Yes, I think the skull cracking, and indeed trying to stop the vote happening, was both very wrong on its own terms and likely counterproductive for Rajoy. The Spanish Tories are among the worst in Europe.howsillyofme1 wrote:This is not a 3rd world country, this is a supposed European democracy
I was in Barcelona during an anti-austerity protest - these paramilitary police are animals and were beating anything that moved, including a friend of a friend
I don't agree with Mason but the comment he made about Juncker I read as being due to the fact he was the EPP delegate for president - of which the Spanish PP is a part
I do not blame the EU - it is a weak organisation really and has very little power - the power lies with the nation states and we are seeing too many EU countries are exhibiting unpleasantly authoritarian streaks and very little sanction
Condemning every criticism of the EU as being akin to UKIP is not right - I want to be part of a Union where proto-fascists are condemned outright and are sanctioned strongly
Beating the shit out of people who are exercising a right to vote - no matter what the authorities think of the vote - is despicable and is only making secession more likely
Mason went over the top here but I do not think the EU (apart from Verhofstadt - a man who I like but who has little power) has covered itself in glory this week - we knew this was likely to happen but the Spanish police showed no constraints and them attacking Catalan firemen was revolting to see
We here a lot about venezuela over the last few weeks - let us now see the tight-wing Government in Madrid getting the same treatment
And it's not Kipper to call out the EU response- among other things, it's made it easier for Poland to argue that it's being picked on unfairly, so it's not very . I'm querying really Mason's agenda here, which I think is trying to reconcile people on the left to Hard Brexit.
RIP Tom Petty. Liked what I heard, no reason really I didn't delve deeper. Might do now.