Robert Smith

Good post Ed. I particularly like the Greek story: There was a man called Lucas Papademos, who as head of the bank of Greece, cooked the books so that Greece could join the Euro. Everyone knew that the Greek economy was no where near the criteria required. For his trouble he was appointed deputy head of the European Central Bank. As the years went by the French and German banks (partially at the behest of the French finance minister - Christine Lagarde) flooded the Greek economy with cheap credit to shore up its position within the Euro. When the inevitable and widely predicted crash came, the Greek premier Papadopolous was summoned to Berlin and told he had to impose sever austerity on the Greek people. (This was real austerity, not the mild rebalancing seen in the UK). He quite rightly said he had to put the matter before the electorate so the troika (ECB, EU Commision and IMF headed by the self same Christine Lagarde who had partially caused the greek collapse) removed him from office and replaced him without the inconvenience of elections, completely contrary to international law. And who did they replace him with? None other than Mr Lucas Papademos who caused the collapse in the first place. Isn't the EU nice?

Did you read what I wrote above Aaron? Post #24

Here's Johnny! My ears were burning. If you want to know why I couldn't make it to the Radio Shetland debate, I'd be delighted to explain in full: I'm a full time fisherman running my own boat with two employees. We have just had a hellish winter of continuous gales since last October. I fish in and around the Pentland Firth and the really good fishing grounds are only accessible during neap tides and reasonable weather (less than gale . We have been unable to get on these spots all winter. If I was to come to Shetland, I would have had to book my ticket at least a week in advance and while I may have been able to sneak up on the Tuesday and back first thing on Wednesday morning, I had no way of knowing if I had to be at sea on the Tuesday. I might have had gear snapped and fast on the bottom of the Pentland Firth that had to be retrieved, the weather may have been closing in on Wednesday and Thursday and I'd have to get my tens of thousands of pounds worth of gear out of the tide on Tuesday before the tide strengthened and I lost the lot. I might have got stuck in Shetland due to fog and missed possibly the only chance I had to retrieve my gear. The only way I could safely have got to Shetland was to not shoot my gear in the tide on Saturday the 25th. It isn't a case of sticking them out for a day or two and taking them in again before Tuesday. The buoy lines need 100 fathom extensions and my crew would have been delighted sorting all that out and then coiling them all up again for one day's fishing! (We let the gear soak for two days). They would also have been delighted about missing a fat wage packet and turd hot fishing because I was away waffling about politics. I'm also paying for my campaign entirely out of my own pocket. So please don't accuse me of not attending because I couldn't be arsed.