I say lots of positive things about the country. I’ve already complimented the London fireworks. Just shouting “you hate the country” at people who call out your jingoism is a small step towards fascism.
I ordered one to use as kindling but it hasn't arrived yet...company said there was some sort of delay with goods crossing the channel but I reckon they just made that up as an excuse.
It's illicit material in France, Dave. You get a euro 5000 fine just for being in possession, and are sent off to Brussels for re-education
I doubt France would leave but Italy will be the next if any. I agree with Farage that this EU will fall and out of the ashes a new free trade/ close link Union will rise. I was going to reply to your previous post Dave. It’s people like you that I actually feel a bit sorry for. I know you live work and have a young family in France. I really hope the French are not tw2ts when you need to fill in the new paperwork. I have a fab history with France, from my Grandmother and French family that live there. It’s not, never has been them I have a problem with... it’s just those unelected mafia bosses in Brussels. TBH the way they treated us during talks. Cameron and the non non non. Then the episodes with May. Finally that idiot in Luxembourg Who showed no respect to the British PM just reinforces the fact that we were never really part of the club and they were just interested in our membership money. It’s a new era now and we move on. Anyway good luck with it all and hopefully when all this cr2p is over we will Look back and wonder what the fuss was about.... except Femi and Watford of course.
We can do better than that. Iain Duncan-Smith is predicting world domination. Please don’t talk down the potential of Global Britain.
Cheers for the thought...the work for us was done last year. We had to gather a whole load of paperwork, proof of address for every quarter for the last 10 years, and proof of yearly income...and then apply for a carte de sejour (residency card). We've got that now, so have the right to live and work here for the next 10 years. Only question now is whether or not we go for French passports, which I think we will do, not least because it means the kids can get French passports and they'll then be entitled to free university education in France if we are still here then. If we move back, having French citizenship will keep options open and mean we have the freedom to move if we want to. Only other difference is that now my parents, in-laws and other family will need a visa if they want to visit for more than 3 months.
Never happened...just means it is now a legal impossibility, which is nice to know. According to my mother in law, fish and guests go off after 3 days. I wholeheartedly agree with her on this matter.
yeah, that is the smart thing to do. it is handy having dual nationality. And was advisable getting your Carte de Sejour. I have friends that have lived in France for 10 years and have nothing. They will probably find things harder as they don't work. I told them that they should have sorted this out long ago. I do however see things changing in the future with passports as my mate who works in Germany was told if he applies for a German passport he will need to give up his UK one. sod that. It was easy in the old days you could collect passports. I think there will be lots of stories/information about what will happen from Dave on Facebook. the best one I read 3 days ago was that we couldn't take sandwiches on our journey and food for the dog. That ended up be a load of old s22t. Best to just wait and see.
I did hear that if they did want to stay on longer it will be inexpensive and easy (just a few bits of French paperwork ) As long as they can support themselves financially it shouldn't be a problem. Let them know
Blimey, I forgot Merkel was going this year. It will be a shame as she is pragmatic and someone who is not like Macron. interesting times ahead there.
Show caption Opinion With a heavy heart, Johnson will always remind us who the real victim is: him Marina Hyde please log in to view this image His compassion for the public may be limited, but never let it be said that our leader is a man who neglects his own emotions @MarinaHyde Fri 1 Jan 2021 07.43 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email It is one of the curiosities of this inside-out age that Donald Trump is loved by conspiracists, even though he is a leader – at last! – who embodies of all their worst fears. He really does hate them, he really is plotting against them, and he really is lying to them, in multiple and increasingly wicked and baroque ways. Searching for the lesser ironies native to the UK, we might alight on the puzzle that Boris Johnson is beloved of many who can’t wait to point out that “facts don’t care about your feelings” – and yet is himself incapable of serving up difficult facts without endless reference to how it’s all making him feel. Is the prime minister in the business of making new year’s resolutions? If so he might consider trying to develop a stiff upper lip this year. It looks like we’re going to need it. Should Johnson fail to toughen up and take himself in hand – a locked-on certainty, given the form book – then we are condemned to endure what might well be the worst months of the pandemic thus far, led by someone whose first thought seems always to be for his own emotions. “I hate having to take these decisions …”, “I deeply regret having to do this …”, “I do this with a heavy heart …” Once you’ve noticed the tic you can’t stop hearing it. If only he’d take back control of himself. I can no longer remember any Boris Johnson podium address that wasn’t riven with subconscious invitations to consider the real victim in all this: him. No matter what you’ve been through, please do take more than a moment to consider the heartaches and ballaches visited upon a man who simply wanted to be world king, but would settle for being the kind of prime minister who smiled and drove diggers through polystyrene walls – yet now has to deal with all this **** in his in-tray instead. Of course, there is the odd bright spark. Johnson would have enjoyed being told by Bill Cash during Wednesday’s trade deal debate that he was like both Alexander the Great and Churchill. Even if that is like being told you make a lot of sense by Mrs Rochester. But mainly, we are forever being subjected to self-dramatising speeches about the latest virus measures he hates, to which the only dignified response is: I couldn’t care less how it all makes you feel. You’re the prime minister. The people listening are the ones you’re supposed to lead, not your psychotherapist. Was this the way with the PM’s noted idol and supposed political lodestar, Winston Churchill? I’m afraid I haven’t Johnson’s Churchill biography to hand – though of course, I never permit myself to be more than four feet away from Sir Richard Evans’s majestic review of it. (Sample blast: “The Germans did not capture Stalingrad, though this book claims they did.”) The one good thing to come out of Brexit: a bonfire of national illusions | David Edgerton But even without this canonical text to check against, I think we can be sure that Churchill did not feel the need to deliver all his wartime announcements laced with frequent expressions of how he was handling the whole thing of having to deliver all these wartime announcements. with the words “no one wants to be making these decisions”. And yet, I bet there people who would quite want to be secretary of state for education, and to make those requisite decisions, so perhaps Gavin could stand aside for them? Perhaps Johnson will eventually steel himself to tell Williamson – with deep regret and a heavy heart, no doubt – that he is being moved on from a department he has turned into a full-spectrum clusterfuck for a year now. Until then, the self-dramatisation continues. As you may know, Williamson prominently displays a bullwhip on his desk. This is the version of Indiana Jones where our hero never beats the boulder hurtling down the tunnel behind him, and the mere act of reaching back for his hat causes the loss of both his arm and the educational prospects of an entire generation of children. Speaking of touches of affectation, when the prime minister comes through the No 10 double doors to announce close to a thousand deaths, as he has twice this week, it can be seen that this 56-year-old man has nonetheless still taken the trouble to mess up his hair just before. What felt mildly excruciating in pre-corona times seems truly grotesque when persisted with today. The podium turns themselves betray even more weirdly skewed priorities. A couple of weeks ago, a shielding and frightened member of the public asked a question in which she said she had already lost two loved ones to Covid. Clearly incapable of feeling compassion for anyone other than himself, Johnson declined to express any, and handed the question over to Chris Whitty. The reason all this is particularly important is because it tells us so much of why our pandemic story has unfolded the way it has. Time and again, Boris Johnson has so deeply regretted even the prospect of having to do difficult things that he hasn’t done them, meaning he has had to do even more regrettable things later. He seems most comfortable casting himself as forever the passive victim of events as opposed to someone who should be out in front of them, shaping them as decisively as possible. A fascinating article by the pollster James Johnson this week charted the PM’s descent in the focus groups over the course of the past year. “As yet another inevitable decision was finally made,” he reported, “people came to think more and more that the man who was meant to lead them was following them instead.” Buck up, toughen up, show a stiff upper lip – I’m sure there’s some archive Boris Johnson column out there lamenting that these are now deemed inappropriate responses by “the PC brigade”. Either way, I am happy to oblige him by considering them easily the most suitable exhortations in this particular case. For God’s sake, prime minister – do man up. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
