The BBC has published an article listing 10 things it alleges the EU has done for me.
- Easy Travel — I still have to deal with customs officials and border controls. My driving license seems to be valid in the USA without the help of the EU. The rest sounds like regulation of private companies which sounds like it just makes travel more expensive. The benefits don’t require the EU, the Schengen Treaty suffices.
- Living Abroad — These benefits are indeed good, but don’t require the EU, just a simple treaty would do.
- Equal Pay & Non-Discrimination — No thanks, I’ll make my own agreements for trading my time for money, and I’ll hire who I like for my own reasons. No interfering third parties necessary.
- Foreign Study — Why does a university need thousands of politicians for it to be able to accept foreign students? Why should I want to subsidise someone else’s education, no matter where they’re from?
- Paid Leave — I’d rather not have a third party tell me how hard I can or can’t work.
- Cheap Flights — Deregulating airlines is good. More please. It seems to me that not regulating airlines is something the EU *isn’t* doing that benefits me. We’ll see how long it lasts, though, what with budget airlines being the new Satan.
- Cheap Phone Calls — Huh, the EU privatised telecoms? I’m skeptical. Wasn’t it Thatcher in the UK? And as for reducing the cost of roaming, that’s just regulation which will make telecoms more expensive.
- Consumer Protection — more regulations to make consumer goods more expensive. No thanks.
- Food Labelling — If people want their food labelled, market forces will suffice to get it labelled. No stupid regulations needed here.
- Clean Rivers and Clean Air — Maybe, maybe not. I’m pretty sure that, say, car manufacturers would have developed cleaner cars from consumer demand without regulatory interference.
So where’s the BBC’s list of 10 bad things about the EU? Or is my license fee just funding pro-EU propaganda? Commenters at 18 Doughty Street, where I found the link to the BBC article, can think of a few.
Sounds rather like the front page of yesterday’s Independent. Tim at Conservative Party Reptile has done a hatchet job on their list of 50, and provided links to several others who have done the same. Handy, because if someone hadn’t done it, I would have felt obliged to, and 50 excretions is a lot of bullshit to sweep up. Glad he and you are on the case.
Looks like there’s a concerted effort going on to sell the EU to the public. Softening us up before a deal on the Constitutional Treaty, that would embed the Franco-German “social market” model in European law? The great thing is, most Brits are sceptical enough to see through this sort of hard sell. I bet the impact is to increase antipathy, as people hate being preached and lied to.
Shock horror! BBC publishes MORE than one article!
Rob, do you actually LISTEN to the BBC? So, I presume when Humphries lays into the latest government minister to feel his wrath in the morning, that he’s guilty of right wing bias?
Or does lack of right wing bias (ie: Not Fox News) automatically mean left wing bias
(For the record, I read so-called “right of centre” papers such as Times and Telegraph.
And also for the record, I happen to believe the EU is one of the worst things to happen to the UK)
More than one article? What do you mean? Where is the article about ten problems with the EU?
I didn’t mention left or right. The article had a pro-EU bias.
No, I don’t listen to John Humphries. But simply criticising a government misister isn’t inherently left or right wing, it depends what he’s criticising them about.
By the way, left and right is a false dichotomy. There is at least one other axis.