New Poll

[sunny-dave]

A recent poll of UK Expats living in the EU showed that 100% of those surveyed feel that it is pointless, rude and demeaning to continue to attempt to interfere and comment upon current UK Politics.

[Bobbisox1]

Do they provide you with a pension?

[tomus42]

These mysterious 'ex pats' of which you speak are not criticising the country, they're criticising the Tory govt.

I suspect it would all fine and dandy if they were slagging off Keir Starmer.

[Bobbisox1]

To us but why slag our government off when they don’t live here anyway?

[Bobbisox1]

*tomus

[sunny-dave]

Oh dear - a thread designed to poke fun at the serial failures of someone to properly contextualise his/her opinions has rather gone awry.

To be clear :

I have no problems with anyone (from anywhere) sharing opinions on the current omnishambles that is the UK Government - but for those opinions to be useful, there needs to be some transparency in the position from which such opinions are shared. I agree that my view from Ireland may have less value than one from inside the UK - that's why I'm very open about where I reside - but I do have 'skin in the game' (if the UK economy and the pound tank, then my pensions go down too) and therefore a right to make my comments.

What I do have issues with is persistent refusals to give the source for any assertions and a vagueness about the personal stake of the poster(s) in the UK - from my point of view, such uncontextualised opinions are next to worthless, and are closer to the definition of trolling for an argument than entering into a meaningful debate.

Add to this a habit of posting personal statements as 'News' when they do not relate to any actual current events and it makes me very cross as I see the 'News' category turned into a nonsense where entrenched armies exchange the same pointless insults over and over again.

[Spicerack]

Lighten up, lefties. For Funks Sake.

[Bobbisox1]

My input was all t.i.c too SD

[wolf63]

I get frustrated at the incessant ramblings of one or two AB members about the failings of the govt.

I hold no affiliation to any political party. I respect politicians from all parties and I also detest many from all the parties.also

This thread has become too serious!
:-)

[gness]

Me too, Wolfie. News is being destroyed by not news. In the past I've wondered if it's some sort of medical condition and we should be kind and patient. But I doubt it.

All is well in The Kingdom. Wonderful weekend doing thing that were missed for a couple of years. People come home for this long weekend and I've met even more cousins this year. I feel for poor Dave trying to remember all the names though most of the females have the same name as me. Someone called it out in the pub last night and seven or eight of us replied.
As for behaving and being under control.....as if!! :-)

[wolf63]

Gness
There are folk on here who feel the need to post endless cat videos. But cats are very cute and devious and much more intelligent than your average politician. Vote for Larry!

At school there were five girls with my name in the class. :-)

[gness]

The cat posters don't have weak bladders that they feel they have to tell us about though, Wolfie. That makes a difference.

It's both my forename and surname. We have to add a bit or some sort of description so folk know which one we are. My brother is in the same position so folk will say...is your brother S......the dancer, S.....the rower or S......the landlord.

[Ryzen]

The sole purpose of the posters you describe is to make remainers look stupid..a job well done. These people dont live in the real world,but are strategically placed throughout the site to lubricate ad traffic.

[tomus42]

Here's the thing though, I'm not convinced the ex-pat in question even is an ex-pat. Who cares though anyway?

[lankeela]

Once again I call for the facility to block certain ABers so not only will I not have to see their iname ramblings but they won't be able to comment on any of my posts. That would solve the problem in one hit.

[Samuraisan]

Surely the UK is not " providing" expats pensions ? Surely they paid into it before emigrating ? I know I have paid into Spanish pension for 40 years and if I decided to go and live in a different country my pension, that I paid into, would follow me.

[youngmafbog]

I believe State pensions are considered a 'benefit' these days.

And you dont actually pay into a State pension here, there is not fund it is paid by current tax payers.

Anyone with a private or company pension, well that not our business is it.

[youngmafbog]

I'm with tomus42 at 18:40 above.

Mums attic in Clacton I reckon.

[wolf63]

... or HMP Brixton?

[Meaghan27]

If there is no pension fund in the UK how can you go onto the HMRC website and find out how many 'contributions' you have made? they show you your full history of contributions plus any gaps where for whatever reason you have not paid. No one I know classes the UK state pension as a 'Benefit', it's a fund that workers have paid into for years so why shouldn't you receive it if you don't live in the UK?

[cashier]

The government calls the state pension a benefit.