@Airborne_Again wrote:
the UK withdrew from the Erasmus university student and teacher exchange programme. There was no need for the UK to do so but it did, expressly (according to Boris Johnson) to keep all those awful furriners out.
Can you give us a source for that quote by BoJo?
Objectively, replacing the Erasmus scheme for rich European kids by the £100 million Turing scheme which funds poor students from around the world doesn’t seem like “keeping furriners out”. Rather the reverse, actually.
Jacko wrote:
But the EU Commission has decided not to be friendly. From confiscating ham sandwiches in a trucker’s picnic, to banning shellfish caught in UK waters, to closing the Irish border, to punishing their own citizens who hold UK-issued EASA licences, the Commission is acting like a petulant child trying to pick a fight.
This is such a classic behaviour following the UK divorcing itself from Europe.
Just like my Ex-Wife…. 
With a bit of luck, the EU will see that such pettiness is self defeating and self harming in the long run. Unfortunately Im not convinced…even after 10 years my Ex-wife still just cant help herself and continues being petty/nasty to this day – despite being in a relationship with someone else from day 1…
Regards, SD..
skydriller wrote:
With a bit of luck, the EU will see that such pettiness is self defeating and self harming in the long run. Unfortunately Im not convinced…even after 10 years my Ex-wife still just cant help herself and continues being petty/nasty to this day – despite being in a relationship with someone else from day 1…
The behavior of ex-wifes for sure proves everything 
Pretty ridiculous comparison IMO. The fact is that during the last year in particular, EU has become more friendly and the UK has become unfriendly and in isolation, while it used to opposite in many ways. I bet no one in the UK feel that’s how it is?, or maybe it’s the demographics on this board only?
LeSving wrote:
The behavior of ex-wifes for sure proves everything Pretty ridiculous comparison IMO. The fact is that during the last year in particular, EU has become more friendly and the UK has become unfriendly and in isolation, while it used to opposite in many ways. I bet no one in the UK feel that’s how it is?, or maybe it’s the demographics on this board only?
I think the majority is just unhappy with the way it has worked out (be it brexiteer or remainer) and just upset.
And which party (EU or UK) is more hostile at one particular moment depends a lot on a newspaper/TV channel a person consumes at that moment…
Jacko wrote:
Can you give us a source for that quote by BoJo?
The key point is the complaint that the UK accepted more students from abroad compared to UK students who studied abroad.
Objectively, replacing the Erasmus scheme for rich European kids by the £100 million Turing scheme which funds poor students from around the world doesn’t seem like “keeping furriners out”. Rather the reverse, actually.
“from around the world”? All information I’ve seen is that the Turing Scheme is only for UK students. See the official web site: https://www.turing-scheme.org.uk/about/who-can-take-part/
Antonio wrote:
While I cannot consider myself an expert on the matter, putting those three men in the same group [Hitler, Stalin, Franco] makes little factual sense.
It makes no sense only if you consider the absolute number of deaths to be the only important factor. I don’t. For one thing, Hitler and Stalin clearly had more opportunity to kill people than Franco considering the size of the territory they controlled. To me, intent also matters. Hitler ran an active extermination campaign, while the deaths under Stalin’s regime were mainly caused by poor policies and indifference for the fate of his subjects. There is no doubt in my mind that Hitler was much more “evil” than Stalin ever was. (I put the word in quotes because I don’t believe in “evil” in a metaphysical sense.)
That said, I agree with you that Franco was not is the same league as Hitler and Stalin. He was simply one man in a seemingly endless tradition of military commanders with an obsession for order, lack of respect for views other than his own and a willingness to grasp power and put down any opposition by force. The only thing that stood out was that he maintained a fascist dictatorship in a European country for decades after the bulk of European fascism had been defeated in WWII.
Airborne_Again wrote:
while the deaths under Stalin’s regime were mainly caused by poor policies and indifference for the fate of his subjects
While technically correct, this is broadly equivalent of saying that “deaths caused by Hitler’s regime were mainly caused by the war he started”, completely missing out the fact that Stalin ran purges killing around a million, a the Gulags killing around another two.
But all of this misses one major point. It is not “the left” or “the right” that kills people, regimes do, and regimes run by brutal dictators in particular, or by a small group of fanatics at the top.
If there is a common theme, I would say that the most murderous regimes seem to be those emerging from revolutions or other major upheavals and are swept into power with a “mandate” to make radical change, only to take it to such extremes as to take murdering the opposition and anyone in the way of their radical agenda.
It is certainly true that civilisation is just a lunch away from anarchy, and I am sure this is a major unspoken driver behind much CV19 policy; they cannot risk e.g. food to run short, or people being afraid to go to supermarkets.
On Stalin’s excesses, an excellent book I would recommend is I chose Freedom although you don’t want to pay that price for it
“The hypothesis that more regulation (and specifically more EU regulation) means more safety is clearly quite widely believed.”
Especially after reading today’s newspaper enquiry reports, quoting the insulation suppliers, that UK fire regulations were laxer than other EU countries, allowing Grenfell to happen.
but it is clear that on the English speaking social media that I am familiar with, including EuroGA, remainers outnumber leavers by at least 10:1 in personal attacks posted. Also left-wingers outnumber right-wingers (however you define those two) by at least 10:1 in personal attacks posted.
Is that so?
