Dies irae

[greenilex]

Anyone else feel like a really slow March down a really wide street?

[ardcarp]

...with a precipice near the end. Puzzled by Theresa's speech today. Here are a few extracts, admittedly selected by me:

I want us to be a secure, prosperous, tolerant country

the best friend and neighbour to our European partners

A partnership of values. A partnership of interests. A partnership based on cooperation in areas such as security and economic affairs.

Because perhaps now more than ever, the world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe – values that the United Kingdom shares

….we are not leaving Europe. We will remain a close friend and ally. We will be a committed partner. We will play our part to ensure that Europe is able to project its values and defend itself from security threats. And we will do all that we can to help the European Union prosper and succeed.

We want to maintain the Common Travel Area with the Republic of Ireland. There should be no return to the borders of the past.

We seek to guarantee the rights of EU citizens who are already living in Britain, and the rights of British nationals in other member states

We will pursue a bold and ambitious free trade agreement with the European Union that allows for the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU’s member states; that gives British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets; and that lets European businesses do the same in Britain

to collaborate with our European partners in the areas of science, education, research and technology, so that the UK is one of the best places for science and innovation

With Europe’s security more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War, weakening our cooperation and failing to stand up for European values would be a costly mistake.

We will ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected and maintained

We want to continue to buy goods and services from the EU, and sell them ours. We want to trade with them as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship. Indeed, in an increasingly unstable world, we must continue to forge the closest possible security co-operation to keep our people safe. We face the same global threats from terrorism and extremism.



Was this a manifesto for LEAVING the EU or for JOINING it ?????

calamitatis et miseriae

[MrGongGong]

...with a precipice near the end. Puzzled by Theresa's speech today. Here are a few extracts, admittedly selected by me:

I want us to be a secure, prosperous, tolerant country

the best friend and neighbour to our European partners

A partnership of values. A partnership of interests. A partnership based on cooperation in areas such as security and economic affairs.

Because perhaps now more than ever, the world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe – values that the United Kingdom shares

….we are not leaving Europe. We will remain a close friend and ally. We will be a committed partner. We will play our part to ensure that Europe is able to project its values and defend itself from security threats. And we will do all that we can to help the European Union prosper and succeed.

We want to maintain the Common Travel Area with the Republic of Ireland. There should be no return to the borders of the past.

We seek to guarantee the rights of EU citizens who are already living in Britain, and the rights of British nationals in other member states

We will pursue a bold and ambitious free trade agreement with the European Union that allows for the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU’s member states; that gives British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets; and that lets European businesses do the same in Britain

to collaborate with our European partners in the areas of science, education, research and technology, so that the UK is one of the best places for science and innovation

With Europe’s security more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War, weakening our cooperation and failing to stand up for European values would be a costly mistake.

We will ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected and maintained

We want to continue to buy goods and services from the EU, and sell them ours. We want to trade with them as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship. Indeed, in an increasingly unstable world, we must continue to forge the closest possible security co-operation to keep our people safe. We face the same global threats from terrorism and extremism.



Was this a manifesto for LEAVING the EU or for JOINING it ?????

calamitatis et miseriae

All lies i'm afraid

I'm off here to escape

https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7316/8...14e8981c_b.jpg

[gurnemanz]

Anyone else feel like a really slow March down a really wide street?

I made just that decision over breakfast, too dispirited to listen to the news.

ardcarp asks: "Was this a manifesto for LEAVING the EU or for JOINING it ?????" I have just heard that speech on PM on Radio 4 and could scarcely believe my ears. They seem to want to waste the next two years+ painstakingly achieving something not unlike what we already have. This course of action is supported by our elected representatives, the majority of whom don't believe it is in the best interests of our country, and against the will of half the nations of the UK.

[teamsaint]

It's taken them 9 months to write a letter.
The force of inertia is very powerful.

And in the end, the big money will get its way, whether in, out, or out ( but feels like in,) as the possible 10 year interim deal might.
It always does.

[ahinton]

It's taken them 9 months to write a letter.

...and several hours to deliver it by hand at the taxpayers' expense when it could have been transmitted to Tusk (who'd almost certainly rather not have it anyway) as an encrypted email for nothing.

Being the laughing stock into which UK's so far turned itself is all very well until the laughing stops, which it did months ago; what the other 27 make of all this I cannot begin to imagine.

"We will do" this; "we will do" that. No thought appears to have been given to the obvious fact that there are 27 other nations who will find themselves called upon to do something as a direct consequence of UK filing for divorce, annulment or whatever it is, so what just more more does will presumably be of proportionate significance in what might be the greater scheme of things if only there was a "great scheme" in the first place.

We had the "in/out" 279 days ago; now we're presumably about to embark on the "shake it all about" if only anyone knows where "it" might be and how to "shake it".

[teamsaint]

Well the US elected Trump, much to the chagrin of my American friends.
But it hasn't turned them into a laughing stock.

And if anything , it seems to have had the effect of prodding the liberals into the realisation that people like Clinton not where redemption lies.
Lets hope so, anyway.

[MrGongGong]

Well the US elected Trump, much to the chagrin of my American friends.
But it hasn't turned them into a laughing stock.
.

Erm I think you will find it has

A sad day for music and culture :sadface:

[teamsaint]

Erm I think you will find it has

A sad day for music and culture :sadface:

Well that's your opinion.

I studied American history, and it'll be business as usual. Right wing country, that everybody wants to do business with.
Literally.

erm.......:yawn:

[ahinton]

Well the US elected Trump, much to the chagrin of my American friends.
But it hasn't turned them into a laughing stock.

But Trump isn't trying to take the country of which he's President out of an union of nations - and in any case no one in Europe's exactly singing Theresa jolly good fellow, are they?...

[french frank]

I studied American history, and it'll be business as usual. Right wing country, that everybody wants to do business with.

But it's not about business.

[MrGongGong]

Well that's your opinion.

I studied American history, and it'll be business as usual. Right wing country, that everybody wants to do business with.
Literally.

erm.......:yawn:

Definitely a laughing stock

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08jbdrm

[teamsaint]

But it's not about business.

What isn't?

Most politics boil down to economics, in the end.
Sadly.

[MrGongGong]

What isn't?

Most politics boil down to economics, in the end.
Sadly.

Not a laughing stock at all :whistle:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/every-terrifying-thing-that-donald-trump-has-done.html