fred
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fred
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"We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia.
It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”
It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”
Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.
We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.
It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”
It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”
Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.
We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.
fred
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"The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.
And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.
All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.
There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.
The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.
Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty
We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.
Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”
When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.
Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’
You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom".
And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.
All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.
There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.
The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.
Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty
We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.
Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”
When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.
Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’
You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom".
fred
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"Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.
The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.
There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.
The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.
Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?
I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."
The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.
There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.
The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.
Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?
I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."
Loz
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Digger
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fred says
"In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."
It must be sad to be so perfect but nasty at the same time. I regret to say not worth the effort to say any more to someone so ill mannered and intolerant of other views. Oh to be so perfect!
"In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."
It must be sad to be so perfect but nasty at the same time. I regret to say not worth the effort to say any more to someone so ill mannered and intolerant of other views. Oh to be so perfect!
DavidofHook
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Fred, we won't be leaving Europe, only the EU. You do need to understand that subtle distinction before sounding off like this. You do sound a bit worried though.
Remember, most wars are fought over sovereignty and we are doing our children a disservice by just giving it away. It is not ours to give.
WelshGas
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Methinks someone is getting worried.
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Tom
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Fearful might be a better description: fearful that the overwhelming majority will suffer because of a British utopia dreamed about by a slim majority.
Sp0_0k
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Fred, that was an amazing read.
Not many worried about EU, all the minds focused on "will it be better for us?".
It will be definitely bad for EU and lets say 50/50% for UK. Might be good, might be worse.
So from a simple math, leaving is bad. One side "EU" will lose anyway, the other side might not get all the fantasies there are in the heads.
Not many worried about EU, all the minds focused on "will it be better for us?".
It will be definitely bad for EU and lets say 50/50% for UK. Might be good, might be worse.
So from a simple math, leaving is bad. One side "EU" will lose anyway, the other side might not get all the fantasies there are in the heads.
GrannyJen
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I hear all the "back to"....
The only "back to" I remember is bankrupt Britain. All my life until around 1984 Britain was bankrupt.
We applied to join the EC in 1961 (?) but heard the French say "Non". By the skin of our teeth we avoided being drawn into the Vietnam war, blackmailed by our unpaid war debt to the USA, and resisted only with the threat of closing Mildenhall and Fylingdale BMEWS.
I remember vividly Ted Heath switching the lights off because of our dependence on oil. hostage to Arab regimes who are as far removed from democracy as Genghis Khan was from world peace.
Trying to bring up two children up with inflation raging at 25% , as 2/3rds of the population voted to stay in the EC as the only hope for Bankrupt Britain, but even despite that vote 4 years later we were to suffer the national humiliation of Jim Callaghan and Dennis Healey going cap in hand to the IMF so that we could continue to pay pensions to the elderly and provide care for the sick.
Dark days in stark contrast to the prosperity and security that we have today.
So, please, no one say to me, "Give me my country back, let's return to where we were". Where we were was bankrupt, blackmailed by our friends the Americans, held hostage by some of the most authoritarian regimes on earth, taxed to death. in constant conflict between it's citizens and mortgaged to the IMF.
This is from a floating voter btw.
The only "back to" I remember is bankrupt Britain. All my life until around 1984 Britain was bankrupt.
We applied to join the EC in 1961 (?) but heard the French say "Non". By the skin of our teeth we avoided being drawn into the Vietnam war, blackmailed by our unpaid war debt to the USA, and resisted only with the threat of closing Mildenhall and Fylingdale BMEWS.
I remember vividly Ted Heath switching the lights off because of our dependence on oil. hostage to Arab regimes who are as far removed from democracy as Genghis Khan was from world peace.
Trying to bring up two children up with inflation raging at 25% , as 2/3rds of the population voted to stay in the EC as the only hope for Bankrupt Britain, but even despite that vote 4 years later we were to suffer the national humiliation of Jim Callaghan and Dennis Healey going cap in hand to the IMF so that we could continue to pay pensions to the elderly and provide care for the sick.
Dark days in stark contrast to the prosperity and security that we have today.
So, please, no one say to me, "Give me my country back, let's return to where we were". Where we were was bankrupt, blackmailed by our friends the Americans, held hostage by some of the most authoritarian regimes on earth, taxed to death. in constant conflict between it's citizens and mortgaged to the IMF.
This is from a floating voter btw.
hirsty
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I agree that the Remain campaign have made something of a hash of it - a dignified reminder of all the good things that we all take for granted now (like the 30+ point list many pages back) would've been a lot better than todays daft 'mega-austerity' budget promise.
We've made such a dramatic shift to the right in UK (and US) ever since the Thatcher / Reagan era and I'm also disappointed that Corbyn has seemingly avoided getting on-stage with Cameron in what looks like a weak attempt to avoid colluding with the Panama one-percenters, rather than promoting a massive coalition across party lines, business & the arts - Labour once could've mobilized their traditional base in earlier years, whilst now those votes are lost to UKIP.
I still don't accept that either Cameron or Johnson even believe their chosen positions in the campaign - for two pins you could imagine either of them passionately endorsing the opposite view if it suited their own purposes better.
I'm expecting a very narrow Remain majority, but it's uncomfortably close & such a wasted opportunity.
We've made such a dramatic shift to the right in UK (and US) ever since the Thatcher / Reagan era and I'm also disappointed that Corbyn has seemingly avoided getting on-stage with Cameron in what looks like a weak attempt to avoid colluding with the Panama one-percenters, rather than promoting a massive coalition across party lines, business & the arts - Labour once could've mobilized their traditional base in earlier years, whilst now those votes are lost to UKIP.
I still don't accept that either Cameron or Johnson even believe their chosen positions in the campaign - for two pins you could imagine either of them passionately endorsing the opposite view if it suited their own purposes better.
I'm expecting a very narrow Remain majority, but it's uncomfortably close & such a wasted opportunity.
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WelshGas
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Thats Democracy for you. Tough.
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You can lead a horse to water...and all that.
If there are financial consequences we're in a strong position. (The dog's swimming lessons will be the first to go!)
If there are financial consequences we're in a strong position. (The dog's swimming lessons will be the first to go!)
pjm-84
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One for you Fred.....
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f44e8a6e-2f2a-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html#axzz4Bj3pA7PN
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f44e8a6e-2f2a-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html#axzz4Bj3pA7PN
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Mike
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I see "Cut & Paste Fred is still at it"
Have a look at AA Gill in Wiki. If you have trouble finding it I will Cut & Paste link for you.
Disgraceful article and by association still seeking to label those in the out camp.
You are so wrong and have such a closed mind that I suspect you must be advising the remain camp. You and they have not got a clue as to why many wish to leave because you have not listened and never will.
You wish to preserve your comfortable lives, exploit the poor from all over Europe and put up fences to the rest of the world.
Mike
Have a look at AA Gill in Wiki. If you have trouble finding it I will Cut & Paste link for you.
Disgraceful article and by association still seeking to label those in the out camp.
You are so wrong and have such a closed mind that I suspect you must be advising the remain camp. You and they have not got a clue as to why many wish to leave because you have not listened and never will.
You wish to preserve your comfortable lives, exploit the poor from all over Europe and put up fences to the rest of the world.
Mike
CALI FATE
EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex ........
says it all for me ........... who'd want that ?
says it all for me ........... who'd want that ?
hirsty
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My final post on this subject you will be relieved to hear
...
I'm out of this debate on here now and wish everyone good luck with what is a very important, complex and difficult decision.
...
Edit: About time Andrew Neil got pensioned off, sorry sacked.
...
Thanks for popping back in with another measured response on what we all agree is a very important, complex & difficult decision. I've read most of the linked articles on this thread as I too am interested in the arguments for & against leaving / remaining - I don't agree with a lot of it, but much of it is still useful.
I've personally enjoyed a lot of AA Gill columns over the years - whilst his style is very much to exaggerate for effect - but haven't read as much of his stuff since the Sunday Times went behind the Murdoch paywall (hence the cut & paste). Also an interesting inclusion as the Murdoch papers have a clear Brexit position & arguably were very influential in pushing Cameron to making a manifesto commitment to a referendum in the first place.
You don't have to like it but you do keep telling us you're interested in hearing all sides.
hirsty
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I'd need to see pictures.
fred
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Meanwhile in other news
http://www.cornishpastyassociation.co.uk/2016/06/a-statement-on-europe/
http://www.cornishpastyassociation.co.uk/2016/06/a-statement-on-europe/
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Mike
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Yes still examining both sides thank you. You may be as well for I know. It is however obvious that some have closed minds.
Mike
hirsty
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On both sides, so don't just single out one poster - he's kept it civil at least, which sadly can't be said for everyone here.
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Mike
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By not using his own words he is not keeping it civil. Labelling people in the out camp is not civil. By continually quoting this "celebrity" or a particular person it is not debate. It is a tit for tat.
I have tried very hard to get to the point where issues can be discussed. The response is always the same, he says this she says that etc etc. These people are not superior to us, we can read both sides, we are capable of understanding their motives or sincerity , we are capable of ruling out the extremes on both sides and coming to conclusions. Let's try it shall we in small steps?
Do you agree with the Euro?
Amarillo
Tom
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Yes - polls confirm this: leave 47%; remain 44%; don't know 8% (1% rounding error). Though another way to describe those 92% of voters with "closed minds" is as "non ditherers".
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