When considering in or out:

[Roger928]

Your comment is self-contradictory.
A cabal is secret, by its definition. Because you are aware of it, it cannot be secret. Unless you are in the cabal.
We are onto conspiracies again:
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/cabal

A cabal is whatever YOU choose it to be.
Cabal, cartel, secret organisation, bankrupt entity...Whatever.
Unlike you I want no part of it.

 

[IWalkLikeHimaMartian]

A cabal is whatever YOU choose it to be.
Cabal, cartel, secret organisation, bankrupt entity...Whatever.

Sure, we can all put whatever definition on whatever words we choose to use. Then we can all speak nonseneeze. I see you have already started! So I will invent a word that I like:

nonseneeze = balderdash, gibberish, mumbo jumbo.

 

[Bosswhite]

Brexiters = Did you remember to put your clocks forward to 1973 ??

 

[durhamplumber]

yeha.....cant wait for the hardest of hard brexits....me being one of those uneducated council house dwelling xenophobes with a waist bigger than my IQ.

 

[Ihavenojob]

How many on here were around in 1973? It was fantastic in the early 70's, then it went wrong.

 

[DaveHerns]

That's how it seems to me. Things were good up to about 1976 or maybe just seemed that way as I had no responsibilities.

 

[Ihavenojob]

After punk had been & gone was when it went downhill

 

[Bosswhite]

How many on here were around in 1973? It was fantastic in the early 70's, then it went wrong.

We joined the EU and things got better !

Remember those holidays in Spain without needing a visa, No living in Spain or France on retirement
There was no Channel Tunnel , We were totally independent, No EU Subsidies to ease the burdens,
Things can only get better !!!

 

[EFLImpudence]

Tis an age thing - before responsibility.

The seventies were actually really crap.
Got married, oil crisis (quadrupling price), Edward Heath, Miners strike, three day week (although that wasn't bad), crap management leading to multiple strikes, runaway inflation (good if you owned a house), pay control eventually leading to Winter of discontent and then at the end of it all - THATCHER.

Now, the sixties were good.

 

[Gerrydelasel]

“Looking back now, I really do think Britain had attained something approaching perfection just around (1973). It was known as the Sick Man of Europe. It was in every way poorer than now. Yet there were flowerbeds on roundabouts, libraries and post offices in every village, cottage hospitals in abundance, council housing for all who needed it. It was a country so comfortable and enlightened that hospitals maintained cricket pitches for their staff and mental patients lived in Victorian palaces. If we could afford it then, why not now? Someone needs to explain to me how it is that the richer Britain gets the poorer it thinks itself.”

 

[JohnD]

I can see now why the pro-Europeans say "demographics are on our side."

A couple of hard winters will swing the balance.

 

[blightymam]

Brexiters = Did you remember to put your clocks forward to 1973 ??

You've been waiting months to say that haven't you?!

After punk had been & gone was when it went downhill

We could say it was because it was so cr*p in the UK that punk happened? Thank god it did anyway!

 

[Judy in the sky]

I really do think Britain had attained something approaching perfection just around (1973). It was known as the Sick Man of Europe.

Ahh, that goes a long way to explaining why, since 1973 (when the UK joined the EEC) it has always been a net contributor. If we were indeed the "sick man of Europe" , then what the hell were we doing , joining the club to be a net contributor? (obviously not that sick then? ) Surely then the countries which were not net contributors were in effect "sicker" than the UK ?

 

[Doggit]

Someone needs to explain to me how it is that the richer Britain gets the poorer it thinks itself.”

Because UK Plc is run by politicians, not businessmen; if we were a company, we'd have been put into liquidation by our creditors by now. Unfortunately, politicians, and chancelors of the excehquer go for crowd pleasing policies, or the least desplorable taxes that they can get away with. Blair took us to war, with Iraq, and with Afganistan as well, that costs us £20.3Bn as at June 2010. Brown overdid the PFI agreements for hospitals so that the costs wouldn't appear in the budget figures, and every time a chancellor raises the NI rates, that takes out money needed for the NHS, schools, and every other public body, so they then need to give them more in the next budget. Brown quietly encouraged people on benefits to apply for disability payments to bring down the out of work figures, and then offered those on low wages the working families tax credits, so that encouraged firms to give more part time jobs rather than a living wage. And Blair encouraged immigrants because the benefits class didn't want to do the low paid jobs, and Brown then encouraged more because the number of old people is increasing per 1000 actually in work, so current thinking by every chancellor seems to be "we need more immigrants to support a growing elderly population". Except that the immigrants are reckoned to cost the economy £30bn in tax credits, housing benefit, and child benefits, and that doesn't take in to account the necessary increase in housing and infrasturucture, plus the people to then staff them

Brown felt that at least 50% of youngsters should go to university, but the education budget couldn't support thay many, so they had to introduce fees, and Cleg lied through his teeth, and allowed them to rise to £9K, and it's likley that they'll hit £14K in the years to come.

But at the end of the day, it's likely to be Thatcher that really set the rot in, because she decided that we didn't need manufacturing, because we had the city, so the not so bright kids had nowhere to go, other than the dole.

Britain only appears to be richer, but the available money is being spread in the wrong direction, that's why we feel we are poorer, because we are.

 

[Doggit]

Surely then the countries which were not net contributors were in effect "sicker" than the UK ?

You always have to pay to join a club, but the EU wastes so much money (the EU parliment moving between two cities every year), that we are a "net contributer" way over what we need to be. A lot of countries joined so that they would get handouts from the EU, but they weren't necessarily sicker, just had a poorer standard of living than we did. We were the sick man of Europe because we had 3 day week, unions in control of the country and poor productivity, but we were Brits, and we coped and got on with it.