El Pibe

I'm not sure. A bit weaseley if you ask me. Libertarians go bonkers over benefits for the unemployed and single mums. Neither of which mandate those situations but apparently encourage it. I'm fine with you encouraging one situation over another, but don't pretend it has anything to do with political instincts and admit they're moralistic ones.

I'm inclined to agree with you on many of those points. There is a very reactive and ill thought out element to current EU activity. It's also almost certainly too little too late, the data points to a series of defaults being imminent regardless of centralised fiscal strictures placed upon Eurozone memebers. You can't blame the Germans frankly, they've seen other members fritter away their money and are basically telling them they can no longer be trusted with Germany's cash. Fair dues. Cameron was right not to commit this country to those rules, but we weren't really expected to join up anyway, plus this was a about general strategy going forward, not signing on any dotted line. What Cameron has done though is commit the cardinal sin of using the diplomatic domesday device to absolutely no effect other than to piss of all our closest and most important allies and marginalise any influence we may have had. Especially as the rest will carry on regardless. As I read a commentator say somewhere 'for heaven's sake don't let him near the nuclear deterrent!!!' Even Thatcher was far too clever to do so, and when it looked like she was moving that way, a cannier Tory party than this lot binned her. All to play to the gallery of some hooray henries on the backbenches and a couple of favourable headlines in the Daily Mail. Not clever. And back briefly to the minor aside about food security and protectionism, I think I managed to get the point across that this is protecting supply, not protectionism per se, and its success is causing the EU headaches, so in terms of achieving its goals it's demonstrably effective if not neccessarily the 'right' way of going about things. edited twice for spelling and two unforgivable grocers' apostrophes

You're right acm, it is a form of protectionism but not the one you're thinking of. This isn't about protecting the market from competition like the Norweigan version, this is about guarateeing production by innoculating famers from the wilder fluctuations in the global market. Like the Norweigans we actually do all pay a little bit extra, but this time in order to guarantee we don't have shortages by stabilising prices. Norway hasn't done that as now they're paying a fortune for their butter! The reason is about food security, something Britain really needs to understand because we, simply put in words of two syllables or less, cannot feed ourselves. Gone are the days when we could sow the lands of empire with wheat, guaranteeing our bread whilst Indians and Irish starved by their millions, hell, we don't even get preferential treatment from the commonwealth anymore. So I'm curious as to your solution for this once the cancer of Europe is excised from Britain. You'd ether kill britons in the fools errand of 'independence' or you'd kill fuzzy-wuzzies by harking back to the glory days of empire and all those lovely plantations. Or maybe we can depend on cheap imports of wheat and rice from China, tha'd be sensible. Forgive me if I'll take your 'sick to the core' for the plight of africans at the hands of EU dumping with a pinch of salt. Britain practically invented doing well at the cost of the poor, we have a foreign office that likes to keep strongmen, usually educated here, in power, we sell weapons to these terrible people and push a globalisation agenda that kills far more people than a bit of cheap EU sugar* ever will. But yes, dumping is bad and should stop, however food security in an increasingly unstable and competitive world is of paramount importnace, now as much as in the post-war world. Thankfully our politicians understand (or are made to understand) this. I'd love to see Farage get into power only to be told the hard truths "sorry Nige old chap, we simply can't survive on our own, simple as that; another brandy?'. Anyway this seems to have moved on from the Euro, but probably because the Euro crisis is being exploited by eurosceptics with an anti EUrope agenda, much like here really. *It's also interesting that no african nation took the EU to task at the WTO, it was Brazil and Australia annoyed we were undercutting their prices!

well as we know paying higher prices for food is pretty devastating as we're finding out here where food bills in low-middle income households are seeing high percentages of disposable income eroded by these price rises, mostly from foodstuffs outside of the EU, ie beyond their control. And carter, the evidence seems to CAP standing for copy and paste, poor effort. But you're not wrong that there are things that need subsantial reform in the CAP, but the real lesson is that shielding a large internal market from the whims of the market can be incredibly successful in guaranteeing (in this case) food security and ensuring supplies across the market despite failures in localised parts of it. It's the old bundle of straws analogy innit, stronger together. Yes I got the point huguenot, maybe I should have said 'score one for multinational cooperation in a supranational legislative structure' rather than 'score one for europe', just to be clear ;)

Regardless of the long running ping-pong argument on this thread on this specific and largely irrelevant sidetrack regards norweigan butter I think the point is, that craze aside, the shortage has come about because of the vagaries of the climate, something the common agricultural policy, for all its problems, was designed to overcome and has done so with enourmous success. Score one for europe then (though it managed to do this happily when it was just a common or garden common market) Firstly CAP issues ahve nothing to do with the Euro, increased economic integration or, well anything currently being discussed, Secondly this is a problem of Norway's making though, rigidly maintaining protectionist tarrifs when a crop failure has meant there's nothing left to protect (this year anyway).

"they are not bastards" Wow, is this the 21st or 11th century? Jerejmy makes some good points, I guess ata pinch huguenot could be referring to marraige historically, where marriage was essentially formal contract of ownership of the woman by the man. Luckily society has moved on since then and I doubt anybody uses 'honour and obey' any more. I'm not convinced that the statistics are coincidence rather than correlation. These are however factors that need to be taken into account. Long lasting marriages pull the numbers up as they started in an era that relationships outside of marriage were still frowned upon by society. Also marriage can still exert an influence in keeping bad relationships together though less so than children despite every study showing that staying together 'for the sake of the kids' is actualy the worst case scenario. The fact that massive amounts of data lean towards marriage lasting longer than unmarried relationships should never ever be used to denigrate the quality of those unmarried relationships that millions of people enjoy. I think it's that outmoded and judgmental nature of the precepts that this debate is based upon that is guaranteed to raise hackles. As I said it's asking the wrong question. It's not should we encourage marriage as a solution to strengthening relationships, its how do we encourage stronger relationships? I think alot of the problems have to do with the atomisation of society with it's erosion of support networks, the disposable nature of everything and the unrealistic expectations that the media bombard everyone with. Other than some sort of educational efforts I'm not sure there's an awful lot that government can do. edited to remove superfluous asterisk and to agree with Jeremy that this really isn't the government's business. I'm not surprised at marmora man making an exception to his libertartian instincts. Libertarians/small gov't types aways do when it comes to law and order, the military and reinforcing conservative (with a small c) ideas of how people in this country should live their lives.

With divorce rates up reversing a long term decline, and this time taking a greater toll among those who have been married for five years or longer, it suggests that you are asking the wrong question. Tinkering taxes and nudging is irrelevant, what the coalition need to do is get the economy moving again.

Taper, donny you know it's cliched to be cynical about christmas?

pogues v bing, tough first round draw. but here's my preferences (which aren't too far off 6 music's, though don't know their choice of winner yet)

I don't know if anyone has been following this on radio 6. How would people's personal preferences pan out?

Phoneshop is great, can't warm to Him & Her though. Does Mongrels go without saying these days? Haven't laughed as hard for anything as that Scott Mills scene a couple of episodes ago.

Aaah, far from it. The producer and type is the most important thing. Shoulder is a bit fattier, but the combination of texture and flavour when you combine the soft succulent and sweet fat the dark, nutty meat is a true delight and just as important as the meat to a ham lover (my wife alway strips it off and I'm forced to eat it all, I dread to think of the state of my arteries). It is ually a bit cheaper so better value for money. There's no such thing as good value for money in the jam?n world, it'll always dent your wallet.

No, that's a very good way of doing it. snoot cocking depends entirely on the weight, i'd be paying around 30 euro a kilo for it in Madrid and plump for as much as my wallet can cope with, somewhere around 7-8 kilos.

Aaah, very true, my bad.

Good serrano costs a fortune I'm afraid, that's just the way it is. I'd avoid buying a whole one for a hundred quid, eek. Here's a place that does small chunks of good quality ham. http://hamlovers.co.uk/cat/100/0/Off-the-bone_hams

No, I meant I'd serve fish else I'm being speciesist!

Ain't serving fish or ain't serving them fish? It's an important subtlety. Having grown up suffering vegetarian xmas imposed on the meat eaters (I was seventeen before I was finally able to substitute nut roast for some good old fashioned goose), I'll happily prepare a veggie some alternative, but never let them dictate what everyone else can eat.

It was a bit of a slow starter but has really hit it's stride. Last night's was fantastic (the door steps was genius), toe-curling belly laughs aplenty.

True, true, Ok, given the anchovy and pancetta related difficulties I'd go with ----------------------------------------------------- Fry onions in butter and caramelise Add garlic and finely chopped mushrooms Add lots of balsamic vinegar Add a little tomato paste Add some rosemary Place in water with bison head and simmer for 9 hours Remove bison head Thicken with flour and reduce

simply ..... beautiful ..... http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/12/13/xbox_star_wars_bundle.png

I'm with D_C, Obama has only ben dissappointing if you thought he was ever going to do that much. Domestically he has indeed been hamstrung, and internationally he has spent most of his time quietly rebuilding bridges with his allies and quietly decimating al qaeda's leadership, whilst extricating his country from now deeply unpopular wars (and is savaged for it by his rivals, despite only honouring commitments made by the previous administration). All told, not bad. Given how polarised the States has become, and how removed from reality much of the discourse is it's anyone's guess whether will Obama will get a second term, but I think the sheer lunacy of many of the rivals, and the aforementioned extremity of the discourse, may get reasonable middle-ground voters with republican leanings to stick with the incumbent. We can but hope.

Is anybody else eyeing up the candidates, watching the debates, reading the policy pronouncements and as a result getting an almost misty-eyed nostalgia for Bush? Be afraid, be very afraid......

ooh, cross post

Cheat... http://images.mysupermarket.co.uk/ProductsDetailed/70/019270.jpg

>> but you cant get upset because someone wants to build two buildings next to each other that happen to be tall and exploding in a sort of pluming office furniture and burning jet fuel fashion No you're right, its a classic architectural design pattern ;)