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Emperor Oli

Attitude to new currency

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I'm not talking specifically about the coins, just what people think of them (to avoid the severe backlash as this is a non-coin area!).

So, my question is, and Chris would probably be best to answer this, what is the attitude in Europe to the Euro? Do they prefer it to the old currecy (Deutschmark, Lira, Franc etc) or do they want their old ones back? I'm just pondering this as I hate the Euro and Europe for that matter.......... :angry:

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There was a little resistance to the EURO in Germany at the start, mainly in Western Germany. You see in Germany, particularly the East they have grown quite accustomed to regular currency changes, like in the East from the GDR Marks, to the Bundesrepublik D Marks in 1990 when the wall came down. So pretty much in the East nobody minded, unemployment is very high here so most of them welcomed having a single currency with the rest of perhaps richer European parts.

Personally, of course i'd like to see the pound stay, instead of the stupid small generic looking Euro notes and coins, where people are even afraid to put any legend on for risk of affending 1000 people that speak a perculiar language not included in the 25 languages on the coin! But there is no doubt our future lies with Europe and probably has done since the colapse of the empire.

Economically the UK is strong, there is no doubt. Wages are higher on average than most parts of Europe and even the Western German states, but we are so much stronger co operating within europe on trade and common market terms. The main objective has to be for Europe to become a larger more important ecomomy that the USA or China. You have to see the world picture, to just the UK picture. At the moment the Euro is very strong campared to the Dollar and I do believe the population, GDP and other aspects of the European economy are stronger than that of the US.

I don't know why they can't somehow keep the pound but fix it's exchange rate with the Euro? Coins and notes stay the same and £1 aways = EUR1.50 (or whatever). But i'm not an economist and i'm sure i'm talking econimic rubbish there.

Chris

P.S. Sorry if i strayed the subject a little!

Chris

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From a numismatic point of view, the euro is a terrible thing. Kiss goodbye to all the variety, the end of interesting coins, as in coins that can actually change obverse and reverse, with the euro you can only change the reverse as if you changed the other then well it kinda defeats the purpose of trying to have all of them looking the same... Take the Irish euros...having seen pictures of them, if i remember rightly the obverse has the euro obverse, the reverse is a harp? Is it a harp on all of the denominations?

Now look at the pre-euro Irish coins, harp on one side, and a different reverse for each coin on the other. If the UK joins the Euro, the choice will be either keep the elements of the UK on all the reverses, or keep the Queen, you don't really have room to keep both. You keep the queen because that's what i should imagine what people expect to happen, then say good bye to any varience between the denominations. Say goodbye to the Queen and you destroying a British tradition...but you might have more interesting coins...alright maybe not.

Either way it's just replacing one set of junk uninspired coinage (which is what we've got now, except the designs change occasionally on both sides), with an inflexible even more uninspired set of junk...that changes less frequently.

And it's also a blow from a national point of view, and from an economics point of view. The UK's economy is stronger than some countries on the euro, join it and our economy will be effected.

There is also the concern of possible hyperinflation, if Germany goes down in a crisis for example, since France and places share the same currency they go down too...you can no longer just adjust the exchange rates between the two to help limit the impact. Also the euro is not flexible enough, if one country is doing really well and wants to revalue the currency they can't, likewise the opposite can happen.

But it does mean you can buy things from Chris easier...so it does have some good points.

Sylvester.

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Oh no no, I will always have a GB£ account and will always welcome GB£ wherever i am. It does wear me out having to work out what I'm actually getting at the end of the day, as with the accessories, I buy them in EUR, sell them in GB£.

The Irish Euros all have a harp on them, nothing different. Boring, you're right.

There are yearly standards that have to be met for a country to stay in the Euro, so if Portugal, Germany or whoever suddenly had a massive recession they would be kicked out of the Euro make no mistake. That rule applies for every country except Germant and France it seems, who have failed to meet their budget for the 2nd or 3rd year running! (but if it was serious I bet we'd be straight back with a new D mark).

I don't agree with you about the current coins being uninspired junk though, I think they are far more excting than other countries coins. The Britannia on the 50p can be traced back to Roman times, most of the coins feature intricate heraldic designs that are perhaps not done justice by the ever reducing sizes but by and large what am I talking about in this non coin related area???!!???

Anyone see Eastenders lately?

Chris

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Guest Eliza

(Gratuitous editorial snippet from some bloody Yank:)

The Euro ... well ... stinks. I watched a public tv program about the Euro changeover which featured trucks and trucks of "good, Dutch Guilders" going to be ground into scrap. Hooray, the Euro! Once upon a time, that good Dutch Guilder and Ducat were THE monetary standard of Europe.

If you look at the coins of Europe from the 17th through 19th centuries, each one tells a story. There's a thousand years of history in the heraldry and "wappen" that convey the rich tapestry of cultures that have made Europe and been made *by* Europe. To slag all that and punch out these puny tin tokens, NOOOOOO!

I think it's wrongheaded. I understand the philosophy behind the European Economic Community, but I hope individual nations repent at some point.

Eliza

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But there is no doubt our future lies with Europe

Hell no! Europe can shove its "Constitution" up its red-tape wrapped arse and those "coins". Our future lies with America and strengthening the "special relationship".

Just to reinforce my point, the contracts are up for the rebuilding of Iraq and British companies are the favourites to get them. However, the French and Germans now decide that they want them but the Americans have banned them from bidding (quite rightly) as they did not participate in the war. Now they are up-in-arms about it saying its unjust and unfair.

Do you know they are planning to expand the EU into the Balkans? Tons of poor homeless Romanians and that rabble will be free to come through British doors and there will be nothing we can do about it! We should take a leaf out of one of the Italian Minister's books; he plans to lease a destroyer from the Navy and sink ships with Asylum Seekers on them before they hit the shores and not pick up the survivors. This may seem extreme but it is the only real solution to the problem - it serves as a detrerrent and stops more of them entering the country. Aaaarrgghhh I'm ranting now but it gets me so worked up how continental Europeans (present company accepted) are systematically destroying British independence and culture with and endless stream of s**t legieslation from Brussels. Balls to the lot of them, especially the invasion-hosting French. Pah

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It seems you have quite strong views Olli, and i'm not sure how heated I want the forum to get on non coin related matters!

Just to pick up on your last point first...I am British, not a continental European, I just happen to live in continental Europe, I still own a house in Kent, have a family in the UK and will always be British. I always stick up for the British point of view (when I can) and am personally always ranting about how things are better in the UK!

I don't want to get into the Iraq situation, I do of course have views on it but will not discuss them in this public fashion.

Assylum seekers, ok, clearly a very sensitive subject for all British people and in fact it is very much a Europe wide issue. I have seen lots of programmes on German TV about various coutries in Europe and their policies towards the assylum seeker situation. I do believe that any people from anywhere, if they can offer something to the country in which they reside should be allowed to stay.

The problem at the moment is the massive scale of human trafficing that goes on, the organised crime that brings fake assylum seekers into Europe and the UK, the fact that these fakes get benefits from the state is of course resented, the fact that many of them are involved in criminal activity gives the geniune hard working people that simply want to set up a life in a country where they won't get murdered a very bad name.

It also seems a lot of these people head straight for the UK, I do believe that there should be a Europe wide assylum policy, the rules should be strengthened so that fake assylum seekers or economic migrants are not allowed to stay. With a Europe wide assylum policy the people would also not be allowed to leave the EU country in which they first entered, and would be checked out there before they were allowed to stay or sent back. The UK's policy needs to be strengthened too, didn't i hear that the home secretary had recently taken steps?

Have you ever been to Romania Olli, or Eastern Europe? On what basis can you justify calling the population of Romania and other European countries a rabble? There are poor people everywhere and most of them just want to be able to bring up their family safely and go about their normal lives. They mean you no harm and they are mis represented.

These people have not had the advantages that we have and they need support and help to make their own countries nice places to live, the problem must be rectified at the source and I am frankly outraged that you would support murdering innocent people that have probably just sold a kidney in order to be smuggled to a country in order to live a proper life and raise their family securely. A strong deterent is one thing, but blowing people up is quite another.

I don't think that continental Europeans want to destroy British culture or independance, nor are they going about it, the EU is about economics. The EU politicians will not ban Cricket and make you eat Frankfurters and Frogs legs!

I was once afraid of Europe in a similar fashion to you, but I learned and listened and realised that the only way the UK can be strong is to work with Europe. We don't have to change our way of life, we just have to pull together a bit.

I really feel that if you want to carry on with your stated views on this subject that you should perhaps do so via email and not in a public forum.

Chris

www.predecimal.com

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It seems you have quite strong views Olli

Indeed

I am British, not a continental European

I know, however I thought you had relations who were continental Europeans so I didn't want to offend

I do believe that any people from anywhere, if they can offer something to the country in which they reside should be allowed to stay.

Ditto, but how many have things to offer, apart from Tubercolosis? It has been proven that since the vast influx of "asylum seekers" have come to Britain, Tubercolosis has resurfaced as they weren't vaccinated

Have you ever been to Romania Olli, or Eastern Europe

I went on holiday to Cluj-Napoca which is just North of Transylvania and near the Carpathians three years ago

I don't think that continental Europeans want to destroy British culture or independance, nor are they going about it

The new EU Constitution, if it ever comes into effect, will eradicate the Queen's role as Head of State. To me, the Queen and the Royal Family are a part of British Culture.

I was once afraid of Europe in a similar fashion to you,

I am not afraid, I am wary of its motives

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However, if people are offended you can by all means take down my posts and I won't say any more on the topic

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Oli,

No, I'll keep them there unless people tell me they are offended. I'll only censor the obscene, and perhaps that was extreme, but it wasn't obscene.

I'm quite relieved your next post was quite sensible!

Point me to a link about the new EU constitution, I want to see what it says about the current nations heads of state. Would be bad, and ironic if her majesty, The Queen of England, who is head of state of all the commonwealth countries, was not actually head of state of England!

The Asylum problem needs to be solved at the source, somehow, there is no easy answer, it is natural for people and families (whether they have TB or not) to want the best for their children and a future for themselves. As long as they have no future where they are, they will keep coming.

I was also under the understanding that to join the EU any potential member country has to prove it has a rubust enough economy and has strong enough laws, and a good human right record etc, so surely with EU membership and the economic growth and investment that that will bring, most of those people in the new countries will want to stay where they are?

From personal experience to become an official resident in Germany, for another EU member you have to prove you have a job to go to or a profession at least, you also have to have somewhere to live and the landlord has to sign something to say you live there.

If you want to live in Germany and are from outside the EU, it depends exactly where you're from but with most counrties you have to prove you can speak German to a certain standard and from a few countries you even have to pass an aids test before you're allowed to move here.

I imagine you'd like to see similar stricter rules in the UK too Oli? I think with a single EU wide asylum policy that would be the case, it would also stop asylum seekers shopping for a country and force them to stay in the one they entered or go back.

Anyway, keep it clean and try not to offend!

Chris

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Anyway, keep it clean and try not to offend!

Moi?

Point me to a link about the new EU constitution

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...0/16/nque16.xml Thats one specifically about the Head of State

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2950276.stm And thats one about the Consitution as a whole. Interestingly, every member country has to agree to it so if only one vetoed it, it could be finished!

The Asylum problem needs to be solved at the source, somehow, there is no easy answer, it is natural for people and families (whether they have TB or not) to want the best for their children and a future for themselves. As long as they have no future where they are, they will keep coming.

They should stay in their own country and work to make it a better place for them and their children. I mean, if they keep flocking to our doors, their population would plummet.

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I agree with Oli the future is with the US not Europe.

I consider myself British, not European, i never have and never will consider myself European. Therefore i am totally against the Euro. But just to give you an idea of my political views, (not on immigration and the likes because this is not the place to discuss it), but my approach to lets say coinage, is if i had been alive when we went decimal i would have been totally against it, and i still am.

If i got in power (i hope for everyone else i don't) i would take us straight back to pre-decimal, ban metric (except in science...where it makes far more sense...don't ask there is a logical argument in there somewhere!) and i'd ressurrect the gold and silver standards.

But being a reactionary conservative, who has studied so much medieval history, probably too much, i am a bit too pro-monarchist and think that the monarch should have far more say, and should run the country (if it worked in 1499...then why change?)...put it this way the Queen could do a much better job of it than Butcher Blair...and if i had been around in the French Revolution (if i'd been French) i would have supported the absolute monarchy. Nothing like tradition.

Basically i'm one of these people that doesn't hate people from other countries but i think each and every country should be proud of what it stands for...us English are just far too laid back. It's about time we took a leaf out of the US's book and had more Union Jacks flying about the place, one in all the school classrooms for a start. And school children should be drilled on the National anthem...afterall none of us know the words! (Not many Frenchmen or Americans could say that).

Personally i also think the national anthem should be changed from 'God Save the Queen', to 'Rule Britannia'...Why? well i object to the God bit, not the Queen bit like most people object to.

I'm sure i mentionned in a previous thread that i didn't like Charles I, but i would still have supported him because i hated Cromwell somewhat more...the man that banned Christmas/gambling/doing anything on a sunday/not going to church/theatre/fun in general...

So that's where i stand...a bit radical but in a reactionary sort of way.

Sylvester...

You can tell i didn't vote for Mr Blair.

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If i got in power (i hope for everyone else i don't) i would take us straight back to pre-decimal, ban metric (except in science...where it makes far more sense...don't ask there is a logical argument in there somewhere!) and i'd ressurrect the gold and silver standards.

All sounds very romantic, and great it'd be nice, but it would make trade with all the other decimal countries much harder, if decimal measurements make sense in Science then why don't they make sense in money? It's so easy counting in 10's and 100's. Imagine if I had to sell a coin for 5s 6d to an American, for a start he'd probably be put off, but if he wanted it, it would be much more difficult to convert GBP into other world currencies. We have to move with the times and ok so predecimal was great, my whole domain name is named after it, but unfortunately we cannot go back now. I wish we could get proper pints of milk and buy our sugar by the pound. I certainly think that rendering imperial measurements 'illegal' was absolutely ridiculous!

I am against the Euro also, as I think I have said before...The UK has a strong ecomomy and the full control over it should stay in our hands.

Why is our future with the US?

I also consider myself British, but we can't just pretend our neighbours are not there, even though they are all overseas, and I agree and encourage trade with both America and Europe, but Europe is just 30 miles away. America shares a language (in the most part ;)) but is thousands of miles away. America is it's own economy, it doesn't need us. It's foreign policies, which are sometimes a little selfish demonstate that is doesn't need anyone. Which is of course absolutely true right now.

The labour party have recently removed most of the rights for the heridary peers in the house of lords, and the Queen has less rights than previous monarchs, that's a shame and ends a lot of traditions. I'm very fond of the Queen and think she does a great job as the Queen, certainly by bringing in so much money in the form of tourism, much more than she could spend. And of course representing GB abroad, as she does in a faultless way. But in this day and age it is only natural that the rights of the born privaledged are vanishing, it's the way society evolves (or should that be re-evolves), and democracy is the only way the public will be satisfied. Even though we all know most politicians happen to have gone to the right schools, have the right family and friends and get where they are because of the political scene and priveledged position most of them were born into! Just like a monarchy!

I'm with you on the fact that as British people we should be proud of our country, and that all people should be proud of their own countries. Yes lets teach the school children the national anthem, that'd be a good idea. Fly more union jacks, definately. In my little British made car in Germany I sometimes fly my British flag out the sun roof (when I'm quite sure there are no serious Neo Nazis around that might want to really hurt me!). In fact I have only ever owned British made cars. When I see a Toyota with a big Union Jack in the window, I think the driver must be completely missing the point!

Oli and Sylvester, you are young (I mean i'm only 25, but anyway) and whether your dates of birth in the information area are true or not, I can tell you are young. I was very much like that too not so long ago. The things you see around you get you down, that's clear, but I would be very suprised if over the next few years your opinions don't mature slightly, you'll think the same about some things, but you will realise a lot of things, and you will realise that your line on certain issues was not sometimes the right one.

Please don't think I'm patronising you, I'm on your side! Lets just carry on this discussion in a gentlemanly manner.

I think you'd also find that most Americans are a little patchy after the first verse of 'Star spangled banner'!

Basically, whoever is in power, whether it be the Queen or a Prime minister from any party, you cannot please all of the people all of the time, and the leader has to be answerable to someone. In the case of democracy it is the electorate (although often in a totally unfair way).

Anyway bed time for me now.

Chris

www.predecimal.com

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Oli and Sylvester, you are young (I mean i'm only 25, but anyway) and whether your dates of birth in the information area are true or not, I can tell you are young. I was very much like that too not so long ago. The things you see around you get you down, that's clear, but I would be very suprised if over the next few years your opinions don't mature slightly, you'll think the same about some things, but you will realise a lot of things, and you will realise that your line on certain issues was not sometimes the right one.

I didn't lie about my age...only 6 years behind you Chris.

I have changed many of my political ideas already since being at Uni, incredibly in the opposite direction to what most people expected.

Most people come out of Uni with left-wing ideas, except there seems to be more and more of us right-wingers filtering into that equation. I just seem to be heading further right, (to reactionary conservatism) but clearly not towards fascism...since fascists believe in equal rights for whatever ethnic group they happen to be in, but they ignore everyone else.

I on the other hand care little for equality, call me 'bourgeoisie' as the Marxists would say, but i like having possessions and lots of silver lying around, would i share it out freely like socialists suggest, even to fellow Britains? No i wouldn't, i have often been likened to Ebeneezer Scrooge and Monty Burns. I think i'm a bit of a capitalist, i just like collecting money, new/old/legal tender/things which haven't been legal tender for years...

It's always nice to have more of something than someone else, to know you have a better coin, or you did better in an exam, or the such. I think it's human nature to be that way, and there's not point in trying to change it.

That's why communism will never work, humans by nature are greedy and selfish to some degree, (the ones that deny it are plain lying). Just like some people are weak and tend to prefer following orders and know exactly who's in charge, and others are strong and will refuse to take orders. Alpha people and beta people, or so i heard it referred to.

With regards to the Labour Party, i think they are going totalitarian, Blair went to war despite the country opposing it.

Blair will refuse to hold a referendum because he knows he'll lose. Blair is going against the population here and he knows it. What i think we've got here is a classic case of a facade of 'Democracy' where the people are fooled into believing they've got rights when in actual fact the government is pretty much doing it's own thing, like a dictatorship.

The only thing that stops it becoming an overt one is the precarious power balance between the three parties. If the opposition crumbled so there was no opposition, except for the small parties like the Green Party, i don't think Blair would bother holding elections at all...afterall he won't step down for Gorden Brown; despite the fact they made an agreement prior to 1997 to that effect...

All constitutional democracies are a lie, the only real type of democracy is a radical democracy of Ancient Greece, but as i stated earlier human greed would quickly corrupt that...

So there is no good system. Might as well go to feudalism at least that way we're not kiddig ourselves any more.

I also don't think MPs should be paid (except for travel expenses and hotel expenses whilst in session), i think they should do it volunterily, that should weed out the ones that are in it to line their own pockets and stuff whatever the rest of the country thinks/feels. Afterall the monarchs never got paid for what they did, they were expected to live off of their own lands. The Parliaments were unpaid in the 16th century i believe also?

I am also totally opposed to Blair stripping the hereditary power from the Lords. I think the Lords should be totally hereditary to counterbalance the totally elected Commons, and things like Thatcher should be kicked out of both.

Now there is a woman i didn't like. She ruined the strong industry and thus money making export deals of the country...now we are reduced to buying stuff in, and consequently higher unemployment...bad move letting her in office at all, let alone on three separate occasions...

Sylvester.

I don't know about you Chris but i've stuck to some of my ideas for the past 10 or so years throughout, school, college and uni...and despite all the left wing influences on me, very few have sunk in...some might have, like total religious toleration (well almost...although i do seem to get angry at Christians a bit for what they did to all the other religions over the years), and total equality of males and females...but that's about it...

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I agree with Oli the future is with the US not Europe.

Yay

Why is our future with the US?

Have you looked at a map lately? Did you notice how the English Channel is getting wider and the Atlantic Ocean is shrinking? In fact, any objective surveyor would be sure to conclude that the distance from London to Paris is far greater than that between 10 Downing Street and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This revisionist geography is not just an Iraq war thing. It is a sober conclusion based on the changing realities of foreign affairs. During the Cold War, America, Britain and the rest of Western Europe had to present a solid phalanx to the Soviet Union. Sometimes American hawks got a bit to the Right of European doves, but the Atlantic alliance rested on its two pillars - North America and Western Europe.

After the fall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of communism in Russia, President Bill Clinton argued that economic and trade issues should come ahead of military/diplomatic concerns on the international agenda.

Issues such as curbing instability in the Balkans, preventing genocide in Africa, protecting human rights in China, cutting the flow of illegal drugs, and fighting international terrorism all had their place in the Clinton Administration, but they ranked below the need for economic stability, sound national currencies and a free flow of goods and services across international borders.

In the econo-centric world of Clinton foreign policy, the United Kingdom could only play as part of a pan-European team. In this way, London could only participate in a four-sided world of America, the European Union, Japan and China. Russia was negligible and the rest of the world mattered little. But September 11 shattered the assumptions that underlay Bill Clinton's world view. Suddenly, terrorism became the pre-eminent problem and the military-diplomatic-intelligence matrix we need to confront it our dominant need.

In this construct, the size of one's economy is no longer the admission card to the top levels of global leadership. Japan's large economy is of little use in addressing these new priorities and Russia's small one no impediment. Britain need no longer come as a diplomatic package with France and Germany. In the new era, willingness to act counts for more than any other factor in attaining global power. The war against terror does not require a massive economy to sustain years of expensive combat, but a relatively small and proficient military, combined with political will - among leaders and voters alike - to use it.

Here, Britain's heritage and tradition of global involvement and leadership have conditioned it to play a major and decisive role on the world stage. Always globalist in its thinking, Britain has learnt the lesson of its pre-Second World War days and has embraced the need for a strong hand in foreign affairs. Understanding the reason to use force against injustice in a way German post-war conditioning (for which we must be grateful) will not allow, Britain can and should step up to the permanent role in global leadership that its limited population and economy forced it to abandon in the 1950s. The era of "no commitments east of Suez" is long gone.

The political lesson of the war in Iraq is that the people of America and Britain have far more in common with one another than do the British people with the French or the Germans. Our common linguistic heritage, shared values, renunciation of appeasement as a policy option, commitment to do battle against injustice, and our essential optimism about the possibility of success make us partners in a way that continental Europeans, with their history of foreign occupation, can never hope to match.

The peoples on either side of the Atlantic share an affection, a warmth, and a feeling of responsibility that bind us tighter than any economic union ever can. Britain should no longer act like a European fish swimming in the Atlantic Ocean out of its native water. The ties that bind George W Bush and Tony Blair are more than just a determination to topple Saddam Hussein. They run to a shared concept of global duty.

Has the mandate of the United Nations run its course? Is the veto of the fearful, appeasing and economically selfish French delegation as hobbling as was that of the Soviet Union in the Cold War? Before there was a United Nations, there was an Anglo-American alliance and then a Big Three of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Will Vladimir Putin join with Mr Bush and Mr Blair to create a de facto world order determined to root out terrorism? The days when Vladimir is content to join Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder in toasting their shared impotence over vodka, champagne and beer are probably numbered. His instinct for power is too finely tuned and the opportunities to restore Moscow's big power status too tempting to consign him for long to the backwaters. But whether Russia participates or not, the political and diplomatic future of Britain lies with America, not with France and Germany.

The British are a can-do people, imbued with energy and positivism. Like Americans, they look to their future. Unlike the French, they are neither cranky nor neurotic. Unlike the Germans, they have been neither beaten nor humiliated. Britain can trade and share its currency with anyone its wants. It can subscribe to joint domestic policies with the continental bureaucrats if it so desires. (Although I suspect the door to Nafta is open to Britain if it ever gets tired of its current confrères.)

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Now let's here something in your own words Oli, rather than a passage from Dick Morris 'Campaign strategist' for Bill Clinton!

Chris

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Now let's here something in your own words Oli

Does it matter? It perfectly sums up the points in an elegant way

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It matters to me rather a lot, becuase those are the words of an American, and while you clearly share his views, you didn't make that point, he did, in May of this year.

Chris

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But it's the same point

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Anyone can adopt someone elses point of view, it's even possible to change whose point of view you adopt daily, even hourly. I wonder if Mr Morris really sums up exactly your views, or if Mr Morris is just the person you happen to believe today.

I'm afraid I don't believe that you could have answered the question like that yourself. With statistics you can prove anything, and to a degree with 'other peoples arguments' the same is true.

Chris

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Anyone can adopt someone elses point of view

Im not adopting it. I've had this point of view throughout; I'm sharing it

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Guest Eliza

Good heavens, what a discussion! And I thought I'd get totally FLAMED for denouncing the Euro.

I am an American, one with long ties to this nation, as you can define them: there's not a single war that took place in North America that my family wasn't involved in, from about 1635 to 1865. But as countries go, this is a very young one. There's no medieval history here, unless you make the argument that feudal France and Spain got here first. But as we all know, it was England that brought the fire that stayed lighted through 400 years. (Jamestown, Virginia, will celebrate its quadricentennial in a few years.)

Britain and the US share an unbroken bond, as close to me as the head of my church, the Queen (I'm an Episcopalian). From my point of view, I see that the future of the US lies with the UK! Hopefully NOT as an "aircraft carrier," as some wags have put it. Back in March, through the miracle of technology, I watched the debates in Parliament over involvement in Iraq. I thought to myself, thank goodness we descend from these roots!

I feel, occasionally, very sorry for Tony Blair. I didn't vote for GB and will do my honest, patriotic duty to find a more worthy successor. But both are professional politicians, figureheads who are pushed around by polls and money. Alas, that's what democracy has come to. But in a constitutional monarchy, you have one higher agency that can contribute cultural continuity when the fistfights break out. The Queen opens Parliament and says, "I'd like my government to do this or that." In the US, there's nothing like that.

We muddle through. We're way too susceptible to religious superstition. But we have such enduring ties to the Enlightenment and Reason that we have the raw faith that the best intentions won't always go astray.

I don't think the US has treated Germany and France fairly at all in the Iraq thing, and used Mr. Blair poorly. But blood is a LOT thicker than water and more liquid than money. My family are German (Hessian mercenaries), English (Bedford Puritans), French (Huguenots). Politicians may divide us, but a common heritage will win out.

The Euro still stinks, sorry. :)

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And I thought I'd get totally FLAMED for denouncing the Euro.

Who cares?!

there's not a single war that took place in North America that my family wasn't involved in, from about 1635 to 1865

That is impressive

a common heritage will win out.

Let's hope so - the Euro does stink and so does Europe

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Guest Eliza

However, the French Euro coins celebrating the centennial of the Tour de France are very pretty.

Maybe the EEC could force legislation through that would decree all Euros to henceforth be commemoratives only.

Given the collective history of Europe, there's enough battles and births and cities and nations and events to keep new designs popping up for CENTURIES!

Eliza

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Emeror Oli: the Euro does stink and so does Europe
....

In your opinion.

You cannot make a statement like that without being properly qualified to make it. You are free however, to voice your opinion, and in your opinion Europe has a strange smell and so does it's single currency!

There's not a single World War that my Grandad wasn't involved in, either as a 14-18 year old soldier or as a 39-45 year old soldier. Both of those wars were against Germany, my uncle William Henry Perkins (whose middle name I am proud to share) was on HMS Hood which was blown out of the water in 1941 in what was, and probably still is, the single most catastropic British Naval disaster, of which there were only 6 survivors (he was unfortunately not one of them). He was 19.

They were British and fighting for survival, over 60 years later here I am living in Germany, the country responsible for my own uncles death. In a smaller way, like all of us I too am fighting for survival (and i'm also very much British), I have bills to pay, responsibilities etc etc.

I often wonder how popular the British Euro sceptic (not the currency, the continent) attitude would be if those 2 wars hadn't happened and if there still wasn't unfounded historical distrust towards Europeans (particularly Germans) because of those events.

At the moment Britain is very much part of Europe, both economically and or course, geographically, and that really is (despite some silly rules that get on our bloody nerves!) the best way forward. If you are Europe sceptic, ask yourself why that really is? Alone no European country can become a super economy (in fact the US/China/Japan and even Russia make the Uk look like a Minow), but together the UK can be very much an active integral part as one of the 3 richest, most industrial nations in the union.

Trading with the US is important, of course, as is trading with China and Japan and the other major economies in the world, but they don't need us, they are already huge, and instead of being bolted on to an existing super economy as a little brother I would personally prefer for the UK to be an active part of the super economy and fast becoming world beater, Europe.

In your own words please, argue with that!

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