EU referendum

[bluethrunthru]

You are right. The congestion on the roads in and around Kent has to be experienced on a daily basis to be appreciated as the living nightmare Kent has become. In a lot of our Market towns you can't find a parking space during main shopping hours. It's no good people suggesting that we should build more car parks because there just isn't the space available. Most of the available parking spaces are under tarmac already. The way around it is to start building shopping centres out of town that people have to drive to and that leads to yet more congestion on the roads. It's a sprawl that is eating into the green belt. The 'inners' won't be happy until this country becomes a massive Hong Kong..god help us.

Maybe inners and outers should lobby governments to get to grips with the infrastructure rather than blame immigration. Year on year too few houses are built down in Kent to meet demand. Problem is infrastructure improvements requires spending but nobody want to pay tax to fund them - housing requires space and whilst everybody wants houses they would rather they weren't built near them and whilst new houses would be welcomed in one way on the other hand meeting demand would mean a marked slow down in house price growth or even a drop in house values and nobody in Kent would have the balls to accept that for the good of the country.

 

[KenTheLandlord]

Hurt you, did it? Did I use an analogy to try and prove something like you did? Nope, just brought one to light that I found amusing that was pertinent to me, nobody else.

Every assumption I had about you, you've proved in one post. Good job! (Although in fairness, you're running a little late)

bahahaha you fell apart there and you have again.
Anyhow that's life.

 

[Chippy_boy]

So what the outers seek is (a) some sort of control over numbers, and (b) a say over the skills we want and don't want.

Not sure what's difficult to understand here.

There's nothing difficult to understand. The question is at what price?

 

[YPhrunts]

Not sure I understand that Health and Safety rules should be viewed as a stupid regulation. Working at heights rules are as much the product of H&S as they are of "faceless bureaucrats in Brussels". You also make the massive leap of assuming that such regulations when adopted inside the EU wouldn't have been seen as common sense and adopted in the UK anyway. Most people in the industry would quote the reason for using scaffolding is a fear of being sued by the family of a late employee who fell off a ladder not the EU. Is that the insurance industry's fault the EU's fault or the adoption of safe working practices?

As for your slaughtering idea again how much is the EU to blame? I'd say good common sense food hygiene practices are behind that - they try to ensure that unlike other countries we don't get horsemeat into the food chain. Its a common misconception to conflate prejudices around the EU with "daft rules imposed by Brussels". In many cases these are there for good reasons to protect people or are just plain wrong - Google it and see how many straight banana and cucumber scare stories turn out to be just lies....

Yep we have become a rule dominated society alright. If everybody followed EU rules work would proceed at snails pace. Fortunately there are still workmen around that use common sense and the appropriate caution to get jobs done. But you're right...there are always the ones that need protecting from themselves and the EU is good at nannying the Darwinians amongst us. Strange how the rules are bent when it suits though.
But you raise an important point in that a lot of these health and safety rules would have progressed here without the EU's input which calls into question the whole idea that health and safety is reliant on EU input. Now extend the same logic to human rights and you can reach a conclusion that we would have progressed on our own without being directed from without.

I think you missed the point about slaughtering animals for your own use. These were not for sale so there was no harm to anybody apart from the owner. I was on holiday recently in the Alpujuras in Spain and came across a pig killing 'party' taking place quite openly in somebodies back yard. They slaughtered the pig and shared it out amongst the extended family. You couldn't do that here for fear somebody would report you. Rules eh.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Yep we have become a rule dominated society alright. If everybody followed EU rules work would proceed at snails pace. Fortunately there are still workmen around that use common sense and the appropriate caution to get jobs done. But you're right...there are always the ones that need protecting from themselves and the EU is good at nannying the Darwinians amongst us. Strange how the rules are bent when it suits though. I think you missed the point about slaughtering animals for your own use. These were not for sale so there was no harm to anybody apart from the owner. I was on holiday in the Alpujuras in Spain and came across a pig killing 'party' taking place quite openly in somebodies back yard. They slaughtered the pig and shared it out amongst the extended family. You couldn't do that here for fear somebody would report you. Rules eh.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that we are our own worst enemy in some respects. The combination of British "doing things the right and proper way" and Queensbury Rules and all that - combined with over-zealous EU regulation - is indeed a bad combo.

Other countries have the good sense to completely ignore the more idiotic rules coming from Brussels, but no, not us. I used to go to a small pub in Halesowen for a lunchtime pint or two and a hung of bread and cheese... until the landlord said "sorry lads, I've had to stop doing the cheese because they said I haven't got a chill cabinet and I don't sell enough to warrant it (The cheese was served from a board on the end of the bar).

Then you go to France and get served warm cheese (no chill cabinet) by a woman with a dog, smoking a fag indoors. I kid you not. Do the French coppers give a stuff? No, they don't and nor should ours.

 

[CityStu]

I mentioned earlier in the thread that we are our own worst enemy in some respects. The combination of British "doing things the right and proper way" and Queensbury Rules and all that - combined with over-zealous EU regulation - is indeed a bad combo.

Other countries have the good sense to completely ignore the more idiotic rules coming from Brussels, but no, not us. I used to go to a small pub in Halesowen for a lunchtime pint or two and a hung of bread and cheese... until the landlord said "sorry lads, I've had to stop doing the cheese because they said I haven't got a chill cabinet and I don't sell enough to warrant it (The cheese was served from a board on the end of the bar).

Then you go to France and get served warm cheese (no chill cabinet) by a woman with a dog, smoking a fag indoors. I kid you not. Do the French coppers give a stuff? No, they don't and nor should ours.

It sounds like you'd like others to show some gumption and stick it to the EU. We're the Brits and we won't be told what to do!

Yet when it comes to yourself putting a little x in a box it's all doom and gloom and what could go wrong. It's a confusingly hypocritical stance.

 

[KenTheLandlord]

As usual, few people feel free to say what they really believe on the immigration issue. Just not the done thing, old boy.

It's usually simplified by inners to "immigration brings benefits".

Well yes, a significant proportion of immigrants have added brains, drive, desirable skill-sets, vibrancy, etc, etc. And a certain proportion have formed semi-closed communities and/or contributed to drugs/gun/sex crime and/or been a drain on resources. We also have to remember that population predictions of 80m or whatever on an island of this size have major consequences. Which makes the argument simplistic.

So what the outers seek is (a) some sort of control over numbers, and (b) a say over the skills we want and don't want.

Not sure what's difficult to understand here.

Bit harsh on the whites there old boy.

 

[Chippy_boy]

It sounds like you'd like others to show some gumption and stick it to the EU. We're the Brits and we won't be told what to do!

Yet when it comes to yourself putting a little x in a box it's all doom and gloom and what could go wrong. It's a confusingly hypocritical stance.

I don't think it is mate. I honestly believe leaving the EU would be very bad for us in the short and medium term, i.e. <10 years and therefore we should stay in. That's my view.

But, whilst staying in, I think we shouldn't get so hung up about irritating legislation that's of no consequence and we should simply turn a blind eye to much of it, just as many of our European cousins do.

I don't see any contradiction in terms here. It's about doing what's in our best interests and working the system to the best of our abilities. What's wrong with that?

 

[CityStu]

I don't think it is mate. I honestly believe leaving the EU would be very bad for us in the short and medium term, i.e. <10 years and therefore we should stay in. That's my view.

But, whilst staying in, I think we shouldn't get so hung up about irritating legislation that's of no consequence and we should simply turn a blind eye to much of it, just as many of our European cousins do.

I don't see any contradiction in terms here. It's about doing what's in our best interests and working the system to the best of our abilities. What's wrong with that?

Because you're telling others to flaunt legislation that can result in them being fined. It's all very well saying "just ignore the fine" but what if it isn't that simple?

That would put others out of pocket yet you're unwilling to vote out because it might hurt your pocket in the short term.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Because you're telling others to flaunt legislation that can result in them being fined. It's all very well saying "just ignore the fine" but what if it isn't that simple?

That would put others out of pocket yet you're unwilling to vote out because it might hurt your pocket in the short term.

It seems to me you don't like my view that we should stay in, and that's what you are taking issue with.

The French don't get fined for ignoring half of the idiotic legislation, they just choose not to police it very conscienciously and that's how they get away with it. And if we did get fined by the EU over stuff, what would it cost the man in the street? £2? The EU fine us say £100m and that's less than two quid each.

But when it comes to voting out, genuinely, I think it would cost us all literally thousands, and the unfortunate ones who are made unemployed as a result? Way more than that.