See my story. And I do not "produce" to your order. I am not SH to be told what you want. I post what I want, how I want and when I want - if you do not understand that the Tories have been forced to borrow to deal with Labour's overspend and the howls of protests about austerity then I cannot help you
I am not ordering you to do anything Leo just fending off an oversensitive reaction of yours to a post of mine. Are you telling me that for the last 40 years, or so, the Tories have been borrowing such large sums only to deal with Labour overspend ? The problem which you have is that your 2 fictional characters are a household - a nation is not. In Cologne they have an expression 'Von nix kut nix', which means from nothing comes nothing - a nation needs infrastructure, which sows the seeds for future gain. The question is not who has spent what - but rather what it was spent on ie. was it spent on wastefull prestige projects or on essentials which had been run down under Tory administrations. In order to have a thriving economy we need an infrastructure behind it, together with measurable spending power.
My reaction was not sensitive in the least. It simply picked you up for the simplistic misuse of statistics and from there you tried to defend the indefensible. The principle in my example holds good for a nation. If you spend more than you earn you get into debt. That applies to people and to nations. Unless you do not care about burdening future generations with debt then over a sensible period of time you have to balance the books. A nation like a person has to decide what it wants to spend and how it will raise the money. I believe in the UK the average person does not pay enough tax. I would vote for a party that wanted to increase taxes to buy a better NHS, better education and improved the infrastructure. I do not buy into the myth that taxing fat cats or cutting tax avoidance is sufficient to improve our society enough. I also have no dogmatic belief in the superiority of either public or private spending. Both have their place. Our political system though means parties that want to raise the average person's taxes is likely to lose. We then wonder why we have poor services.
But do you actually dispute the figures I gave ? If you are talking about incomings and outgoings then everybody can understand that - at the national level they call it the national budget. In the UK. we had a budget surplus until 1974 and once again under Blair for about 4 years - do Labour really spend more than the Tories ? It is always presumed that this is the case, but where are the figures ? A similar case applies during the Thatcher years - she believed in living within your means, but private borrowing increased dramatically during her tenure in office.
Sorry Col but if the figures are from the government then they are what they are but what they mean can be entirely different. At this stage the figures just do not interest me enough to look at them in sufficient detail to try to understand what they mean.
Are these the migrants Macron wants the UK to open its doors for? The french should take responsibility for these people and return them back home or to the first safe country. It is not the UK's problem. French government warns levels of violence in Calais are 'unbearable' and like 'never seen before' after five migrants were shot during a giant brawl involving people smugglers
If I could wave a magic wand SH. I would transport you to a country which has either been bombed flat (with some of those bombs made in Britain), where your home town is in ashes, or to a country which has been ravaged by civil war - where all civilization has died around you. A country which you have to flee and embark on a dangerous journey over months, and end up in a refugee camp for a year. It would be interesting to know what kind of person you would be after such an experience. Do you think these people wanted to leave their homelands and embark on the lives they are leading ? Do you think that it is fair to demand that countries on the outer borders of Europe take all the responsibility for coping with this, simply as a result of their geographical position ? Maybe you think that Germany should take them all ? Is it not reasonable that all countries should play a part - and not just shake their heads and say 'Not our problem'. But no - you are not in this position. You are stuck in your homeland - comfortably off in a country which is the 4th largest weapons exporter in the World - a great deal of those weapons bound for problem areas of the Middle East. But you love this type of material don't you ?
The UK has been one of the largest financial contributors towards aid and has happily taken many refugees directly from trouble torn areas. Unlike Merkel the UK government has not encouraged migrants to put themselves in danger of smuggling gangs and danger on their hazardous journey. Many of these people have proved to be economic migrants from safe but much poorer areas. The Schengen rules dictate they should be processed and retained in the first safe country. Germany has a peculiar labour shortage so is more willing to accept migrants than its unwilling neighbours. The decision on the quantity and quality of potential migrants should be decided by the UK elected government, not by an individuals ability to pay these evil human trafficking thugs making a fortune out of unfortunate souls.. When the news that Macron reached an agreement with May to take more migrants from Calais it only encouraged many more to the area to try their luck. The UK and France need to make it almost impossible for these migrants to succeed in their attempts to smuggle onto UK bound vehicles.
Do you think that it is moral or responsible to demand that they are retained in the first safe country - in the case of Schengen that means Greece, Italy or Spain, thereby demanding that those countries share the whole responsibility merely as a result of their geographical location ? Whilst other countries like Germany or the UK. can hide behind their Alps or water.
I asked you a question - do you feel like answering it ? Is it fair to expect countries like Greece to take the full burden ?
No, the burden should be decided amongst the current Schengen members. The failure of Schengen should not fall on the UK. How many Schengen member countries have they passed through to get to Dover, a complete breakdown in security.
The vast majority of those warring in Calais are young men from Eritrea fleeing national service. They have no excuse to illegally enter the UK. If they are not refugees the french should expand their normal processing system and quickly send them back to Africa. Four migrants in critical condition after Calais brawl | World news | The ... Does the same event read better covered by The Guardian?
I think you need to remind yourself of the conditions regarding refugees and exile. Anybody can apply for refugee status if their life is in danger, or if they are persecuted in their homeland. You do not know the conditions of military service in Eritrea and if fleeing from this they are legitimate refugees or not - so it would be wise to defer judgement on this. There are refugees from the USA who are in Canada legally for this very same reason. Fleeing from a situation in which they would be compelled to commit war crimes, and then avoiding a possible death penalty for this is legitimate ground for refugee status. I agree that if a refugee commits a serious crime whilst under this protected status then they should be sent back - and this should be clear to them from the beginning. But this does not apply to the rest of them. I agree that it is a French problem. Unfortunately the poor sods (I mean the non criminal ones) do not realise that they would probably be better off in France.
We agree it is a French problem, they should address it properly rather than push it on to the Brits with the most crowded place in Europe.
Britain is not the most crowded place in Europe. If you are going to go splitting it up then England has a high population density - but other countries could do exactly the same. Actually the state where I live North Rhine Westphalia has this distinction.
It is interesting to see how the Mail can report something that looks like the truth, but is far removed from it. There are differences between the Mail and the Guardian, and the latter gets nearer to it. I cannot be bothered to go through the whole sorry saga, but as I have seen live TV with interviews, and some proper analysis of why it has happened, I do feel informed.
The idea that you can solve the problems of the world by moving people around is ridiculous. It is a given that war is wrong. It is also a fact that countries will manufacture and sell weapons etc etc. Nobody is going to change those things. What does need to happen though is that there is some kind of international plan on how to best treat people who are victims of war or other ill treatment. Discussing the people in Calais is pointless. They represent a tiny fraction of people for whom the international community has not developed a rational response. In fact I believe the policy of the UK government which is to prioritise aid for victims as close to their homeland as possible (and I think the UK is perhaps the single greatest contributor to this) is a good one. So berating them for how many refugees they take is not the point. It becomes an international pi**ing contest - we took more refugees than you. People displaced by war or violence deserve to be able to return to their homeland as soon as possible - not have to go trekking across the world to start again. Put yourself in this position - if the generals took over the UK and introduced a fascist repressive government what would you want? To have your country back or to lose everything and go to find refuge elsewhere amongst people of a totally different culture?
No, it is not a French problem... it is a problem that rests with the International community who have some responsibility.... and within the remit of the EU or the UN.... and the UK has to bear its part in this terrible story
