NickRW

No I certainly don't want to bet. The Scots are in more of a "sod the English" mood than usual. Personally I wish they'd taken their independence opportunity when they had it - things would have been simpler in the long run if nothing else.

It is arguable that, today, the UK fishing industry is small fry and that what happened in the past should not figure heavily in anyone's thinking. Some of us however remember the size of the industry that was and the wholesale damage that the 'Common Fisheries Policy' did (not to mention to the 'Common Agricultural Policy' and the 'butter mountains' as well). Some younger folks who don't remember that, but are of the more green persuasion may be happy to see less trawlers in 'British' waters for the effect that it would have on fish stocks. Some of the left persuasion may be happy to see a positive effect on jobs in British ports no matter that it may be small to begin with. Oh, and before that Sturgeon woman in Scotland thinks Scotland is going to vote yes - a lot of those jobs were Scottish jobs!

One should also note that the 2NT as natural (and not unusual) in 4th seat only applies when it is dealer who opened and therefore you are literally in 4th seat, not simply being in the protective seat having passed already. If you've passed and LHO opens and this is then passed back to you, obviously you can't have a natural 2NT, so you're back into being able to use the unusual NT.

The problem is that loyalty is assumed to have been given in the first place. For many of us loyalty was either never given or only given to the to the ideal of the Common Market, not the political clap trap that has been imposed by stealth.

I doubt it! One has go for the head of the snake

Well, who wouldn't want to be part of a successful club? The question is whether it really is successful or not. Sure, like most democracies, it bumbles through somehow, but...

OK. Now I get where you're coming from. Yes, I agree that the pledges that the UK government has made for immigration are completely undeliverable due to membership of the EU. It is up for grabs whether we will continue with this.

You call "facts" assertions that you claim you can back up and then don't, while interspersing you comments with language like xenophobe and jerk. Then you want to "LOL" someone who calls you out for it. Hmm...

It seems to me you mainly want to make this into a denigrate Farage fest, rather than a debate about anything.

Frankly I don't understand where you are coming from. If the UK immigration policy were anything like as restrictive as that which the U.S. operates, then calling Farage a xenophobe might have some basis in fact. But regardless of what one may or may not think about a particular politician, Wikipedia has this to say about US immigration policy: "On a per capita basis, the United States lets in fewer immigrants than half the countries in the OECD.[1]" Nick

Not being Nigel, I can hardly claim authority. However, it appears to be roughly 10/9/8/7/6/5 etc. for the bids Nigel thinks of. Not that he is necessarily wrong in the order the bids are placed, rather that 9 for the 2nd choice, 8 for the 3rd is usually way over generous. Anyway, 4H for me. Other things might work better, but they're quite a punt.

Well, when the US has the same density as England, its population will be pushing 4 billion. Good luck with getting as much traction with your ideas under those circumstances. As for xenophobia, my sentiments are as per Ken's above.

1. I didn't introduce the concept of discrimination on the basis of race. You put your statement in quotes as if I said that, which I did not. 2. With regard to competition for jobs, tell that to, for example, my son's partner who has a degree but stacks supermarket shelves for a living or one of my other sons who has multiple college qualifications in the building industry and who can't get a job in said industry even on the basis of free work to get experience while foreigners are doing the work he could be doing.

I agree 100% that some things about one's identity are not based on entirely rational criteria. These criteria never the less exist. One of the things about identifying as a member of a country, for example. is that you expect your national government to have and protect a territory, to reject "undesirable" persons coming into that territory and, if undesirables turn up at the border armed and hostile, to shoot them dead. These things are not necessarily rational. They may, however, be more desirable than not.

One of the aspects of being a country (or indeed any other grouping of persons) is that you have certain duties and rights as a member - which others do not have. It is inherently discriminatory to be a member of any club, organisation, religion or country.

I might agree with you, if it were a "small" amount of autonomy. It isn't.

Earlier I just said "Yuck". I apologise, that wasn't very constructive. If you hate nation states, fair enough. They haven't exactly been a pinnacle of virtue pretty much all over the world. However, I really don't see how the administration in Brussels is any better. Indeed I think it is worse. Nick

Wiki page here says: "The United Kingdom referendum of 1975 was a post-legislative referendum held on 5 June 1975 in the United Kingdom to gauge support for the country's continued membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), often known as the Common Market at the time, which it had entered in 1973 under the Conservative government of Edward Heath."

Yuck

Yeah well, that is only superficially true: 1. General elections are about a full range of issues. Voter "X" might be generally in favour of the policies of, say, the Lib Dems (who are the most EU friendly of the main parties) but never the less be antipathetic to the idea of the being in the EU. 2. The main parties are *all* generally in favour of being in the EU, so voters don't have a real choice on the issue (unless you're prepared to vote UKIP - which has a whole bunch of other pros and cons) 3. On more than one occasion the UK public has been promised a referendum on the subject of the EU, but these promises have all been broken. So basically you can take your assertion that we voted for this mess we find ourselves in and put it somewhere where the sun doesn't shine. (sorry to sound, indeed be, rude - but this is an emotive subject and your assertion is short sighted to say the least) Nick

Stop right there. "We" never joined the EU. What this country voted to join was called, at the time, the Common Market. As we understood it, it was a trading club, not a particularly political entity. The Common Market, at least in principle, was a good idea (if the practicalities left a lot to be desired!). The Common Market evolved in to the EEC and later the EU - which are ever more overt moves in the direction of becoming a full blow European State. Brits never voted for that. Nick

Well, if they feel the same as I (as an Englishman) feel about Scotland, I wouldn't be surprised if they're glad to see the back of us. Not that I hate the Scots - quite the reverse in fact - it is just they've never been happy campers in the Union - so go - just go and good luck,

Au contraire. I hate the EU. I freely admit that I have relatively little rational reason for it (or indeed little reason to like it either). I just hate it. Same with the Scots and their view of the rest of the UK. A lot of them simply don't want to be part of it. It is about a sense of identity.

I don't remember there being a great deal of emotion expressed - some in the media perhaps - but not much amongst ordinary people. We had a lease on Hong Kong - everybody knew it was coming to the end.

I neither know nor care what the laws and regulations say about this. Allowing the opps to get away with 2♥ undoubled just because they made an alertable bid which E/W then couldn't find out what it meant without asking because it somehow "created UI" would be an absurd atrocity.