Shut up Chirac

[Jo53]

Well, to use his own phrase, Jacques Chirac has just missed another golden opportunity to shut up. For those of you who missed pm on Radio 4 tonight, he has said 'it is time Britain showed a gesture of solidarity with other nations on the question of its EU budget rebate'.

So Tony Blair replies that we have been making a gesture for the past 10 years, in that even with the rebate we pay 2.5 times as much into the EU as France. Without the rebate, it would be 15 times! 'So that is our gesture,' he finished. Sock it to 'em, Tony!

The word in Downing Street, the reporter said, is that Chirac is cynically trying to use the issue to distract attention from his own lamentable position. You don't say!

What an odious, arrogant hypocrite that man is. I should think he is personally responsible for France's recent nomination as the most unpopular nation in Europe.

Jo

 

[Miki]

No arguments from me Jo, I think that is a very fair way of summing it all up!

[Clarkkent]

Mr.Chirac was given the residency by the people of France. You know kind of elected with a majority.

O that that were true!

In the first round of the presidential election Mr Chirac received about 19% of the vote and Mr Le Pen about 17%. This means that they each were not acceptable to over 80% of the voters. When the voters were asked which of these two highly disreputable individuals should become president, they chose the one they disliked less.

Such is democracy in the Fifth Republic. 

[Miki]

[quote]Hello Mr.Chirac was given the residency by the people of France. You know kind of elected with a majority. If you don't like it you could always move on to some other warm climate say Nigeria. Of cou...[/quote]

Back comes the moron, no doubt it will be left as the mods see it as OK.

[Dick Smith]

Are the moderators going to allow Albi's post to remain? It is clearly a 'wind up' (just like we used to have, sorry still have from Outcast) and we don't need it. Either there are terms and conditions or there aren't.

[Alcazar]

Well, the UK has yet another odious little man in charge, one that seems not to be able to tell the truth, and is in love with Dubya!

And i'm not sure he actually has a majority of the UK public behind him dispite election results.

Such is so-called democracy!

Alcazar

[Miki]

Alcazar said "....Well, the UK has yet another odious little man in charge, one that seems not to be able to tell the truth, and is in love with Dubya"

Eh, what does that mean, "well the UK has yet another .... etc" I thought the chap in charge had been there since 1997 ? And if you mean Mr Blair, I think you will find he is quite a tall man, or have you just woken up and spotted that Maggie and the Grey man have since departed

And you have proof of this clandestine affair with George Bush I take it ? other than what you read in the Sunday Mail!

[Alcazar]

Proof of a clandestine affair?
Who needs it when he can't afford to send our kids to university, but CAN afford to send our kids to Iraq to die in an illegal war to support his chum

And don't anyone start about so-called special relationships. I'll believe that one when we get something in return

Alcazar

[Quillan]

Labour is in power in the UK, they won the election, like it or not. I believe the biggest question is why only 48% of the registered voters in the UK bothered to vote. Talking to young people who didn't bother to vote I got the impression that they are just totally bored with UK politics. There is little to distinguish between the main parties and all of them seem to just lie and get way with it. There are no vibrant politicians any more, nobody that tells the truth and nobody that has policies that appeal to young people. In short UK politics are stagnating. If we got 60% of the people to vote would the result be different, I don't know and neither does anyone else.

With regards to France, they want the economic miracle that the UK has, or so they say. The problem is, as a French friend told me, France is like a woman who yearns for a baby but does not want the pain of the birth.

I wish somebody in the UK press would go ask a few normal French people what they really think of the EU Constitution and why they voted the way they did. I have, I asked the last 4 French guests this question and whilst they all said they agreed with it they voted NO. The next obvious question was why, the response from all of them was that they did not like Chirac or his PM and wanted to let him know so it was a political vote and nothing to do with the constitution.

 

[Clarkkent]

Labour is in power in the UK, they won the election, like it or not. I believe the biggest question is why only 48% of the registered voters in the UK bothered to vote.

I share your sentiment about its inadequacy, but the UK election turnout was actually 61.7%. I suspect that part of the problem with low turnout in the UK is attention drawn by single-issue pressure groups to their interests (world poverty, the environment, "peace") - which young people find attractive and inspiring, while real politicians have to concern themselves with a whole basketful of policies with conflicting demands (education, health, security, taxes) - which appear to be tedious.

If we got 60% of the people to vote would the result be different...

... but we did and it wasn't.

I do like your analogy ... it appears to be so true.

 

[Tresco]

All the French people who have brought this up with me (I wouldn't dare to) have said the no vote was a punishment for Chirac to do with unemployment and scandals and his support for the possible entry of Turkey into the EU, I said this elsewhere.

As an aside, can anybody tell me where this Tony 'Bliar' stuff originated from.  Did he Lie about something other than the reason for the war with Iraq, which as I understand it, he is now shown to have acted on legal advice, hesitant I agree,  but the action he took was 'approved' by Law Lords.

Genuinely interested in the answers, as I rarely se a UK newspaper, but sorry if it's a side track.

[Deimos]

One aspect to the UK’s recent election that I consider lead to a poor turnout is the increased use of technology. Parties were using the same software systems as for US elections which allows them to very closely target specific parts of the specific marginal seats which actually determine the outcome of the election. This, none of the parties were particularly interested in convincing “the general public” – only those voters in specific areas of specific marginal seats. No wonder people were not interested in the politicians as (generally and except for a very few people) the politicians were not interested in them.

Ian

[Deimos]

I was actually invited to an dinner party the evening after the French No result (me being the only British person present) and of course they were all talking about the result. Some voted Yes, others No and one Yes but meant No (influence from a daughter being more important).

The reasons they gave included protest at the domestic situation (economy, un-employment, etc.) – as Quillan mentions above, but also a feeling that greater “unification” could only work if all countries went along with it. One example that emerged (probably partly because I was a Brit) was – why have a European Foreign Minister when one country may decide they didn’t like the “European Policy” and e.g. gave the European policy “the finger” and e.g. went off with e.g. Potus. They were not harping on about Iraq but clearly, he UK ignoring the UN was still clear/fresh in their minds and they question the same thing happening again but with Europe being ignored this time.

One thing they did express was concern that other countries would interpret the voted and the French being “ant-European” and even those that voted No did not want to be thought of as anti-European.

(Not my opinion, just the opinion of French expressed to me at this dinner do).

Ian

[Tresco]

POTUS= President of the United States

(Just for peeps who don't watch the West Wing, or whatever)

Deimos, your neighbs must be more spophisticated than mine, or your French much, much  better

[Deimos]

Tresco “or your French much, much better”

Unfortunately almost certainly not. There was one person there who spoke excellent English and helped when I needed. She seemed very aware of the complexities of language and aware of when people were using more difficult language and just quietly told me what was going on in the “harder bits”. I tried to join in the conversation a bit (but could not really add much) so more listened (with help).

I do find I can understand a lot more than I can speak, particularly when I know what is being talked about. If I don’t know what the subject is then I can be completely lost. A few weeks ago at the vets (who I normally understand OK) the vet asked me if I had washed my car. I knew every word he used but just could not understand it mainly because I had no idea what the subject was – I was not expecting it. Had he asked me how my dog was then probably fine. (Sorry – sidetrack).

Regards

Ian

[Quillan]

[quote]Labour is in power in the UK , they won the election, like it or not. I believe the biggest question is why only 48% of the registered voters in the

Sorry you are wrong with your percentages, thats the amount of vote Labour got, not the percentage turnout.

I think you will find that health, security, tax and especially education are exactly what the young people are interested in but they would also add polution, third world debt and a host more other things. I think you will find them very switched on and their concerns are very broad and very deep.

[Clarkkent]

Sorry you are wrong with your percentages, thats the amount of vote Labour got, not the percentage turnout.

My error was to transcribe "60.3%" into "60.7%".

I suggest you go to the following URL:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm

It will give you all the information you will ever want about the recent election, including a turnout of 60.3%. A turnout of 48% is more in line with the turnout in US presidential elections (and the term "registered voter" is closer to American usage than British).

However, I completely accept that 60% is hardly a beacon of excellence in representative democracy.

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

Quillan, I don't know where you get yr figures from but it was indeed 38.3 % abstention, not 52% as you say. The other relevant figure here is of course that only 8 000 000 -et des poussières- voters plumped for Blair, that's only 21.5 % of the total electorate ! (which stands at just over 40 millions). Considering that this appalling stat translates into a sizeable Labour majority at the Common, one might be tempted to think that there's got to be a fairer way to run a democracy... Same findings for France, as much as I hate the FN and in particular Le Pen, he has no MP (if I'm not mistaken -sorry I don't live in France any longer) with 4 million voters... (apart from at some brief point in the 80's when he had 36 FN MP's but that's because Mitterand changed the rules to allow Le Pen to nick votes from the then RPR ! -then Chirac's party).