chipdawg

I'm not complaining about the mechanism of 'the city' and buying and selling companies. We should all complain about such things all the time, but it's proven to be somewhat futile. I was merely pointing out that much rhetoric was spewed forth from Gideon and Dave about how this wouldn't just be another opportunity for the rich to get richer and that you or I would be able to own a significant stake. Well, 150,000 employees have shared 10%, 66% has gone to hedge funds in the city (some operated by the Chancellors best man ffs) and that leaves 24% for you or I. In fact I don't know a single person who was successful in the shares ballot...

Interesting as well that they went to great lengths to tell us that 'ordinary working people' would be given priority to buy the shares, when 2/3 ended up with city institutions. Surely Gideon and his pals didn't pull a fast one?!?!

As Robbo points out, it actually wasn't his decision but I can agree that he's an idiot of the highest order

Who'd have thought it! Public school educated, gentlemens club-frequenting, former city of London employee Nigel Farage has more things in common with the 'establishment' than he lets on! ;-)

Neil Kinnock is a prat, but was featured struggling to answer a question that we never even heard Durkin ask. It was an utterly biased piece of film making. I agree that Mr Ferauge came across very well, but he could hardly not given the pitch of the film. And I imagine that most of the working people in the wealthy London commuter village of Downe ain't at the lower end of the pay scale (though of course there are people of all walks of life in every town and I have no reason to suspect Nige isn't friends with them)

So, did anyone watch the documentary? Nigel came across very well (though I still find him intensely irritating), but I have never seen anything so overtly biased towards a politician and political party on national TV. Hardly surprising given it was made by a film maker who's anti-EU and loves a bit of sensationalism. There was no balance and any dissenting views were edited into ridicule. At the end, after 5 minutes of talking up UKIPs chances in Wythenshawe, it ended without mentioning that they failed to win while Labour increased their majority. I genuinely agree that if UKIP have a level of support they should be allowed a platform, but this was something else entirely I'd be interested to know what others who watched it felt. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into it?

I haven't quoted anyone, so not sure how I misquoted him, but I think that his party stating in print that "29 million Bulgarians and Romanians were waiting to come here" could be within the sphere of scaremongering. I'm not accusing Nigel of doing anything that the rest of them aren't, just responding to the idea that Clegg was politicking in a way that Ferauge was not

Well to be honest I feel as far removed from the men and women who inhabit Westminster as I do from those in Brussels/Strasbourg so I'm not entirely sure I'm bothered either way, but I take your point; if you're against European integration you want to see 0% I think if Clegg is a scaremonger for insisting millions of jobs will go then you have to accept that Farage (among others) is a scaremonger for telling everyone that hundreds of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians would flood the country on January 1st. Interestingly, he hasn't brought that up so much in recent weeks... Hell would have to be similarly chilly before I voted for Mr Ferauge and that reinforces my point that this debate was (if you forgive the alliteration) pointless. Very few minds have been changed either way

Well if you look back over my posts, I didn't really agree with the notion of the debate in the first place; it was arbitrary and based on a cult of personality. It was merely two people with opposing views constantly reiterating those views. Given the format of the show, there was no way to prove any argument and i suspect that both of them were wrong much of the time. The % of law originating in the EU is a case in point. During the debate I had no clue which figure (7% or 70%) was correct, I have since found out (from a prof of EU law on radio 4 the next day) that it's 10-15%, depending on your pov. Similarly, we have no idea how many jobs will be lost in the event of withdrawal from the EU and I suspect that 3 million would be a gross overestimate. However, it's similarly naive to imagine there won't be a significant period of 'readjustment' which will result in job losses. I won't comment on Cleggs interruptions as most of it I followed on the BBC text commentary, but both were mentioned as mumbling and speaking over the other on that The format of a TV debate works for a general election as you can speak in policy decisions and absolutes. This was just speculation and opinion and will have changed very, very few minds in my view. I agree with you that Farage is sincere in his views, but I'm not convinced he's sincere in his motives (I'd probably say the same about Clegg actually) and I'm no closer to voting for him than I was before the debate. No doubt you're exactly the same in relation to Nick Clegg, which kind of proves my point

Wasn't it wanting to keep slaves and pay no taxes?

I've figured it out! He's a secret Franco-German-Belgian EUagent, sent over here to be an obnoxious ***** and bang on about leaving Europe so that eventually everyone demands a single currency and further integration just to spite him! Sneaky 4th Reich, Cultural Marxists...

To be fair to Ferauge (as we now know him to be called), he's married to a German so I don't think he'll be too concerned to find out he's pure- blooded European, though perhaps it could be pointed out to him that without prior liberal immigration policies he'd be speaking Flemish in a "non-country" I'm playing five-a-side tomorrow evening so I'll not watch it, but from the trailer it looks like an hour of another privileged, wealthy, middle-aged man from the southeast trying to convince everyone that he's in touch with the common man

Big Nige has his own documentary on Channel 4 tomorrow night for those who enjoy that sort of thing

Ah ok. You're interested in this as a 'cult of personality'. Fair enough. As I'm interested in their policies rather than their 'performance', we shall part ways SX225

How? I've heard others express this opinion of EU culpability and I'm genuinely interested in the reasoning, because other than Gobbers posting something about EU assassins in Kiev, I've not seen anyone present an argument for it

Remind me; how many EU troops invaded Ukrainian territory? And how many Ukrainian territories did the EU annex via a shotgun referendum?

I did watch the debate- partly in moving pictures, partly in relayed text. I'll endeavour to watch it though, if it'll make you happy? In the interim, as I won't have any time to watch it until the weekend, please tell me what your issue is with what I've said. If i missed something later on that contradicted anything I said in my original post, I'm eager to be put straight

And you seem to be following a trend- and it IS a trend- of only engaging in debate when it suits you. I'm open about the fact I only watched a part of it and I followed the rest on the BBCs live text. Not perfect I agree, but I don't think it disqualifies me from from commenting. I'd be interested to know what it is that I wrote that you feel demonstrates such ignorance that you can dismiss my opinion in such a patronising way? Also, a debate on Radio 4 while I was driving to sunny Bradford had a number of members of the public expressing their views- all of them said that they didn't feel there was any substance to the facts and figures presented- no justification or context. This was put down to both the format and the individuals. They also had an academic on who said that the actual figure for UK laws made in Brussels is 10-15%, depending on your reference point

I'm not sure how anyone can declare anyone a winner really- though I appreciate the polls gave it to Farage and can see why. I only watched part of it and followed the BBC text commentary for the rest (the wife could only take it for so long), but it just seemed to be a case of one man saying " this fact is true" while the other replies "no it's not, but listen to my absolutely correct fact". I don't recall one of them referencing any independent of academically valuable reference to back up what they were saying. It was like a glimpse into a British political future where policy loses out to a cult of personality and a bit of a bun fight. For example, your 7%/70% example wasn't backed up by either man particularly well ( I don't believe either figure). I actually think that biggest 'gaffe' in the long term may turn out to be Farage's comments on Ukraine, but we'll see how it pans out. I think both politicians have probably gained from it, if only by cementing the people who already agreed with them before the debate started. Be interesting to see whether Clegg is more aggressive in the second one given that the polls indicate that people prefered Farage Interestingly, Sky News (I've started enjoying Sky News and I don 'to know what that means!) a little later on had a pollster on (can't remember which firm he was from) who said current polling suggests only 1 in 4 people want to leave the EU and I can't see that anything said in the debate will have changed that One further thing; I wonder how many of those who watched it were undecided on the issue of the EU? Neither politician is entirely front line and I kind of think that the only people who would have tuned in will be those who already had strong opinions on the EU one way or the other. Can't see that many minds will have been changed

Is it good? The Bowmore, not the hedgehog. I've got my eye on getting a bottle next payday COYR by the way

Been out to dinner with the wife's colleagues, finally allowed to check the score and I find this!!! Amazing scenes!

I would not object to any of those occurrences, except perhaps Port Vale scoring first. But taking a long term outlook, thumbs up

Get the fluck in