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Thibault

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Posts posted by Thibault

  1. It is refreshing to read many tributes to a man who seems not to have been involved in anything remotely shady, who was well regarded by all his colleagues, who was popular with his audience, who led efforts to raise millions for charity for decades and who loved and respected his wife, children and grandchildren.

    So different from a lot of the murky stuff in the media about well known people these days.

    I shall miss his wonderful sense of humour which started my working day with many a laugh for many a year.
  2. It is not city flood plains that should be left bare of buildings, but those further up river, which are now being built on. In the past, rivers flooded along their countryside flood plains, thus protecting cities to some extent. The problem now is that more and more development is taking place on greenfield sites outside of cities, and many of these are along flood plains. This leads to the water being channelled right down into the urban areas, with the results we have seen recently.

  3. Listening to the Jeremy Vine show today, some of the lorry drivers called in with their stories. All of them said that while the UK police were active and they were given water etc, on the French side, there was nothing, no facilities, the police did absolutely nothing and the drivers were not even offered any water.
  4. Well, Quillan, if you're using the French Amazon, then caveat emptor still applies and it behoves the customer to at least try to understand what appears on the screen. It is possible to obtain translation software or even a paper dictionary.

    It is all very well to blame the business, customers do have a responsibility to understand the implications of their actions. However, there is a modern trend in society to allocate blame to everyone else for whatever, and not the individual.
  5. I remember the Jeremy Vine show a few years back when a lot of Brits who then lived in France talked about their lives. One woman proudly stated that she never locked her house, nor her car, because there was no crime in France, unlike the UK.
  6. Theiere wrote:

    That has been proven to apply to all of the political parties, just convenient to attach it to one person to make your point?

    Well it does, because it shows that Farage is exactly like all the others, despite his protestations that somehow he is 'different'.
  7. I have to congratulate you, Ebaynut, misinterpreting the clearest of sentences. Where did I say I blamed the parents? I did not - perhaps you should read my post again.

    Nigel is part of the establishment - private school educated, years as a City trader - you can't get much closer to the establishment than that. He cannot pretend to be something different. By the way, membership of the establishment is not determined by a position on Europe.

    AFAIK voting in local elections involves putting a cross next to the person/political party one wishes to support. The same goes for the general election. The number of candidates may vary (local elections often involve voting for a number of representatives, and the general election one). It is still very clear that the people of Thanet were prepared to vote for UKIP in the local elections, but were not willing to send Nigel to Parliament.

    He is also very good at milking his expenses. A farmer in Littlehampton gave him a property to use as his campaign HQ rent free. Nigel 'forgot' to declare this for several years and only 'remembered' after it was mentioned in the media. Then there is the question of what he tried to get Carswell to do about the Short money.
  8. It is interesting that the recent example of coalition politics (which would be inevitable with PR) led to people deserting the Lib Dems because they were not able to implement all the policies they had in their manifesto (nor were the Conservatives). It seems that the electorate like the idea of coalition politics but do not like the reality of it.
  9. Don't let facts stand in the way of a good old moan, Betty!

    The parties which lose elections are very keen on AV, but the great British public, when push came to shove, voted against it.

    However, perhaps membership of the EU is influencing attitudes - you know the one where a referendum is offered, and keeps being offered until the people vote the way the powers that be want LOL
  10. I have no objections to any politician who is privately educated - after all that was the choice of the politicians' parents so you can't blame the politician. What I do object to, though, is Nigel trying to pretend he is a man of the people and not part of the establishment, when in fact, he is.

    So, Ebaynut, how do you account for the fact that the people of Thanet voted UKIP in the local elections, but not for Nigel in the parliamentary elections held on the same day and where people were given the two ballot papers and cast their vote at the same time for both elections?
  11. I agree with Betty - it is obvious that Farage is arrogant and while pretending to be 'one of us' he is very much from the public school educated, man from the City, mold, just like those he purports to despise. He also seems to be something of a control freak - look what has happened to his Deputy Chair in the last few days. At least with Carswell, he was unable to shift him from his position over the Short money.

    It is significant that many of the people most committed to the UK leaving the EU, do not want Farage to lead the No Campaign.

    As for UKIP gathering support, once the Lib Dems (the 'official' Protest Party for the last several years) were tainted by actually being in government, the protest vote needed another home and UKIP was convenient,

    I think it is significant that in Thanet, UKIP won the local elections but when it came to the parliamentary seat, Farage lost. Given that the elections were held on the same day, that actually tells us something.
  12. Given that the euro is a political rather than an economic project, I cannot see the rest of the Eurozone allowing Greece to leave. That is what Greece is banking on (no pun intended). We will see just how far this game of chicken goes on for, but I suspect some sort of concession will arrive, as if by magic and allow Greece to remain, tottering on the brink of leaving for some time yet.
  13. I find UKIP's constant refrain of Britain for the British and let's keep out Johnny Foreigner unless we want a particular skill they have, to be rather odd, given that the British population today is made up of the descendants of wave after wave of immigrants, the first of whom arrived after the last ice age. The entire population of the UK are descendants of immigrants.
  14. With regard to the so-called privatisation of the NHS, under the Blair government, it was around 2% of the total, and now it has risen to 5%. I am not a mathematician, but to me that means that 95% of the NHS is not privatised.

    It is interesting that in France, there seems to be a much greater role in the health service played by the private sector than in the NHS and yet it is lauded as being a much better health service than the NHS (at least by the comments I have been reading on the various ex-pat forums over the years).

    What is it that makes the French health service great with private sector involvement, but not the NHS?
  15. [quote user="mint"][quote user="Thibault"]

    As far as I understood it the TTIP was initiated by the USA, who want better and more favourable access to European markets.[/quote]

    YES, most convenient for large American companies to sell services and supplies to the NHS[+o(]

    There are more ways to privatise the NHS than simply starving it of funds

    [/quote]

    Actually, I didn't say this - I was quoting a post from someone else.

    My point was that if the UK left the EU but joined EFTA, it would still be bound by EU rules and regulations, but without any say over them.

  16. [quote user="lindal1000"]t

    As far as I understood it the TTIP was initiated by the USA, who want better and more favourable access to European markets. Why would that be any different if Britain was out of the EU? The only difference as far as I can see is that we would have no say in the negotiations and have to go along with whatever was decided.[/quote]

    That is also the case if the UK was part of EFTA and wished to continue to trade with the EU, it would still be bound by all the EU regulations with absolutely no say in what these were or how they were applied.

  17. In our commune, we have to pay 150 euros every five years for the inspection of the fosse, but it is collected at 30 euros per year. We had our inspection and the lady inspector did a thorough job, taking off all the coverings, taking photographs, sticking in long poles and poking about, leaping over walls to find the outflow etc. It then took nearly two years for the report to arrive.

    We also have to have the fosse emptied every four years and the documentation has to be available for inspection.
  18. Our two local supermarkets are Atac and Aldi. Both are small and the cashier/belt areas are tiny. Atac's are marginally smaller than Aldi's, so it is a struggle to place oneself, the trolley and shopping bags in a position to be able to gather stuff as it comes through. However, the cashiers tend to have a reasonable pace. Aldi on the other hand have much longer belts, but rarely more than one cashier on duty. As a consequence there is a huge queue, so much so, that people place their trolleys or baskets in the queue and run round the shop grabbing stuff which they then place in the trolley or basket, relying on the few people still in the queue to move it forward as necessary. The one cashier on duty then practises to beat the world record for flinging stuff through the scanner and out on to the postage stamp sized bit at the end, while the hapless customer tries frantically to catch the stuff and stick it in the trolley. Few attempt to pack bags at this stage. Most seem to take the full trolley to their car to pack bags.

    In contrast, in Blighty at my local Tesco, there are large numbers of checkouts, with reasonable sized areas to stack and pack. If a queue builds up, more checkouts are opened, so it is rare for more than 3 or 4 people to be waiting at a checkout.

    We are now in training for our summer visit to France, and each time, by the end of our stay, I think we are a little better at catching the stuff in Aldi!
  19. I find the idea that people currently employed as police officers, social workers, those in immigration control, MI5 etc etc could suddenly become workers in the NHS as simply not feasible. Some may make admin and clerical workers, but what about doctors, surgeons and nurses? The idea is nonsense.
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