Probably not a fair comparison HJ as Junker is hated Euro-wide and Nige only UK-wide.
The UK brought the 'Leave' vote on themselves after decades of not listening to its electorate - totally agree.
The reason why Junkers position in the EU is so precarious is because he is seen by people inside and outside the EU to have encouraged a Brexit vote....he was the embodiment of 'unreformable intransigence' and he didn't care who knew it. A boon to Nigel Farage and the Brexit cause in the same way that Corbin's very lukewarn endorsement was/is (which no-one beleived ) and has been pointed out by non other than Lord Peter Mandelson.
So this just backed up people's deep seated convictions, that giving up so much sovereignty by the politicians, without consulting the british population, had been wrong in the 1st place. People understand that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'...(famous phrase by whom?) and they were/are worried by the apparent inability to control the levels and quality of immigration in what is a small country in Europe. They also didn't buy (and I'm glad of that), the disaster scenario and scare mongering (cling onto nurse, for fear of something worse), that was put/is being put about. We are capable of forging new links and running our own show and a loud hurrah for that !
This is almost funny, the problem is always with 'them' , and Junker runs the show by him self, he is the bad guy. Having lived in Texas where many cannot stand UN, even if they have newer understood what UN is there fore, and what powers UN has. Boy, I wish I would have a nickle every time the banana rules are refered to.
This is just a general comment, not aimed at anybody in particular.
This debate has/is doing a lot for my broader education and quizzing potential....
Thought i'd look up my own quote (had a feeling that it might have been Karl Marx, which would have been a bizarre first for me),....
It's this guy...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men"..
Lord Acton (who was mainly German, interestingly, and a Catholic which obviously marginalised him in 19thC GB) also said another thing that people could do well to meditate on : "There is no more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success."
I have spent quite a lot of time teaching my pupils about him :-).
He not only started his Brexit process ('Crusade' has Islamophobic connotations in the politically-correct world), he took it all the way. Even if the consequences of Brexit cause me problems, I prefer to be honest and admit that he achieved what he set out to do.
For once a politician did what he said he would do, and 48% of those who voted - and not 48% of British people- are still not happy !
Brexit was beneficial to Iain Duncan-Smith apparently. His destruction of certain sectors of health-care are no longer being discussed. Let's blame that on Brexit too. After all, hatred justifies anything and everything once the wolf-pack mentality takes over.
I think Farage will return to the political scene once the cooler weather sets in. It would be a shame for anyone, including him, to stay indoors during such glorious summer-weather.
I think Brexit was a godsend for Cameron and his band. They'll be able to blame all the negative consequences of his incompetent government on said Brexit. He certainly didn't waste any time before slinking away out of the danger-zone. I don't think there's any risk of his purchasing-power reaching the point of famine. Remember HE chose to have the referendum.
Peter,
Junker was quite often the spokesperson and in his responses, not only did he not disguise the fact that he didn't like 'thorn in their sides' Farage (which you obviously could not blame him for), but that he couldn't give a monkeys what the British did/beleived and didn't care whether we left. In his eyes then Germany & France could then carry on running the cosy club without tiresome interference...
He was a great man :-)
For once Churchill got it right. Now he has his portrait on the new ÂŁ4.50-note
'We are with them, but not of them!' Even Sir Winston Churchill opposed membership of EU
So EU existed already during Churchills life, or are you putting words in his mouth?
Peter,
4th time of posting these links....they confirmed my initial leanings and convinced me. They will have done the same for others....
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=toby+young+facts+not+fear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUwk7rS2ppY
Here's another..I've just discovered ...(no apologies to JS, but he won't be bothered by this as he's on holiday,....)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leKEUT1TiLU
Prof Patrick Minford schools the idiots in Parliament about the EU and trade.....and 'vested interests'....
Here are a few other quotes I like....
"You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence."
-- Reverend William John Henry Boetcker (1873-1962)
"The...thing you can do to make your agency a more interesting place to work and consequently less bureaucratic is to enable those under you to feel they control their own areas of work. In this way they acquire a sense of ownership in what gets done and how they do it."
-- Kenneth Ashworth
"If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good."
-- Thomas J. Watson, Jr.
"Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
-- Calvin Coolidge
"Pride is the fuel of human accomplishment."
-- General Bill Creech
"Many people believe that decentralization means loss of control. That's simply not true. You can improve control if you look at control as the control of events and not people. Then, the more people you have controlling events -- the more people you have that care about controlling the events, the more people you have proactively working to create favorable events -- the more control you have within the organization, by definition."
-- General Bill Creech
Mr Scully,
Another quote I'm afraid, but on so pertinent....
"The man of systemâŚis apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it⌠He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it."
-- Adam Smith, The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II, pp. 233-4
Sorry to appear thick HJ but who are these people giving quotes ? I'm assuming they are Americans ? I've heard of Coolidge, he was a reasonably respected US politician but the others ? Aren't there any British quotes which may relate better to our way of thinking ?
Sorry, being a Brexiteer, with a global outlook, it didn't occur to me. After all it wasn't so long ago that these Americans were just a twinkle in a 2nd/3rd generation European settlers eye....
But since you have put in a request, I'll try to find some Brits/Europeans for you....
By gosh you should be sorry!!!!!
Maggi May is proposing to abolish the human rights act!
Well.....where will that leave the europeans and others who are living in uk?
And the retaliation which will follow?
Actually Peter B, it's worth looking them up.....
See this entry for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._H._Boetcke
An outspoken political conservative, Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots that emphasizes freedom and responsibility of the individual on himself. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln...........
There are several minor variants of the pamphlet in circulation, but the most commonly accepted version appears below:
- You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
- You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
- You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
- You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
- You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
- You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
- You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
- You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
- You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
- And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
Boetcker also spoke of the "Seven National Crimes":[4]
- I donât think.
- I donât know.
- I donât care.
- I am too busy.
- I leave well enough alone.
- I have no time to read and find out.
- I am not interested.
I am sure we'd all be in his good books as none of the above, I'm sure, applies to us....
So are these authors you read or did you get the quotations off a site? I'm asking because I often quote things and make my pupils learn quotations off by heart so they can impress examiners and also broaden their horizons a bit (so they tend to quote Lords Acton and Chesterfield, Shakespeare and Marlowe, Donne, Wordsworth (sonnet on Westminster bridge NOT the daffodils he lifted straight out of Dorothy's diary), Wilde, Saki, Ambrose Bierce etc etc etc these are some of the people I like to introduce them to ( non-exhaustive list which obv reflects my own tastes and what I happen to know off by heart ;-) ) I make them read the quotations in context though, I don't get them off sites.
I collect motivational quotes for myself (in my artistic endeavours) ...and this started from my days teaching art to secondary school pupils..I would use them as part of an introductory display of the Artist's work.
Usually those quotes were by artists and like you I encouraged the pupils to look them up and find out more about the artists. This works better than spoon feeding them, as you will be aware....
So I started scribbling them into my day to diary and now look for them on the internet, from time to time..a nice hobby that sometimes comes in useful....and is thought provoking for me & also educational...I didn't have the opportunity to do History beyond Yr 7 in school as we had to choose our 4 non core options from columns and too bad if there were clashes with what you wanted to study. History was up against the Art option (which was my favourite subject and something I was good at) and also Physics and Spanish I think...We could only sit 7 subjects in all at O level..This in turn rather limited our A level options. At my brothers schools they sat some O levels, one year early and were encouraged to do far more...my brother Paul took and passed 11 O levels.