One 'Thought for the Day' contributor (on Radio 4's 'Today') said we have attacked or bombed or occupied 23 countries since the end of the 2nd World War. Caroline Lucas MP related part of the full list on 'Any Questions' and not one other panelist disagreed with her. If our friend and ally, Israel is included, it is even more than this, of course. Leonie and Emily, Yr 11 pupils at Lambeth Academy, seemed to think that the UK in its time, had NOT invaded only 22 out of nearly 200 countries in the world!! (Radio 4's 'BH' on 20 January 2013 in an amusing piece called 'Teenagers Fight Back')
After all that, not surprisingly, the White House would like us to stay in the EU to continue to represent the Anglo-American world view and to keep
The European Courts of Justice and of Human Rights, alone makes our membership of the European Union worthwhile. Officially leave the EU and we lose them both.
Europe has a transport system that is much better than ours. We would do well to learn how they do their superb railway system, instead of ours being like the poor American rail network. Chief Executive of Network Rail, Sir David Higgins said on 'Today' on the 8 January 2013, "We still have a Victorian rail network ... we have 500 Victorian signal boxes." The McNulty Report of 2010 stated that our rail costs are 40% higher than four European nations; a shocking statistic that came out in the same interview.
In Birmingham and the Black Country, we have 38 miles of unused and underused double track rail lines around our own New Street Station that is the UK's no 1 rail congestion bottleneck! Yet again, we model ourselves on America instead of Europe and get into such a state about being members of Europe. This is all complete madness yet, we have no insight into our insanity!
Let those four European countries run our rail network to bring it up to their standard of excellence. It does not mean being ruled by them but having the humility to be shown how to do things better by Europe and not by our good friends in America.
All this shows that we need more union with Europe, not less! Let us distance ourselves from America's bad examples and learn from our immediate neighbour, Europe.
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