Re the French hysteria Re a small number of fishing licences how feasible is it for the UK Gov to start having talks with the Belgians and Dutch (as the next closest countries geographically in the channel) to boost their port operations to the point that all EU/UK trade carries on through their ports to end need for French ports?
Whilst French fishers are a noisy bunch the locals authorities and Unions reliant on UK French trade at Calais etc represent far more people and a far larger part of the economy and so if their livelihoods are threatened by idiotic behaviour by the French then it might be the pressure point needed.
If Ireland worked on increasing shipping around the UK which is a longer route then surely it’s feasible to divert to Belgium/Netherlands and am sure they would welcome the economic boost…..
Interestingly the Belgians have been trying to win UK Shipping trade. The thing is now the negotiations are over post-Brexit we're now customers to be won to them, not someone to be negotiated with as a bloc.
The French have responded by trying to illegally build windfarms in the shipping lane to bloc the lane.
I don't know why we treat France as an ally, we have more problems with France than the rest of Europe put together. If it's feasible to do trade with other European countries instead we should pursue it, because France is not a friend of the UK.
France isn't an ally - at best an erratic neutral. They say we're unreliable for leaving the EU, ignoring their own departure from (and then eventual rejoining of) NATO.
We need to show that AUKUS was only the start if they want to play rough. That's the only language Macron will respect.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Except that the Office of Budget Responsibility has proven that this is not true. Brexit costs twice as much as Covid costs. So sayeth the OBR.
Can you explain why Brexit means the government has to spend ~£500bn? What are they spending it on?
You might say that Covid definitely hits the economy harder than brexit. The OBR says the opposite. Tories insist the OBR is a studiously neutral observer and the definitive voice on economics. So it must be true. Which unfortunately means you are wrong on this one.
No, that is not what the OBR is saying. The tax rises to pay for covid have nothing to do with OBR forecasts but about real costs already incurred.
It is literally what the Chair of the OBR is saying. Richard Hughes said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had assumed leaving the EU would “reduce our long run GDP by around 4%”, adding in comments to the BBC: “We think that the effect of the pandemic will reduce that (GDP) output by a further 2%.”
We've taken a short term hit due to Covid. Taxes going up. Its because of Covid says the government. We're seeing the start of the Brexit impact which the OBR says will be twice as expensive. Which will mean more tax rises - if we're lucky we can inflate away some of it.
'Assumed'. Lets see. This might be correct, it might be low, it might be high. One of the biggest problems is deconvoluting the effects of covid (huge) from Brexit (also huge). The counterfactual where covid didn't happen, but Brexit did would be interesting, as would the other way around.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
My point is they failed to make a winnable case and do not seem to recognise that
What do you want him to do. Put a sackcloth and ashes emoji on his Twitter profile?
Or just cease all political opinion?
Your argument, whether you realise it or not, is totalitarian.
Not at all. He has an absolute right to say what he wants and we have the same right to say he is behaving like a tosser.
Yeah you have the right to call him a tosser. It just reflects badly on you, that’s all.
At least it is honest, unlike your postings.
Another post that simply talks to your own (in)ability to make a coherent argument.
I already made the coherent argument. That you are a hypocrite. Along with examples on each side to support the contention. It seems you are just too stupid to understand them.
In grassroots politics news I finally attended a parish council meeting last week.
I was unpleasantly and aggressively disruptive until we passed a motion of support for the anarchists of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. 🅐
I now have a vision of a future book - a mashup of Homage to Catalonia with Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
My position on this was - as is - identical to BigG's. Very much a reluctant remainer - a narrow remainer if you like - who is now at peace with the new status quo.
Those who want to rejoin the EU from here need to say what they mean. Do they mean with no rebate? Giving up our currency? Do they mean at any cost?
Nobody on here this morning, and nor does Gauke’s tweet, suggests rejoining the EU.
I'd re-join at the drop of a hat. I know a lot of people who feel the same right now.
And I'm hoping Scotland will a) vote for independence and b) join the EU.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
We decided to Brexit. W
This is a very loose comment.
'We' was 52% against 48%, in other words hardly deserving of your all-inclusive pronoun, but in some ways the bigger issue is that we didn't vote for Brexit. We didn't really vote for anything. No one knew what the hell we were voting for. The devil in the detail only emerged later and I guarantee you that if we'd known the monster we were about to unleash the country would not have voted for it.
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
My point is they failed to make a winnable case and do not seem to recognise that
What do you want him to do. Put a sackcloth and ashes emoji on his Twitter profile?
Or just cease all political opinion?
Your argument, whether you realise it or not, is totalitarian.
Not at all. He has an absolute right to say what he wants and we have the same right to say he is behaving like a tosser.
Yeah you have the right to call him a tosser. It just reflects badly on you, that’s all.
At least it is honest, unlike your postings.
Another post that simply talks to your own (in)ability to make a coherent argument.
I already made the coherent argument. That you are a hypocrite. Along with examples on each side to support the contention. It seems you are just too stupid to understand them.
You didn’t though. You just came straight out with it.
It’s your right, but don’t be surprised if posters - metaphorically - back away from you while dialling the council’s number for rabid dogs.
In grassroots politics news I finally attended a parish council meeting last week.
I was unpleasantly and aggressively disruptive until we passed a motion of support for the anarchists of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. 🅐
Plus the despatch of a park bench as a tangible expression of that solidarity.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
These figures are abject nonsense. It is Remoanery idiocy piled on idiocy to cite them
Brexit is like having a baby. So saying ‘Brexit will cost 3.9% of GDP’ is akin to one of those mad articles which says ‘having a child will cost you £540,000 by the time the child reaches adulthood’.
There so many confounding factors. How much does NOT having a child cost? Can you compare it financially to buying a donkey? Exactly how many disposable nappies will be used? What if the child becomes a YouTube yoghurt influencer and earns £7m?
Having a baby and not having a baby are such fundamentally opposed and differing life choices there can be no meaningful comparison in terms of ‘financial outcome’. Life changes in a profound way. You take a different path. Many good and bad things will happen, which could not have happened before
We decided to Brexit. We chose a wildly different path. There is no going back and no point in Remainers tormenting themselves with What If
I have kids.
They cost a lot of money, and that’s true no matter how I feel about them.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
We decided to Brexit. W
This is a very loose comment.
'We' was 52% against 48%, in other words hardly deserving of your all-inclusive pronoun, but in some ways the bigger issue is that we didn't vote for Brexit. We didn't really vote for anything. No one know what the hell we were voting for. The devil in the detail only emerged later and I guarantee you that if we'd known the monster we were about to unleash the country would not have voted for it.
What makes you think I disagree on this point?
I’ve said many times that Cameron was suicidally complacent about his EU referendum. There are multiple ways he could have ensured he won it, and this is one such. He could have said Yes, we’re having a referendum but first we will have a Royal Commission to investigate the two alternatives, and LEAVE must spell out whether we are leaving the Single Market, the Customs Union, what that means for migration, Ireland, etc
It would have roiled and split the Leave campaign and Cameron would have romped home.
Instead he loftily assumed he was cruising to victory, because he is an arrogant Etonian who fatally over-estimated his own abilities. Because that’s what Eton does. It fills you with self assurance. Often unjustified
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
I am not shutting down Gauke, I am criticising him and his fellow travellers for not making the case to remain and win
Those who support the EU are not getting a free pass on Brexit by saying it was someone else's fault
1. If Brexit is so wonderful why is it anyone’s fault?
2. Why are Remainers to be blamed?
1 - Brexit benefits will grow year by year despite those wishing it to be a total failure
2 - If you support the EU then the case should have been won to retain the membership
Surely even you don't dispute the fundamental dishonesty of the NHS claim? Most of your lot applaud the cleverness of the lie. Classic Dom, overstating the sum because he knew that would keep it in the news.
The money going into the NHS exceeds the bus quote but the remain camp should have been able to win the case and did not
The country is out of the EU and many cannot accept that which is fair enough
However, the arguments are tedious, the UK is changing in many ways and it is significant that apart from the SNP and Plaid, no political party is promoting re-joining the EU
Even the Lib Dems are scared of standing on an honest re-join commitment
Like you Mr G, I've seen, and even worked in, quite a lot of elections. I was also very active in the 1975 Referendum campaign. And the Remain campaign was outstanding in my mind for the lack of passion and effort on the part of those at the top, especially on the Government side, who appeared for much of the time to assume that everything would go their way.
... don't forget Corbyn. His performance in EU Ref is one the many reasons he is destined for an eternity in Hades
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
The important metric will be relative economic performance compared with other similarly sized Western European countries.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
We decided to Brexit. W
This is a very loose comment.
'We' was 52% against 48%, in other words hardly deserving of your all-inclusive pronoun, but in some ways the bigger issue is that we didn't vote for Brexit. We didn't really vote for anything. No one know what the hell we were voting for. The devil in the detail only emerged later and I guarantee you that if we'd known the monster we were about to unleash the country would not have voted for it.
What makes you think I disagree on this point?
I’ve said many times that Cameron was suicidally complacent about his EU referendum. There are multiple ways he could have ensured he won it, and this is one such. He could have said Yes, we’re having a referendum but first we will have a Royal Commission to investigate the two alternatives, and LEAVE must spell out whether we are leaving the Single Market, the Customs Union, what that means for migration, Ireland, etc
It would have roiled and split the Leave campaign and Cameron would have romped home.
Instead he loftily assumed he was cruising to victory, because he is an arrogant Etonian who fatally over-estimated his own abilities. Because that’s what Eton does. It fills you with self assurance. Often unjustified
It’s worse than that. He was almost suicidally complacent about the Sindy referendum but he seemed to learn nothing from it.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
My position on this was - as is - identical to BigG's. Very much a reluctant remainer - a narrow remainer if you like - who is now at peace with the new status quo.
Those who want to rejoin the EU from here need to say what they mean. Do they mean with no rebate? Giving up our currency? Do they mean at any cost?
Nobody on here this morning, and nor does Gauke’s tweet, suggests rejoining the EU.
I'd re-join at the drop of a hat. I know a lot of people who feel the same right now.
And I'm hoping Scotland will a) vote for independence and b) join the EU.
Don’t you tend to the err on the side of doom anyhow, particularly with the COVID outlook?
Re the French hysteria Re a small number of fishing licences how feasible is it for the UK Gov to start having talks with the Belgians and Dutch (as the next closest countries geographically in the channel) to boost their port operations to the point that all EU/UK trade carries on through their ports to end need for French ports?
Whilst French fishers are a noisy bunch the locals authorities and Unions reliant on UK French trade at Calais etc represent far more people and a far larger part of the economy and so if their livelihoods are threatened by idiotic behaviour by the French then it might be the pressure point needed.
If Ireland worked on increasing shipping around the UK which is a longer route then surely it’s feasible to divert to Belgium/Netherlands and am sure they would welcome the economic boost…..
Interestingly the Belgians have been trying to win UK Shipping trade. The thing is now the negotiations are over post-Brexit we're now customers to be won to them, not someone to be negotiated with as a bloc.
The French have responded by trying to illegally build windfarms in the shipping lane to bloc the lane.
I don't know why we treat France as an ally, we have more problems with France than the rest of Europe put together. If it's feasible to do trade with other European countries instead we should pursue it, because France is not a friend of the UK.
France isn't an ally - at best an erratic neutral. They say we're unreliable for leaving the EU, ignoring their own departure from (and then eventual rejoining of) NATO.
We need to show that AUKUS was only the start if they want to play rough. That's the only language Macron will respect.
If US democracy fails, and we give up on France, we don't have very many allies left. What's our foreign policy strategy then?
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
The important metric will be relative economic performance compared with other similarly sized Western European countries.
Yes.
Although don’t underestimate British exceptionalism x denialism.
Ex London and the South East, British GDP per capita is now on a par with some former Warsaw Pact states, and nobody seems especially exercised by this.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
My point is they failed to make a winnable case and do not seem to recognise that
What do you want him to do. Put a sackcloth and ashes emoji on his Twitter profile?
Or just cease all political opinion?
Your argument, whether you realise it or not, is totalitarian.
Not at all. He has an absolute right to say what he wants and we have the same right to say he is behaving like a tosser.
Yeah you have the right to call him a tosser. It just reflects badly on you, that’s all.
At least it is honest, unlike your postings.
Another post that simply talks to your own (in)ability to make a coherent argument.
I already made the coherent argument. That you are a hypocrite. Along with examples on each side to support the contention. It seems you are just too stupid to understand them.
You didn’t though. You just came straight out with it.
It’s your right, but don’t be surprised if posters - metaphorically - back away from you while dialling the council’s number for rabid dogs.
You are not very strong on basic comprehension either it seems. Another failing to add to your lengthening list.
We have a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade agreement with Europe. All we lack is free movement and a customs union - well the EFTA/EEA nations don't have a customs union either so don't drag them into an attempt at point scoring.
Where can I find the tariffs for EU-produced goods?
The tables are for third countries.
They are our tables. We have now applied a zero-rate tariff on all categories. But that is massively different to "zero tariff".
On every product that you import you have to assign it to a tariff class. Do the paperwork. Submit it for inspection. If you have the wrong tariff class then your import gets rejected and HMRC hold it up. When that's one product in the middle of a mixed pallet on a truck with 32 mixed pallets, that is a problem.
Philip keeps saying zero tariff zero quota like stuff just crosses the border seamlessly and unchecked. That is simply not true. When you have products that are zero-rate and quota-free and zero-rate for import VAT and it takes 4 attempts to get products across the border before they are out of life, that's a massive problem.
That's not the point, well done for missing it.
@Gardenwalker is trying to conflate the "Single Market" and the Customs Union as if they're the same thing, because it inflates a percentage.
Its completely dishonest and fake. Yes I acknowledge that there are tariff checks etc at the UK/EU border. You know where else there are tariff checks though? The EU/EFTA border. You're the one who made a big deal about this in 2019 as a reason we supposedly "had to" have a customs agreement, because even the EFTA doesn't make it customs-check free.
If you want to compare the border friction we have now, to the trade that was friction-free previously then you can only include the EU trade and not the EFTA trade since EFTA trade was never friction-free. Even you must acknowledge this since it was your very own argument so why deny it now? Why not just acknowledge that what you yourself were saying is still correct?
Which does leave me confused as to why you voted for Brexit as even if we'd joined the EEA we'd still be out of the customs zone, but nevermind.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
My position on this was - as is - identical to BigG's. Very much a reluctant remainer - a narrow remainer if you like - who is now at peace with the new status quo.
Those who want to rejoin the EU from here need to say what they mean. Do they mean with no rebate? Giving up our currency? Do they mean at any cost?
Nobody on here this morning, and nor does Gauke’s tweet, suggests rejoining the EU.
I'd re-join at the drop of a hat. I know a lot of people who feel the same right now.
And I'm hoping Scotland will a) vote for independence and b) join the EU.
I would rejoin the EU, but the scenario you hope for is almost unique in being even worse than the status quo.
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
The important metric will be relative economic performance compared with other similarly sized Western European countries.
Yes.
Although don’t underestimate British exceptionalism x denialism.
Ex London and the South East, British GDP per capita is now on a par with some former Warsaw Pact states, and nobody seems especially exercised by this.
The NE would rejoice were we to reach par with the Baltics.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
We decided to Brexit. W
This is a very loose comment.
'We' was 52% against 48%, in other words hardly deserving of your all-inclusive pronoun, but in some ways the bigger issue is that we didn't vote for Brexit. We didn't really vote for anything. No one know what the hell we were voting for. The devil in the detail only emerged later and I guarantee you that if we'd known the monster we were about to unleash the country would not have voted for it.
What makes you think I disagree on this point?
I’ve said many times that Cameron was suicidally complacent about his EU referendum. There are multiple ways he could have ensured he won it, and this is one such. He could have said Yes, we’re having a referendum but first we will have a Royal Commission to investigate the two alternatives, and LEAVE must spell out whether we are leaving the Single Market, the Customs Union, what that means for migration, Ireland, etc
It would have roiled and split the Leave campaign and Cameron would have romped home.
Instead he loftily assumed he was cruising to victory, because he is an arrogant Etonian who fatally over-estimated his own abilities. Because that’s what Eton does. It fills you with self assurance. Often unjustified
If he wanted to hold a referendum on Brexit but have that referendum be defeated, then if there was one person on the planet he should have spoken to before he launched the Referendum it was John Howard.
John Howard's 1999 Australian Republic referendum was an absolute masterclass on how to hold and spike a referendum.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
It's also a shot against one of the more common things cited by defenders of FPTP: with a single party in power, you can hold them to their manifesto commitments.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
I am not shutting down Gauke, I am criticising him and his fellow travellers for not making the case to remain and win
Those who support the EU are not getting a free pass on Brexit by saying it was someone else's fault
1. If Brexit is so wonderful why is it anyone’s fault?
2. Why are Remainers to be blamed?
1 - Brexit benefits will grow year by year despite those wishing it to be a total failure
2 - If you support the EU then the case should have been won to retain the membership
Surely even you don't dispute the fundamental dishonesty of the NHS claim? Most of your lot applaud the cleverness of the lie. Classic Dom, overstating the sum because he knew that would keep it in the news.
The money going into the NHS exceeds the bus quote but the remain camp should have been able to win the case and did not
The country is out of the EU and many cannot accept that which is fair enough
However, the arguments are tedious, the UK is changing in many ways and it is significant that apart from the SNP and Plaid, no political party is promoting re-joining the EU
Even the Lib Dems are scared of standing on an honest re-join commitment
Like you Mr G, I've seen, and even worked in, quite a lot of elections. I was also very active in the 1975 Referendum campaign. And the Remain campaign was outstanding in my mind for the lack of passion and effort on the part of those at the top, especially on the Government side, who appeared for much of the time to assume that everything would go their way.
... don't forget Corbyn. His performance in EU Ref is one the many reasons he is destined for an eternity in Hades
To be fair to Jeremy C he was only following the policy line laid down by his guru Lord Stansgate/Antony Wedgewood-Benn/Tony Benn back in the early '1970's.
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
The important metric will be relative economic performance compared with other similarly sized Western European countries.
Yes.
Although don’t underestimate British exceptionalism x denialism.
Ex London and the South East, British GDP per capita is now on a par with some former Warsaw Pact states, and nobody seems especially exercised by this.
The Prime Minister does. Hence "levelling up".
Oh and NW and NE voters do too, hence switching parties.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
It's also a shot against one of the more common things cited by defenders of FPTP: with a single party in power, you can hold them to their manifesto commitments.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
Yep.
It’s richly ironic that the key exponents of Brexit (because sovereignty) seem most keen on dismantling various aspects of accountability for the executive.
Charles is a blow-hard who’ll defend the Tories until he is carried to the family sepulchre.
It’s fascinating to watch him gyrate his logic accordingly.
Covid has been an absolutely ghastly experience, but in realpolitik terms it is an absolute godsend to the government which, as others have said, is a very lucky government. It doesn't matter what the OBR says, because few will listen, regardless of the accuracy of their forecasts. The Tories are in a win-win situation in relation to the economy for several years, because:
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid. - if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit. - if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
The important metric will be relative economic performance compared with other similarly sized Western European countries.
Yes.
Although don’t underestimate British exceptionalism x denialism.
Ex London and the South East, British GDP per capita is now on a par with some former Warsaw Pact states, and nobody seems especially exercised by this.
The Prime Minister does. Hence "levelling up".
Oh and NW and NE voters do too, hence switching parties.
Except they have decided not to fund it very meaningfully.
Let’s add it to our extant wager:
By 2030, the gap between London/SE and the NE will be the same or worse (with reference to NE GDP per capita as a percentage of London/SE).
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
It's also a shot against one of the more common things cited by defenders of FPTP: with a single party in power, you can hold them to their manifesto commitments.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
Not really. The point is that a manifesto can be discarded if the situation demands it, but under FPTP we can still hold that against the government. If we think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg an unforeseen pandemic) then we can factor that into our thinking before we vote. If we do not think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg the Constitution being renamed the Lisbon Treaty) then we can also factor that into our thinking.
Its our choice whether we hold the government to account for its failure to live to its commitments at the next election or not.
Under coalition agreements they get dumped instantly without needing an excuse.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
These figures are abject nonsense. It is Remoanery idiocy piled on idiocy to cite them
Brexit is like having a baby. So saying ‘Brexit will cost 3.9% of GDP’ is akin to one of those mad articles which says ‘having a child will cost you £540,000 by the time the child reaches adulthood’.
There so many confounding factors. How much does NOT having a child cost? Can you compare it financially to buying a donkey? Exactly how many disposable nappies will be used? What if the child becomes a YouTube yoghurt influencer and earns £7m?
Having a baby and not having a baby are such fundamentally opposed and differing life choices there can be no meaningful comparison in terms of ‘financial outcome’. Life changes in a profound way. You take a different path. Many good and bad things will happen, which could not have happened before
We decided to Brexit. We chose a wildly different path. There is no going back and no point in Remainers tormenting themselves with What If
"How much does NOT having a child cost? " Nail hit on head. This is exactly the correct concept of cost - opportunity cost. In economic decision-making all costs are opportunity costs, i.e. the value placed on the next best possibility foregone by the decision. Accounting costs often coincide with opportunity costs but not always. Here we have a decision - brexit - which affects the range of opportunities available. You have to weigh up everything when making the comparison, including intangibles. Not only that, but such costs are subjective, i.e. they are different from person to person. To talk as if one can compare the "cost" of brexit and covid is to delude yourself.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
It's also a shot against one of the more common things cited by defenders of FPTP: with a single party in power, you can hold them to their manifesto commitments.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
Not really. The point is that a manifesto can be discarded if the situation demands it, but under FPTP we can still hold that against the government. If we think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg an unforeseen pandemic) then we can factor that into our thinking before we vote. If we do not think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg the Constitution being renamed the Lisbon Treaty) then we can also factor that into our thinking.
Its our choice whether we hold the government to account for its failure to live to its commitments at the next election or not.
Under coalition agreements they get dumped instantly without needing an excuse.
... and you can then vote accordingly at the next election. See for example the Lib Dems.
FPTP doesn't make parties any more accountable to voters. If anything it makes them less accountable because it artificially reduces the choice voters have by making most parties no-hope also-rans.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
These figures are abject nonsense. It is Remoanery idiocy piled on idiocy to cite them
Brexit is like having a baby. So saying ‘Brexit will cost 3.9% of GDP’ is akin to one of those mad articles which says ‘having a child will cost you £540,000 by the time the child reaches adulthood’.
There so many confounding factors. How much does NOT having a child cost? Can you compare it financially to buying a donkey? Exactly how many disposable nappies will be used? What if the child becomes a YouTube yoghurt influencer and earns £7m?
Having a baby and not having a baby are such fundamentally opposed and differing life choices there can be no meaningful comparison in terms of ‘financial outcome’. Life changes in a profound way. You take a different path. Many good and bad things will happen, which could not have happened before
We decided to Brexit. We chose a wildly different path. There is no going back and no point in Remainers tormenting themselves with What If
"How much does NOT having a child cost? " Nail hit on head. This is exactly the correct concept of cost - opportunity cost. In economic decision-making all costs are opportunity costs, i.e. the value placed on the next best possibility foregone by the decision. Accounting costs often coincide with opportunity costs but not always. Here we have a decision - brexit - which affects the range of opportunities available. You have to weigh up everything when making the comparison, including intangibles. Not only that, but such costs are subjective, i.e. they are different from person to person. To talk as if one can compare the "cost" of brexit and covid is to delude yourself.
You can though, and the head of the OBR did.
I suspect he knows a bit more about finance than you.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
These figures are abject nonsense. It is Remoanery idiocy piled on idiocy to cite them
Brexit is like having a baby. So saying ‘Brexit will cost 3.9% of GDP’ is akin to one of those mad articles which says ‘having a child will cost you £540,000 by the time the child reaches adulthood’.
There so many confounding factors. How much does NOT having a child cost? Can you compare it financially to buying a donkey? Exactly how many disposable nappies will be used? What if the child becomes a YouTube yoghurt influencer and earns £7m?
Having a baby and not having a baby are such fundamentally opposed and differing life choices there can be no meaningful comparison in terms of ‘financial outcome’. Life changes in a profound way. You take a different path. Many good and bad things will happen, which could not have happened before
We decided to Brexit. We chose a wildly different path. There is no going back and no point in Remainers tormenting themselves with What If
"How much does NOT having a child cost? " Nail hit on head. This is exactly the correct concept of cost - opportunity cost. In economic decision-making all costs are opportunity costs, i.e. the value placed on the next best possibility foregone by the decision. Accounting costs often coincide with opportunity costs but not always. Here we have a decision - brexit - which affects the range of opportunities available. You have to weigh up everything when making the comparison, including intangibles. Not only that, but such costs are subjective, i.e. they are different from person to person. To talk as if one can compare the "cost" of brexit and covid is to delude yourself.
You can though, and the head of the OBR did.
I suspect he knows a bit more about finance than you.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Brexit is lost revenue. Furlough is lost revenue *and* increased cost.
Brexit is mostly projected, but not all. Exports to EU are already failing to follow Rest of World performance.
These figures are abject nonsense. It is Remoanery idiocy piled on idiocy to cite them
Brexit is like having a baby. So saying ‘Brexit will cost 3.9% of GDP’ is akin to one of those mad articles which says ‘having a child will cost you £540,000 by the time the child reaches adulthood’.
There so many confounding factors. How much does NOT having a child cost? Can you compare it financially to buying a donkey? Exactly how many disposable nappies will be used? What if the child becomes a YouTube yoghurt influencer and earns £7m?
Having a baby and not having a baby are such fundamentally opposed and differing life choices there can be no meaningful comparison in terms of ‘financial outcome’. Life changes in a profound way. You take a different path. Many good and bad things will happen, which could not have happened before
We decided to Brexit. We chose a wildly different path. There is no going back and no point in Remainers tormenting themselves with What If
"How much does NOT having a child cost? " Nail hit on head. This is exactly the correct concept of cost - opportunity cost. In economic decision-making all costs are opportunity costs, i.e. the value placed on the next best possibility foregone by the decision. Accounting costs often coincide with opportunity costs but not always. Here we have a decision - brexit - which affects the range of opportunities available. You have to weigh up everything when making the comparison, including intangibles. Not only that, but such costs are subjective, i.e. they are different from person to person. To talk as if one can compare the "cost" of brexit and covid is to delude yourself.
You can though, and the head of the OBR did.
I suspect he knows a bit more about finance than you.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Disagree Public Unions have shut schools and driven the debate through this new virus period, to the detriment of Public Service. Trade Unions who drove Corbyn to the Labour leadership are again in the background but the two are very different.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
Sorry, but this is complete nonsense. Had the government listened to teaching unions, schools would have been shut from the start of November. They closed schools because they had to due to a lack of staff and a rampaging new variant which could not be controlled with the totally inadequate measures they put in place, not because of threats from the unions.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I think you are disingenuously trying to undermine the tweet because the logical argument is rather inconvenient to you.
No. The Tweet is misleading.
There is a reasonable argument about whether Brexit will reduce GDP in future. Quite possibly it will (although GDP per capita is more complicated). People determined that cost was acceptable as a trade off for other perceived advantages
But a predicted output gap is not the same as a one time impact. It just isn’t.
Gauke’s tweet (and others like it) are disingenuous and manipulative.
Is being deliberately disingenuous and manipulative a bad thing if the other side are doing it? Ironic.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Except that the Office of Budget Responsibility has proven that this is not true. Brexit costs twice as much as Covid costs. So sayeth the OBR.
Please provide a link
My understanding is they were Teo very different things they were talking about
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
Except that the Office of Budget Responsibility has proven that this is not true. Brexit costs twice as much as Covid costs. So sayeth the OBR.
Please provide a link
My understanding is they were Teo very different things they were talking about
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
It's also a shot against one of the more common things cited by defenders of FPTP: with a single party in power, you can hold them to their manifesto commitments.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
Not really. The point is that a manifesto can be discarded if the situation demands it, but under FPTP we can still hold that against the government. If we think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg an unforeseen pandemic) then we can factor that into our thinking before we vote. If we do not think there's a good justification for the manifesto being broken (eg the Constitution being renamed the Lisbon Treaty) then we can also factor that into our thinking.
Its our choice whether we hold the government to account for its failure to live to its commitments at the next election or not.
Under coalition agreements they get dumped instantly without needing an excuse.
And if the voters disagree with the compromises the parties have made, they will punish the party in question at the next election. In Coalition negotiations, parties have to bear that in mind. That the overall intent (as per Charles' comment) and ideological lean are the important bits and if the parties betray those, they will get badly hit.
Comments
We need to show that AUKUS was only the start if they want to play rough. That's the only language Macron will respect.
One of the biggest problems is deconvoluting the effects of covid (huge) from Brexit (also huge). The counterfactual where covid didn't happen, but Brexit did would be interesting, as would the other way around.
And I'm hoping Scotland will a) vote for independence and b) join the EU.
'We' was 52% against 48%, in other words hardly deserving of your all-inclusive pronoun, but in some ways the bigger issue is that we didn't vote for Brexit. We didn't really vote for anything. No one knew what the hell we were voting for. The devil in the detail only emerged later and I guarantee you that if we'd known the monster we were about to unleash the country would not have voted for it.
- if the economy tanks, it's because of Covid.
- if the economy booms, it's because of Brexit.
- if it's somewhere in between, Brexit has saved us from the worst ravages of Covid.
Isn't it as simple as that?
PS: and if all else fails, they can always declare war on France.
You just came straight out with it.
It’s your right, but don’t be surprised if posters - metaphorically - back away from you while dialling the council’s number for rabid dogs.
They cost a lot of money, and that’s true no matter how I feel about them.
I’ve said many times that Cameron was suicidally complacent about his EU referendum. There are multiple ways he could have ensured he won it, and this is one such. He could have said Yes, we’re having a referendum but first we will have a Royal Commission to investigate the two alternatives, and LEAVE must spell out whether we are leaving the Single Market, the Customs Union, what that means for migration, Ireland, etc
It would have roiled and split the Leave campaign and Cameron would have romped home.
Instead he loftily assumed he was cruising to victory, because he is an arrogant Etonian who fatally over-estimated his own abilities. Because that’s what Eton does. It fills you with self assurance. Often unjustified
He was almost suicidally complacent about the Sindy referendum but he seemed to learn nothing from it.
Does that make any difference to anything?
Although don’t underestimate British exceptionalism x denialism.
Ex London and the South East, British GDP per capita is now on a par with some former Warsaw Pact states, and nobody seems especially exercised by this.
I am not sure why we should put up with this stupidity from the French just because they are having an election soon.
@Gardenwalker is trying to conflate the "Single Market" and the Customs Union as if they're the same thing, because it inflates a percentage.
Its completely dishonest and fake. Yes I acknowledge that there are tariff checks etc at the UK/EU border. You know where else there are tariff checks though? The EU/EFTA border. You're the one who made a big deal about this in 2019 as a reason we supposedly "had to" have a customs agreement, because even the EFTA doesn't make it customs-check free.
If you want to compare the border friction we have now, to the trade that was friction-free previously then you can only include the EU trade and not the EFTA trade since EFTA trade was never friction-free. Even you must acknowledge this since it was your very own argument so why deny it now? Why not just acknowledge that what you yourself were saying is still correct?
Which does leave me confused as to why you voted for Brexit as even if we'd joined the EEA we'd still be out of the customs zone, but nevermind.
John Howard's 1999 Australian Republic referendum was an absolute masterclass on how to hold and spike a referendum.
We've got the statement that they're more like guidelines coupled with the observation that voters don't actually hold them to their manifesto, anyway.
Oh and NW and NE voters do too, hence switching parties.
It’s richly ironic that the key exponents of Brexit (because sovereignty) seem most keen on dismantling various aspects of accountability for the executive.
Charles is a blow-hard who’ll defend the Tories until he is carried to the family sepulchre.
It’s fascinating to watch him gyrate his logic accordingly.
Let’s add it to our extant wager:
By 2030, the gap between London/SE and the NE will be the same or worse (with reference to NE GDP per capita as a percentage of London/SE).
Its our choice whether we hold the government to account for its failure to live to its commitments at the next election or not.
Under coalition agreements they get dumped instantly without needing an excuse.
Nail hit on head. This is exactly the correct concept of cost - opportunity cost. In economic decision-making all costs are opportunity costs, i.e. the value placed on the next best possibility foregone by the decision.
Accounting costs often coincide with opportunity costs but not always. Here we have a decision - brexit - which affects the range of opportunities available. You have to weigh up everything when making the comparison, including intangibles. Not only that, but such costs are subjective, i.e. they are different from person to person. To talk as if one can compare the "cost" of brexit and covid is to delude yourself.
FPTP doesn't make parties any more accountable to voters. If anything it makes them less accountable because it artificially reduces the choice voters have by making most parties no-hope also-rans.
I suspect he knows a bit more about finance than you.
edit - new thread.
My understanding is they were Teo very different things they were talking about
My understanding is they were Teo very different things they were talking about
Just ask him: