall, if nothing else an out vote will lead us into 'interesting times'

[newcastle]

Maybe it's a wake up call to Brussells to ditch the supra-national agenda (or at least the very contentious elements) and move back to the original concept of a common market.

[Horus]

I am certain that had they backed off on the more contentious issue of ever closer unification, single currency et al that we would not be having the vote we are having this week.

[Who2]

We would be in 'tatters if not for The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, saying no to a single currency,
Gordon Brown I believe...
Ps: Europe is for Europeans not the British, thanks but no thanks...
Pss: A missive to Americans from Ms Queen: note the European bit:

"The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,
and of European brews known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion"

[Horus]

To be fair the South Africans can brew a pretty good lager too, at one time 'Muchinga' better known as Castle Lager in pre Independence days and 'Lion' lager were both excellent brews, I have occasionally still seen Lion lager sold here, but not the other. Due to the climate it was served really ice cold and if you slammed your full bottle down hard on the bar it would trigger an eruption of lager that shot straight up out of the bottle, bit of a waste but good fun anyway.

[A-Four]

We would be in 'tatters if not for The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, saying no to a single currency,
Gordon Brown I believe... [/i]

As much as I would like to agree with you my dear Dr, and yes Gorden Brown was probably one of the finest finance minister we have ever had, it was in fact Norman Lamont.

You may remember when the £ was shadowing the DM , in what was called a 'narrow band', of £= 2.95 DM, and known at the time as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), under the premiership of John Major.

It was Major's full intention to join the €, partly to get his own back on the so called 'b******s' within his own party. However, on 'Black Wednesday' 16th September 1992 huge pressure was put on the Sterling, remember George Sorrus' £5 BILLION. The Bank of England could not cope. Lamont contacted the Bundersbank in Germany, he was told that there was no one There to take his call,............the rest is history.

One thing that has been agreed by ALL political parties in the U.K.,.........We will never join the Euro.

P.S.- it's a pity Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal did not take on that clear message of who runs the €.

[newcastle]

We would be in 'tatters if not for The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, saying no to a single currency,
Gordon Brown I believe... [/i]

As much as I would like to agree with you my dear Dr, and yes Gorden Brown was probably one of the finest finance minister we have ever had, it was in fact Norman Lamont.

You may remember when the £ was shadowing the DM , in what was called a 'narrow band', of £= 2.95 DM, and known at the time as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), under the premiership of John Major.

It was Major's full intention to join the €, partly to get his own back on the so called 'b******s' within his own party. However, on 'Black Wednesday' 16th September 1992 huge pressure was put on the Sterling, remember George Sorrus' £5 BILLION. The Bank of England could not cope. Lamont contacted the Bundersbank in Germany, he was told that there was no one There to take his call,............the rest is history.



One thing that has been agreed by ALL political parties in the U.K.,.........We will never join the Euro.

P.S.- it's a pity Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal did not take on that clear message of who runs the €.

I'd take that assessment of Gordon Brown with a pinch of salt!

Chapter 5 concludes the report by arguing that Gordon Brown's economic
record is now accepted, by a broad range of economic commentators, as a
disaster


http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/gordo ... TEMBER.pdf