marshy

The French have said 'NON' too. It's amazing to hear some people say, and I have even seen the opinion expressed on these boards, that they would prefer to be ruled by Germans than by our own elected leaders. If they're so bloody keen to be ruled by them there is always the option of going to live over there.

I think you are being naive if you think Brown had nothing to do with the decision to sell a huge chunk of our gold. The bank was of course also adding to foreign currency reserves, mostly in the form of Euros unfortunately which are steadily going down the pan. China is number six, and adding. Admittedly their gold is a small % of total foreign exchange holdings. We are 18th, no longer in the top ten, not that it really matters. Digging stuff up from one hole and then 'burying' it in another is ultimately futile.Probably best to hold on to what we've got left, however, you never know what might come to pass in the future at a time of crisis. I can only imagine the howls of abuse on here if it had been a Tory government that had used the proceeds from a gold sale to bail out the banks, pouring money into the laps of his 'banker chums'.

Well 150 000 'ordinary working people', Royal Mail staff were actually given 10% of the company, 99.75% accepted the offer and a mere 368 refused them on principle. People write as though 'the institutions' are an evil force whereas they hold investments and pension funds for 'ordinary working people'. Maybe your pension fund even holds some shares in Royal Mail?

You are absolutely correct. The main political debate should be about the size of the state. Sparta or Athens, Chairman Mao or Adam Smith ? If we continue down the road of building this huge European superstate one day it will fall under the control of an heir to Hitler.

Yep, the Socialists are making a real mess of things over there. Marine le Pen has done a good job, from her point of view, in de-demonising the Front National. The working man and woman has voted for her in droves. It amazes me that the same hasn't yet happened here with the massive issue of cheap immigrant labour taking unskilled work. I can understand the Labour party supporting the EU as it loves the big state and state control but not the working man. The working man doesn't seem to be quite so actively engaged by politics over here and will turn out to do what their parents and grandparents did before them. Maybe things are about to change.

Well I'm with you on the debate, for me it's a format that simply doesn't work. 7% or 70%, total law on the book or current law? In the final analysis do we wish to make our own laws or do we want to be subject to a common European law? I know which I prefer, the closer these things are done to home the better. How many jobs will be lost, as scaremonger Clegg reiterates, or how many jobs might be gained if we are trading freely with the entire world? Me, vote for Clegg, hell will freeze over first.

You got that in one Eco.

No, I'm a Johnny no-mates Robbo, I can't even make friends on this board. No-one will miss me when I'm gone. Anyway tell your 'friend' that he shouldn't refer to Nigel as a 'Little Englander', he's anything but. Andy Parsons tells that joke about the pronunciation of 'Farage' on his latest tour..very funny it was too, the way he told it. No mention though of the French pronunciation being a class thing, that probably goes back to the time of William the Conqueror.

'A friend of mine eh?' I hardly think that Farage would describe himself as a 'Little Englander'. Just the opposite in fact.Trade with the whole world Robbo..global you know. Still if Clegg and his ilk keep repeating it I suppose the uninitiated will eventually believe it...keep throwing mud and some will stick and it's votes that count, the truth is irrelevant.

In theory I would agree. Unfortunately ,with regard to Clegg, it is impossible to separate the man's 'performance' from the policy that he is currently espousing. Having watched the first debate I can only conclude that the man is a smug, self-serving snake, a master of disinformation and the true heir to Blair. Despite all the predictions on here to the contrary I thought he did well against Farage and I write as a supporter of the party that wishes to see an exit from the EU. Clegg is used to the knockabout politics of Westminster whereas Farage is used to the sterile atmosphere of Brussels where he is allowed his minute of speech without constant interruptions and the only dissenting noise might be a protest half a mile away at the other end of the chamber. He was allowed to constantly interrupt and to talk over his opponent and Farage, being the gentleman that he is, even allowed him to do so. A couple of examples. Clegg constantly repeated that only 7% of our laws come from Brussels whereas most other people put the figure at well over 70% and Germany puts the figure at over 80%. Of course the casual viewer is not to know that Clegg is referring to law on the statute book dating back to the time of the Magna Carta whereas we all assume he is talking of the present day. 3m jobs apparently will be lost if we leave the EU according to Clegg. He knows full well of course that back in 2008 when this study was carried out 3m jobs were connected to the EU but that is a far cry from saying that these jobs would be lost if we were to leave. Why would the EU suddenly stop trading with its largest export market, from their point of view it doesn't make sense. You may not agree with him but at least with Farage you can say that he is a proud Englishman, sincere in his beliefs, beliefs for which he has been campaigning for many years. With Clegg I'm afraid, and I know you've indicated potential support for him in the past, I see a man that changes with the wind and a man that, even when he makes a ludicrous attempt to speak with passion, can never truly convince me that he believes in what he says.

That's a great word isn't it...''oblast''. One feels somehow there should be a space after the 'o'.

You correctly assume that, like yourself, I'm no expert on Ukrainian politics. However, from what little I do know I would sincerely hope that they don't give Timoshenko another shot at it as there seem to be huge question marks over her record. With regard to the gas question I was simply making the point that a doubling of the price of gas on May1st for domestic consumers, industrial only 40% apparently and slightly later, as one of the measures demanded by the IMF/EU in return for the guarantee of the loan could have some very ugly consequences. Surely they will have to tone down that demand? A trade war would be a disaster and could lead to something even worse. As you know I am strongly in favour of the principle of self-determination. The 'West' needs to accept the fact that the Crimean people have had their say and that it's time to move on.

100% of 0 is still zero. To calculate a % increase take the new figure and subtract the old figure. Divide the result by the old figure and then multiply by 100. When the base figure is zero and you attempt to divide by this your calculator will show this as an error. That is because it is impossible to divide anything by zero. So, for instance, if a party increases its seats from 50 to 100 then 100-50=50. 50/50*100=100%. It has doubled its number of seats. If it increases from 20 to 100 then 100-20=80 and 80/20*100=400%. In the same way from 10 to 100=900% and 1 to 100 =9900%. You can see that as the starting figure decreases the % increase gets larger and as it approaches zero it will tend to infinity. 0.1 increasing to 100 would show an increase of 99 900%. The answer to your question is, therefore, no.

Actually I think that 1 is technically 100% greater than 0.5 Pressure groups such as UKIP can obviously wield an importance in politics way beyond their representation in Parliament. Nigel did invite Ed and Dave but they, quite sensibly from their points of view, declined the invitation.

2*0=0. The Greens have one more MP than UKIP, not 100% more. Sorry, just me being pedantic again. As far as I am aware Clegg challenged Farage on air and Farage accepted, hence the absence of Greens in the debate. What has Clegg to gain ? Well he probably sees it as highly likely that he will be the leader, if they keep him on, of a very small party after the next election. Hence his desire to position himself as staunchly EU in the hope of a nice job in Brussels.

Well at least they'll be able to agree on something.

That's to cover the interest on the debt that Blair and Brown racked up.

Not sure I agree with this Aizoon. It's all relative. If you're playing higher quality opposition in a higher league then you should be playing them with a higher quality squad of your own.

3 shots on target, 3 goals. Clinical.