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| Subject: Yes Indeed... | |
Author: Dave (UK) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 17:06:39 01/03/05 Mon In reply to: Jim (Canada) 's message, "New YouGov poll in Britain puts dominions as most favoured other countries" on 16:18:39 01/03/05 Mon These statistics stand to reason in my mind for obvious reasons. Three of my friends are either currently, or are about to embark on a world tour. I have noted that that Australia, Canada and New Zealand all feature on their itineraries, as well as India for one of them - all Commonwealth countries. Surprisingly, Europe has been bypassed in each of their year-long excursions, perhaps due to its relative proximity. This just goes to prove our point. Look at the number of Australians and New Zealanders in London and Edinburgh. As Ron pointed out, we may share much architectural heritage from Europe, but when the people of the commonwealth travel, we all know where our real home-from-home is. I believe that Australia is generally regarded as the number one dream destination by most Brits, where we can go and enjoy a beer with our southern hemisphere cousins whilst exchanging some friendly banter regarding rugby or cricket. This is often a more appealing prospect than attempting to discuss in a foreign language: classical architecture in a Roman Café, neo-baroque influences in a Prague Bier Halle, Gothic masterpieces in Bruges, or the Renaissance magnificence of Florence. It’s not that we don’t like these things, we do – I do. It is just a matter of cultural familiarity, and the main reason why we holiday in Europe, but emigrate to the Commonwealth. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> Subject: Encouraging, but. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (IOM) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 17:15:54 01/03/05 Mon One can only applaud the Common Sense of the British public in feeling that the other three british countries are the ones in which they feel most comfortable, but how much of this is about cultural and political ignorance? Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and also the only Middle Eastern country in which muslims can vote and sit in a democratic parliament, is rated the "least democratic" country in the world. The USA is denoted the country "least deserving of respect", in spite of the fact that more than half of the aid to Asia in the last week has come from the USA, and that this is far from an isolated instance of American generosity. They voted India as less safe and less democratic than China. I am inclined to think that the Great Unwashed - sorry, I mean the British public - are voting according to familiarity and media-inspired prejudices rather than intelligence. Nevertheless, if even such ghastly people as evidently responded to this poll are fans of CANZUK, then this is clealy good for us. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Perhaps... | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:16:40 01/03/05 Mon You're right; some of those poll results are absurd. However, if it were truly the great unwashed who influenced this poll, surely the Costa del Sol, Majorca and various Greek islands would come top of the list? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: generosity | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:39:08 01/03/05 Mon The flip side of this famed American generosity is the enormous subsidies that they pay to their farmers, which help to destroy the opportunities that producers in poor countries would otherwise have to participate in world trade. I'm not saying that the US is the only country that does this, but the US aid budget remains a very small drop compared to the damage done by their unjust trade practices. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Free Trade/Foreign Aid | |
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Author: David (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 09:11:54 01/04/05 Tue I agree. Promoting free trade policies are the best way of increasing economic development in the third world. One of the main impediments to growth in the third world is the EUs common agricultural policy and the subsidies paid to US farmers. Despite the fact Australia gives slightly less per capita than some European countries in foreign aid, developing countries generally do much better out of us because we do not subsidise agriculture a great deal (or at all) and tariffs on products from developing countries have been abolished here. We have heard a lot of rhetoric from Tony Blair recently about increasing foreign aid to developing countries to fight poverty. In my opinion rather than increasing foreign aid, the UK should simply withdraw from the common agricultural policy (or do both). This would have the effect of creating wealth in developing countries rather than just keeping them poor through handouts. Decreasing protectionism is hardly bad for domestic economies anyway - Australia's economic growth rate has increased significantly as tariffs have fallen over the past 20 years. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |