True Colours shining through

[Hoboh]

At last the real truth!!

The president of the European Commission has issued a new call for the EU to "unite or face irrelevance" in the face of the mounting economic crisis in Italy.

Jose Manuel Barroso said the world was facing fundamental changes to the economic order and European countries had to stand together.

A split EU would not work, he warned, adding: "The challenge is how to further deepen euro-area integration without creating divisions with those who are not yet in it."

He used a speech in Berlin to challenge "responsible" EU leaders to "make the case for Europe".

Mr Barroso said: "The world needs a stronger Europe: more Europe, not less. Yet there are some in Europe who claim that their country does not need the rest of Europe.

"Populism and sometimes even nationalism raises its head across our continent, claiming that too much Europe is the cause of our current difficulties; claiming that less Europe, or even non-Europe would bring solutions."

He continued: "This is ignoring the global realities as well as our common history that teaches us that this continent is simply too small and too interdependent for us to stand apart. To turn our backs to each other." The argument for "going it alone", added Mr Barroso, defied economic rationality.

If the euro area of the 17 single currency member states, or the entire 27-country EU, broke apart, he said, the estimated initial cost was up to 50% of EU GDP, with ongoing threats to the prosperity of the next generation.

"That is why all responsible leaders must now make the case for Europe. Make the case for strength through unity. We must engage our citizens in an honest and frank debate about Europe, about its assets and its shortcomings, about its potential and its future. We must show our citizens what is at stake. We must choose the path of strength over weakness. Unity over fragmentation. The hard choice over the easy one."

It was not about "power-grabbing", Mr Barroso said, adding: "We are witnessing fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order that have convinced me that Europe needs to advance now together or risk fragmentation. Europe must either transform itself or it will decline. We are in a defining moment where we either unite or face irrelevance."

Dream falling apart is it mate helped in no small part by your bureaucratic meddling? So now you want even more of our money and more control over our lives? Simple little things folk don't forget like when your Euro came in a breakfast or pint in Spain cost approx 250 pesetas when you brought in the Euro it leapt to 2.50 Euros and everything else went up, who gained? The workers? Did we feck like! Just fat kraut and Frog Bankers, no wonder the frogs could from a country full of strikers and always on bank holidays suddenly afford to buy all our utilities companies or revive a car industry sicker than Leyland ever was!! And don’t get me started on human rights and straight bananas!
Of course I'm not being fair here it was all down to their German masters!!!

Anyone who doesn’t vote UKIP next time wants their bumps feeling.

Feckin' Europe has more than once been the biggest threat to the existence of the UK, we should never forget that!

[Lord Kangana]

Health and safety gone mad.

[CAPSLOCK]

Nah, just the collapse of a misguided dream

And the tragedy of it all

It was all so obviously fatally flawed

[Lord Kangana]

Free market capitalism?

[CAPSLOCK]

Of course, what else could I be referring to

[Lord Kangana]

Ah, a trick question. Nothing. There isn't any other system in operation.

[Prufrock]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU. They've never made anything on the straightness of bananas. One day, together, we'll get there Hoboh.

And he is right. You reckon our army of chavs expecting £7 an hour for unskilled work can compete with China, India, Brazil? Even the Germans couldn't on their own. So yeah, more Europe.

[Cheese]

Sorry, but your allusion to the "straight bananas" myth renders the rest of your post dismissible.

[thebish]

Sorry, but your allusion to the "straight bananas" myth renders the rest of your post dismissible.

indeed! People STILL believe that despite the fact that there has NEVER been a time when they have personally witnessed straight bananas for sale in their supermarkets...

the power of the daily mail and urban myth combined.... scary!

[Hoboh]

Straight Bananas

Thursday, 13th November 2008


Finally the EU has come clean and admitted that it really did have rules on straight bananas. For years, supporters of the EU have talked about straight bananas as a "euro-myth", a story so ridiculous that only bad people seeking to debunk the EU could have told such dreadful lies.

Odd, then, that the EU Commission has just announced that it is to ditch a whole raft of rules on straight bananas, curved cucumbers and wonky vegetables. Of course euro-realists have been pointing out for years that the European Union really does have regulations on straight bananas (Directive No 2257/94 of 16 September 1994). But somehow the euro-myth story stuck

Please do carry on

[Hoboh]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/default_en.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you were saying Pru?

You Europhiles don't half and use smoke and mirrors, you like Europe? Why not live there?

[thebish]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/default_en.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you were saying Pru?

You Europhiles don't half and use smoke and mirrors, you like Europe? Why not live there?

hobes - YOU live in Europe!

[bobo the clown]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/default_en.htm
you were saying Pru?

You Europhiles don't half and use smoke and mirrors, you like Europe? Why not live there?

hobes - YOU live in Europe!

"Fog in Channel ... Continent Cut Off".

One of the Times' best headlines.

[Worthy4England]

Straight Bananas

Thursday, 13th November 2008


Finally the EU has come clean and admitted that it really did have rules on straight bananas. For years, supporters of the EU have talked about straight bananas as a "euro-myth", a story so ridiculous that only bad people seeking to debunk the EU could have told such dreadful lies.

Odd, then, that the EU Commission has just announced that it is to ditch a whole raft of rules on straight bananas, curved cucumbers and wonky vegetables. Of course euro-realists have been pointing out for years that the European Union really does have regulations on straight bananas (Directive No 2257/94 of 16 September 1994). But somehow the euro-myth story stuck

Please do carry on

Which part of the directive mentions the requirement for banana's to be straight?

[Prufrock]

Straight Bananas

Thursday, 13th November 2008


Finally the EU has come clean and admitted that it really did have rules on straight bananas. For years, supporters of the EU have talked about straight bananas as a "euro-myth", a story so ridiculous that only bad people seeking to debunk the EU could have told such dreadful lies.

Odd, then, that the EU Commission has just announced that it is to ditch a whole raft of rules on straight bananas, curved cucumbers and wonky vegetables. Of course euro-realists have been pointing out for years that the European Union really does have regulations on straight bananas (Directive No 2257/94 of 16 September 1994). But somehow the euro-myth story stuck

Please do carry on

A directive which says bananas have to look like bananas, be of a certain length, not be manky. In order for shops to be able to sell them as a certain class of banana they have to be fairly uniform is shape, but you can still sell however curved bananas you want as long as it looks like a banana. What they are saying is, if you are going to sell something which you describe as being a 'perfectly curved banana' then it has to fit what most people would think of as a normally curved banana. If you just sell a bog standard banana, it just has to be a banana. All of which is fair enough, and not at all what the press reported. I wouldn't mind, but all the directives etc are freely available on Europa, so they either couldn't be arsed reading, despite its ease of access, something, or they lied.

[Prufrock]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/default_en.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you were saying Pru?

You Europhiles don't half and use smoke and mirrors, you like Europe? Why not live there?

I do live there. As do you.

The Human Rights you, and the Daily Mail, love to bang on about, is the European Court of Human Rights, which has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. The EU is all for human rights, great, so am I, and plenty other individuals and organisations. Still has nowt to do with 'Human Rights'.

[William the White]

Human Rights have nowt to do with the EU.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/default_en.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you were saying Pru?

You Europhiles don't half and use smoke and mirrors, you like Europe? Why not live there?

I do live there. As do you.

The Human Rights you, and the Daily Mail, love to bang on about, is the European Court of Human Rights, which has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. The EU is all for human rights, great, so am I, and plenty other individuals and organisations. Still has nowt to do with 'Human Rights'.

Planet hoboh is in Europe???

Nooooooooo....

Can someone get it feckin regulated, toot sweet???

[Lord Kangana]

Toot sweets will henceforth be known, for clarity's sake, as sliding candy-based musical novelty treats.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I do live there. As do you.

The Human Rights you, and the Daily Mail, love to bang on about, is the European Court of Human Rights, which has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. The EU is all for human rights, great, so am I, and plenty other individuals and organisations. Still has nowt to do with 'Human Rights'.

Pru, I like you and I like human rights, but this is a tad disingenuous.

It is a condition of membership of the EU that all new member states must ratify the ECHR. Now, whether it is a condition of the UK's continuing membership of the EU that it remains a signatory is a fertile area for debate, but I would suggest that the fact that the EU itself has acceded to the Convention, rather than just the individual member states (itself a constitutional nonsense, in my humble opinion) makes this even more likely the two things are inextricably bound together.

[Hoboh]

I do live there. As do you.

The Human Rights you, and the Daily Mail, love to bang on about, is the European Court of Human Rights, which has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. The EU is all for human rights, great, so am I, and plenty other individuals and organisations. Still has nowt to do with 'Human Rights'.

Pru, I like you and I like human rights, but this is a tad disingenuous.

It is a condition of membership of the EU that all new member states must ratify the ECHR. Now, whether it is a condition of the UK's membership of the EU that it remains a signatory is a fertile area for debate, but I would suggest that the fact that the EU itself has acceded to the Covention, rather than just the individual member states Iitself a constitutional nonsense, in my humble opinion) makes this even more likely the two things are inextricably bound together.

Wow