Posted on 05/07/2015 1:21:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...The prospect of an in-out EU referendum driven by David Cameron's desperate attempts to keep the Conservatives together on Europe while fending off the threat from the UKIP [insert laughter here -- 'Civ] right is a nightmare scenario for the Irish government.
Dublin often takes comfort from hiding behind Britannia's skirts in Brussels when the British take all the flak for opposing tax and other financial harmonisations in a belligerent stance that also benefits Ireland.
With Nick Clegg trading away yet another of the Lib Dems principles and doing a U-turn on his previous opposition to a referendum, if Cameron outperforms the polls and scrapes together a majority with the centre party, the Ulster Unionists on the right, and the expected two to four UKIP MPs on the hard right, that moment of destiny for the UK could come far sooner than expected.
While Cameron has promised such a vote in 2017 after he has supposedly renegotiates Britain's relationship with the UK, UKIP has said it will demand the vote as early as this autumn in return for propping-up a Tory administration...
With the DUP likely to win eight or nine seats, they would play a crucial role in keeping a Cameron administration alive and have already asked for a major financial injection to the North as part of their price for letting the Tories stay in power...
Ironically, Sinn Fein's refusal to take its seats aids the DUP's drive for influence as it reduces the threshold for a Commons majority from 326 to 323 and even three seats could make all the difference in this knife-edge election.
(Excerpt) Read more at irishexaminer.com ...
OPEC Has Already Turned to the Euro
GoldMoney Alert
February 18, 2004
...The source for the euro exchange rate is the Federal Reserve, and I have calculated the euro's average exchange rate to the dollar for each year based on daily data.We can see from column (4) in the above table that in 2001, each barrel of imported crude oil cost $21.40 on average for that year. But by 2003 the average price of a barrel of crude oil had risen 26.0% to $26.97 per barrel. However, the important point is shown in column (6). Note that the price of crude oil in terms of euros is essentially unchanged throughout this 3-year period.
2001
As the dollar has fallen, the dollar price of crude oil has risen. But the euro price of crude oil remains essentially unchanged throughout this 3-year period. It does not seem logical that this result is pure coincidence. It is more likely the result of purposeful design, namely, that OPEC is mindful of the dollar's decline and increases the dollar price of its crude oil by an amount that offsets the loss in purchasing power OPEC's members would otherwise incur. In short, OPEC is protecting its purchasing power as the dollar declines.
There's a largely effective news blackout.
Not on BBC world news right now
I thought the headline use of “salubrious” was particularly apropos.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11475225/results-time-and-facts.html
Nick Clegg kept his Sheffield Hallam seat, but looks certain to quit as Lib Dem leader after “punishing” results. His party lost many senior figures, including Vince Cable and Ed Davey, former Cabinet ministers, and Simon Hughes in Southwark and Bermondsey. David Laws also lost Yeovil.
Labour’s woes have continued as the party missed out on many of the Tory marginals it had targetted, seats like Broxstowe in Nottinghamshire. Stilll, Labour did take some seats from the Tories, such as Wirral West, unseating Esther McVey, a Tory minister, and Enfield North. And there are growing signs that Ed Balls has lost his seat of Morley and Outwood.
Scotland continues to amaze: latest famous casualties of the SNP surge include Charles Kennedy, the former Lib Dem leader. But there is still a Tory in Scotland: David Mundell kept Dumfries, Clydesdale and Tweedale,
Boris Johnson is back in Parliament, having won the safe Tory seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He looks certain for a Cabinet post in David Cameron’s new government.
Ukip’s hopes of a parliamentary breakthrough faded. Douglas Carswell won Clacton, but the party failed to gain Thurrock. That leaves party hopes resting on Nigel Farage in Thanet South, where victory looks far from certain.
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/election-2015-32594267
Tories set of victory - now predicted to win narrow majority
David Cameron promises to ‘bring UK together’
Ed Miliband rues ‘disappointing’ night, as Labour crushed by SNP
Nationalists win nearly all seats in Scotland
Lib Dems routed, big names ousted - but Nick Clegg holds on
Douglas Carswell retains seat for UKIP
326 needed to rule:
Prime Minister David Cameron’s party projected to win 316 seats; 239 for Labour
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/world/europe/britain-election.html?_r=0
The Conservatives were projected by the exit poll to have won 316 seats, more than pre-election polls had suggested and up nine seats from 2010. But that outcome would still be 10 seats short of the 326 necessary to win an outright majority and seven short of the minimum necessary to have a day-to-day working majority.
The Liberal Democrats, Mr. Cameron’s current coalition partner, were projected to win only 10 seats, a loss of 47 seats from 2010, but enough to put the two parties together right on the edge of being able to form the next government. The Conservatives might also win support from two smaller parties, the Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland and the U.K. Independence Party.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/europe/uk-general-election/
First UK election shock as 20-year old becomes youngest lawmaker since 1667
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-northern-ireland-32629703
Sinn Féin has lost Fermanagh and South Tyrone to the Ulster Unionists, in one of the biggest upsets of the general election in Northern Ireland.
All 18 seats have now been declared with eight DUP, four Sinn Féin, three SDLP, two Ulster Unionist and one independent elected.
The Democratic Unionist Party regained the East Belfast seat lost five years ago by its party leader.
The Ulster Unionists have two MPs, after taking South Antrim from the DUP.
In the last parliament, the UUP had no representation.
The party’s new MP in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Tom Elliott, said he was delighted to have taken the seat from Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew.
His constituency was one of four where there was a pact between the UUP and DUP, the two main unionist parties in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland: The story of 18 seats won and lost
Northern Ireland’s Unionists are hoping for key role in Westminister
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