Spirituality In Politics

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    • Introductory
      • 1. Metaphysics in a Spiritual Society
      • 2. The Spirit of Guidance
      • 3. Divination
      • 4. Raynor C. Johnson: The Imprisoned Splendour
    • Articles 2: Headline Policies for a Spiritual Society
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        • The Importance of Fairy Tales
        • The Importance of Fairy Tales, Part 2 – Fairy Tales and Feminists
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        • Fairy Tales and Feminism — the Story of Psyche, Interpretation
        • Save Our Fairy Tales — Concluding Remarks
    • ARTICLES 3: MORE DETAILED IDEAS
      • Politics from a Taoist Perspective – Arguing for the Centre
      • Politics from the Centre — Is that the only way forward?
      • Changing the World – Spirituality or Socialism?
      • The Superorganism – a Challenge to Materialist Science
      • Is the Earth a Superorganism?
      • Humanity as Part of the Superorganism
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      • The Role of the Citizen in a Spiritual Society
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    • The Superorganism Question and the European Union
    • A Vision for a Spiritual United Kingdom Outside the European Union
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      • Is the Self an Illusion – Series Introduction
        • Is the Self an Illusion? – Neuroscience, Gurdjieff and Buddhism
        • Is the Self an Illusion? – The Opposing Viewpoint
        • Is the Self an Illusion? — Yes and No
        • Is the Self an Illusion? — Summary and Conclusions
      • The Hidden, Deeper Self - Introduction
        • The Hidden, Deeper Self - Freudian Slips
        • The Hidden, Deeper Self - Dreams
        • The Hidden, Deeper Self – Synchronicity
        • The Hidden, Deeper Self - Automatic Writing
        • The Hidden, Deeper Self – Divination
    • Why Christianity Must Change or Die – Introduction
      • Christianity Must Change or Die — Gnosticism and Carl Jung
      • Significant Moments in Church History – Introduction
        • Number 1, The Council of Nicaea, 325AD
        • Number 2 – The Anathema Against Origen, 553 A.D.
          • Reincarnation and Christianity
    • Was Jesus Divine? – Introduction
      • Was Jesus Divine, the Son of God? – 1. The Adoptionist Problem
      • 2. The Jewish Messiah
      • 3. The Eschatological Prophet
      • 4. Shakespeare’s Heretical Play
      • 5. The Resurrection of Jesus – part 1
      • Was Jesus Divine, the Son of God? - Summary and Conclusions so far
      • 6. Was Jesus Married?
      • 7. Was Jesus Married? — part 2
      • 8. Was Jesus Married? — part 3
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A Further Reason to Leave the European Union – the 2014 Bill

6th April 2018

    Many people, including me, in Britain were somewhat surprised when it was announced in the media on October 17th 2014 that we had been presented with an apparently sudden and unanticipated bill for £1.7 billion from the European Commission, with the request that it be paid by December 1st.
    What was the reason for this bill? Apparently there was an agreement that economies which perform better should make extra contributions to the EU budget. It had been calculated that the British economy had been performing better than expected over the previous four years.
    Prime Minister David Cameron, presumably in an attempt to impress the electorate, responded: “It has never been the case that a €2 billion bill has suddenly been presented like this. It’s an appalling way to behave. I’m not paying that bill. It’s not going to happen”. Commission President José Manuel Barroso, however, said that the demand should “not have come as a surprise” to the UK, as it was made under a system agreed by all the member states and based on data provided by them”.
    Yet very few people knew about this agreement, which explained the surprise which the announcement caused. I follow politics and the media reasonably carefully, and I had never heard of it. This suggests that our politicians deliberately keep quiet arrangements they enter into, on the assumption that the electorate would find them unacceptable. And they would be right. This agreement is outrageous. What is the incentive for a nation to work hard and have a strong economy if the end result is that we have to give away the fruits of our success to other countries who don’t, and in future obviously won’t, feel the need to work so hard. It was somewhat ironic that the same calculation gave refunds to Germany and France, the two most prominent and most wealthy members of the EU, to the tune of €780m and €1.16bn.
    What was the outcome of all this? You may be wondering, if you don’t already know, what happened, David Cameron having said that he was definitely not going to pay the bill. It was reported in the Daily Mail the following September that Britain had quietly paid the £1.7billion European Union surcharge in two instalments on July 1st and September 1st in full, even though Chancellor George Osborne had claimed, a fortnight after the bill was revealed, to have halved it at negotiations in Brussels. A cross-party House of Commons Treasury Committee report subsequently decided that Mr Osborne’s claim was “not supported by the facts”. So another lie.

 

Bibliography:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/24/david-cameron-refuses-pay-eu-bill-december-deadline
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29754168
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3237073/Cameron-Osborne-quietly-pay-1-7BILLION-bill-Brussels-dismisses-totally-unacceptable.html

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