Yes I’m well aware of what’s going on, but it’s not the first time Italy and Spain have had a spat with the EU’s northern states over debt.
Italy had a major sulk over it last time they didn’t get the bail out they wanted, but they didn’t walk out because ultimately it wouldn’t have been in their interests. (Personally I don’t think Italy would be any great loss to the EU but you can’t say that.) Maybe this time they will, but more likely the cracks will be papered over again, until next time.
It just amuses me the way the UK media seizes on these random spats between states whenever it sees a chance to cry The EU is Doomed. It’s as if they think that 27 different states, with different economies and different agenda, should be able to miraculously agree on everything all the time. In reality member states argue about everything all the time, but up to now they’ve stuck together. Just like families, there are rows between spouses and siblings, or teenagers and parents, but it doesn’t necessarily mean one of them is going to walk out and the family’s going to fall to pieces. But most of the EU “discussions” go unreported in the UK media because it’s not remotely interested in EU politics. Even now it’s not really interested in what the fairest solution would be and what different suggestions are being considered. What it’s most interested in, is the fact that there’s a good fight going on and the EU might break up.
Fiddling while Rome burns it seems…
Pot-Kettle come to mind here. Both Scotland and Wales want to break up the “union” still, I suppose it diverts attention away from more pressing issues like the UK economy going southwards at an incredible pace and massive layers of new government debt being ramped up
It has been very helpful to read all this and realise that other people are questioning things and asking questions. I have been watching the Uk from the newsfeed and just seeing the press causing havoc and a grim melting pot, it is good to know that people are looking at the situation from outside and seeing aspects that the press ‘forget’ or ‘get wrong’.
Did anyone see a post where someone said that they would be willing to die in order to see Boris Johnston restored and leading the country? Wow.
and as usual the bbc prefers to reflect on the unsurprising fact that a union of 27 countries frequently has differences of opinion on how best to solve crises, rather than on the more interesting fact that they keep managing to reach compromises and preserve the union
As far as I could see, the BBC, having run the breakdown in talks as a featured article for several days, chose only to briefly record the fact that a solution had been found within their live feed.
To be fair it is possible that a full article may yet appear.
Honestly, some Scottish Tory guy said he would be willing to die to save him, someone said it is like a Boris cult. It was on twitter.
I am very polite and say nothing about what might happen if Boris Johnston died. Because wishing people dead isn’t Christian or nice. But he’s out of intensive care so no hope of Brexit being stopped.
I dont think Brexit would be stopped even if BJ was not around. The cabinet is full of staunch Brexiteers and the final act would have been demanded as a tribute by all his syncophant followers as a tribute.
As a Christian by birth I am thinking that surely Boris should have gloriously returned on Monday rather than today.
By the end of this year I think the EU will have taken so many major decisions as 27 and done so much as 27, in response to the health crisis and other things, that readmitting the UK would be out of the question in any case.
Lol well I didn’t mean it like that exactly
But for instance the UK had no voice in the fraught discussions that have just concluded (if it had, the discussions may have gone in a different direction and reached a different outcome) and it isn’t part of the bailout package, just as it didn’t have a voice in and isn’t part of the many other initiatives and plans that the EU has set up since February. If this was a couple getting a divorce, we’d say that both sides have “moved on” and started “leading their own separate lives”. You can’t turn the clock back.
I don’t think the Almighty will accept that bit of bureaucratic pettifoggery as an excuse for cocking a snooty Gallic snook at the Crucifixion.
But, as has been written:
Jésus, connaissant leur (les phariseans) méchanceté, répondit: Pourquoi me tentez-vous, hypocrites?
Montrez-moi la monnaie avec laquelle on paie le tribut. Et ils lui présenterent un denier.
Il leur demanda: De qui sont cette effigie et cette inscription ?
De César, lui répondirent-ils. Alors il leur dit “Rendez donc à César ce qui est à César, et à Dieu ce qui est à Dieu”.
Étonnés de ce qu’ils entendaient, ils le quittèrent, et s’en allèrent.
NB I thought that was a bit Easterish, rather nice, and made an elegantly French point. I just love the Louis Segond Bible, don’t you, even if you’re not a Christian believer?
still, I suppose it diverts attention away from more pressing issues like the UK economy going southwards at an incredible pace and massive layers of new government debt being ramped up 
