I know the history of the EU, vaguely. But when I were a lad it was still the EEC, then the EC, then the EU, each step involving a certain handing over of power to the thing's management class. If you're talking about UK euroscepticism it helps to distinguish between the earlier stages and the later stages, because the British could accept the EEC, despite complaints (how dare they regulate the curvature of our cucumbers &c), but the political integration of the EU is pushing it, and the fact other countries get referenda and we don't is even more of an annoyance. Unfortunately this diverges from the vision of continental Europe, which doesn't see economic union and loss of sovereignty as different things but as stages in a (generally desirable) process. (Why, incidentally, do *you* think a united Europe is necessary?)
"I said that the current European management is vile." Indeed; I noted and I wrestled down my knee-jerk euroscepticism because of it. (And also because I haven't actually lived in England for a while, so going all Daily Mail on people would be silly.)
Regarding UK euro-hostility... I never thought of it much, or where it came from. A large chunk of it is being a powerful island nation, I guess. Regarding subservience to the USA, though, I note you're using a matter of political relationships (an isolated UK sucking up to the USA) to explain an attitude of a large chunk of the public (hostility to the EU). I'm not sure this holds. There's a lot of yankee-sceptic (or whatever the term is) attitudes floating round in the UK to go along with the euro-scepticism, and I don't think they're massively different in origin. When Tony Blair went along with the Iraq War, he faced a lot of domestic criticsm and portrayals as Bush's poodle, &c.
"And to go to one of the loveliest countries in the world only to make idiots of oneself is a waste of life. What on Earth will these people say when they are old - well, I got really drunk in my time?" There's a lot of people who just stay in their home town and get drunk; or go to university and get blindingly drunk there. At least the travelling boozers see the world while doing it, even if they do give the whole nation a bad rep at the same time. (...And it isn't just the English doing that. I remember a German from the border region with France complaining about French booze tourists trashing the place and running back over the border.)
"It is a fact that, in their campaign to set up the Euro, Andreotti and Vattane' deliberately used Margaret Thatcher as a scarecrow to get the other European government to line up behind their proposals." ...that's a highly interesting tidbit, and makes sense of a lot. Do you have any similar examples from after Thatcher's time?
no subject
"I said that the current European management is vile." Indeed; I noted and I wrestled down my knee-jerk euroscepticism because of it. (And also because I haven't actually lived in England for a while, so going all Daily Mail on people would be silly.)
Regarding UK euro-hostility... I never thought of it much, or where it came from. A large chunk of it is being a powerful island nation, I guess. Regarding subservience to the USA, though, I note you're using a matter of political relationships (an isolated UK sucking up to the USA) to explain an attitude of a large chunk of the public (hostility to the EU). I'm not sure this holds. There's a lot of yankee-sceptic (or whatever the term is) attitudes floating round in the UK to go along with the euro-scepticism, and I don't think they're massively different in origin. When Tony Blair went along with the Iraq War, he faced a lot of domestic criticsm and portrayals as Bush's poodle, &c.
"And to go to one of the loveliest countries in the world only to make idiots of oneself is a waste of life. What on Earth will these people say when they are old - well, I got really drunk in my time?" There's a lot of people who just stay in their home town and get drunk; or go to university and get blindingly drunk there. At least the travelling boozers see the world while doing it, even if they do give the whole nation a bad rep at the same time. (...And it isn't just the English doing that. I remember a German from the border region with France complaining about French booze tourists trashing the place and running back over the border.)
"It is a fact that, in their campaign to set up the Euro, Andreotti and Vattane' deliberately used Margaret Thatcher as a scarecrow to get the other European government to line up behind their proposals." ...that's a highly interesting tidbit, and makes sense of a lot. Do you have any similar examples from after Thatcher's time?