Nicktendo86
Member
Seriously though why did he get banned? Anyone know?
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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.
- Thread starter Chinner
- Start date
I think it was the Woolwich thread?
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Yeah ok thanks mate. Maybe try actually being here? That is a completely bizarre and peculiar statement. Does it have some problems? Definitely. But most people are just getting on with their lives as they have done for the last thirty years.
At least we aren't invading countries at the moment.
CyclopsRock
Member
Tbf, if you live in an inner city London Borough, it is very unlikely you'd notice the apocalypse. It'd probably be wise enough to stay well away.
Because some nutter beheaded someone? Or because the Tories are in power? It's hardly the end of the world.
Let's not go crazy, things may not be perfect but this country survived the Blitz, I think we'll survive this.
QuicheFontaine
Member
I think the cover of this week's Big Issue is going to give me nightmares. It's like a bad acid trip or something!
Hmmm maybe I should clarify.
I don't mean anything specific. I usually try to keep up with the news in the wider commonwealth, including Australia (where I live), the UK, NZ and Canada..but lately I've had a hard time keeping up with news in the UK. There's just so much going on recently. When I compare it to Australia or NZ I feel as if we're just this rock floating in an endless sea where nothing actually happens...oh wait.
Didn't mean to insult or anything. I'm sure it's fine. Just seems like a mess from where I'm standing.
I don't mean anything specific. I usually try to keep up with the news in the wider commonwealth, including Australia (where I live), the UK, NZ and Canada..but lately I've had a hard time keeping up with news in the UK. There's just so much going on recently. When I compare it to Australia or NZ I feel as if we're just this rock floating in an endless sea where nothing actually happens...oh wait.
Didn't mean to insult or anything. I'm sure it's fine. Just seems like a mess from where I'm standing.
Most western countries right now are a mess due to the financial problems and the knock on effects of that.
QuicheFontaine
Member
So apparently we have some type of Guantanamo-esque secret facility at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan where people are being held indefinitely without trail. And Phil Hammond is telling me, when asked how many people we're holding, "more than we would like to". That sounds pretty ominous.
PJV3
Member
I don't think we're locking them up for years like Guantanamo, I fucking hope not anyway.
It sounds like a temporary measure after being attacked etc, we should be letting the Afghans deal with this stuff by now.
If they are handed over to the Afghan government they will probably be tortured, some farmer sued us when it happened to him. Apparently Australia is doing it as well. If they are let go they just keep fighting. Pretty shitty situation
Boris just stop, quit while your not ahead
Rubbish King
The gift that keeps on giving
no.
not like this boris.
Nicktendo86
Member
I love Boris but come on mate, priorities?
QuicheFontaine
Member
Well, I say it sounds ominous firstly because Hammond is reticent to say exactly how many we're holding, and secondly because they've been denied access to legal counsel (apart from two of the detainees who got their first phonecalls to a lawyer this lunchtime), which sounds like something you might do when you're pretty sure what you're doing might just be illegal.
14 months with no charges doesn't fall within the most generous definition of temporary. Wouldn't that be illegal for periods longer than, what, 24/48 hrs in this country?
PJV3
Member
Yeah, I didn't realise some were being kept that long. It sounds like the Army don't want to keep them, the politicians need to get their fingers out.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Good news on tax avoidance measures:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22710020
It will save the government around £1bn per year from spurious allowance claims. Now get onto that transfer pricing scam and we might see companies actually paying close to the 20% rate, George.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22710020
It will save the government around £1bn per year from spurious allowance claims. Now get onto that transfer pricing scam and we might see companies actually paying close to the 20% rate, George.
Isn't it 40 days or something here for suspected terrorists? Everyone else is 48 hours max I think.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Looks like 14 days under the Terrorism Act, otherwise 24hrs in normal cirumstances but up to 96hrs in exceptional circumstances. https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-held-in-custody
I'm sure it was going to be 90 under blair and then was wittled down to 28 or 40 in the commons barely passing. Not sure if it was Cameron or Brown that put it back down.
CyclopsRock
Member
In fairness, the court shouldn't be making political decisions. If that's the law, we should be taken to court for it. Whether that's something we as a country are happy with is something for us to decide, not the court.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Cameron. Brown tried to increase it to 90 days in the 2010 wash up, but the Lords slapped him down.
Nicktendo86
Member
This news come out yesterday but I've not seen it posted, OECD has further cut forecasts for EU growth to -0.6% and UK growth to 0.8%. Blamed slower UK growth due to cuts but said they were needed.
Just more proof in my opinion that the Eurozone is pretty much fucked, Europhiles always point that most of our trading is with the EU but we have a deficit with the EU and our growth looks like it is picking up whilst the EU as a whole is going backwards, surely this is more evidence that we should be relying less on trade with the EU and need to really focus on other markets?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22700029
Just more proof in my opinion that the Eurozone is pretty much fucked, Europhiles always point that most of our trading is with the EU but we have a deficit with the EU and our growth looks like it is picking up whilst the EU as a whole is going backwards, surely this is more evidence that we should be relying less on trade with the EU and need to really focus on other markets?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22700029
zomgbbqftw
Banned
France actually got the worst of it, the OECD downgraded them from +0.3% to -0.3%, our downgrade (0.9% to 0.8%) looks tame in comparison.
There is something up in France, the official statistics don't match up with our proprietary data or other publicly made private data. INSEE are definitely fudging the numbers, unemployment is probably a couple of principle points higher and GDP is likely overstated by around 1%. At least going by our proprietary data and the other publicly available indicators.
There is something up in France, the official statistics don't match up with our proprietary data or other publicly made private data. INSEE are definitely fudging the numbers, unemployment is probably a couple of principle points higher and GDP is likely overstated by around 1%. At least going by our proprietary data and the other publicly available indicators.
QuicheFontaine
Member
As far as I can tell the logic goes like this:
We signed up to free movement of people throughout the EU.
People come here from other countries of the EU.
They want / need benefits.
Not giving them benefits in a situation where a UK national would get them is discriminatory.
Discrimination on the basis of nationality is illegal.
Which all seems to follow. However, administering social security isn't a competency of the EU. All countries agreed that they would administer their own social security nationally.
Nicktendo86
Member
I know next to nothing about all of this but that sounds pretty bad for the EZ, even Germany seem to be slowing down with growth?
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Germany is slowing down, France is in recession, Netherlands is in recession, Austria has slowed down, Belgium is stagnating, and the south is just destroyed. The main EMU nations are all fighting a losing battle. The solution is either to make up or break up. The former option will require some kind of internal transfer union where richer nations will basically hand over hundreds of billions to the ECB who will then dole it out to poor nations where it will get squandered. The latter would be devastating to the world economy. I think the US will come through unscathed since their internal market is relatively big, Japan should be fine but the Yen will appreciate and that will cause a bunch of problems for corporations. Britain would be fucked. F U C K E D fucked. Our banking sector would fall and the government would be forced to step in, that would overextend the government balance sheet and then the vultures would come and pick off the pieces until we default. If the EU can eke out another year before breaking up then we might be okay because the banking sector is reducing exposure to EMU nations not called Germany quite fast, but even then it will be a tough few years.
Interesting times ahead...
They've started saying our hoovers are too powerful also and that all new ones should be only 50% the power of what they currently are.
Seriously, my mind is full of complete fuck at the moment.
PJV3
Member
They're also threatening the Spanish for withholding public healthcare to EU citizens. I'm sure it isn't personal.
To be fair they're tackling energy greedy vacumn cleaners, power to us should be about cleaning ability not electricity consumption. i don't think we will he lumbered with terrible hoovers, just more efficient ones.
Nicktendo86
Member
Fuck, sounds bad. By the former option of richer countries handing over billions I guess Germany would be pretty much the only one left, especially if France carry on the way it is. I can't see Germans on the ground really getting behind that idea so break up seems the more likely option, in which case we are all fucked. Ummmm very interesting times ahead. This euro project really has been a clusterfuck hasn't it.
PJV3
Member
Rushed and half baked.
I'm pro the concept of a single currency, but it should come at the end of a long process of integration. If it takes a hundred years to get right, then wait a hundred years to launch it.
Germany needs to shit or get off the pot, they have done very well out of the Euro.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Clusterfuck indeed.
Right on time. Reuters has an exclusive that the FTT or so called Robin Hood tax is going to be dramatically scaled back from 0.1% on all transactions on shares, derivatives and bond trades to 0.01% on share trading. Mimicking our own Share trading stamp duty.
The yield has gone down from 35bn (LOL) to 3.5bn, seems rather pointless to me, but whatever. We're not involved in this, but even so it's such a lolworthy situation. Time and again the British and Swedish governments have warned against it and finally they took our advice and scaled it back to being just about worth implementing but not destructive enough to kill EMU banking.
In all of this I'm sure Britain and Sweden will be made out to be the bad guys and Barrosso will go on TV and say it was all our fault because we have the biggest financial sector in Europe and because we didn't agree it was unworkable etc... Hateful cunt.
Right on time. Reuters has an exclusive that the FTT or so called Robin Hood tax is going to be dramatically scaled back from 0.1% on all transactions on shares, derivatives and bond trades to 0.01% on share trading. Mimicking our own Share trading stamp duty.
The yield has gone down from 35bn (LOL) to 3.5bn, seems rather pointless to me, but whatever. We're not involved in this, but even so it's such a lolworthy situation. Time and again the British and Swedish governments have warned against it and finally they took our advice and scaled it back to being just about worth implementing but not destructive enough to kill EMU banking.
In all of this I'm sure Britain and Sweden will be made out to be the bad guys and Barrosso will go on TV and say it was all our fault because we have the biggest financial sector in Europe and because we didn't agree it was unworkable etc... Hateful cunt.
So they cut the power of hoovers by half and it takes twice as long to hoover your house?
Mission accomplished!
I'm not accusing the Court of impartiality or making a political decision. I'm accusing the EC of making a needlessly provocative move. The law is indeed the law. But we're talking about a voluntary union here, and therefore such a move could push the UK, who are already contemplating an exit, towards the exit door.
Nicktendo86
Member
It seems like there should be bigger things to worry about than power hungry hoovers like oh, I do t know, the financial mess of the eurozone...
PJV3
Member
No(hopefully) I don't want it getting harder either.
Crappy motors stop being used, the limit is low but not crazy low. And as a bonus we save electricity and money.
Different people doing different jobs, it's got nothing to do with the financial crisis.
That is down to National governments to sort out in the end.
CyclopsRock
Member
If only our own government had the power to legislate on hoover power consumption.
Hoover power consumption is not something that's ever going to bother anyone that much, but I have no idea why that's legislated on an EU level. Personally, I think it should be up to people how efficient they want their hoover to be, but whatever, I don't really care - but why is it legislated in a pan-European sense? This isn't cross-border infrastructure or joint military training operations.
*Obtuse argument alert* Hoovers and olive oil should be the realm of national parliaments as well.
PJV3
Member
Because it's part of environmental policy, which we all share.
Even if we leave the EU I would still hope for that kind of cooperation.
Keep your shitty hoovers then, miserable buggers.
I think the olive oil rule is now off the table (awful pun), I'm not sure though.
Nicktendo86
Member
Thought as much, I was only being half serious
CyclopsRock
Member
But... why? There's no virtue to us sharing that policy. If the limit they've set is a scientifically "good" limit then that's great, but there's no reason to think the EU legislature is more likely to get to that "good" limit rather than our own, national parliament. Would it be a problem is Poland's was slightly higher, and Germany's slightly lower? It seems like an issue where "cooperation" is utterly irrelevant to the quality of the policy enacted.
Because it's part of environmental policy, which we all share.
Even if we leave the EU I would still hope for that kind of cooperation.
Keep your shitty hoovers then, miserable buggers.
I think the olive oil rule is now off the table (awful pun), I'm not sure though.
I mean, sure you can argue that this sort of stuff is linked to environment or single market issues but the EU isn't the first nor will it be the last central government with enumerated powers to ever speciously argue that it has such powers.
For example the Federal Government used the interstate commerce clause to pass the Civil Rights Act. In Australia the Federal Government used the corporations power to regulate workplace relations/industrial relations/employment law.
These policies just seem like power grabs rather than reasoned and prudent environmental policy. Nor are they really addressing a huge societal wrong like the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Work Act.
I also fear that this may blow up in the UK a bit further. Aren't Hoovers part of your national identity now? Isn't there a bit of pride associated with the brand? You guys use hoovers to describe all vacuum cleaners, we don't do that even in Australia.
QuicheFontaine
Member
This may be the only issue on which the EU doesn't suck.
PJV3
Member
Thought as much, I was only being half serious
lol.(it's fine, I must be bored)
It feels like the Jeremy Clarkson fan club in here today, I need comrade Cheezmo back to share the burden, and get off the subject of bloody hoovers.
I'm going to Dyson the stairs later, its 200 watts over the limit and the guilt is crushing me. *hugs tree*.
@ Arksy.
They (whoever decides these things) have done it with a range of electrical appliances, in a common market it makes sense to have a single standard, for safety, environment etc. I know what the old British Kite mark was, but I couldn't say what the German, French or Greek equivalents were.
They even changed the ingredients on the back of toiletries to Latin, it's educational going to the Khazi these days.