I've cut this article from today's 'Daily Telegraph' because of its length

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Britain should quit EU, French sage says
By Colin Randall in Paris - (Filed: 17/08/2005)

France's most celebrated living intellectual - and probably its most constant Anglophile - called on Britain yesterday to leave the European Union.

Maurice Druon, an author, ex-culture minister and grandee of the Académie Française, said that Britain's aversion to full integration made it unsuited to the full membership...

He suggested instead that it should settle for the status of 'privileged partner', the much reduced level of affiliation that French opponents of Turkish EU membership believe should be offered to Ankara.

Mr Druon, 87, holder of an honorary knighthood for services to Anglo-French relations, said: "What Britain and Europe want of the EU is quite different. You want an open market, whereas the rest of us want Europe to evolve as a strong power, not just economically but diplomatically and strategically, too".

Mr Druon listed the aspects of Britishness he judged incompatible with EU membership: an "umbilical" link with America; demands for special budgetary treatment; support for Turkish accession in defiance of Europe's natural boundaries; and stubborn resistance to the euro.

Britain, he said, continued to focus its policies on "the open sea". This was a reference to Churchill's remark, often quoted out of context in France since it concerned wartime events before the Common Market was even thought of: "Each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea".

Mr Druon said: "...wouldn't it be to everyone's advantage, Britain's included, for them to leave the EU's political institutions and take the status of privileged partner? You cannot stay indefinitely both in and out".

He told The Daily Telegraph: "I am not suggesting that Britain should be chased out of the EU. It must be Britain that takes the first step towards a modified status".

Mr Druon said recent events had reinforced his admiration for the British. From the Queen to ordinary subject, the "calm, dignified, disciplined" response to the July bombings had reminded him of his impressions of London in the Blitz.

Leaving the EU would be great. It would allow the EU to break up the UK by admitting Scotland and Wales and letting Ireland annex northern Ireland, leaving England on its own and outside. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, would immediately be given the euro and metrication would be completed at once.

England would be economically isolated until the time is right for a military invasion, after which the country would be dissolved into smaller, more manageable pieces, brought into the euro, and fully metricated.

Yes, bring on the divorce.

re (Daniel Jackson): "Leaving the EU would be great. It would allow the EU to break up the UK by admitting Scotland and Wales and letting Ireland annex northern Ireland, leaving England on its own and outside. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would immediately be given the euro and metrication would be completed at once. England would be economically isolated until the time is right for a military invasion, after which the country would be dissolved into smaller, more manageable pieces, brought into the euro, and fully metricated. Yes, bring on the divorce"

REPLY: That's a most helpful insight into your thought patterns, Mr Jackson, especially from someone whose ancestors were probably at least 50% English. Given that the English above all peoples have travelled the world and that English is now the lingua franca of the planet - and that people are literally queueing up from all parts of the globe to get here (including the annual migrations from Scotland and Wales), I found your ideas of English isolation, shall we say, entertaining. I think a touch of jealousy might come into it somewhere. But then I am not a psychiatrist

..On a serious note, I quite like the idea of breaking up the UK. I think english people today really struggle for a sense of national identity - the welsh and Scots on the other hand have a very strong identity.

I think this lack of national identity is largely to blame for us becoming so over-emotional about things like imperial measures, and the pound.

Maybe if England was seperate from the UK it would help us rediscover our real identity.

I'm sure the Balkanization of the UK would work wonders; just look at what it has done for the Balkans. :)

Mr Druon said recent events had reinforced his admiration for the British. From the Queen to ordinary subject, the had reminded him of his impressions of London in the Blitz.


metre
Pity Mr. Charles de Mendez did not experience that "calm, dignified, disciplined" response to the July bombings.

Refer to the revelations concerning his wanton killing by police.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/17/nmenez17.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/17/ixnewstop.html

Britain should defenitely stay in the union if only to point out excesses some Europeans nut cases lose themselves in.

re (metre): "Refer to the revelations concerning his wanton killing by police..."

REPLY: Tragic, of course, but caused very substantially by the after-effects of suddenly discovering that we have Islamic mass-murderers in our midst

<<On a serious note, I quite like the idea of breaking up the UK>>

I think England should find an identity - like a parliament and a national anthem. But I don't believe that the union should be broken - we work best together.

P.S. Hands up anyone on the real pro-metric side who still thinks that Daniel is a helpful cause to the pro-metric side?

LOL!

Add you name below!

ROTFL!!

<<<But I don't believe that the union should be broken - we work best together.>>>

We would still work together - just as we work together with our other neighbours the Irish and the French.

Assuming the countries of the UK remained in the EU allowing free movement between them etc, I don't see what we would lose.

For starters you'll be writing off one of the most historic, leading edge , stable, admired countries in the World - the UK.

How far down would you eventually want to go? Have a country called "Wessex" for example?

re (Stimpy): "I think England should find an identity - like a national anthem..."

REPLY: Well, we have at least four:

God save the Queen
Land of hope and glory
Jerusalem
I vow to thee my country.

Scotlad had to wait until the 1980s and the Corrie Folk Duo before they came up with 'Flower of Scotland', which celebrates a victory over the English, er, 700 years ago!

The Scots prospered when they finally threw off the Stuarts and the Jacobites and their love of France and joined forces with the English and Welsh. We then had the Industrial Revolution and the Empire.


* Historical footnote: The last time the Royal Assent was used was in 1713 over the Scottish Militia Bill. Queen Anne rightly rejected it because she was worried about the suspect leanings of the Scots towards the French


QUIZ QUESTION: Name one other collection of four or more nations that has survived and prospered together as long the the union of England, Scotland, Wales and the loyalist Northern Ireland (answer next week)

Tony has it wrong about Scotland again (well there's a change!)

Unfortunately, "God Save the Queen" is still the official national anthem. I look forward to the day when it is replaced by something more suitable & in touch with the majority of Scots feelings.

Tony has obviously got his impression from reports of music played at sporting events. In the 1950's, when my parents started attending Murrayfield (the home of Scottish rugby), it was always a source of hilarity that around 50,000 people would stand in silence whilst around 200 Scots in the main stand tried to make it sound like the whole crowd were singing along to "GSTQ"

However, the SRU persisted. In the 1970's (when I started attending Scotland matches), they played both "GSTQ" & "Scotland the Brave". By this time however, it had become established tradition for practically the whole crowd to boo "our" so-called national anthem.

Unfortunately, "STB" is a crap music-hall tune. The crowd hated it. "Flower of Scotland" became the song of the terraces. The band would try to play "STB" whilst the crowd sang "FOS" There is film of the players singing along with the crowd rather than the band. People power, rather than the SRU establishment, forced the change to "FOS" in 1989.

Football took a year longer - they had also gone down the "GSTW/STB" route for years - but they did drop any playing of "GSTQ" before the SRU did.

Tony also suggests that "FOS" commemorates an ancient battle. Yes, it does. So does "GSTQ" - does he not know verse 6 and its references to the last major civil war within the UK?

"Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!"

(Can you see why the vast majority of Scots dislike the song?)

Anyway - the situation may change soon. In a recent (Nov 2004) Scotsman newspaper poll, (see http://heritage.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=271&id=1306812004 ), "GSTQ" got less than 10% of the votes!

Anyway - 2 final points.....

I never sing "GSTQ" - but I respect the opposition by not booing it when we play any foreign team that is unfortunate enough to have that dirge of a tune as an anthem.

I would vote for "Scots Wha Hae" (verses 3 & 4) for Scotland's anthem. 2nd choice would be "Highland Cathedral" with new words written.

By the way, the Corries were great folk musicians. As were the McCalmans.

Looking back at my posting, most of my facts about Scotland seem perfectly correct, but maybe I poked my stick into a hornet's nest in daring to say anything about Scotland.

I wasn't aware of what you say is verse 6 of 'God Save the Queen' - clearly inappropriate ever since the Act of Union, but all the same, I'd still love to see Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed and Abu 'Hook' Hamza, those fat West-hating Islamics who survive on British Incapacity and Disability Benefits, standing to attention singing: 'God Save our gracious Queen...'

P.S. One highlight of recent years: driving out to Dunnet Head one summer evening, with crystal clear visibilty, and seeing the entire northern Scottish coast and most of the Orkneys in the setting sun - whilst watching puffins flying in and out of the cliffs below.

It was on the same holiday that ARM's most northerly footpath sign amendment took place - at Inverkirkraig on the west coast, where a footpath sign to Kirkraig Falls now reads: ‘ 2¼ m ’ instead of ‘ 3.5 k ’.

Another highlight

At least we agree that Scotland can be beautiful (assuming it's not raining!)

Must admit that I don't know Inverkirkraig - where's the nearest town?

Btw - love the quiz! I'll try to come up with a suitable answer!

"REPLY: That's a most helpful insight into your thought patterns, Mr Jackson, especially from someone whose ancestors were probably at least 50% English."

I don't have one microlitre of either English, Irish or Scotch blood in me. My ancestors are Scandinavian on my ancestral father's side and various nationalities on my mother's and grandmother's side. The family name was originally something like Jakubsen but was anglicized around the time my great-grandfather became an American citizen sometime around the time before the first world war. No one bothered to do a family tree so the details are all based on hear-say passed down the generations.


"Given that the English above all peoples have travelled the world and that English is now the lingua franca of the planet - "

England was once a great empire, but so were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and many others throughout history. After their great empires fell they became a mere shadow of their former greatness. Not one ever amounted to anything since. English may have become the lingua franca, not because of British, but because of US influence. If a different language would have been chosen in the US, that language would have replaced English by now.

I find it very interesting and amusing that not only have the English and the Americans not been able to make the English measurements units the lingua franca they have found themselves having to metricate either all or part of their economy just to keep from being shut out. The Americans aren't metricating as fast because they don't export so it isn't as important. The UK, dependant more on exports must metricate in order to keep their economy afloat.

Speak English and Measure Metric!

<<
Speak English and Measure Metric!
>>


That very quote demonstrates why further metric conversion is not necessary. No one has advocated the entire world changing to English, so if you use this analogy then you can conclude that the entire world should not change to metric. Whereas most countries use English to the extent necessary for international relations, trade, business, etc., many countries, European countries included, are actively promoting the use of their own languages and fighting against gradual conversion to English that is seen in business circles. Therefore, from this analogy, you can see that metric is far more entrenched in the world than the English language.

Bud: I don't know why you bother to respond to him with a decent argument - no-one else does - he "did a euric" ages ago. His bizzare and oft-fantasist views are source of amusement - not topic of debate.

Tony: <<<REPLY: Well, we have at least four:

God save the Queen
Land of hope and glory
Jerusalem
I vow to thee my country.>>>

GSTQ is the anthem to the whole of the UK.
I often give my English chums a ribbing when Englan d play Wales - I say "Well that's the Welsh and British anthems out of the way, when are you going to here yours?"

Personally I think you should have Jerusalem - we used it at our wedding to represent an English Anthem (Bread of heaven was for Wales and I vow to thee for Britain).

Berenger:
<<Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!>>>

Stop playing devils advocate! - you know that this is a myth.
It was never and has never been part of the OFFICIAL anthem of the UK.
There's a story behind it but that's it - just a comical bit of history.

I recognise you are a nationalist (scottish) and as such your views will be biased. On my only visit to brillian Edinburgh the closest I saw to "nationalism" was gentle ribbing of the English - I saw no English bashing and indeed I saw no eu-servility. In fact when I went to the Scotland Wales match there I saw a large crowd gather and wait (and wait and wait) just to get a glimpse of Princess Anne in her car!

There are many stories about republicans in Scotland AND in Wales - sometimes I just wish the minority didn't have such loud voices.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN AC CYMRU AM BYTH!

(So there!)

OK Tony - your question

Obviously, it depends upon which date you are suggesting as the startpoint of "the union of England, Scotland, Wales and the loyalist Northern Ireland"

As Northern Ireland was only established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, we could use that date. We could also use 1922 (Partition of Ireland) or 1927, when the UK adopted the official title of "The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland"

So an answer....

The Unification of Italy 1859-1870

The settlements reached in 1815 at the Vienna Congress had restored Austrian domination over the Italian peninsula but had left Italy completely fragmented . The Congress had divided the territory among a number of European nations and the victors of the Napoleonic Wars

1859 War between Austria and Sardinia Piedmont; Austria defeated by Piemontese and French; Sardinia gains Lombardy.

1860 Tuscany and Emilia declare for union with Sardinia-Piedmonte; Revolution in Sicily, Garibaldi lands and is victorious; invades Italy and gains victory; enters Naples Piemontese army under Victor Emmanuel take over from Garibaldi; Marche and Umbria vote for annexation to Piedmonte.

1861 Sicily and Naples vote to join Kingdom of Italy; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed.

1866 Italy joins Prussia in War against Austria; gains Venetia;

1870 Italian troops occupy Rome when French abandon city;

1871 (July) Rome made Capital of Kingdom



Of course, Tony is likely to argue that Northern Ireland has been part of the UK since 1801. True, but how about




The Unification of Spain

Spain was unified in 1492, when Fernando and Isabel captured Granada, the last Moorish city in Spain.

Spain is considered by some, including around 10% of the Spanish population according to the latest surveys, to be a group of nations unified under a single State, much like Belgium, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.

Castilians generally consider themselves to be Spanish first, with regional identity being of lesser importance.

The opposite is the case of some Galicians, Catalans and Basques, who quite frequently identify primarily with Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country first, with Spain only second, or even third, after Europe.

"Whereas most countries use English to the extent necessary for international relations, trade, business, etc., many countries,"


There are a lot more people in the world already using metric then those who speak English. Metric has conquered the world.

Steve said

"Stop playing devils advocate! - you know that this is a myth.
It was never and has never been part of the OFFICIAL anthem of the UK."

I wasn't referring to the official anthem of the UK. I was referring to the song entitled "GSTQ"

Official anthem is verse 1. Verse 3 is occasionally sung.

Are you denying that verse 6 exists? It is still part of the song (as opposed to the official anthem) whether sung or not.

In the same way, verse 2 of "FOS" is rarely sung when the song is used as Scotland's unofficial sporting anthem - it's practically always verses 1 & 3

This often causes confusion at Murrayfield and Hampden when the song is sung spontaneously by the crowd. At the end of verse 1, most go into verse 2, but some skip to the start of verse 3. It usually sorts itself out.

And what about the Lichtenstein anthem - is that an awful tune or what! ;-)

Btw Steve - republicanism doesn't equal nationalism. Plenty supporters of an independent Scotland would wish to retain Lizzie as head of state.

I seem to recall that you mentioned that you enjoyed a meal after the match with some Scotland fans? I would be willing to bet that at least 80% of them were SNP voters!





And the other one was too young to vote! :-)

<<And what about the Lichtenstein anthem - is that an awful tune or what! ;-)>>

Very cheeky! And don't forget one of Norway's two anthems.

Yes I realise that the Scot-bashing line was written but it was never part of any official anthem. Yes it did exist in the the same way as "are you waaatching, are you waaatching, are you watching eng-ger-land (eng-ger-laaaaaaaand)" was sung instead of "bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me now and evermore (evermooooooore)" When Wales beat Italy at football not so long ago.

<<Btw Steve - republicanism doesn't equal nationalism. Plenty supporters of an independent Scotland would wish to retain Lizzie as head of state.>>

I recognise this - indeed its an area some people can get confused with!

<<I seem to recall that you mentioned that you enjoyed a meal after the match with some Scotland fans? I would be willing to bet that at least 80% of them were SNP voters!>>

Someone has to vote for them to save their deposits!


;-)

<<
There are a lot more people in the world already using metric then those who speak English.
>>

There, Daniel, you said it yourself. So if you go by your logic that the world should measure in metric just like they speak English, you are saying that metric is already overused.

Are you upset that metric has taken over the globe? I can understand countries that never used imperial or metric having to make the choice between the two and choosing metric, but why did established imperial users see fit to abandon imperial for metric?

The more the third world develops and the more input they have in technology and decisions, the faster imperial will die out completely. Technological growth in the third world is imperial's greatest threat.

Daniel, all I was doing was analysing your analogy between metric and the English language. But thanks for your completely off-topic answer.