General election results 2015

[MrGongGong]

Get my point Clive? Only The Guardian is The Truth.
Bear in mind that a number of the posters here are teachers and are therefore never wrong.

Just making up nonsense to suit yourself doesn't indicate much intelligence IMV

Guardian?
Teachers?

Where ?

(just realised ..... should have thought when I posted the Bucks Fizz tune earlier ...... it's your lot's new anthem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TX...c&spfreload=10 except the evil EU rules wouldn't allow the fire juggler these days? )

People vote according to what they believe,

Do you really believe this?

(nice Tap quote though ;-) )

[french frank]

I don't really care about what the EU aims for with its material error rate (or the fact that it can't meet it) I'm interested in a complete audit sign off. WHICH HASN'T HAPPENED FOR 19 YEARS!

Why are you interested in a complete audit sign-off?

Not sure what your point is.

My point would be that people seem to develop certain views about the EU and its corruption, and that thereafter they don't really care what the facts are: they take their arguments to the extreme limits where reality is no longer important. But that's only the insignificant view of someone who values much more about the EU than economics/'my' money. I value the vital cooperation where it comes to environmental issues, and welcome EU directives which pressurise member states to conform. I value the cooperation in the fight against crime. I value the fact that belonging to the EU necessitates that member states take no sort of aggressive armed action against each other.

The fact that some bridge-building project in Slovenia, or a flood-prevention scheme in Gloucestershire, carried out with EU funds, infringed the EU procedures seems, to me, relatively insignificant. That was my point, elaborated.

[Richard Barrett]

people seem to develop certain views about the EU and its corruption, and that thereafter they don't really care what the facts are

There are strong arguments against the EU from the left also (though as I've said before, not things that are going to be solved for the UK or the rest by Britain leaving) - about the way EU structures are used to drive through austerity policies, the way it entrenches the dominant position of German capital, the way it unites the political and capitalist classes across the union while dividing workers against one another, the way it promotes free movement within its collective borders while erecting a fortress against immigration from outside, and so on. While looking superficially like an opportunity for promoting comfy liberal policies on the environment, criminal law, armed aggression etc. these policies don't do a great deal to address massive social problems especially on the southern periphery such as poverty, inequality, unemployment and so on. The EU overwhelmingly benefits the rich at the expense of the poor, as of course do most policies practised by its member governments (as well as those advocated by right-populist parties such as UKIP). Personally I have benefited from the existence of the EU in many ways, and this is especially clear now that I've relocated outside it, but people with the kind of life I have are of course in a small minority.

[Richard Barrett]

Get my point Clive? Only The Guardian is The Truth.
Bear in mind that a number of the posters here are teachers and are therefore never wrong.

James, listen to yourself! most people here are trying to carry on a discussion without throwing around crude stereotypes like those.

[DracoM]

Two of the tectonic events in my politicisation were the Miners' Strike and the Iraq War. Both were examples in which - or so it seemed - vast swathes of the general population outside political bubbles were pretty outraged, held demonstrations in a mix of incredulity, anger and despair - a lethal cocktail. On both occasions, despite vivid demonstrations of public disquiet and more, the politicians went ahead and irrevocably changed the entire topography of the political and then the social and then the economic landscapes. Both also demonstrated that hoi polloi in the general sense had no power to change decisions it objected to when it came to it.

The mining communities slid into despair, ruin and anger, sensing disenfranchisement on a huge scale. In many of such communities, the EU became at least associated with some kind of hope. Serious money was invested in the NE of England for example. Some communities regained some sort of stability or at least arrested decline. Some did not. BUT little of that assistance was the result of a UK govt's actions. I will never forget that. The UK govt certainly requested it, lobbied or it, of course, but not many in that govt put hands in Treasury pockets to assist.

The Iraq War sequence saw literally millions on the streets of UK protesting in desperation. What happened? The Iraq War went ahead because the then PM said it was 'the right thing to do'. And we are where we are now, in a Middle East seething and simmering with misery, sectarian anger - and we in UK know about that - desperation, and at the very highest levels denial - in short an implosion / explosions whose after shocks are reaching ever wider across the globe.

Out of that I take the notion that unless we adhere to alliances / associations / self-interest groups that are not so much political but economic, we will slide into nationalism, self-protection, hysteria and wall-building, thus increasing the pressures both from 'outside' and 'inside' even more. The EU is the least worst association the UK [well, the UK as presently constituted] can belong to. Most of the other alliances we belong to are predominantly military, and we know only too well where military alliances generally take us.

The EU is not best practice I fully realise, but in its fumbling, clumsy, wasteful way, it is doing a job I can accept.

[french frank]

There are strong arguments against the EU from the left also [ ... ]

Yes, I accept everything you've said. But it seems to me that those ARE the arguments against the EU as an organisation: the alternative arguments are less concerned about the points you mention. The West/Europe is rich and many of the poorer countries/areas have, at times, benefited (e.g. Ireland). I might have added to my list (though slightly uncertainly!) that the concept of diverting funds to poorer areas is another point in the EU's favour - but whether that has been, erm, a complete success is actually NOT arguable :-( (I mean it hasn't). But I do think the ideal is enshrined in the EU organisation, whatever forces exist to prevent it happening.

I believe in foreign aid policy and in trying to make the poorer better off everywhere, not just in the UK.

[jean]

...the concept of diverting funds to poorer areas is another point in the EU's favour - but whether that has been, erm, a complete success is actually NOT arguable :-( (I mean it hasn't).

It's worked quite well for us here - as it did in the NE, as Draco says.

Yes, our own govt. should have done much more for deprived areas in this country. But I wouldn't want to withdraw from an institution that might help mitigate its failings.

[ahinton]

Two of the tectonic events in my politicisation were the Miners' Strike and the Iraq War. Both were examples in which - or so it seemed - vast swathes of the general population outside political bubbles were pretty outraged, held demonstrations in a mix of incredulity, anger and despair - a lethal cocktail. On both occasions, despite vivid demonstrations of public disquiet and more, the politicians went ahead and irrevocably changed the entire topography of the political and then the social and then the economic landscapes. Both also demonstrated that hoi polloi in the general sense had no power to change decisions it objected to when it came to it.

The mining communities slid into despair, ruin and anger, sensing disenfranchisement on a huge scale. In many of such communities, the EU became at least associated with some kind of hope. Serious money was invested in the NE of England for example. Some communities regained some sort of stability or at least arrested decline. Some did not. BUT little of that assistance was the result of a UK govt's actions. I will never forget that. The UK govt certainly requested it, lobbied or it, of course, but not many in that govt put hands in Treasury pockets to assist.

Yes, had there been no will from any source to help arrest the decline (as you rightly put it - and WHAT decline!) of the affected mining areas in general and those of the north east of England in particular, I shudder to imagine what they'd be like today; ghettos at best, I suspect. OK, the future of coal mining in UK from the 1970s onwards was never going to be bright, but the government ought to have seen that coming well beforehand and started regeneration programmes in the affected areas before ensuring the closure of most of the pits, not the other way round, i.e. forcing pit closures appaently without a care in the world as to what would happen to the areas concerned with them all suddenly removed - there was, quite simply no excuse for that.

The Iraq War sequence saw literally millions on the streets of UK protesting in desperation. What happened? The Iraq War went ahead because the then PM said it was 'the right thing to do'. And we are where we are now, in a Middle East seething and simmering with misery, sectarian anger - and we in UK know about that - desperation, and at the very highest levels denial - in short an implosion / explosions whose after shocks are reaching ever wider across the globe.

Again, whilst I would not seek to argue that all the current troubles in the Middle East have their origins in the illegal Iraq War, thre can be no question that it made matters vastly worse than they would otherwise have been and yet "the then PM " whom you mention has yet, despite so many intervening years, to be invited on a paid vacation to Den Haag.

Out of that I take the notion that unless we adhere to alliances / associations / self-interest groups that are not so much political but economic, we will slide into nationalism, self-protection, hysteria and wall-building, thus increasing the pressures both from 'outside' and 'inside' even more. The EU is the least worst association the UK [well, the UK as presently constituted] can belong to. Most of the other alliances we belong to are predominantly military, and we know only too well where military alliances generally take us.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Imagine a political party, were it to be in majority government in UK, withdrawing UK from EU without even first holding a referendum and without considering the consequences for EU as a whole and for UK in particular; fortunately, no such party in in power. I was not at all happy to hear Lord Bamford, head of the incredibly successful private UK company JCB, talking up his contention that UK would be economically no worse off leaving EU on this morning's Today programme (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32775396); whilst he's undoubtedly forgotten more about running businesses than I'm ever likely to know, I cannot accept his view as anything other than short-sighted and, in the way in which he expressed it, he hardly bothered to make any mention of the effect upon or attitude of the other 27 member states in terms of how such a move could rebound on UK, which I have to say surprised me, although I'd not go so far as to say that it particularly worries me because it seems to be very much a minority view, especially among so-called "captains of industry" in UK.

[french frank]

but in its fumbling, clumsy, wasteful way, it is doing a job I can accept.

For a moment there I thought you were talking about the BBC … I see both as, potentially, beacons of hope. Both attacked from both sides of the political divide for 'getting it wrong'.

As for the EU, I do feel myself to be 1st European, 2nd British and, probably Bristolian before English; so I see the poorer regions of Europe with as much concern as the economic blackspots in England.

[Sir Velo]

For a moment there I thought you were talking about the BBC … I see both as, potentially, beacons of hope. Both attacked from both sides of the political divide for 'getting it wrong'.

As for the EU, I do feel myself to be 1st European, 2nd British and, probably Bristolian before English; so I see the poorer regions of Europe with as much concern as the economic blackspots in England.

I think what so many of us object to is that a great many hare brained schemes, while ostensibly aimed at eliminating inequalities, are approved without going through due process; all of which decisions are ultimately at the taxpayers' expense. It is this lack of transparency which is in part why the EU is so deeply unpopular, and why even its supporters find it hard to defend it as an institution.

[gurnemanz]

As for the EU, I do feel myself to be 1st European, 2nd British and, probably Bristolian before English; so I see the poorer regions of Europe with as much concern as the economic blackspots in England.

Take Bristol out (well done Rovers, though!) and add Londonian and I agree. I do like my country but don't feel the need to shout about it and organised nationalism whether of the UKIP or SNP brand has never appealed to me. History is littered with cautionary examples of where such movements can take us.

[ahinton]

I think what so many of us object to is that a great many hare brained schemes, while ostensibly aimed at eliminating inequalities, are approved without going through due process; all of which decisions are ultimately at the taxpayers' expense. It is this lack of transparency which is in part why the EU is so deeply unpopular, and why even its supporters find it hard to defend it as an institution.

Whilst I am not inclined to disagree with that premise in general terms, I nevertheless wonder whether it's actually more than 28 times worse than similar situations in the totality of the individual EU member states; one has only to think, for example, of horrendously expensive state software systems that have ultimately been abandoned altogether as fundamentally and irrecoverably failed after a period of some years in trying to put them together and install and operate them.

[ahinton]

I do feel myself to be 1st European, 2nd British and, probably Bristolian before English

Not even un petit peu French, then?...

[ahinton]

Take Bristol out (well done Rovers, though!) and add Londonian and I agree. I do like my country but don't feel the need to shout about it and organised nationalism whether of the UKIP or SNP brand has never appealed to me. History is littered with cautionary examples of where such movements can take us.

It has indeed, but I don't think it altogether fair to brand UKIP with SNP over this, at least not as far as each of those parties' current agendas appear to go; UKIP's is to get UK out of EU without first holding a referendum and to limit immigration into UK far more drastically than any other party, whereas SNP seem to want to retain EU membership even if it were to leave UK and does not seem to be so heavy-handed about restricting immigration into Scotland, so the differences between them are not inconsiderable.

[french frank]

It is this lack of transparency which is in part why the EU is so deeply unpopular

Which of these great many hare-brained schemes did you have in mind? And what do you consider 'due process'?

My suspicion (era solo un mio sospetto) is that the the EU is too complex for most people to spend time trying to work out what should happen and what shouldn't; ergo it is 'not transparent' to them. More, it's undemocratic. More, it's corrupt.

Btw, this is a BBC news story from 2006 explaining what is meant by 'not signing off' the EU's budget.

"For while the auditors have found problems with the way the EU spends its money - every year since they first had to provide a declaration of assurance in 1994 - they have also declared the EU accounts to be "reliable".This means that the European Commission has accurately recorded all transactions, assets and liabilities. "

"The problems the auditors have exposed have been with the "legality and regularity" of the transactions underlying those accounts.
[ … ]
"In other words, they have found evidence that some EU spending has violated regulations and/or contractual conditions.
"This is not the same thing as saying that EU spending programmes are "riddled with fraud". In fact, in many cases where errors are found the problems concern the paperwork alone - and the money has been spent exactly as it should have been."

But it still means they can't 'sign off' the accounts.