Is the UK is playing a part in Reforming the EU or are we highjacking it? (Professor Stephen Haseler makes good points)

There is so much about the EU that I find annoying. I don't like the idea of the UK being in it. However, when I stop and take a pause. I am forced to think logically. I'm not impressed with the way we get the unelected leaders via a committee inside a closed room. At the moment there is a democratic unaccountability for it all. Its creating all sorts of problems.

Then I find myself thinking of the consequences of the UK leaving. I don't think it would be disastrous but I do think long term we might come to regret it all. This EU is very flawed and does need to change. I don't think its just the British who are screaming this out. I do believe the EU can and will change in the long run.

Viviane Reding is interviewed at an Oxford University gathering. Some of the questions are tough and I think Viviane Reding did moderately well. However, the BIG and SCARY let down was when she spoke briefly on EU foreign policy. I thought Professor Stephen Haseler made a good point of past UK foreign policy being nothing more than agreement with American foreign policy. Viviane Reding was well supported by this remark, but then blew it all away by not knowing the name of a young Italian lady who is responsible for the EUs foreign policy.

As an EU citizen who was not given a chance to vote about the EU commission in charge of us all, I'm not too impressed that an unknown young Italian lady is responsible for the trading blocs foreign policy. Many EU members accuse the UK of not taking the commission seriously. I would argue we do and raise strong views on the organisation's many short comings.

The saving grace for this debate was Professor Stephen Haseler who did manage to point out good reasons and arguments for the evolving EU. I think we must UNDERSTAND that the EU is evolving. Also, there were occasions when Viviane Reding made some poignant points.

I thought UKIP raised good points but they are anti EU through and through. Is that the long term solution for the UK? We know the internal workings of the EU will and must change - ie evolving. The long term future is what we make it. Is the UK is playing a part in this or are we hijacking it? 

1960's Great Britain

I can't believe how everything has changed since this time. I was a kid born in 1961. I remember thinking everything was futuristic with colours and TV because my Mum and Dad, plus my Grand parents, would say how none of these things were about during their time. There was a feeling that everything was new and vibrant with things on the media.

They spoke of the past war and the bombings. My parents spoke of being evacuated with my mother not knowing who her mother and father (my grandparents) were until she was six years of age. She was born in November 1939 and only remembers her sister. Both lived in a Roman Catholic commune run by nuns and away from London. 

Their mother, (my grandmother) was injured during the bombings right at the end of the war. A doodlebug down Hobday Road, Poplar, East London. My grandmother was taken to the neurological part of a hospital when she was dug out of the debris barely alive. Her house had collapsed upon her, my uncle (who was a baby in her arms amid the debris.) and also an aunt who was a teenage girl at the time. Fortunately all three survived but all had to be hospitalised. 

My mother was not sent home to her mother until 1946. Their outlook was different. I think my mother enjoyed the 1960s because she was still a young woman in her 20s during this time. She liked the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers etc. I don't think she was too fond of the Rolling Stones, but is now days because of the nostalgia.

I loved being British and was so very proud of my country. I still am, but things change and must change. I can remember this all being new and the elders not liking it. Now we are the elders and do not like the changes of today. 

Why?

I'm not sure because there are so many wonderful things in this time. Like laptops, the Internet, mobile phones etc. I think when we put on the brakes - STOP - THINK!

Well... all of the retro above was fine, but it was of its time and there was always problems with trade unions, Northern Ireland and many other types of thing. It does make me think that we like to cling to the nostalgia, but also we must learn to let go now and then.

It is fun looking at the above clip and touching those moments for a while now and then.