Senate The UK Politics discussion

If you're in the floods I hope your family and home are OK..

 

All fine here, thanks. North Devon's been hit pretty hard with some villages cut off, power cuts, lots of roads closed due to flooding etc. but no major problems in my immediate vicinity. Driving back from Oxford yesterday was fun... aquaplaning along the A361! Good job I drive now, though. Pretty much all train services in Devon have been suspended.

 

Been seeing that on the news. I'm in the Greater London area. We had rain but nothing like you folks had. BBC News had some footage of flooding in Bristol last night.

 

We had heavy rain for three days and my back garden is now a bog, but I think we're okay for floods. My last undisclosed location was a couple of miles downhill from here and had a cellar which filled with sewage when we got heavy rain, so I'm very glad to be wherever it is that I am now.

 

Isn't that business as usual then?

Meanwhile, this perfect summary of the Brexit mess, supposedly from an FT comment page, is going viral. It's brilliant:

Remainers (left holding the Brexit baby after the Leavers… left) “WTF?”

Leavers “We voted Brexit, now You Remainers need to implement it”

Remainers “But it’s not possible!”

Leavers “The People Have Spoken. Therefore it is possible. You just have to think positively.”

Remainers “And do what exactly?”

Leavers “Come up with a Plan that will leave us all better off outside the EU than in it”

Remainers “But it’s not possible!”

Leavers “Quit with the negative vibes. The People Have Spoken.”

Remainers “But even you don’t know how!”

Leavers “That’s your problem, we’ve done our bit and voted, we’re going to sit here and eat popcorn and watch as you do it.”

Remainers “Shouldn’t you do it?”

Leavers “It’s not up to us to work out the detail, it’s up to you experts.”

Remainers “I thought you’d had enough of experts”

Leavers “Remain experts.”

Remainers “There are no Leave experts”

Leavers “Then you’ll have to do it then. Oh, and by the way, no dragging your feet or complaining about it, because if you do a deal we don’t want, we’ll eat you alive.”

Remainers “But you don’t know what you want!”

Leavers “We want massive economic growth, no migration, free trade with the EU and every other country, on our terms, the revival of British industry, re-open the coal mines, tea and vicars on every village green, some bunting, and maybe restoration of the empire.”

Remainers “You’re delusional.”

Leavers “We’re a delusional majority. DEMOCRACY! So do the thing that isn’t possible, very quickly, and give all Leavers what they want, even though they don’t know what they want, and ignore the 16 million other voters who disagree. They’re tight trouser latte-sipping hipsters who whine all the time, who cares.”

 

I wish we had your problems instead.

 

Research, press release and lobbying done in September ^ ... confirmed today: letting agent fees will be abolished. Mission accomplished. Announcement also covered beautifully by the Daily Mash:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/this-is-communism-say-letting-agents-20161123117735

It's nice when **** actually happens as a result of all the data crunching.

 

Autumn Statement = We're all ****ed.

Expect the Brexiteer Tory MPs to demand Hammond be executed for the treason of being factual.

 

Things aren't great for the time being but I'm not sure we're ****ed.

Increasing R&D funding and cutting corporation tax will allay some fears throughout the period of uncertainty. I still can't believe that we'll be stupid enough to leave the single market or customs union even though May's put all her biggest mentalists at the negotiating table. I'm also sure the EU will blink and give some kind of token concession on freedom of movement to appease the flag-waving idiots. I'm still confident that - after a bumpy ride - we'll end up with something sensible.

 

We can only hope.

 

I hope they don't concede freedom of movement, and I don't expect they will.

The best outcome would be to let British subjects keep their European citizenship (with all the rights and privileges associated with it) if they choose to. I would certainly pay for that privilege if I had to, and hopefully there would be a subsidised option for those who can't afford it (even if it were just via charity, which I'd be happy to volunteer for).

 

We need freedom of movement. Single market aside, our economy and public services would collapse without skilled labour from European countries.

We also need to find some kind of token concession to appease the flag wavers.

At this point in the negotiations, we have two sets of tubthumping idiots shouting at each other in a kind of punch and judy show. Eventually they'll wear themselves out and sensible people - capable of delicacy, tact and compromise - will quietly broker a deal that gives de facto freedom of movement packaged in a way that can be sold to both sets of intransigent lunatics. They will need to let them exhaust themselves a bit first and have a good old thump of their tubs.

I'm not even going to comment on your ridiculous italicisation antics, although they remind me that I must find space in my study for a portrait of Her Majesty.

 

You can save space and money if you use a postage stamp. Make a matchstick frame by cutting the sticks down to size and using the rough edge of the box to mitre the corners so they fit at 90 degrees. Do some tiny ornate carving and dye the wood in Indian tea for extra patriotism points. That's your Thursday afternoon sorted, imo.

So what do you think of the associate citizenship option?

 

Let's hope you're right, as all the rhetoric says we're going for the idiot option.

 

If we leave the single market and/or materially curtail freedom of movement, I would absolutely sign up and probably leave the UK. I really don't think that's going to happen, though.

Jedi Ben I am concerned that May's put all her top idiots around the bargaining table but I still think the mad polemics will resolve into something more palatable.

 

Maybe she put them there for that very purpose of failing spectacularly (as they're already trying to do). And when things are completely effed up, adults take over and do the right thing (ideally, not leave at all).

But that's probably just a dream scenario...

 

Whether intentional or not, they'll lose credibility after a while and the uncertainty will start biting into people's wallets. It may take a year for things to become enough of a mess for the electorate to accept something sensible but I'm confident it will happen.

Honestly, I'm not at all bothered about losing our seat on the commission or our seats in the EU parliament. Neither gave us any kind of voice in Europe anyway. Most of our commissioners were completely ineffectual and nearly all of our MEPs were certifiable nutjobs, with about a third of them campaigning to leave and basically making a nuisance of themselves. This is why I abstained. I don't think being a part of that pantomime is of any benefit and I don't buy into the 'stay and reform' argument purely because any reformation would require referenda.

It's everything else (freedom of movement, single market and customs union membership and EU human rights & employment laws - hell, the European Court of Justice, why not) that I want to keep.

Oh, wait, not the common agricultural policy. If I could pick and choose, I'd leave that wasteful, destructive lunacy behind. I'm not sure we'd do any better on our own but we couldn't really do much worse.

 

Yeah, the farming subsidies are a mess.

 

Also, I meant to ask, slightly_unhinged, did you and Ender and Diggy coordinate your icons? Because it's pretty brilliant.

 

Dude, you are not ****ed. ****ed is what America is right now.

 

Yep, Darth Punk & Super Watto too: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/14-years-here.50042806/page-3#post-53946825

 

Doooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwdddddduh, America just has 4 years of idiocy, maybe 8. The UK ****ed itself into the next century. We ****ed ourselves and our closest friends so badly that we are now relying on you ****ers to save us from the ****ing Russians, but the Russians ****ed you up, and the more you **** yourselves, the more ****ed we get.

 

Umm, Trump will poison relations between whites and everybody else in America. He'll poison relations between America and the rest of the world. Who knows what the hell Russia and China will do now that America has no interest in stopping them, and lacks the moral authority to do so anyway. Republicans just got away with their strategy of total obstruction and their Supreme Court blockade. Trump also has views on free speech that line up with authoritarians like Turkey's Erdogan.

By contrast, you're just out of the EU for maybe what, the next 20-30 years? That's not great, but you can easily survive that. The repercussions of Donald Trump will probably last just as long, but are far more severe. Not to mention that Theresa May only has an obligation to implement Brexit, not the rest of the right-wing populist agenda.

 

Um, OK.... So when did Alpha and V2 decide to revive the Four Yorkshiremen?

 

Well...now I gotta watch this 3 minute clip on Youtube. Although I think I can guess what it's about.