Foo - Whats the View Elsewhere

Here in the UK were completely engulfed in the scandal of politicians making outragous expenses claims. Chandaliers, moat cleaning, trouser/pant presses, £18k on food, etc, etc. The reason it is so bad is because it's politicians of all hue's of the spectrum, not from just one party or other - they all had there snouts in the trough.

What's the view of this outside the UK. Has it even made it onto your news programmes

this is a forum that's primarily frequented by citizens of the united states, most of which don't pay attention to anything that happens outside of their country.

heh... moat cleaning. Lotta moat monster poop to shovel, I imagine.

(there is coverage in NY Times, though the moats had escaped me, but nothing in my local paper nor, that I've noticed, in the (remaining) Seattle paper)

this is a forum that's primarily frequented by citizens of the united states, most of which don't pay attention to anything that happens outside of their country.

We don't get news outside of our own country. :(

Even BBC America seems to spend more time on the U.S. than anywhere else. :rolleyes:

Edit: It's tough to find real news about the U.S. from U.S. "news"sources...

BBC World News spent quite a bit of thier program on this. Plus CBC news had extensive coverage on this as well.

Compared to U.S legislators the Brits seem like they are behind the times in being able to build a nice nest egg.

Yes, there's a few tidbits of it sneaking into the newscasts, primarily on BBC America's radio program. I liked the one about the MP who's husband ordered quite a bit of video porn at a hotel in southern Europe(?), another MP had to bring their doggy along on trips abroad (at pretty steep travel costs)., and another billed for manure hauling. Yesterday there was mention the H of C's Speaker was being pressured to resign, with recordings of insults leveled at him during a meeeting of Parliment. Personally, I'm waiting for a "Christine Keeler" incident to pop up and really raise havoc!.

As mentioned above, its hard for us here in the USA to get news on USA specific issues, much less foreign news. Its not so much news broadcasts anymore as it is "infotainment".

That is bush-league corruption.

We don't even consider that corruption here. Here in the US, they would be filling their moats with gold.

jim

Never heard of it.

Here in the UK were completely engulfed in the scandal of politicians making outragous expenses claims. Chandaliers, moat cleaning, trouser/pant presses, £18k on food, etc, etc. The reason it is so bad is because it's politicians of all hue's of the spectrum, not from just one party or other - they all had there snouts in the trough.

What's the view of this outside the UK. Has it even made it onto your news programmes


this is a forum that's primarily frequented by citizens of the united states, most of which don't pay attention to anything that happens outside of their country.

Politicians are politicians, no matter what side of the pond yer on....we have the same **** going on here all the time.

We don't get news outside of our own country. :(

Even BBC America seems to spend more time on the U.S. than anywhere else. :rolleyes:

Edit: It's tough to find real news about the U.S. from U.S. "news"sources...

incorrect.

We don't get news outside of our own country. :(



Edit: It's tough to find real news about the U.S. from U.S. "news"sources...

Wondered why you get quite a few Americans posting on the comments bit of the Guardian (one of our broadsheets website. Didn't think they'd be that interested in a UK newspaper but if American's dont get an awful lot of non-American news in there own newspapers/sites, i can see why they'd look too UK papers/sites

we have a major tamil protest for the genocide that is sri lanka.

We don't get news outside of our own country. :(

Even BBC America seems to spend more time on the U.S. than anywhere else. :rolleyes:

Edit: It's tough to find real news about the U.S. from U.S. "news"sources...

http://english.aljazeera.net/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Wondered why you get quite a few Americans posting on the comments bit of the Guardian (one of our broadsheets website. Didn't think they'd be that interested in a UK newspaper but if American's dont get an awful lot of non-American news in there own newspapers/sites, i can see why they'd look too UK papers/sites

step back and think about it.

why would the average american, even the average well informed american, give two flits about corruption in a mid sized european country?

i get the the vast majority of my news from the UK media, and i don't give a monkeys about MPs on the take. that's a domestic triviality that has no bearing outside of blighty.

this is a forum that's primarily frequented by citizens of the united states, most of which don't pay attention to anything that happens outside of their country.

Some of us are even more myopic than that. What is happening outside of Texas, or even Dallas surprises me quite frequently.

Some of us are even more myopic than that. What is happening outside of Texas, or even Dallas surprises me quite frequently.

Fort Worth city council had a problem w/ city-fed rattlesnakes in their moats, I hear.

Fort Worth city council had a problem w/ city-fed rattlesnakes in their moats, I hear.

Hear about the town down there that just repealed the no-dancing law?

I first heard about it today on NPR. The moat thing made me laugh.

step back and think about it.

why would the average american, even the average well informed american, give two flits about corruption in a mid sized european country?

i get the the vast majority of my news from the UK media, and i don't give a monkeys about MPs on the take. that's a domestic triviality that has no bearing outside of blighty.

Thats what i think too, afterall I'm not interested in other countries corruption. But as mentioned Americans often post comments on the Guardian blog sometimes on the stories concerning our "domestic trivia" and I sometimes wonder why they would bother to do so

everyone has domestic politicians on the take. that's just the nature of politicians, so why would anyone be interested in foreign corruption.

what i find amusing is the usual british superiority complex that no matter how despicable, at least we are not as corrupt as johnny foreigner. i've heard this bullcrap again and again as justification and it makes me sick.

I thought all politicians everywhere on all sides of the political spectrum were corrupt, so I heard about this a few a days ago and yawned.

this is a forum that's primarily frequented by citizens of the united states, most of which don't pay attention to anything that happens outside of their country.

I see what you did there

This whole thing is quite a siesmic shift for our politics and if such a shift happened in another European country, we in the UK would definately have it on our our news programmes.

As someone pointed out, this forum is primarily frequented by Americans. And it seems Americans aren't that interested in the internal politics of European countries. I wonder what the responses would be if I asked my original question on forums populated by other Europeans

well, it's hit the big time:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=228030&title=Scamalot

Yes, there's a few tidbits of it sneaking into the newscasts, primarily on BBC America's radio program. I liked the one about the MP who's husband ordered quite a bit of video porn at a hotel in southern Europe(?), another MP had to bring their doggy along on trips abroad (at pretty steep travel costs)., and another billed for manure hauling. Yesterday there was mention the H of C's Speaker was being pressured to resign, with recordings of insults leveled at him during a meeeting of Parliment. Personally, I'm waiting for a "Christine Keeler" incident to pop up and really raise havoc!.

As mentioned above, its hard for us here in the USA to get news on USA specific issues, much less foreign news. Its not so much news broadcasts anymore as it is "infotainment".

I thought that's what politicians were paid for in the first place?