Senate The UK Politics discussion

"I'll have a vodka, lemon, lime and V2 please."

 

But a lukewarm sponge can be nice, squishy and warming (for a bit, prior to the cold, disappointing dampness the warmth never promised)


almost like a metaphor maybe...

 

A sponge of any temperature is useful for wiping up scum. Just need to scrub hard enough.

 

I really hope you're right about this because currently it seems that May thinks she's in a political version of Thelma and Louise and is hellbent on driving off the cliff to escape Yurp!

Oh, I don't think it's unfounded currently, maybe better grounds for optimism will emerge but right now it's a cluster-frell.

What this boils down to is confidence and I don't have that in any of the politicians in the House of Commons. Ah, but the Civil Service will provide sound advice? Probably not, if they want to stay employed - Brexit might as well break a service that's worked fine for 400 years along with everything else.

Hopefully, there'll be an outbreak of sanity but no idea when that'll be.

Wonder how withering The Economist will end up being, oh hang on:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2017/01/countdown-2019
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2017/01/countdown-2019/comments#sort-comments

 

Just bear in mind that none of you have been in any form of bi-lateral negotiation and often when surface tensions appear it's widely understood by both sides to be for appearances sake. When the proverbial and literal doors close, you have no way of knowing what is going on. I know the internet age has convinced people that this is not the case, but we all - even the most absolutely negatively embittered among us, who is not nearly as tough as he thinks/hopes lol - should know better.

 

I simply reached out with a warm invitation.

What does this have to do with anything?

Says the guy who wants to see Corbyn spend £250 billion trying to turn the UK back into a manufacturing economy.

No I'm not, and no I haven't. I've repeatedly expressed confidence that we will end up with de facto single market membership, freedom of movement and customs union membership.

I find the pantomime that's taking place ridiculous but that's the extent of my complaint.

Cowardly? As opposed to you bravely calling me a ****ing moron over the internet?

It's not a case of attention. It's the level of commentary about the vote. The assumption that the entire remain vote was driven by a full enthusiasm for all things EU, that the entire leave vote was driven by racism and that these two viewpoints represent the entirety of opinion in the UK. Neither of these comic book representations accounts for the views of anyone I know in real life and it's absurd that the much of the twitter dialogue from MEPs is framed in such weird, absolutist terms.

 

Corbyn: Make Grates In England Again!

 

Oh my gosh I am so scared of internet tough guys it's ****ing unreal. You shouldn't let my simple words affect you so badly. Maybe lay off the HGH for a while.

I don't advocate for turning the UK into a manufacturing economy, and I don't recall Corbyn saying he wants to do that either. He, like every political leader, has said he wants Britain manufacturing again. ISTR him saying that turning Britain into a manufacturing economy again was impossible, but that we are over reliant on the service sector, which any fule knows is true. I think he's eager to embrace robotics and be an early adopter of automated manufacture, but that is decidedly not the same thing as turning back into a manufacturing economy.

I don't think we can starve ourselves out of hunger any longer, and I think we should have spent our way out of recession years ago. Investing in new technologies is the best strategy.

Pointing out witlessness is cowardly? But how can that be, since you're such a tough guy? I think you and your flamboyant tag team partner Ender do that to a lot of people a lot of the time. Kind of hypocritical of you.

Abstaining from an important decision is cowardly, yes. What did you do to prevent the country from lurching to the right? What did you do to prevent 7 decades of peace and prosperity being rejected? You sat on your arse and challenged to fight someone on a Star Wars forum. Your grandchildren will be so proud.

What the comment on racism had to do with was your comment on racism in the post I quoted.The comment that you came back to at the end of the post I'm quoting now.

I think you'd benefit from expanding your social circle and having less superficial interactions. I think every single Leave voter I've met has had something racist about them, and not merely in the tautological way of having voted to leave an international cultural/political/economic union. Most leave voters I've spoken to cite immigration as one of the main issues, many express concern over hearing different languages in public, many express concern over lack of integration, many blame immigration/immigrants for overcrowding, inflated house prices/rents, for NHS and education budgets being stretched, and for austerity in general. Some cite Syrian refugees, some have complained about Somalians. Many have expressed distaste for Germany, for France, and for Brussels. Many cite false stories about bent bananas and the like. Some use racist slang terms for east and southeast Asian people. Some use racist slang for black people. Some say equality has gone too far. I'm sure most don't consider themselves racist, just as most Trump voters probably don't consider themselves racist (despite having done a terribly racist thing). Only a small minority of racists are proud, outspoken racists, though there's a worrying trend in the opposite direction.

Perhaps it's undiplomatic and unhelpful to point out that the 52% are a basket of deplorables, but it's true.

 

What did I just say?

 

I feel like - and of course I also speak from experience - when a mod, especially PG, says "stop the personal attacks", responding with a "he started it, plus he should stop taking steroids it makes him angry lol" is about as far from a sensible idea as you can get. But go nuts mate.

 

This is like bronzey and goldey but it's made of iron. You're the one throwing around insults from a comfortable distance. That's pretty much the definition of an internet tough guy.

Number 1 on Corbyn's list of pledges is to spend £500 billion: half on infrastructure, the other half on manufacturing and new industries (with a promise of full employment to boot). I've said before, we don't have the skills, the natural resources, or the education system to do this. It would take several decades to catch up to Germany and Japan and even then it's unlikely we'd be able to compete with them, even assuming that the economy somehow keeps afloat that long.

I'm not convinced by austerity either. It's interesting how you repeatedly characterise me as having various extreme right wing views on issues I've never expressed an opinion on. Having said that, it's not as easy a call as you make out. Keynesian economics involves saving in a boom and spending your way out of a bust. Not borrowing heavily throughout a boom holding onto the delusion that the economy is forever bombproof.

Let's use an analogy here. If I were faced with the question: 'do you want to leave London permanently, yes or no?' my first question would be 'to go where?'. With no clarification on that point, just a bunch of mad propaganda, I think it's reasonable to weigh all my dissatisfaction with elements of London and the fact that many of those elements will not change with a 'stay in London' vote, against the vagueness of the 'leave' option. Leave to go to the South West? Hell, yes. Leave to go to Coventry? Hell no.

I think refusing to answer a question framed in this way is entirely rational.

That's meant to be a clarification?

Do you not see the irony of this? You're painting the 43% of the population who voted leave, for myriad reasons, as a bunch of racists and you're painting the 17% who abstained as cowardly morons while accusing someone else of superficial interactions. Really?

 

unhinged, wish I had your confidence that we'll get that kinda deal. I can't see freedom of movement as part of any deal (except, 'maybe, for certain sectors only i.e. The city). That seems to be the primary issue for brexiters and to go back on that would be a massive climb down. I mean I hope they do, but it seems unlikely.

 

epic I think we will see a quota on unskilled migration but I honestly don't think it will make much material difference.

In the end I think the punch and judy show will sell the quota as preventing benefits claimants (not that the data show that many such exist) and unskilled migrants 'taking jobs'. In the end, I think it'll be an expensive paper exercise that makes no difference to net migration and just makes the process of coming here to work slightly irritating for people. I'd imagine other measures like compulsory English lessons for anyone failing an English test will help appease. If that happens, I really hope the Spanish bring in something similar for all the Brits living on the Costa del Sol. The thought of them all having to attend Spanish lessons until they can demonstrate a basic command of the language gives me a warm glow inside.

I think any outcry about skilled migration will be dealt with using the NHS as an example of how we really need doctors and nursing staff from Europe in order to function. (The same applies to all sorts of businesses and services, but the NHS pushes people's buttons).

 

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson might as well have just come out with:

Two world wars and one brexit, doo-dah, doo-dah
Two world wars and one brexit, doo-dah, doo-dah
England!
En-ger-lund!

Ye gods, it's beyond being embarrassing now - has there ever been a worse Foreign Secretary?

 

from https://satwcomic.com/

 

Meanwhile Labour's lurch into electoral oblivion continues apace - Latest Guardian/ICM poll shows Conservatives with a 16% lead:

Con 42% Lab 25% UKIP 13% Lib-Dems 10% Green 5% Con Lead 16%

If Labour lose the upcoming by elections in Copeland and Stoke next month there must surely be a chance of another challenge to Corbyn?

 

16% lead when the govt hasn't a) triggered Article 50 and b) anything too popular (yet)

We haven't even seen the ceiling of this poll lead yet. That's the scary thing here.

 

Honestly Daniel I'd say the reverse, May is riding on a lot of generalised statements that play well to the Brexit crowd but generally fail to acknowledge that many of the promises made by the leave camp were pure fantasy, at some stage reality is going to bite there when a hard Brexit isn't the promised land.

On the other side of course you definitely need to consider Labour are in total disarray as its becoming clearer that the Progress/Blairite wing of the party are not going to look to work with the Corbyn/Momentum wing(to the degree the former are just sticking their fingers in there ears with Brexit shouting "no no no no!" for political points rather than trying to deal with the reality of it) and can could on strong backing from much of the media. Indeed I think this also extends to the very easy ride May is still getting as leader facing little or no criticism for the failings of the NHS and the increasingly obvious detachment from reality on Brexit tactics.

 

She didn't lead the Leave campaign. People keep forgetting it.

 

Yeah she didn't but she is staying pretty much on message to a lot of what they were promising with regards keeping free trade and having total control of boarders and legislation.

 

It's all ok because Labour membership is high. (lol).

In other news, what was May thinking during that interview on Sunday?! (When asked about the Trident missile test, I mean). She had such an obvious get out: 'I can't discuss matters of national security'. Absolutely no need for all that clumsy evasiveness.

 

Even though she isn't.

 

Seems so to me, she's rejecting membership of the single market yet is still talking up the potential for very benefical trade agreements with EU nations that seem unlikely to happen.