JAG

3 hours ago, Lungstib said:

Cost of a haircut; anything between 30b and 3000b depending on your salon.

Golly, where do you get a haircut for B30? I pay B40 for mine!

11 hours ago, bannork said:

But for sure Thaksin is not the answer if you believe in democracy.

The answer is whoever the Thai people vote for, in a free election; in which it is up to the parliament to decide who forms a government, not an appointed senate, the army, or anyone else.

"Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Belgian,  everything is organized by the Italians and your permanent dinner table companions are senior EU political figures..."

If I may paraphrase an old joke!

1 minute ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

I disagree here.

 

Thaksin knows he will never be PM again. He would have known the EC and junta would have objected and tried to block this nomination too. 

 

This move was to increase the unpopularity of Prayuth and the Junta and to make them un-electable.

 

It has worked.

 

It was a political master-stroke.

1

"This move was to increase the unpopularity of Prayuth and the Junta and to make them un-electable."

Yes absolutely to the first part of your conclusion. As for the second part, the electoral arithmetic will somehow, with the appropriate assistance from the EC and perhaps the courts, ultimately ensure that the Junta is "elected".

26 minutes ago, Eligius said:

Yes, Mike - I suspected all day yesterday that the plan was for her to instigate a new Constitution (which of course would have been passed), to allow for Thaksin's return and then his later premiership. EVERY person (Thai or Westerner) that I have said this to insists: "No Way! It would be IMPOSSIBLE for Thaksin to be Prime Minister again'. I do not believe that. Given that particular lady's clout - I think anything could have been achieved.

But it has been stopped.

 

I don't think that would have been the main point. Yes, a return to Thailand by Thaksin (and Yingluck) would have almost been inevitable, but I suspect not a return to active politics - although perhaps an "elder statesman" role/ status?

What this scheme did have the potential to do was to remove the current deadlock in Thai politics. Putting the boot in, as appears to have been done blows wide open the cover story that this "election" is a return to democracy. The immediate ramifications are more likely to be international, confirmation, were it needed, of the way Thai politics is going. Short and medium term, domestically, it screws down the lid on the pressure cooker a couple of turns. Long term, who knows? Messy I suspect!

23 minutes ago, SABloke said:

Difficult to run against an opponent who is protected from criticism

Even more difficult to, umh, remove them by a coup to restore happiness and so forth!

Well now, goodness gracious me, how extraordinary!

13 minutes ago, Toknarok said:

Maybe he'll write a song about it.

 

"Yesterday,

All my troubles seemed so far away,

Oh how I long for yesterday..."

Debt £1.6 billion. 

Market valuation £478 million. 

I think that is a financial situation, known in technical circles as "Donald Ducked"? 

2 hours ago, Grouse said:

Yes. All these false posts need to stop. We've been explaining this to Epsilons for three years and STILL they post falsehoods  or misleading statements. I will start reporting if it continues.

I must confess that your references to "Epsilons" had left me puzzled, although I was certain that it was some clever way of being rude to people that had the temerity to disagree with you. After all, such expressions are central to your posts, and I rather assumed that you have steadily moved through a catalogue of abuse because, from time to time, the TVF system has tired of each particular derogatory term, and stopped you from using it. As I said, I was sure that it was a term of abuse, and because you are so magnificently clever, (and as you regularly remind us have such a splendid education) you could not for long  bear the thought that people here could not appreciate your wit and intellect, so I consoled myself that you would sooner or later have to explain just how jolly clever and erudite you are.

Well, lo! The penny has dropped! The "Epsilons" are the uneducated, brutish peasant class in the society described by Aldous Huxley in his novel "Brave New World"! I really must congratulate you on your cleverness! I am sorry it took this simple soldier ( a mere helot after all) so long to get there.

So, for those of you, who like me, failed to get the smug little bastards reference to "Epsilons", he is suggesting that we are stupid, brutish, uneducated. inferior etc.

What a clever little gamebird he is...

I wonder if using such a word - given its provenance -as an all-embracing term of abuse, is contrary to the rules governing posting on this forum, and specifically to the rules about making consistent derogatory references to other posters. It would seem after all, that he is keen to start reporting others...

11 minutes ago, Mavideol said:

in this particular case what's the difference

As I said, the problem is intractable, so we leave.

1 hour ago, Samui Bodoh said:

Forgive me, I do know that these matters are extremely complex, but I think that they are also quite simple and straightforward. If the UK isn't happy with the current situation within the EU, fix it, don't run away.

If we simplify things to the extent you suggest, the problems which we have discussed are intractable. We leave.

We're not running away, we're leaving.

As for the people challenging the countries political class/establishment and their cosy consensus: perhaps that is what the 2016 referendum, and the current political mess, is about?

1 hour ago, Samui Bodoh said:

I imagine that the Brexiteers will condemn the man, but I think he his correct.

1 hour ago, welovesundaysatspace said:

But Brexiteers insist the biggest political and economical change in the UK’s history can be facilitated through closing your eyes and dreaming. 

The pathetic limpwristed and incompetent government with which the UK is currently saddled has from the very start approached the who;e matter with the intention of not actually leaving the EU. They have made no concrete proposals, rather they started the whole process by essentially agreeing to pay the EU an eye-watering sum of money. Once that was offered and accepted, they then turned their attention to arranging (not negotiating) an arrangement which effectively binds the UK to the EU permanently, with no representation or input. A vassal state, as it has been described. To nobody's surprise, it was rejected by parliament, they (the government) are the ones who have closed their eyes and are dreaming.

As for Tusk, and his coterie of unelected, essentially unaccountable "Presidents", Commissioners" and assorted functionaries, (who have managed to invest themselves with all the trappings and titles of a putative European Federal State), they too are party to it. They must have thought May and her government's intentions to be just the ticket. They "own" the mess to a similar extent. Tusk is perched triumphantly on top of this steaming crock of shit, proclaiming "about special places in hell" for those who don't want it. 

 The referendum, subsequent acts of parliament, and a general election, all determined that the UK would leave the EU. Parliament decided, absolutely constitutionally, that should happen in March 2019. This charged the government with making adequate arrangements, which parliament could pass into law. The government has failed (deliberately in my opinion), to make any sort of adequate arrangements. Tusk knew that - he must have done - just as he must have known that May's deal would not pass parliament.

Now, I believe that you are a Canadian, Samui Bodoh? Would you, in the context of the North American continent, (were your various trade agreements to have progressed in the way that the EU has), be happy to allow a second rate Mexican politician, for whom you cannot vote, either to put in or remove from office, pass those sort of comments, or head an organisation in which he could essentially tell Canada what it could or could not think or decide, no matter what your House of Commons or Senate decided or wished?

I'm sure you wouldn't, but that is what you are suggesting that the UK should be.