I think that’s spot on. That speech and the fact that he was so interested in politics at an age when others teenagers were doing teenagey things sets him apart as slightly abnormal.
Weird_Al_Einstein asked…
Hmmm. From people I know, there aren’t many who don’t have an opinion on this, although despite Hague’s attempts to play up the issue, it isn’t foremost in people’s minds this election.
I personally would prefer a mutually prosperous trading setup with the rest of Europe, which doesn’t in any way mean any further political or financial integration. The Euro is an artifice, which I suspect in the long term will do more harm than good. The big point which people miss is that 1 currency = 1 interest rate. Period. Heaven help you if you would like to set different rates in order to cool certain economies while fuelling others. I believe the Republic of Ireland is feeling the pinch somewhat at the moment with higher than desirable inflation, but cannot do anything about it. (I’ll try and find a cite). As the Union expands, this problem is only going to get worse.
Well, we have a written constitution… it’s just that it’s written down in lots of different places. (And I’m inclined to wonder whether collation and codification would actually improve things: you don’t have to look very far around here to find Americans engaged in seemingly endless hair-splitting on their supposedly nice, clear, written Constitution.)
On the subject of William Hague; yes, he’s going to go, but I don’t think it’s going to be bloodless. Hague is (relatively) young, pushy, and (as we’ve seen) doesn’t like to face up to being beaten - I think he will resist any moves to oust him. And I’m not convinced that Michael Portillo is all that much cleverer than Hague in the first place; he’s had a number of public embarassments which could well come back to bite him (just look at his attitude to disabled rights, for instance).
(And, speaking of public embarassments, what about Jeffrey Archer, eh?)
Yes, it would be good to have a formal constitution.
At present we have a massive amount of law that has built up over the centuries. (And I do mean centuries; Magna Carta was in 1215!). The new Constitution could express broad principles, such as freedom of the press, freedom of information and disestablish the Church of England. We could also get rid of the Monarchy.
Hague is certainly a good debater, and I think probably a pleasant chap in private life.
However I think there is a lot of hatred of his party, which inflicted a lot of extremist policies on the country, without ever having 50% of the vote*. Since Hague identifies strongly with Thatcher, who was the Prime Minister during that time, he is automatically unpopular with a lot of the electorate.
I personally don’t understand Hague’s knee-jerk reaction over the Pound (but his party, with an average age over 60, love it).
The Government say they will hold a referendum within 2 years, and will also apply 5 economic tests before joining. Seems sensible enough.
Hague says he will not join the Euro in the next 5 years and demands ‘Save the Pound’. This from the party that lost the UK about £15,000,000,000 (yes, really!) in ONE DAY by refusing to devalue.
Mangetout,
interesting that you have avoided the tabloid and pop chat show fascination with busty Jordan! (Of course, I claim I only know about such things to keep up with my pupils )
I can’t believe many Americans are interested in the minutiae of the British Constitution. But, if Mangetout or glee could help us link Jordan’s election campaign to the weather…
While the election is running we’ve had to suffer a temporary resurrection of Margaret Thatcher, so could any Americans give us the Straight Dope on how she appears to them? While Ronald Reagan was president we were brainwashed with the idea that she was universally popular over there, one of the few foreign politicians you could trust etc. I’ve never really believed that, and comparisons I’ve heard made with Anne Robinson tend to confirm my suspicions.
I meant Thatcher, but feel free to comment on Robinson too. Male dopers will find that either one of them works every bit as well as baseball stats (or the Arsenal offside trap) if you need to, er, slow yourselves down.
This from the party that lost the UK about £15,000,000,000 (yes, really!) in ONE DAY by refusing to devalue.
Mangetout**
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Was on the other side of that trade. If you think Soros made money, you shoulda seen the bonuses at ALL of the Swiss Banks. Bank of England was dumber than Nicky Leeson.
Vaguely related to this, when you say someone is pissed, we would say they are pissed off. To us, to be pissed is to be drunk. This can be slightly distracting when watching American TV shows like for example The West Wing:
“The President is pissed” Huh? But he’s supposed to be running the… Oh, pissed off.
As for cruelty at school you might find this interesting. And hey, at least kids here don’t go round shooting each other.
Someone asked about William Hague. he seems fairly normal to me actually although that stuff when he was a teenager was a bit weird. I think the press in general and especially the tabloids just like to latch on to negative aspects of high-ranking politicians. Recently this has included ridicule when he claimed he used to drink 14 pints of beer a day without falling over.
Ah yes, beer. I don’t drink beer that often, I tend to prefer bottled pre-mixed cocktail type things and so do most of my friends. But then we’re all fairly young and we probably just go for new stuff.
Is this what’s meant by “on the pull”? I saw this on the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway (during the party-guests-with-odd-quirks segment), and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the gentleman was trying to act out, though he was apparently doing it quite well, to judge by the audience’s reaction.
I thought this could use a little clarification for the non-British dopers. The system might be a bit different in England & Wales, but I can speak for the way it works in Scotland.
The people who graduate with honours degrees are those who have taken the “honours year,” which is an additional year tacked onto the normal degree course. People who do well in their first two years of university are offered a place on the honours program. If people opt to take the honours year, then their degree will fall into one of the honours classifications (1st class, upper 2nd class, etc) based on the grades they’ve earned in their final two years of university. If people don’t qualify or don’t opt to take the honours year, then their degree will just be a regular degree, i.e. no honours classification. This is not a fail or anything to be ashamed of, it just means that they didn’t want and/or need the skills that would be gained by taking the honours year. I should note that here in Scotland an MA can be an undergraduate degree, and that non-honours (i.e. regular) degrees here are 3 years long. Add the honour year and you’ve got a total of 4 years. (But these 4 years are very intensive in your major; there are no GUR’s here.)
The main advantage of going for honours, in addition to being more attractive to employers, is that an upper second class honours degree or better is generally required to get into postgraduate study. There is not a GRE equivalent here to get into postgrad school; instead your qualifications are evident by your undergraduate degree.
The long-overdue web shakeout happened here too (no, please, we need more useless ill-thought-out businesses on the web). I think there’s still a demand for specific infastructure skills, though - the less glamourous side of IT. Network admins, people skilled in implementing and administering SAP, PeopleSoft etc should do well.
IMHO William Hague seems to be taking the term ‘opposition’ way too seriously; he will seemingly oppose any statement made by Labour; yes I know this is what politics is about,but he seems to be doing it just for the sake of opposition, not because he’s got any better ideas. Someone (a Conservative supporter) described him to me as ‘soundbite man’ the other day.
I think that the pound and metrication are two of the weakest arguments against European integration; there are better ones, for example the farcical EU statutes regarding vegetable varieties (sounds trivial I know, but have a look), which are compromising genetic resources - see HDRA for more info.
Perhaps I should have described myself as ordinary instead of average; I hardly ever read newspapers, and when I do, it will never be a national daily tabloid, sounds snobby, I know, but they truly are worthless rags.
Yes, the term ‘going out on the pull’ means specifically looking to hitch up with someone, although intention to sexual activity isn’t specifically implied, it probably is the fact of the matter most of the time.
Another Brit (although i do prefer to call myself English) checking in. FTR, I’m 22, went to a private school (I know, I know), love the weather here and have never been to America.
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*Originally posted by Mangetout *
**
It’s also generally done in a group, or at least with one other person. A group of people go out on the pull together.
Fran
Will try to add my answers to more questions when i have more time.
Yep, but we don’t all have a copy stuck to the fridge, it’s been absorbed into other Acts, amended etc. any number of times.
I’m afraid that’s true, too, but I’m not taking the blame for any of those.
I’ll resist the temptation to say thinking Thatcher was cool makes you a very Weird_AL_Einstein indeed ;), but it just goes to show that politicians don’t always seem so bad if you’re not actually governed by them. Gorbachev always seemed more popular in the West than he did at home, and I’m sure there are US Presidents who had the same effect. Thanks for the feedback, though.
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