British economy is best in the world, outstripping US, Japan and EU

EagleSmack

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You declared war on paper but it was the real warriors from the US and Canada that did the fighting.


Absolutely. Many historians believe that the bits would have been better if they left all of the fighting to the other anglo allies and provided supplies and administration to the real fighters.
 

captain morgan

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Absolutely. Many historians believe that the bits would have been better if they left all of the fighting to the other anglo allies and provided supplies and administration to the real fighters.

Just as long as they stayed outta they way and not gotten under foot... Had the Allies spent less time hauling wounded British butts to triage centers and more time fighting, the war might have been over a helluva lot sooner.

Damn rookies always getting in the way
 

Blackleaf

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And you got tossed from the continent.

Who won the Battle of Britain and the North African Campaign?

The Yanks were pretty good at getting their arses kicked once they joined the war halfway through. The Battle of Kasserine Pass is a good example. Fortunately the British were there to pick up the pieces and stop the German advance.

The Philippines Campaign, the first campaign of WWII the Yanks took part, saw then get their arses kicked by the Japanese and kicked off the islands.

None of those, however, can beat the ****-whipping the Yanks received at Pearl Harbor.


The Soviet Union invaded Poland too. The brits did not declare war on the Soviets.

The 1939 Anglo-Polish Agreement called for mutual assistance in case of military invasion of either Poland or Britain from Germany, not Russia. Had Germany invaded Britain, our great ally Poland would have declared war on Germany. Instead, the opposite happened.

On August 25 1939, two days after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland was signed. The agreement contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by some "European country". The United Kingdom, sensing a dangerous trend of German expansionism, sought to prevent German aggression by this show of solidarity. In a secret protocol of the pact, the United Kingdom offered assistance in the case of an attack on Poland specifically by Germany, while in the case of attack by other countries the parties were required to "consult together on measures to be taken in common". Both the United Kingdom and Poland were bound not to enter agreements with any other third countries which were a threat to the other. Because of the pact's signing, Hitler postponed his planned invasion of Poland from August 26 until September 1.

You declared war on paper but it was the real warriors from the US and Canada that did the fighting.

The US didn't do any fighting in WWII until 1942, just as it didn't do any fighting in WWI until 1918, the last year of the conflict.

If anything, US involvement in WWII merely prolonged the conflict.
 

taxslave

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Who won the Battle of Britain and the North African Campaign?

The Yanks were pretty good at getting their arses kicked once they joined the war halfway through. The Battle of Kasserine Pass is a good example. Fortunately the British were there to pick up the pieces and stop the German advance.

The Philippines Campaign, the first campaign of WWII the Yanks took part, saw then get their arses kicked by the Japanese and kicked off the islands.

None of those, however, can beat the ****-whipping the Yanks received at Pearl Harbor.




The 1939 Anglo-Polish Agreement called for mutual assistance in case of military invasion of either Poland or Britain from Germany, not Russia. Had Germany invaded Britain, our great ally Poland would have declared war on Germany. Instead, the opposite happened.

On August 25 1939, two days after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland was signed. The agreement contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by some "European country". The United Kingdom, sensing a dangerous trend of German expansionism, sought to prevent German aggression by this show of solidarity. In a secret protocol of the pact, the United Kingdom offered assistance in the case of an attack on Poland specifically by Germany, while in the case of attack by other countries the parties were required to "consult together on measures to be taken in common". Both the United Kingdom and Poland were bound not to enter agreements with any other third countries which were a threat to the other. Because of the pact's signing, Hitler postponed his planned invasion of Poland from August 26 until September 1.



The US didn't do any fighting in WWII until 1942, just as it didn't do any fighting in WWI until 1918, the last year of the conflict.

If anything, US involvement in WWII merely prolonged the conflict.

Until 1942it was just basically a petty feud between two branches of the same German family.
 

Trex

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Blackie the ever-hopeful turd polisher starts yet another self-confidence boosting thread.
And fails miserably.

Lets take a look at the UK and how it compares to Canada by the numbers.

It is true that the UK’s economy has a predicted growth rate that is expected to be higher than Canada’s.
3.5% for the UK as versus 2.7 to 3% for Canada.
What Blackie doesn’t mention is rich successful countries tend to have low stable growth rates while third world hell holes boast high growth rates.
Compare for example the UK’s 3.5% to say Indian, Vietnamese or Nigerian growth rates of around 6 or 7%.
Lets instead look at pure GDP (value) per person in each country.
In the UK it is $39,600 in USD while Canada it is $52,620 USD, in other words the same hypothetical person born at the same time in both UK and Canada would be far richer and more productive in Canada.

A recent study by a joint European/American group of universities studied the world to determine what country had the wealthiest middle class. The first place finisher…..Canada.

The Economist Intelligence Unit is a very highly regarded UK based international research and investigative media organization. They recently intensively studied all the world’s countries to determine the best all round country to live in. A where to be born list as it were.
The Nordic countries and Australia/New Zealand took the top spots followed by Canada at number 9.
The USA? Number 16.
The UK? A hellish 27th.

But lets talk happiness and satisfaction.
The worlds 10 happiest countries?
As judged by the OECD….Australia, Sweden and then in third Canada.
The USA is number 6 and the UK? Number 10.

How about the United Nations World Development Index?
Norway and Australia are number one and number two.
Canada slips in at number 8.
The USA is a strong number 6.
The UK?.... 14th place.

And on and on it goes and the reality is that the UK deserves our pity for its performance as a modern nation and not much more.

The UK’s entire financial system is being run by a Canadian who has been brought in to help them out.

The general population of the UK has accepted the reality that the country will have a Muslim majority and government in around 30 years time.
Say hello to Sharia law.

And the food?
My god.
Imagine constantly eating overcooked, grey, soggy pap day in and day out.
And that’s out at a restaurant. Back home it gets worse.
Live in the UK and you are pretty much doomed to a lifetime of really bad hospital food.

Any smart and ambitious young person would get the hell out while they can.
Plenty of great countries to work and raise a family in.
Canada of course is right up there at the top of the list.
 

darkbeaver

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Jan 26, 2006
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Blackie the ever-hopeful turd polisher starts yet another self-confidence boosting thread.
And fails miserably.

Lets take a look at the UK and how it compares to Canada by the numbers.

It is true that the UK’s economy has a predicted growth rate that is expected to be higher than Canada’s.
3.5% for the UK as versus 2.7 to 3% for Canada.

I assume you're referencing predicted {economic} growth. In that case you are employing forecasts of the worlds leading expert turd polishers.
 

EagleSmack

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Who won the Battle of Britain and the North African Campaign?

The Yanks won the N. African Campaign. The Brits required the whole Commonwealth AND the American Eagle Squadron to win the Battle of Britain.

The Yanks were pretty good at getting their arses kicked once they joined the war halfway through. The Battle of Kasserine Pass is a good example. Fortunately the British were there to pick up the pieces and stop the German advance.

After Kasserine it was all US ALL Day. The Brits were auxiliary troops.

The Philippines Campaign, the first campaign of WWII the Yanks took part, saw then get their arses kicked by the Japanese and kicked off the islands.

As were the Brits. Getting whipped all over Asia and tossed out of Hong Kong.

None of those, however, can beat the ****-whipping the Yanks received at Pearl Harbor.

Sure... How about the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse getting put to the bottom... and those Brit battleships had a heads up!

Never mind the HMS Hood (the pride of the Briddish Fleet) getting put to the bottom in one volley by the Bismark. It took the whole Briddish fleet to sink one battleship! No wonder why the Brits high tailed out of the Pacific and didn't show up until it was all over.




The 1939 Anglo-Polish Agreement called for mutual assistance in case of military invasion of either Poland or Britain from Germany, not Russia. Had Germany invaded Britain, our great ally Poland would have declared war on Germany. Instead, the opposite happened.

On August 25 1939, two days after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland was signed. The agreement contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by some "European country". The United Kingdom, sensing a dangerous trend of German expansionism, sought to prevent German aggression by this show of solidarity. In a secret protocol of the pact, the United Kingdom offered assistance in the case of an attack on Poland specifically by Germany, while in the case of attack by other countries the parties were required to "consult together on measures to be taken in common". Both the United Kingdom and Poland were bound not to enter agreements with any other third countries which were a threat to the other. Because of the pact's signing, Hitler postponed his planned invasion of Poland from August 26 until September 1.

The brits ignored the Soviet invasion. In fact they ignored the German invasion. The Germans had full control of Europe and when they finally turned their sights on the French and Brit force in continental Europe the brits were easily expelled and France lost their country.



The US didn't do any fighting in WWII until 1942, just as it didn't do any fighting in WWI until 1918, the last year of the conflict.
.

Apparently the Brits didn't do much fighting either. They did a lot of retreating and surrendering though!
 

coldstream

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Oct 19, 2005
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None of these figures can be trusted. The GDP is now rigged to include futile financial machinations that produce no real wealth.. except for a few insiders on Wall Street or the City of London who profit from transaction fees or mindless market manipulation.

That's why so many people in Canada and the UK and the US are having trouble finding jobs, feeding their families, providing for their retirement, buying homes, paying for their education. What we've seen in the Free Market era is a massive redistribution of wealth to the top 1% of the population.. almost all involved in finance or trade.. and an evisceration of the real physical, industrial economy.

It's why with all the promises made of the riches that would spew from Free Trade.. 25 years after the FTA we are talking of dismantling our Old Age Security System.. and imminently our Health Care. We are in the grips of downward economic spiral that has been in place for the last 30 years. What wealth we retain is all on credit.
 
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Trex

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None of these figures can be trusted. The GDP is now rigged to include futile financial machinations that produce no real wealth.. except for a few insiders on Wall Street or the City of London who profit from transaction fees or mindless market manipulation.

That's why so many people in Canada and the UK and the US are having trouble finding jobs, feeding their families, providing for their retirement, buying homes, paying for their education. What we've seen in the Free Market era is a massive redistribution of wealth to the top 1% of the population.. almost all involved in finance or trade.. and an evisceration of the real physical, industrial economy.

It's why with all the promises made of the riches that would spew from Free Trade.. 25 years after the FTA we are talking of dismantling our Old Age Security System.. and imminently our Health Care. We are in the grips of downward economic spiral that has been in place for the last 30 years. What wealth we retain is all on credit.
Socialist drivel.
You, Cliffy and the rodent would obviously be far happier in North Korea or Cuba.
Those weekly community "struggle sessions" would be great spots to vent your hatred of capitalism and democracy.
And your views that the data published from the UN, the OECD, Nato, the EU, various universities, governments and various research institutions is
false and rigged would no doubt find kindred spirits in attendance.

As for me I have spent enough living and working in Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and China to have my own views.
Canada is a far nicer place to live than the vast majority of alternatives.
And if the banking sytems and communities start to go down the drain here, in other places it will long dead and buried.
 

Blackleaf

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The Yanks won the N. African Campaign.


I think this is a perfect example of that fabled American dumbing down.

How could America have won the North African Campaign? You were hardly even there, and Britain started taking part in the North African Campaign in June 1940, when they were the only power taking on Nazi Germany and when America sat twiddling its thumbs on the sidlelines.

A see-saw series of battles for control of Libya and parts of Egypt followed, reaching a climax in the Second Battle of El Alamein when British Commonwealth forces under the command of Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery delivered a decisive defeat to the Axis forces and pushed them back to Tunisia. After the late 1942 Allied Operation Torch landings in North-West Africa, and subsequent battles against Vichy France forces (who then changed sides), the Allies finally encircled Axis forces in northern Tunisia and forced their surrender.

And, of course, information gleaned via British Ultra code-breaking intelligence at Bletchley Park proved critical to Allied success in North Africa.

The Brits required the whole Commonwealth AND the American Eagle Squadron to win the Battle of Britain.

2,352 British pilots flew for the RAF in the Battle of Britain.

The total number of foreigners? 574.


After Kasserine it was all US ALL Day. The Brits were auxiliary troops.

What about the British-led Allied Invasion of Italy in September 1943, a successful operation dreamt up by Churchill?, What about the British-led Battle of Monte Cassino from january to May 1944? What about the British-led D-Day (the British, of course, neing the only ones to land on every beach)? What about Operation Plunder in 1945?

The problem the Yanks have when looking at WWII is that they only ever mainly see it as a Pacific war fought against the Japanese. They seem to forget that it was a global conflict with many nations taking part all over the globe.


As were the Brits. Getting whipped all over Asia and tossed out of Hong Kong.

The British were took by surprise at Hong Kong, just as the Yanks were at Pearl Harbor less than eight hours previously. The Japanese attack was not preceded by a declaration of war and so was in clear violation of international law.

And you failed to mention that it was the Canadians who were to blame for the fall of Hong Kong. They were ill-led and surrendered too easily.

Sure... How about the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse getting put to the bottom... and those Brit battleships had a heads up! Never mind the HMS Hood (the pride of the Briddish Fleet) getting put to the bottom in one volley by the Bismark.

Ships get sunk in war. That happens.

The Bismark got lucky. Hood's aft magazine had exploded after one of Bismarck's shells penetrated the ship's armour.

It took the whole Briddish fleet to sink one battleship! No wonder why the Brits high tailed out of the Pacific and didn't show up until it was all over.

The beginning of the end for the Bismarck came when it was severely damaged by one obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplane which had taken off from the aircraft HMS Ark Royal. How embarrassing for the Germans.


The brits ignored the Soviet invasion. In fact they ignored the German invasion. The Germans had full control of Europe and when they finally turned their sights on the French and Brit force in continental Europe the brits were easily expelled and France lost their country

And what did the Americans do when the Germans were running rampant around Europe and the USSR invaded Poland? Oh, I forgot. American companies, like Ford, were busy making cushy business deals with the Nazis.

I love the way people are squirming and trying desperately to put some gloss on the fact that Canada's stuttering economy - which almost completely depends, like no other nation, on the United States and if the United States disappeared tomorrow then so would almost all of the Canadian economy - is being outperformed by booming Britain.


Compare for example the UK’s 3.5% to say Indian, Vietnamese or Nigerian growth rates of around 6 or 7%.
Lets instead look at pure GDP (value) per person in each country.
In the UK it is $39,600 in USD while Canada it is $52,620 USD, in other words the same hypothetical person born at the same time in both UK and Canada would be far richer and more productive in Canada.

According to the IMF, Canada's GDP per capita is $43,472, nowhere near as high as what you make it out to be.

However, it is known that measuring a country's wealth by GDP per capita is very unreliable.

National GDP figures hide significant regional variations in output, employment and incomes per head of population.

Within each region there are also areas of relative prosperity contrasting with unemployment black-spots and deep-rooted social and economic deprivation.

GDP figures on their own do not show the distribution of income and the uneven spread of financial wealth. Incomes and earnings may be very unequally distributed among the population and rising national prosperity can still be accompanied by rising relative poverty.

Rising national output might have been accompanied by an increase in pollution and other negative externalities which have a negative effect on economic welfare. Output figures also tell us little about the quality of goods and services produced.

A more accurate way at looking at personal wealth in each country is to look in terms of actual individual consumption per capita. Final consumption expenditures of households are typically the largest component of GDP and are a more representative variable of material well-being at the household level. The actual individual consumption (AIC) indicator is also calculated by the ICP. It includes the goods and services consumed by households, regardless of whether they are produced or paid for by the households. To this are added the individual expenditures of governments and non-profit institutions serving households. In terms of AIC per capita, Canada ranks 11th in the world at $27,434, whereas the UK is not much different at $26,146.

A recent study by a joint European/American group of universities studied the world to determine what country had the wealthiest middle class. The first place finisher…..Canada.

Why is having such a wealthy middle class something to gloat about? The poor, working class of Canada won't find much comfort in that supposed fact.

Having the Richest Middle Class Isn't a Good Thing For Canada


J.J. McCullough Become a fan HuffPost Canada Media Critic
Posted: 04/24/2014 12:01 pm EDT Updated: 06/24/2014 5:59 am EDT


For years, Canada's politicians have wondered who the middle class are and what do they want. This week, we add a fresh question -- are they satisfied with being number one?

Much has been made of a lengthy story published on the New York Times' wonky new blog declaring that "The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World's Richest." They quote stats from something called the "Luxembourg Income Study Database" and conclude that American median wages -- long the most impressive in the world -- have been "most likely surpassed" by median wages in Canada. So now it's our middle class that "appears to be the richest," in the satisfied words of the Globe and Mail .

The hard numbers are a bit hazy. All those "most likely"s and "appear to be"s reflect the fact that the Luxembourg study's most recent figures come from 2010, when Canada-U.S. wages were merely equal, topped off by the observation that in the years since, "pay in Canada has risen faster than pay in the United States," and is therefore "most likely higher" circa 2014. For what it's worth, Stats Can's 2011 National Household Survey said our median individual income was around $27,000 per year, so the global high for middle class pay is evidently somewhere in that ballpark.

Anyway, since their release, these findings have been spun in all sorts of tendentious directions on both sides of the border.
In the States, Republicans have found one more damning indictment of the "Obama economy," while liberals see further proof of a creeping plutocracy, noting the blog's explicit diagnosis of overpaid CEOs and insufficient profit "redistribution" as a leading cause of the middle class slip.

Leftists in this country, meanwhile, have blamed Canada's rising wages on slumping income tax rates, which they bemoan for helping defund the welfare state. Other skeptics have questioned whether Canada is really doing "better" than the States, or merely "less worse," given our greedy CEOs are certainly getting richer at the expense of everyone else, too.

Perhaps the most persuasive sniffs of pessimism, however, were those observing what Reihan Salam at the conservative National Review dubbed the "elephant in the room" of any Canada-US net worth comparison -- Canada's ludicrous and unsustainable housing boom, which has not only provided the country with an overabundance of good-paying, construction jobs, but shielded this half of the continent from the "massive wealth destruction" that followed the American housing crash of 2008-9. Such critics see parallels between the irrational exuberance of contemporary Canadians, who feel no shame spending far more than they earn on the assumption that if anything goes wrong, they can always sell their house for a quick million, and the similarly cocksure short-sightedness that defined pre-recession America.

"Canadians are standing on their rooftops screaming for more debt while too many Americans are buried under their houses," as the Atlantic put it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jj-mccullough/canada-richest-middle-class_b_5203371.html



The Economist Intelligence Unit is a very highly regarded UK based international research and investigative media organization. They recently intensively studied all the world’s countries to determine the best all round country to live in. A where to be born list as it were.
The Nordic countries and Australia/New Zealand took the top spots followed by Canada at number 9.
The USA? Number 16.
The UK? A hellish 27th.

And, despite this recent "intensive study", the vast majority of Britons would prefer to live in Britain than in Canada.

I also wouldn't believe everything the EIU tells you. It' better to understand the background of Economist Intelligence Unit.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is part of the Economist Group. It is a research and advisory company (with stakeholders) providing country, industry and management analysis worldwide and incorporates the former Business International Corporation, a U.S. company acquired by the parent organization in 1986. But it has some criticisms in the past also. The April 2010 country report by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) pointed out an uneasy relationship between the government of Guyana and the private sector despite a net increase in private investment in the country’s economy last year. A recent report which gives a less than upbeat picture of the overall economic climate in Guyana has come in for severe criticism from Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh (PhD in accounting and finance from Lancaster University, which is a triple-accredited, world-ranked management school, consistently among the UK’s top five), who says it paints a "misinformed, distorted, warped, and totally inaccurate picture". Further he stated that EIU’s coverage on Guyana has been hijacked by partisan domestic political operatives. The Government Information Agency (GINA) reported him as saying that it is most unfortunate that the EIU, a Unit whose publications have come to be expected to be objective and competently prepared, "would allow itself to be misled and misinformed by one or two political aspirants and spokespersons who pose as independent correspondents and commentators." As a result, the EIU’s recent reports on Guyana paint a misinformed, distorted, warped, and totally inaccurate picture of economic developments in Guyana, GINA said.

The EIU has come in for criticism on many other occasion, too, I will willt ake everything they say with a pinch of salt.

But lets talk happiness and satisfaction.
The worlds 10 happiest countries?
As judged by the OECD….Australia, Sweden and then in third Canada.
The USA is number 6 and the UK? Number 10.

I take no notice of such daft suveys. How on Earth can you possibly judge the true "happiness" of a country?

In 2011, a £2million survey ordered by David Cameron concluded that a whopping three quarters of the British population rated themselves as ‘seven out of ten’ on a wellbeing scale. So it seems like the British people are very happy to me.


How about the United Nations World Development Index?
Norway and Australia are number one and number two.
Canada slips in at number 8.
The USA is a strong number 6.
The UK?.... 14th place.


The United Nations Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds including alleged ideological biases towards egalitarianism and so-called "Western models of development", failure to include any ecological considerations, lack of consideration of technological development or contributions to the human civilization, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, lack of attention to development from a global perspective, measurement error of the underlying statistics, and on the UNDP's changes in formula which can lead to severe misclassification in the categorisation of 'low', 'medium', 'high' or 'very high' human development countries.

Economists Hendrik Wolff, Howard Chong and Maximilian Auffhammer discuss the HDI from the perspective of data error in the underlying health, education and income statistics used to construct the HDI. They identify three sources of data error which are due to (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresholds to classify a country’s development status and find that 11%, 21% and 34% of all countries can be interpreted as currently misclassified in the development bins due to the three sources of data error, respectively. The authors suggest that the United Nations should discontinue the practice of classifying countries into development bins because the cut-off values seem arbitrary, can provide incentives for strategic behavior in reporting official statistics, and have the potential to misguide politicians, investors, charity donors and the public who use the HDI at large.

Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The UK’s entire financial system is being run by a Canadian who has been brought in to help them out.

No, it isn't. The UK's economy is run by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, and they way things are gouing over there with your economy we might need to send him your way soon.


The general population of the UK has accepted the reality that the country will have a Muslim majority and government in around 30 years time.

And Canada, which has the Western world's fastest-growing Muslim population after the Irish Republic, will reach that point much sooner.

And the food?
My god.
Imagine constantly eating overcooked, grey, soggy pap day in and day out.
And that’s out at a restaurant. Back home it gets worse.
Live in the UK and you are pretty much doomed to a lifetime of really bad hospital food.

And that's coming from somehow who probably ate poutine - with his fingers - for his tea last night.

Any smart and ambitious young person would get the hell out while they can.
Plenty of great countries to work and raise a family in.
Canada of course is right up there at the top of the list.

No wonder the local beavers bite off their wotsits: Why one man won't be joining the rush to move to Canada

By Philip Delves Broughton
30 June 2008
Daily Mail

The pitch is boringly familiar: Come to Canada! Voted best country to live in by the United Nations four years in a row! Tolerant! Cheap! Great free health care! Lots of space!

That final element should be the giveaway. Despite being larger than its southern neighbour, the United States, it has around one tenth of the population, 33million to America's 300million.

Despite banging its own drum for decades, calling on the world to gather on its shores, Canada still looks like one of those poor young girls at a trade show, thrusting flyers at disinterested passers-by.

It is the big, earnest, empty restaurant which can't understand why the scrappier joint next door is hopping. People just do not want to go.


National pride: Canada's famous native animal, the beaver

The late newspaper columnist, June Callwood, summed up Canada's status compared to its great English-speaking rivals: 'The beaver, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slowwitted, toothy rodent known to bite off its own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees.'

And yet, for Britons considering the latest blandishments to move to the Land of the Maple Leaf, the argument tends to go like this: Why carry on hacking away in the UK, paying a monstrous mortgage on a house, battling through traffic and public transport while being taxed within an inch of my life when I could be making the same money, living in a much bigger house, getting lots of fresh air and at least getting good schools and health care for my high taxes?

On the surface, of course, this makes a lot of sense.

But as someone who, in the course of my reporting duties from North America, has visited Canada on more occasions than I care to remember, I should warn you that there are a number of other factors to consider before you wave goodbye to Blighty.

First, the climate makes Britain's look positively Mediterranean. The winters drag on for months, with temperatures well below freezing. The nights are interminable. And in summer you have a choice between extremely humid and dry and windless. You're either sitting in a steam room or a sauna.

In Toronto, an entire subterranean network of passages and shopping malls has been built for its inhabitants to scurry around all winter. London feels like Nassau by comparison. And don't think for one moment that there will be enough diversions indoors to distract from the climate.

Culturally, Canada does not hold a candle to Britain. Its museums and orchestras are resoundingly second tier, though it may have an edge in country music festivals.

This is, after all, the home of Shania Twain, whose full-throated warblings make Dolly Parton sound sophisticated.

In the dramatic arts, Canada's greatest recent contribution - unless you include Jim Carrey and Pamela Anderson - is the incomprehensible, semi-nude contortion act of Cirque du Soleil. And as for its newspapers, they are lifeless and hobbled by the provincialism which divides the country.

Canadian celebrities: Pamela Anderson and Jim Carrey are proud Canadians... despite becoming U.S. citizens in recent years

Sure, Canada has been through a food revolution similar to Britain's, but still the way to a Canadian's heart is not through fancy Newfoundland oysters, but with ' poutine' - chips smothered with cheese curds and gravy. It makes a chip butty look like the healthy option.

Then there's its politics. However tawdry and disappointing the British politicians may sometimes seem, the Canadian version is no better. Canada now has a conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, but for most of the 20th century it was run by the Left-of-centre Liberal Party which created a culture of big government and high taxes.

As the Canadian poet Irving Layton once said, the Canadian political and intellectual communities' have a tendency to regard ' cowardice as wisdom, philistinism as Olympian serenity and the spitefulness of the weak as moral indignation'.

As for the economy. Britain's prospects may stink at the moment, but the notion of Canada as some Shangri-La is false. Yesterday a report was published saying that Canada was suffering from endemic complacency.

'In almost every major category of socio-economic performance studied, Canada's performance is slipping, causing it to fall behind countries that are its peers, partners and competitors,' said the report issued by The Conference Board of Canada, an independent thinktank.

The economic problems, the report said, were only being concealed by the surging price of the commodities being dug out of Canada's rich soil. When prices fall back to earth, Canada will be in deep trouble.

Move there now to grab one of the jobs sitting vacant, and you may soon be sitting on a fast-deflating bubble.

Canada's hiring pirates are especially keen on carrying off British construction workers and mining specialists, technology experts and most depressingly of all, doctors and nurses.

They believe that the restructuring of the National Health Service will force many British doctors and nurses overseas where their services are actually valued and properly rewarded.

These doctors and nurses should be warned, however, that their work, to quote the America humourist P.J. O'Rourke will mainly involve 'treating hockey injuries and curing sinus infections that come from trying to pronounce French vowels'.

Ah yes, hockey. If you thought British sport was becoming crude and violent, try watching two teams of toothless brutes sliding around on ice and pausing every few minutes to beat the daylights out of each other. It makes the Premiership look like synchronised swimming.

However bad Britain may seem, trust me, moving to Canada is not the answer. Why not try somewhere more appealing. Siberia, for example.




No wonder the local beavers bite off their wotsits: Why one man won't be joining the rush to move to Canada | Mail Online
 
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Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
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Lots of excuses Blackie, but the result doesn't change.

I'm not the one coming out with excuses out of sheer desperation.

"Oh yes, the Canadian economy may be slowing to a halt whilst the British economy - once again - powers ahead of its rivals, but at least we Canadians are the third happiest people in the world!"

What a load of codswallop.

I especially liked the excuse for Hong Kong... 'We were taken by surprise'... Laughed my a$$ off at that one


You can laugh all you like. But no amount of laughing will change history. The British were caught by surprise in Hong Kong, just as the Yankees had been in Pearl Harbor just eight days previously. The Japanese attacked Hong Kong without them even having declared war on Britain, which led to the attack being declared a war crime. And much of the blame for the fall of Hong Kong was also laid onto the Canadian "defenders", who were ill-led and surrendered easily.
 

captain morgan

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 28, 2009
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A Mouse Once Bit My Sister
I'm not the one coming out with excuses out of sheer desperation.

'The British were taken by surprise in Hong Kong'

Still laughing bud

"Oh yes, the Canadian economy may be slowing to a halt whilst the British economy

Menial jobs in the patch start at $80,000 a year... That's about 1 million pounds sterling.

Jobs so easy that a monkey could do it.... I guess that makes you under qualified.. Sorry

And much of the blame for the fall of Hong Kong was also laid onto the Canadian "defenders", who were ill-led and surrendered easily.

The Canadian troops were lead by a Brit, hence the reason that the territory was lost

Canadians weren't taken by surprise... We warned you... Hong Kong would have never fallen, let alone so easily had an American or Canadian been in charge
 

EagleSmack

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 16, 2005
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Face it Blackie... the Brits were knocked on their azzes and needed the help of every other nation to defeat the Germans in every theater in a war that the Brits started.

And the Bismark whipped the Eingrish flag ship HMS Hood with one volley. ONE!

There is the famous quote from a German cook who was on the Bismark and after securing for GQ went up to the Bismark's observation deck to have a snack and watch the battle with the HMS Hood. After seeing the Hood blown to bits in one hit he made the comment.

"Wow...Diese jungs saugen."

Translation... "Wow... these guys suck."