What has the EU done for us?

Discussion in 'Just Talk' started by Astramax, May 26, 2016.

  1. Astramax

    Astramax Super Member

    LED lamps (luminaires), standard size tomatoes, banning curved cucumbers, one variety of banana, personal protective equipment regulation (washing up gloves have to be proven to withstand detergent), Type 2 diabetics to be banned from driving (directive under review), Eggs can no longer be sold by the dozen instead have to be priced sold on weight, it is not illegal to eat horse meat but it's illegal to eat your pet horse, ruined the suck on vacuum cleaners....bring em on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  2. joinerjohn1

    joinerjohn1 Screwfix Select

    Well apart from the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine,,, , , ,, , Oh hang on ,, I thought you meant the Romans. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
     
    Brian_L and CGN like this.
  3. Phil the Paver

    Phil the Paver Screwfix Select

    Held us back.
     
  4. KBJ

    KBJ Active Member

    What has 'held us back' has nothing whatever to do with the EU, or its 'regulations about cucumbers'. What continues to hold us back, is our exaggerated sense of entitlement. Post industrial revolution, we had a power-house of industry. OK, a lot of it was built on the back of the wealth from our Empire, a bit of slave-trading, and flogging opium and tea, and it did rather exploit the people at the the bottom of the heap. This success, made us complacent. British was always best and it was expected that anything we produced would be the very best - except that it didn't last. Because we were always looking back at the glory days, rather than looking forward and innovating, as the people who built our industries used to, we got complacent and lazy. Instead of investing that wealth in innovation, industry was run by conservative and cautious management, often from the 'ruling classes' who would treat any form of original thought with automatic contempt and either crush it, or water it down. There were great innovations: the jet engine and the computer, to name just two, but these, instead of being capitalised upon by dynamic leaders, the ideas were given away without any real understanding of their importance. There were no visionaries at the top.

    There is still the automatic assumption that anything we do is automatically superior to what 'Johnny foreigner' can muster, and it is utter horse-waste. On our own, we will continue the decline into being a run-down little backwater of a country in which our biggest industries will be call centres and estate agencies. I have worked in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, the US and the Middle East. In all of those dealings, rarely have I met British exporters who bothered to learn the languages, study the business practices, or invest properly in these markets in the way that those from more dynamic economies do. The only people holding us back are us, and it is a criminal waste.
     
  5. btiw

    btiw Well-Known Member

    The EU has bought unity to people who drive white vans.

    Thanks to the EU, tradespeople of all colours, nationalities, age and sexual orientation (so long as they're white, English [I ain't British mate!], middle aged and male) sit on half-finished walls, singing kumbaya and agreeing that food labeling directives for nuts, legumes and seeds need urgent review.
     
  6. KBJ

    KBJ Active Member

  7. We expect permanent incomers to our country to learn our language and to integrate. Cool, I approve.

    Sadly the exact opposite of most British expats in Spain... :rolleyes:
     

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