Sadiq Khan's decision to put up a massive firework display of the EU flag was disgraceful, particularly since we're likely to enter critical, highly contested negotiations with them soon. Arrogant O'Brien of LBC was broadcasting that nobody should get upset by a few fireworks, but if the display had been a UKIP emblem, he'd have been the first to chuck his toys out of the pram
Is it a bit ironic that right wingers are crying over a flag? Would be a bit weird to fly a UKIP emblem on the London eye- let’s wait until we’re fully out until we display our racism to the world eh. Would Khan really have made the decision for something that trivial?
Nothing to do with racism. And yes, of course Khan would have had to approve a 135 metre high depiction of the EU flag. He'll lose the vote of EU nationals after 29 March, so hopefully he's on his way out, and he can go and get an overpaid job in Brussels.
UKIP are a little bit racist though. You don’t have to be a racist to support them but it probably helps. I’ll take your word for it on Khan. Would have hoped the mayor had better things to spend his time on.
Yes, I'm sure there are some racists in UKIP, just as there are in Labour (anti Semites) Khan will make enemies by pretending that London is not part of the rest of the UK
I have to agree with Goldie on this one Watford. It was pathetic cheap shot by Khan and hopefully he will be gone at the next election. If the fireworks had been two fingers with F.U.EU I would have also been disgusted. I think we all had too much of Brexit last year and it was a time for people to come together and enjoy a good night out FFS and all it did was cause more division. There is a certain etiquette that politicians should abide by and he doesn’t have it.
New Year’s resolutions white cis men need to make for 2019 Godfrey’s guide to sensitivity Godfrey Elfwick please log in to view this image Godfrey Elfwick As a genderqueer Muslim atheist who identifies as black, I am often abused by bigots (usually white cis males) who bombard me with hate speech such as: ‘What the **** does “transrace” mean?’, ‘How can you be a Muslim and an atheist, that makes no sense!’ and ‘Sort your hair out you stupid hipster twat, you look like a ****ing nonce.’ That last one was said to me by my father, a boorish brute of a man, who would often make scathing remarks at me as I was growing up, and even went so far as to buy me a 32GB iPhone one Chr*stm*s when he knew I wanted the 64GB one. That kind of abuse leaves a mark. White cis males have a lot to apologize for when it comes to the current state of the world. When you think about it, the worst atrocities in history have been inflicted by these privileged despots. Hitler, Trump, Saruman the White (the clue is in the name there), Adam Sandler… all deeply problematic individuals. The time has come for white men* to repent and repay us for all the wrongs they have done. The following three resolutions I have taken the liberty of composing would be a good place to start. 1. Listen to women This is very important. White cis males need to sit the eff down and start listening. No matter how relentlessly hyperbolic Kathy Griffin’s tweets about Trump come across, no matter how provably ‘factually inaccurate’ Laurie Penny’s outbursts regarding the gender pay gap might be, no matter how pointless Lena Dunham’s very existence may seem to you… the job of a white male is simply to pay attention, then nod and say; ‘Well done for being brave enough to bring this [subject/issue] to my attention. I apologize for what I am, and I promise to do better in the future. Please take a large annual percentage of my earnings from here on in, in reparation for the terrible wrongs my particularly toxic brand of white patriarchy has exposed you to.’ This is all we ask. Not much is it? 2. Quit mansplaining White men are incapable of communicating in a way that does not inflict their pernicious maleness upon every woman present. I remember the first time I encountered this phenomenon. I was around six years old and the jets in our jacuzzi had stopped working. My mother called a plumber who turned up within an hour to have a look at it. As soon as he barged into our home, he was mansplaining to my mother about how there was a crack in one of the pipes, and then began boasting he could fix it with some epoxy resin and had the GALL to say he was sure he’d have it ‘sorted by lunchtime’. I was gobsmacked. Even at the tender age of six, I knew he had crossed a line. I marched up to him and loudly proclaimed that my mother was a capable woman, more than equipped to understand the intricacies of underfloor drainage and watertight gaskets and advised him to take his arrogant attitude elsewhere. He merely shrugged at me and chuckled as if my words meant nothing to him. I was mortified and spent the next three weeks crying in my room, the violence of his mocking laughter still ringing in my ears. The truth is, mansplaining assumes that women are unempowered and treats them as weak and inferior. It reduced my mother to a pitiful wreck of a human being that day, incapable of standing up for her own flesh and blood. 3. Remember your privilege Your privilege should be the first thing you’re aware of when you wake up in the morning, and the last thing you chastise yourself for as you fall asleep at night. Apologize for it at every available opportunity. For example, when ordering your skinny macchiato in a Starbucks, you could give your name to the barista as ‘A White Male Fully Aware of the Advantages he has had in Life Compared to Women and Minorities and is Deeply Ashamed of the Violence of his Ancestors’ and then offer to buy every minority in the establishment a blueberry muffin (after first checking any dietary requirements and amending the order accordingly). You won’t earn any respect for this, and nor do you deserve any, but it may go some small way to ease the social tensions that Trump and Brexit have stirred up this past few years. *(I do not of course include white transmen in any of this because although they are obviously real men in every sense, that’s not even up for debate… they are not the problematic type of white men.)
Sadiq’s personal fiefdom The London mayor’s pro-EU firework stunt exposed his authoritarian streak. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Brendan O'Neill Editor 1st January 2019 please log in to view this image Brexit Politics UK Now we know what mayor of London Sadiq Khan really thinks of the city he oversees. He sees it as his personal fiefdom. A one-man principality. A city whose every edifice and event must be stamped with his political prejudices lest the baying millions who live here forget who is in charge. This is what the mayor’s artless, cynical twisting of the New Year’s fireworks display into a pro-EU propaganda spectacle tells us: that Sadiq rules London in a monarchical style, viewing every public event as an opportunity to make a political speech and to hector and troll the city’s masses. Sadiq’s wheeze was to turn the London Eye, the centrepiece of millennial London, into an EU flag. He had it lit up in blue and surrounded by small blasts of yellow, mimicking the EU flag. To drive the point home he tweeted a photo of the Eye – clearly proud as punch of his Maoist spectacle – alongside the words, ‘Tonight’s spectacular #LondonNYE fireworks showed that whatever the outcome of Brexit – #LondonIsOpen’. ‘Tonight’s fireworks showed’ – did those words not give him pause for thought? Did he not stop to think that a New Year fireworks event is not meant to show anything other than bright colours and loud noises that make people say ‘Oooh’? Did he not wonder if his politicisation even of something as joyous and uniting as a New Year fireworks display might just put him in the same camp as old-style emperors who held huge games to remind the plebs of the emperor’s power or more recent tinpot tyrants who organise spectacles, whether of the military, political or sporting variety, to dazzle the little people and remind them who’s boss? It’s remarkable that nobody in the planning stages of this crass stunt said to Sadiq: ‘Should we really do this? Use one of the largest events in the calendar of the capital city to mock the majority of Britons? To sneer at the country at large about their opposition to the EU?’ Or maybe someone did and Sadiq, in keeping with his increasingly Macron-like, Jupiterian style, just shut them down. Imagine how out-of-touch Sadiq’s coterie must be that they thought it would be a hoot to turn one of the UK’s most significant public events of the year into an assault on the public, into a two-finger salute at the largest electoral bloc in British history. It was a metaphorical spitting at the plebs. Sadiq and his equally aloof minions seem to have forgotten – or perhaps they don’t care? – that Brexit has more support in London than Sadiq does. More than 1.5million Londoners voted for Brexit in June 2016 – 40 per cent of the city’s voters – compared with the 1.3million who voted for Sadiq in May 2016. Yes, Brexit is such a huge, unprecedented political phenomenon that even in the supposed ‘Remainer city’ of London it enjoys more backing than the city’s own mayor. What is Sadiq saying to this Brexit-backing swathe of Londoners when he prostitutes even London’s end-of-year party to his obsessively Brexitphobic cause? He is saying they don’t matter. He is saying, ‘**** you’. Indeed, for all the Sadiq clique’s propaganda about London being open, complete with multicultural, multi-religious adverts, the mayor clearly is not open to Brexiteers or to democracy itself. Brexit London is the forgotten London. Places like Havering and Hillingdon and Barking, alongside Brexit-voting areas in north-west London and south-east London – the mayor and other Remoaners don’t care about these places. What, with their vulgar, borderline Essex inhabitants, and their Daily Mail readership, and their penchant for flying the St George’s flag in their windows? No thanks. That isn’t the real London, in the view of Sadiq and Co. The real London is Remainer London, the posh suburbs and the inner-city areas and the City of London: that’s real London, good London, the London that deserves a New Year’s Eve fireworks display. Sadiq’s stunt fits into a New Year pattern among the bruised technocrats who unfortunately still rule over us. It stands alongside President Emmanuel Macron’s nasty New Year speech in which he denounced the massive Yellow Vest protests as homophobic and fascistic. And it is of a piece with Keir Starmer’s New Year wishes in which he expressed his hope that populism – that is, political ideas that are popular – will be defeated in 2019. We’re witnessing a technocratic fightback, the collective squawk of an elite that fears its number is up. Bring it on. You can have your political stunts and your anti-masses spectacles – we still have our votes and we know just what we’re going to do with them when the time comes. You want a fight in 2019? You’ve got it.
How many Leavers does it take to change a light bulb? Loads .... One to hold the bulb and the rest to screw it up. Q.what do you get if you cross a chimpanzee with a remainer? A. a stupid chimpanzee! Q. how many remainiacs does it take to change a lighbulb! A. none, they prefer sitting in the dark. Q. why did the remainer cross the road? A. because the EU told them to. Q. how many people voted for the five EU presidents? A. five EU presidents. Q. how did the European Union get rid of the Wine Lake? A. they invited Jean-Claude Juncker to lunch. Q. how many referendums does it take to leave the EU? A. Shut up and keep voting until you get it right. Q. why is Brexit good for the EU. A. it needs to lose a few pounds. Q. what's the difference between Brussels and Strasbourg? A. nothing, they both cause severe flatulence. Q. what do you call people who wander enthusiastically around the The house of European history in Brussels A. staff.
Bloody lefties on the BBC News giving out statistics about numbers of asylum seekers. Don't they realise we've had enough of facts? The government needs a crisis!
Meanwhile two more stabbed to death to welcome in the New Year whilst 'Candyflossman' was posing for more virtue-signalling selfies...
This would be perfect as a script for Eastenders now, imagine Godfrey putting Danny Dyer straight because there's too much Fever Tree Tonic in his Pink Gin...
please log in to view this image Breaking News: Desperate refugees fleeing famine and death in war torn impoverished France are reduced to using the iPhone 6. Unimaginable inhumanity in the Second Decade of the 21st Century.
Blow for Ireland as EU escalates plans for bloc-wide tax on tech giants – Dublin OBJECTS EUROPEAN Union bosses risk infuriating Ireland by pushing ahead with plans to prevent national vetoes in a number tax policy decisions, despite huge opposition from Dublin. By Joe Barnes, Brussels Correspondent PUBLISHED: 16:20, Thu, Jan 3, 2019 | UPDATED: 18:40, Thu, Jan 3, 2019 The European Commission will launch a consultation with member states by the middle of January in a bid to produce an action plan before the European elections in May. EU countries have so far failed to agree a joint digital sales tax on multinational internet giants, which is currently managed by individual member states. Ireland have previously blocked the British-backed plans for an international deal to impose tax on technology giants like Google and Amazon. Any such tax introduction would deal a blow to Dublin, which is concerned that a new EU-wide arrangement would impact international trading relationships and any future global taxation plan. In November, Ireland argued the EU tax proposals should not be finalised before the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development secures a global tax agreement, which is expected by 2020. But EU bosses have taken the decision to press on with their own plans ahead of the European Parliament election in May because of a sustained pressure to be tough on tax at an EU-level. Prior to Christmas, the Commission issued a call for comments on “how EU decision-making on certain tax issues could be streamlined by removing the need for unanimous agreement by all countries”. please log in to view this image EU bosses risk infuriating Ireland by pressing on with plans for group-wide technology giant tax (Image: GETTY) Member states have until January 17 to reply before eurocrats publish the results, which will form the discussion amongst EU leaders at a summit next May on the future of the bloc. Ending unanimity in any area of tax policy would requirement its own unanimous decision from all EU countries, which could prevent any changes ahead of the EU Parliament elections. If successful, the EU’s decision would threaten Irish corporate tax revenues and as a result has received opposition from its government and businesses. Ian Talbot, chief executive of Chambers Ireland, said: “Ireland has used tax policy as a vital tool for economic development since 1956. “As a small, open island at the edge of Europe it remains important that we retain some independent tools for competitiveness.” In December, EU countries failed to agree on a temporary massacre that would impose a special 3 percent digital sales levy on major internet firms. It was estimated that the levy would bring around €5 billion by raising tax rates for 120 of the biggest technology firms. This measure remains on the table and has the support of Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister. Last month, Mr Le Maire pledged to tax technology firms in 2019 even if the EU fails to reach an agreement on a bloc-wide tax by spring. He said: “Digital giants make huge profits from French consumers and pay 14 tax points less than our SMEs. If European states do not take responsibility for taxation, we will do so at national level from 2019." Philip Hammond, in October, called for global co-operation on digital services tax and unveiled plans for a unilateral UK tax. The Chancellor announced he intendeds to push forward with a 2 percent tax on advertising revenues and other digital revenues from technology firms with over £500 million in turnover. The tax is expected to bring in £400m per year for HMRC.
