Off Topic Political Debate

An interesting term Andy - coming from the Latin terms 'ex' (out of) and 'patria' (native country). There are other terms: a flexpatriate = an employee who often travels to other countries in the course of their work. There is then an inpatriate = an employee sent to a foreign subsidiary, a rex-pat is apparently a repeat expatriate (I would be that if I came back to Britain for a while, and then emigrated a second time). There is also a sexpat (which I am definitely not). For some reason all the Brits living abroad are called 'ex pats', and all the Poles living in Britain are called 'immigrants'. I am an immigrant.

 

There is, however, a case for it to mean something entirely different. The hyphen surely indicates the meaning of 'ex-' to be 'former', as in ex-wife, and we all know what a pat of butter is - so, ex-pat really means a former small, flat square.

And to lend credence to my contention, there is no way I could be describe as small or square...

 

Cows produce more than just butter...

 

No10 surprise statement from PM at 11.15am. Resignation or general election, hopefully the latter.

 

Election it seems

 

Great news.

This will be another chance for the electorate to vote on the government's view on the referendum.

Let the people decide.

 

Well probably a good move on her part.... cant see Labour doing anything.... and then she has a mandate..

 

Election time boys!

 

I expect the government to do extremely well with the Lib Dems to make a substantial recovery. The Labour Party will be in big big trouble. It was quite clever to ensure the Tories faced the loser Corbyn at a general election. The LP may regret saying they would look forward to an election, they can hardly change their stance now.

 

Are we going to get 6 weeks of one-dimensional Central Office soundbites from you now....................

 

Yes LibDems to recover

Sadly though IMO becomes a virtual second Scottish referendum for the SNP ....

Corbyn looks to be flushed out... make or break for him

Slow upward progression for the Greens ( )

 

5 dimensional at least!!

The PM made it perfectly clear there is no going back on Brexit. This might just quieten the anti Brexit brigade, we will certainly find out the attitude of the electorate towards the government and gauge the confidence in our negotiators.

 

looks like party political debates on the GE thread just started

 

Following Obama's ill-fated intervention in the Brexit debate we now have Bill Gates urging the UK to stick to its 0.7% foreign aid commitment. We are the world's second largest donors. In my view the level is too high. The UK does not have the funds, it is required to borrow the money to then give it away, sometimes for extremely dubious projects.

The new May government after the election may keep the 0.7% level but use the borrowed cash for wider spending commitments.

With Germany's massive trade surplus why do they not increase their aid programme or at least, pay their way towards NATO.

 

So on the initial forecasts it looks as if the old left/right party system has been broken in France today. In Macron we have a movement and not a political party. Le Pen is an out and out fascist and deserves to be roundly beaten in the second round.
What does this mean for Brexit and the UK? If anyone here knew what Brexit meant then you might get an answer, but it is seen that even the UK government doesn't know what it wants. With the Tory party realizing the problems, it has gone for an election, but will the old left/right divisions be rejected there as well.

 

I was referring to the demise of the traditional parties rather more than the individuals cologne. Fillon and Hamon who represented those two parties have been seen off, as has the extreme left wing politician. Without the two French politics has changed. My next door neighbour says that the country wants change away from the two old parties who took it in turns to make the economy worse.
Macron seems to me to be far more aligned to your ideas when it comes to how you run a campaign. There is no great centralist elite running a policy that it expects people to support, rather it is people putting forward what they would like to see, and going out with their own cars to deliver leaflets and put up posters. Le Pen is mired in all sorts of legal problems just as severe if not more so than Fillon, she says things that play on peoples fear and speaks hatred of those who are not French. She has tried to sanitize the party, but every now and again someone, including her father pop up to say what they really think. She is doing a Farage and unfortunately will not go away.

 

Fillon would probably have won if he had not been caught fiddling. Macron looks like he has secured victory but he still needs to turn his fledgling movement into a major political party by winning enough seats in the June parliamentary elections. Without that he will need to depend on the goodwill of other parties. It could become quite messy and bogged down with compromises without any direction.
Surely he cannot be any worse than Hollande?

 

You might be right about Fillon, but I detect a feeling that people want change from the old and failed two party system. Do not forget that Macron has built his movement in twelve months by engaging with people rather than telling them what they should do and think. There is not the same newspaper influence here, as papers tend to report facts, rather than opinions that are an advantage to the owners. Put a certain colour ribbon on a donkey and some people will always vote for it, but there is a movement in a number of countries for people to actually stop and think what they will vote for.

 

I would not build up too much hope in this guy, he is certainly untested and he lacks an established political party behind him. It is quite easy to say the right things to be elected, a totally different thing to turn around France's fortunes.