Would you mind explaining to me the 10 pence thing?

Thanks in advance

This post deals basically with law and moral. I guess that is a tough one but nowadays is one of the main topics of the political discussion in Spain. 

Today, El Pais publishes an article related to the problem (from an internal perspective)

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Politicos/millon/euros/elpepuesp/20080504elpepinac_12/Tes

Unfortunately, the article is a Spanish one but I will try to make a small summary.

After the past General Elections in Spain important people are moving from public to private sector but these movements are quite controversial.

Firstly, Eduardo Zaplana former minister and last spokesman of the conservative party is moving to Telefonica because he has a strong relation with Silvio Berlusconi in order to improve relations between Telefonica and Italy.

Secondly, David Taguas former director of the Prime Minister’s Economic Office is moving to SEOPAN which is a kind of lobby of the major construction Spanish companies.

Probably, some of you would be thinking that this is a Spanish problem but … what about Rodrigo Rato (Lazard, Santander and Criteria), Gerhard Schröder (Gazprom) or Tony Blair (JPMorgan). Those persons were also included in the article.

In Spain we have changed incompatibility law in 1983, 1991, 1995 and 2006 but, in my opinion, it seems that this law is still not good enough.

It's a difficult topic as I've said before, but what do you think about this issue?  Are you concerned about tunnels between public and private sectors?

I guess that no one opened a post on UK's local elections.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/04/europe/boris.php

As always, I'm a rookie in this issue but it seems that conservatives are well positioned to return to government again after the Blair's years.

Another thing that I want to highlight is the big transfer of seats between Labours and Conservatives "...Labour lost 331 seats over all, and the Conservative opposition gained 256...". In my opinion, pretty impressive.

I think that Basque Country independence is not the purpose of this post, anyway, I'm going to make a little comment on that.

I'm Spanish but not from the Basque Country. However, Basque Country's conflict is a well known issue for all the Spanish people. I'm not for independence of the Basque Country but I consider myself as a true democrat and I will support people's decisions. How could be carry out a referendum for independence? This would be a very difficult issue... However, in my opinion there's no possibility for independence while there is violence on the streets.

I hope to answer you in the way that you would wanted.   

I've found the wikipedia link very interesting. Thanks for that. Actually I didn't know that results could vary from poll to poll in that manner. I also admit that I'm quite conditioned by the situation of the Basque Country where independence support is quite stable. 

Comrade Joe, thanks for share your point of view.  I talk about this thing from the distance but I've found a new in which seems that most people are for independece. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/26/nunion26.xml

Sorry about that. I thought that you've reached the end of the book.

Veo que te defiendes bien en español. ¡No dejes de practicarlo!. Un saludo

I've got a Spanish version, don't know if there's an English version ... I didn't read the book but as I've read over the internet it's a little bit different from the movie (http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/arts/wheel/pasolini.shtml)

The movie in my opinion it's little bit bizarre but quite interesting. Maybe the best word is provocative. The movie is included in the "Trilogy of life" by Pasolini and that is why I started with it rather than book. I've found the idea interesting and I hope to see the other movies soon.

Did you see the movie made on the Bocaccio's book by Pier Paolo Pasolini?

I agree with this opinion. My impression, from Europe, is that Rice running for vice-president is giving people two clear different options: one representing change, dems; and the other representing no change at all, reps. I guess that Rice has a strong link with Bush's terms that will be very difficult to make forget.    

Viv, thanks for your opinion. One more question: do you know anything related to Wales? Are they close to Scotland in this thing?

 

I've just seen "Lions for lambs" and I've enjoyed it. Probably most of you have also seen it but to those who haven't, "Lions for lambs" is focused on the Iraq-"terrorism" thing and it is divided into 3 different parts: first, interview with a republican senator (T. Cruise); second, dialogue between a teacher (R. Redford) and one of his best students ("Dead poets society" style); and third, war scenes by two Robert Redford's past students...

In my opinion, this movie could be perfectly signed by an European director because political direction is pretty close to main thinking about Iraq war in Europe.
     

The rescue of Bear Stearns marks liberalisation’s limit by Martin Wolf

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ced5202-fa94-11dc-aa46-000077b07658.html

I start reading the "Kosovo independence" post and consider to include the next new in that post, but finally, I decided to create a new one because I guess that, for sure, they are completely different things. 

I think that plans for Scotland independence are not a new thing but dates are getting closer. Is there any British who could give us a point of view of the issue? What most Scottish people would think about independence?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7313586.stm