EU referendum: What will happen to Britain if there's Brexit? Here are four possible outcomes, MSN and the Washington Post

 

When Britons go to the polls on June 23, they will have the opportunity to jettison their country's membership in the European Union -- an outcome popularly known as Brexit.

But the ballot won't say anything about what should replace E.U. membership. That will be up to negotiators -- representing Britain on one side and the governments of the 27 other E.U. member nations on the other -- who will spend the next two years hammering out the terms of divorce if Britain votes to leave.

Pro-Brexit campaigners have said that Britain will continue to swap goods and services with E.U. nations; those imports and exports now make up about half the country's trade volume. Brexit advocates also say that Britain will be free from stultifying Brussels bureaucracy once it leaves the E.U.

But how will that actually work? And what are the chances that Britain's post-Brexit reality will match the rhetoric of those advocating for "out"? Those arguing for "in" say Brexit would be a leap in the dark, with leading economists warning of dire consequences.

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China use's it's Fisherman to expand it's terrorital claims to the South China Sea

 

 TANMEN, China — In the disputed waters of the South China Sea, fishermen are the wild card.

China is using its vast fishing fleet as the advance guard to press its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, experts say. That is not only putting Beijing on a collision course with its Asian neighbors, but also introducing a degree of unpredictability that raises the risks of periodic crises.

In the past few weeks, tensions have flared with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam as Chinese fishermen, often backed up by coast guard vessels, have ventured far from their homeland and close to other nations’ coasts. They are just the latest conflicts in China’s long-running battle to expand its fishing grounds and simultaneously exert its maritime dominance.

Read more from the Washington Post

Scottish nationalists will hold us to ransom if Labour blocks English votes', William Hague warns, Daily Mail

 England risks being held to ransom by Scottish Nationalists unless Labour agrees to implement a system of ‘English votes for English laws’ at Westminster, William Hague said yesterday.

The Leader of the Commons said Ed Miliband was refusing to back a veto for English MPs over legislation that applies only to their constituents, to keep open the possibility of a Labour-SNP coalition.

The Conservatives said they planned to strip Scottish MPs of the power to impose tax changes, education and health reforms on England, given the Scottish Parliament will soon have control of all these issues.

The reform would make it impossible for an incoming Labour government to press ahead with its plan to raise the top rate of tax to 50p in England, for example, without winning the support of a majority of English MPs.

Mr Hague said it was a ‘simple matter of fairness’. But his blueprint prompted a furious response from Labour and the SNP – as well as some Right-wing Tories who want to go further and create an effective English Parliament.

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Comment:

Why should  Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh Members of Parliament have the right to vote on matters such as Education, Health etc  that only effects English hospitals and schools etc, etc when those matters in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies  for the electorate and the citizens of those parts of the United Kingdom ?.   I believe those matters only affecting England should only be voted on by English MP’s. This is known as the West Lothian Question.

Read more on the West Lothian Question

Labour's private hospital stitch-up: Shocking evidence of how the Left sabotaged NHS success story by Guy Adams & Sophie Borland, Daily Mail Story.

Shocking evidence of how Labour and union figures had the first privately run NHS hospital declared a failure has been uncovered by the Daily Mail.

There are growing calls for an inquiry into how Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire was rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission watchdog – only months after winning an award for patient care.

But the Mail has learned that:

·         Individuals who helped draw up the CQC’s damning report have close ties to the Labour Party and unions which oppose NHS privatisation.

·         The local NHS body, which suddenly slashed the hospital’s funding and imposed arbitrary fines, is heavily influenced by Labour activists.

·         The watchdog’s lead inspector, Dr Jonathan Fielden, was previously a senior member of the doctors’ trade union, the British Medical Association, and has warned of the dangers of privatisation.

·         A second inspector, Dr Nigel Sturrock, has been associated with the Keep Our NHS Public group.

·         And a doctor employed by the hospital who is suspected of briefing the CQC about its supposed failings happens to be the Labour candidate to be the area’s MP. Dr Nik Johnson is believed to have influenced the report’s severe criticism of children’s services in the A&E unit.

The inspection report by the CQC last week led to Circle, the firm running Hinchingbrooke, withdrawing its contract. The hospital has now been placed in special measures and could be closed down.

MPs whose constituents include hospital staff and patients are urging the Health Secretary to begin an inquiry into the inspection. They say the report’s findings are entirely at odds with an award last May naming it as the best performing NHS trust in the country.

David Campbell Bannerman, Tory MEP for the Eastern Region, said: ‘This is a Labour stitch-up. I wonder how many of the CQC’s other inspectors are quietly sympathetic to keeping the NHS public

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This gay-friendly makeover of the miners' strike is deeply patronising, Telegraph

This gay-friendly makeover of the miners' strike is deeply patronising

 Modern culture is obsessed with the idea of gays giving straights a moral makeover. Apparently gays are really politically switched-on and super-fashionable – not to mention dab hands at interior design! – and so they are encouraged to grab straights by the scruffs of their badly dressed necks and turn them into better people. You see this trope everywhere these days: in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; in the Aussie reality TV show that sent a busload of drag queens to “educate” the beer-swilling inhabitants of South Australia; in Glee, in which pretty much every storyline involves a monosyllabic jock having his prejudices corrected by a shy, erudite gay kid. The TV Tropes website describes this kind of character as the “Magical Queer”, who has “all of the wisdom in the world because he is gay” and who is often charged with “bringing culture to his heterosexual brothers and sisters”.

  

Well, now the “Magical Queer” is being sent back in time to give a moral makeover to historical figures. Consider the striking miners. These angry, blokeish fighters for jobs and pay of the Eighties are clearly seen as being a bit too macho for our soft, caring times, and so they are being made over in an attempt to make them more palatable and sympathetic to modern sensibilities. Who is making them over? Gays, of course! There have in recent years been two major mainstream movies about the miners’ strike, and it is surely not a coincidence that both of them have had strong gay themes. We’re witnessing the gaying of the miners’ strike. (There have actually been three mainstream movies about the miners’ strike – we’ll get to the third in a moment.)

I grew up in the 1980's and although I remember the miner' s strike, I don't remember any Gay activists having a great impact  on  the strike. 

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