Brexit

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Coventry raid (14/15 Nov 1940)

England, Italy and Germany dot Foot

The New York Times

How England, Italy and Germany are dominating the World Cup http://nyti.ms/1oCNdzF 

 

Le verbatim du coup de fil Juncker/Cameron

Jean-Claude Juncker  5 juil.

I'm looking forward to working with my Transition Team to prep next COM:

• Head MartinSelmayr 

• Deputy ClaraMartinezAl 

• Spoke NatashaBertaud

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Via Isabelle Ory :

L'humour anglais dans toute sa splendeur !

Babeth II

 

La Reine Elizabeth II et Obama auront marqué les commémorations du DDay

Forced into marriage

From The Guardian.com

A number of women and girls at risk of forced marriage have avoided going abroad by concealing spoons in their underwear at airport security, according to a campaign group.

Karma Nirvana, a Derby-based charity that supports victims of forced marriage, advises people who ring its helpline to hide a spoon in order to set off metal detectors at British airports. The group says that its recommendation has prevented some women from being spirited overseas.
Last week ministers warned that young people were at the highest risk of being taken abroad for a forced marriage during the school holidays. The government's forced marriage unit received 400 reports between June and August last year, out of an annual total of 1,500.

No one knows for sure how many Britons are forced into marriage each year.

Estimates range from 1,500 to 5,000. More than a third of those affected are thought to be aged under 16.

L’homme qui possédait le job le plus étrange du monde

Peter Houison Craufurd, est décédé à l’âge de 82 ans et laisse son poste vacant : laveur des mains des souverains d’Angleterre. Peter Craufurd était le 28eme propriétaire du château de Craufurdland en Ecosse. Un de ses lointains ancêtres avait obtenu le job au 16e siècle, en mettant en fuite un brigand qui attaquait le roi James V, alors roi d’Ecosse. Pour le remercier, le roi lui avait offert une ferme. En échange de quoi, sa famille devait toujours se tenir prête à laver les mains de sa majesté, avec savon et serviettes. La cérémonie du lavage des mains requiert trois personne. A l'âge de 8 ans, Peter Houison Craufurd avait déjà participé au nettoyage des mains de Georges VI. Mais en pratique, Peter Houison Craufurd n'a lavé les mains de la Reine Elisabeth II qu'une seule fois : en 1952, un an après son couronnement.

Harry, un prince qui vous veut du bien

Murdoch (qui a publié les photos du prince nu) :

"Laissez Harry tranquille"

JO.uk.london

La cérémonie d'Ouverture des Jeux Olympiques de Londres se tiendra le 27 juillet 2012. à partir de 19 h 30, heure locale

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Billets aux JO: un marché noir bien réel
Le CIO a annoncé samedi avoir reçu des preuves de la part du Sunday Times, le journal britannique qui avait révélé des cas de ventes au marché noir de billets des JO de Londres par des officiels, et a décidé de poursuivre son enquête qui devrait s'achever fin septembre début octobre.
"La Commission d'éthique (du CIO) a reçu des preuves de la part du journal et constaté que chaque cas mérite une analyse détaillée incluant l'audition de toutes les parties, particulièrement sur (...) l'infraction délibérée aux différentes règles qui régissent la vente de billets pour les JO", peut-on lire dans un communiqué du CIOLa commission exécutive du CIO, réunie samedi à Londres, a donc autorisé la commission d'éthique à poursuivre son enquête.

La "princesse Barbie"

La princesse Sara Bint Talal Ibn Abdel Aziz Al Saoud, surnommée la "princesse Barbie" a annoncé qu'elle avait sollicité du ministère de l'Intérieur du Royaume Uni, l'asile pour elle et ses quatre filles:

"Avec mes profonds regrets et dans la mesure où je n'avais pas le choix, j'ai écrit au ministère de l'Intérieur du Royaume-Uni pour demander, pour moi-même et pour mes enfants, l'asile politique"

"Ma réputation a été souillée dans les médias par une campagne de dénigrement mal intentionnée et sans fondement"

"J'ai subi tout cela en silence pendant des années en essayant de trouver une solution digne à travers les voies normales, sans tambours ni fanfare"

Inde.uk

Le programme a peu de chance d'être renouvelé à cette échéance, a laissé entendre Andrew Mitchell, ministre pour le développement international : 

"Nous sommes dans la dernière ligne droite vis-à-vis d'eux" (Indiens)
"Je comprends parfaitement les gens qui se posent des questions sur le programme d'aide à l'Inde"
"Nous ne serons pas là pour toujours".

Londres a dépensé quelque 1 milliard de livres (1,2 milliard d'euros) en programmes d'aide à l'Inde ces cinq derniers années, et s'est engagé à verser 600 millions de livres supplémentaires d'ici 2015.

We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility

Tariq, Monika, Asyrak, Pauline et Richard

Lire aussi:The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

By Peter Oborne

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.
Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.
I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.
Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?
Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.
A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.
Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.
Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor:

“We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” 

He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.
The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.
These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.
But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.
Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.
Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.
The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

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Muslims tackle looters and bigots
There is a lively debate taking place in the UK media between left and right wing commentators as to the causes of the English riots, in which hundreds of shops and businesses have been looted. However, both sides agree that the looting has been inexcusable. I hope both sides will also agree with me that Muslims have played an important role in helping to tackle the looting and preserve public safety. This would be an especially important acknowledgment if it came from those Islamophobic commentators who consistently denigrate Muslims. "When accused of terrorism we are Muslims, when killed by looters, we become Asian", a Muslim student explained to me. He was commenting on the media reportingof the death of three young Muslims in Birmingham on Tuesday night. Like many other Muslims, they were bravely defending shops and communities as rioters went on a violent rampage of looting. In recent days Muslim Londoners, Muslims from Birmingham, and Muslims in towns and cities around England have been at the forefront of protecting small businesses and vulnerable communities from looting. Having worked closely with Muslim Londoners, first as a police officer and more recently as a researcher, for the last ten years this commendable bravery comes as no surprise to me. But their example of outstanding civic duty in support of neighbours is worth highlighting - especially when sections of the UK media are so quick to print negative headlines about Muslims on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Muslims tackle looters and bigots  En Angleterre, "en tant que société, nous avons échoué" Une semaine après le début des émeutes, l'Angleterre essaie toujours de comprendre les raisons qui ont poussé des centaines de jeunes, issus de toutes les communautés, à sortir dans les rues, à casser et piller les magasins. Pour leJDD.fr, Chris Allen, sociologue à l'Université de Birmingham et auteur en 2010 du très remarqué Islamophobia, analyse la situation. L'universitaire insiste notamment sur l'origine sociale de ces émeutes. Comment qualifier ce mouvement? Nous avons une tradition historique en Grande-Bretagne des mouvements sociaux. Mais cette fois-ci, ce qui est assez unique, c'est qu'il s'agit d'un phénomène multiculturel. Parmi les pilleurs, il y avait des noirs, des Indiens, des Pakistanais, des blancs. Ils reflétaient vraiment la jeunesse anglaise. Quelles sont leur motivation? En tant que groupe, ces individus ne sont pas politiquement mobilisés. Ils n'ont pas d'agenda politique. Ils veulent défier l'autorité de la police. Ce sont des émeutes de la consommation. Mais cela ne veut pas dire qu'il n'y a pas une analyse politique de ce mouvement à faire, car ces émeutes reflètent ce qu'il se passe dans la société. Peut-on parler de conflit social? Il y a trente ans, Margaret Thatcher décrétait la fin de la société. Depuis, on s'est concentré sur l'individu. Mais pendant ce temps-là, le fossé entre les riches et les pauvres n'a cessé d'augmenter. Nous avons aujourd'hui toute une génération sans espoir, touchée par le chômage et l'absence d'éducation. Ces jeunes pensent qu'ils n'ont pas de place, pas de rôle dans la société britannique. En tant que société, nous avons échoué. Nous sommes très forts pour dire que les gens qui vivent dans ces quartiers sont des paresseux irresponsables qui vivent sur le dos du système. Nous nous sommes contentés de mettre la poussière sous le tapis. Mais elle est toujours là. Quand les choses vont bien, il est très facile pour nous collectivement d'ignorer ce qu'il se passe. Mais quand les choses vont mal, qu'on connait la récession et le chômage, qu'on met en place de sévères coupes budgétaires dans les services sociaux, on réalise à quel point nous sommes confrontés à un sérieux problème. «En Grande-Bretagne, la question des classes sociales est devenue taboue.»Selon David Cameron, le multiculturalisme à l'anglaise a échoué, en encourageant chaque communauté à vivre séparée les unes des autres et en effaçant le sentiment d'identité nationale. Qu'en pensez-vous? Ces émeutes prouvent exactement le contraire! Toutes les communautés se sont retrouvées ensemble dans la rue. Si vous vous baladez dans Birmingham, vous voyez que toutes les communautés travaillent et vivent ensemble. Nous sommes totalement multiculturels. En revanche, ce n'est pas la notion même de multiculturalisme qu'il faut questionner mais la manière dont les politiques l'ont géré. Ils se sont concentrés sur les communautés minoritaires au détriment de la communauté majoritaire. Or, le multiculturalisme, c'est respecter les différences sans faire de différence. De fait, la communauté blanche a l'impression d'avoir été délaissée.

Chelsea Girl

Simple Minds, visionnaires comme les Clash - Chelsea Girl http://t.co/38VzmdO #LondonRiots

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Chelsea, ambassadrice des J.O. et émeutière à Londres, a été dénoncée par ses parents
Les parents de Chelsea ont reconnu leur fille sur les images de la télévision. “ Nous regardions les images des émeutes et nous avons reconnu notre fille, raconte le père de Chelsea. Nous avons été choqués ”.
Sur les images, on voyait cette jeune fille brisant la vitre d’un magasin à grands coups de caillou. On l’entendait aussi crier à un jeune homme à côté d’elle: “ c’est le meilleur jour ”.
La mère de Chelsea dit ne pas avoir de regret d’avoir dénoncé sa fille à la police: “ j’aime ma fille, dit-elle. Mais elle doit apprendre à faire la distinction entre le bien et le mal ”.
Les parents ne comprennent par ailleurs pas ce qui a pris à leur fille, une étudiante brillante, disent-ils.
Chelsea a d’ailleurs été désignée pour faire partie des ambassadeurs des J.O. 2012. Ce sont des jeunes qui seront chargés d’accueillir les visiteurs pendant les Jeux Olympiques et qui sont censés faire la fierté de Londres.