Well, indulging in tantric sex might account for why he doesn't know if his backside is bored, punched, drilled or counter-sunk, I suppose.

The mind boggles!
Jo

Government by fax...? Have these people not been aware that technology has moved on? Surely it's now 'edicts by email', if they're going to use decades old arguments you'd thought they could have updated the terminology. How are you supposed to brainwash the young by referring to out-of-date technology?

It would seem to me, that those frightfully liberal and bright young things at the FCO have been running British domestic and foreign policy for far too long.

If it is true and I think the suspicion is based in sound intell' . That, the great FO panjandrums after the war, deemed that our destiny lay across the channel, not with weltpolitik and Empire and do not forget - we were put under considerable pressure from our main ally, post the Suez debacle but also since the Iron curtain had descended across eastern Europe.

Result - Britain's future, would be more secure deep set in the embrace of the incipient European Coal and Steel community - which everybody knew [in the polity] was the basis and destined to become something coalescing into a much more federal entity. Yes indeed, a "grand projet" - which everybody in the FO publicly denied vehemently and privately gloried in the foreknowledge and bringing to fruitition. Historically, in the 50s stuffed full of Marxist sympathising Oxbridge grads - Europe was a no brainer for the FCO pro cheese eaters and we became the surrender monkeys.
And now, Pro Araby, anti Israel, pro Obama, still enamoured with the EU and still loony Francophiles. Groaning with SOAS grads, some of them working for other 'higher authorities' both terrestrial and spiritual - Britain's interests are the last thing on the minds at the FCO - if indeed British interests ever [a top priority] were after the war we were supposed to have helped to win.

Now, with the FCO as it is and under current secretary of State - Vichy boy baldie - we still have no chance of coming out [of the EU] until someone poisons their bananas.

A considerable number of times we have observed that industry and commerce (especially the corporate sector) actually likes regulation, profits from it and actively canvasses for it. In fact, much of the economic regulation originates from that sector, through lobbying, trade bodies and standards organisations.

Other regulation comes from unions and then a huge driver is the raft of NGOs, about which we have written an enormous amount. Much of the rest comes from governments themselves ... for instance, most of the EU food hygiene law comes from Britain, introduced in the wake of the salmonella in eggs and listeria scares.

Then, and recently, I have written about the "diqule" and the global and regional treaty organisations, where much of the legislation is framed at a conceptual stage, and where the EU is very much downstream, simply processing agreed standards and initiatives into actionable form.

Thus, the very idea of "fax law" is a travesty. It completely misrepresents the legislative process, and and indeed the EU, almost to the extent of becoming a childish pastiche. "Brussels" is not a big, bad bunch of bureaucrats, endlessly plotting against Britain, but one part of an increasingly global nexus of influence which is re-writing the nature of governance, and thereby undermining any pretence that we are or have any aspirations to be a democracy.

It really is about time, therefore, that we grew up and looked at the world as it is, and tried to understand what is actually going on, rather than indulge in childish, simplistic fantasies and self-indulgent rants.

Edited by user 12 December 2012 08:29:51(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Simplistic solutions are very attractive, but Iceland is a nation that is actually smaller than a British local authority. A larger, more complex economy requires much greater engagement with the international community.

I suspect that Twitter is a passing fad, just as texting is becoming. Soon enough, we'll be back to primordial grunts. Meanwhile, the business of government will go on, where there are still a substantial number of MPs (and MEPs) who do not access their own e-mails and get their staff to print them off, from the combined printer/fax machine. Modernity is for the plebs. I am sure that, in the Treasury, you will still be able to find a stock of quill pens.

And when New Zealand exports meat to the EU member states (including the UK), it does so using EEC approved slaughterhouses, supervised by EEC-approved vets, with the animals reared in accordance with EU animal health directives. No one country that engages in the world, is free from the rigour of international regulation. If you want "independence" in that sense, go to North Korea.


World trade is facilitated by regulation ... it is a fact of life and, therefore, we must learn to live with it and use it to our advantage.

Edited by user 12 December 2012 09:01:56(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Its a toss up really as to whether it is better for him to be "isolated" in Europe, or in the UK.
He wins on both counts, but he does'nt understand that yet.

To an extent ... bolshi and/or well-connected trade associations can sometimes punch above their weight. But yes, the true enemy of enterprise is the corporate lobbyist.

I'm with James...we are too big a mkt to mess around with...if we decide to leave then rules will be bent.

This whole idea of not being able to leave, because we have too many existing agreements and they all must be redone before we can leave is bureaucratic bunkum. If we leave then the sun will still come up tomorrow and they will want to sell their goods to us and if someone with a clipboard says sorry the rules say you cant, then they will be told to eff "orf.

Just how hot would the phone be, between Mercedes, BMW, Bosch, Seimens, Volkswagen, Stihl etc and Merkel, if some fool tried that on.