- The BBC - European press review. Some interesting stuff today, including:
"Austria's Die Presse accuses British Prime Minister Tony Blair of misleading the public in his attack on EU agricultural spending...Sadly, Blair's calculations are usually anything but naive. He's a devious bastard - which is why he's such a good politician. A cock, a man worthy of little or no respect, but a good politician. (That last sentence was a bit of a tautology, wasn't it?) This is why he may just win the argument this time, despite his figures...
"According to the paper, if all public expenditure in the EU is taken into account, agricultural subsidies only account for 1.6%.
"'So what is the point of Blair's naive calculation?' it asks."
3 Comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Die Presse referring to public expenditure in general, whereas Blair is referring specifically to EU (ie, Brussels) expenditure?
I think you may be right. There is a point there somewhere though. It's all just, like, a matter of perspective, man...
I genuinely do think Blair's right on this one, though. Which I don't think I've previously had occasion to write in the 8 years he's been in power...
third avenue, you're completely correct, that's exactly what Blair says in the Bild article that the Die Presse editorial tries to attack (the BBC website doesn't mention that - it translates "Milchmädchen"/milkmaid as "naive", when actually it's a reference to Blair's "we should spend EU money on something other than cows" quote, that I mentioned in the comments of the last post).
And Michael Prüller, the guy who wrote the editorial has a track record for this kind of idiocy I'm afraid.
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