'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
Though that's another manifestation of the pickle the UK is in.
For quite a while, certainly since Blair, maybe since Thatch and the Big Bang, we've collectively been happy to have global finance sit in London, as long as we can get some taxes as a result. For most of us, it's felt a bit money-for-nothing. But the costs have crept up on us.
Partly, we all hate London; it's got all the wealth and now normal people can't afford to move there, even if they want to. It sucks up talent and investment that could be doing other things. It also means there's a disconnect between what normal people do and the national wealth; this massive taxpayer that is, at best, semi-attached to the rest of the UK.
We hate it, but can't do without the money it provides.
This is why the "£350m a week" line on the bus resonated so much. The perception was that instead of spending on things that would benefit the UK - particularly the parts that feel really quite poor and run down - it was funneled towards nebulous goals like being an "aid superpower" and helping politicians maintain the illusion that we "punch above our weight".
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
I was under the impression that blaming London stuff was code for anti English racism. Stop stoking it up you beast!
One finger, [edit] HYUFD means, for Wales, with a margin of difference only because it had been where it shouldn't and hadn't been washed - Brexit vote was 52.5/47.5.
Which was higher than the UK vote of 51.8% Leave and also higher than the South East vote of 51.7% Leave
So? I'm right. It;s not two fingers.
It was fingers up from most of England and Wales to London and the South East.
Scotland and Northern Ireland ironically closer to London than the North and Wales on Brexit
Very, very off-topic - but has anyone else received refunds from Amazon that they didn't ask for? I've had about five over the past month or so - including emails saying "thank you for returning the item in good condition." I've tried their customer service who - at best - say "Yeah, that is a bit weird".
Just a few minutes ago they gave me a *second* refund for a pair of slippers that I'm currently wearing.
I'm not exactly in tears at getting a 'free' £100 quid or so from them - but... it's a bit odd.
I’d be a bit concerned. Someone possibly has hacked into your account and is testing how much attention you pay to transactions.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
kle4 asked about Kyrsten Sinema: ""Registering as an independent and showing up to work with the title independent is a reflection of who I've always been, and it's a reflection of who Arizona is," she said in a Twitter video
So she was being dishonest before?"
Judge for yourself: "Sinema began her political career in the Arizona Green Party and rose to prominence for her progressive advocacy, supporting causes such as LGBT rights and opposing the war on terror. She left the Green Party to join the Arizona Democratic Party in 2004 and was elected to a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2012. After her election, she joined the New Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, amassing one of the most conservative voting records in the Democratic caucus." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrsten_Sinema
(She reminds me a bit of Tulsi Gabbard -- who I don't understand, either.)
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
Though that's another manifestation of the pickle the UK is in.
For quite a while, certainly since Blair, maybe since Thatch and the Big Bang, we've collectively been happy to have global finance sit in London, as long as we can get some taxes as a result. For most of us, it's felt a bit money-for-nothing. But the costs have crept up on us.
Partly, we all hate London; it's got all the wealth and now normal people can't afford to move there, even if they want to. It sucks up talent and investment that could be doing other things. It also means there's a disconnect between what normal people do and the national wealth; this massive taxpayer that is, at best, semi-attached to the rest of the UK.
We hate it, but can't do without the money it provides.
This is why the "£350m a week" line on the bus resonated so much. The perception was that instead of spending on things that would benefit the UK - particularly the parts that feel really quite poor and run down - it was funneled towards nebulous goals like being an "aid superpower" and helping politicians maintain the illusion that we "punch above our weight".
Now it’s funnelled straight to Lady Mone.
Although the economic loss from Brexit is worth much more than £350m a week, so in that sense it’s gone to New York and Amsterdam and Paris.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
There are many defences to Brexit. On the the two biggest issues since Brexit - covid and Ukraine - the UK has responded better than the EU. Granted, technically, those reponses coukd uave been done inside the EU: realistically, they could not. And the financial clouds hanging over the EU have not gone away. It is still my view that being outside the EU is the lower risk position. Some sectors of the workforce have seen benefits: generally those with quieter voices. The argument that government should be responsive to democratic levers, rather than technocratic, remains.
I voted leave because I thought the arguments for leaving were, on balance, stronger thanthose for remaining. I am slightly more convinced of this positiom than I was in 2016, not least because the biggest fears of remain did not materialise.
The impacts of civid and Ukraine have, in any case, dwarved those of Brexit.
My view is that much of the current hostility to Brexit is actually hostility to the current malaise, which is driven primarily by covid and Ukraine. The political travails of the past 6 years have certainly not helped, and are certainly related to Brexit, but I would argue a 52-48 vote for remain would have also led to a similarly shambolic situation (as would no vote at all).
It's certainly the case that a lack of consensus on what sort of Brexit we should have - globalist or insular - is hindering us. Personally I favour the former. Leavers bear responsibility got addressing this, but the Remainers who couldn't compromise with the electorate in the 16-19 parliament bear a measure of responsibility too. Though having Jeremy Corbyn as LOTO added something of a wildcard.
But as I said, thus is very much an 'on balance' position. But this is as it should be - I am suspicious of anyone on either side of this debate who sees absolutely no merits in the arguments of the other side.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
There are many defences to Brexit. On the the two biggest issues since Brexit - covid and Ukraine - the UK has responded better than the EU. Granted, technically, those reponses coukd uave been done inside the EU: realistically, they could not. And the financial clouds hanging over the EU have not gone away. It is still my view that being outside the EU is the lower risk position. Some sectors of the workforce have seen benefits: generally those with quieter voices. The argument that government should be responsive to democratic levers, rather than technocratic, remains.
I voted leave because I thought the arguments for leaving were, on balance, stronger thanthose for remaining. I am slightly more convinced of this positiom than I was in 2016, not least because the biggest fears of remain did not materialise.
The impacts of civid and Ukraine have, in any case, dwarved those of Brexit.
My view is that much of the current hostility to Brexit is actually hostility to the current malaise, which is driven primarily by covid and Ukraine. The political travails of the past 6 years have certainly not helped, and are certainly related to Brexit, but I would argue a 52-48 vote for remain would have also led to a similarly shambolic situation (as would no vote at all).
It's certainly the case that a lack of consensus on what sort of Brexit we should have - globalist or insular - is hindering us. Personally I favour the former. Leavers bear responsibility got addressing this, but the Remainers who couldn't compromise with the electorate in the 16-19 parliament bear a measure of responsibility too. Though having Jeremy Corbyn as LOTO added something of a wildcard.
But as I said, thus is very much an 'on balance' position. But this is as it should be - I am suspicious of anyone on either side of this debate who sees absolutely no merits in the arguments of the other side.
A reasonable post ruined by the fact-free assertions in para 1.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
Though that's another manifestation of the pickle the UK is in.
For quite a while, certainly since Blair, maybe since Thatch and the Big Bang, we've collectively been happy to have global finance sit in London, as long as we can get some taxes as a result. For most of us, it's felt a bit money-for-nothing. But the costs have crept up on us.
Partly, we all hate London; it's got all the wealth and now normal people can't afford to move there, even if they want to. It sucks up talent and investment that could be doing other things. It also means there's a disconnect between what normal people do and the national wealth; this massive taxpayer that is, at best, semi-attached to the rest of the UK.
We hate it, but can't do without the money it provides.
One of the bits of received wisdom about London, though, is now rather out of date. It is not that expensive a city by international standards. Partly because of the exchange rate but also because inflation in things like eating out and food shopping has been in line with rather than ahead of national averages. Meanwhile real estate, restaurant and bar costs and most personal services have gone utterly bonkers in places like New York and Paris as well as the wealthier small capitals like Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
I had a flying work visit to NY a few weeks ago and was shocked. It's the first time for decades I've been in a foreign country and felt poor due to my nationality. $30 for a starter, $50 upwards for a main course in decidedly middle of the road restaurants.
People moan about £5 pints but they've been 4 or 5 quid for years. By rights they should probably be about a tenner now but they're not. They certainly are in NY. £20 for a bog standard glass of wine at a very bog standard bar, $10 for about 400ml of some craft beer or other.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
This is the biggest political scandal that I can remember. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Is there a next minister to leave the Cabinet market up currently?
Really? The biggest? You either have a poor memory, or this is a recency bias (we attribute more recent events as better or worse than more distant ones).
More than £200mn of taxpayers money given to a shady offshore network of companies whose beneficiary seems to be a politician from the governing party and her family, by ministers from the same party, for defective equipment, with £100mn of profits, in the middle of a pandemic, via a channel set up to prioritise people close to the governing party... It puts Neil Hamilton's brown envelopes full of banknotes to shame that's for sure. £200mn is a hell of a lot of money, and based on what the Graun is reporting it looks like pretty outrageous corruption. What scandal do you remember that's bigger than this one?
World cup to Qatar and the French get rather a lot of defence orders.
Incidently, whether or not the Grauniad have this story correct, what is the status of the money? If money was paid for goods not delivered, or deemed not to be fit for the role, surely the government is going after the suppliers for the money back?
I'm talking about UK political scandals. I agree if we go global there are bigger ones. I believe the government is trying to recover its money, and perhaps coincidentally Lady Mone is selling her properties and yacht. The real scandal is the VIP lane system that the government put in place, which seems (as one would have imagined) to have hindered rather than helped the cost effective delivery of equipment. Setting up that system was at best stupid and naive, at worst a deliberate invitation to corruption. We need an independent inquiry, urgently.
I agree we should look at what happened. I only ask, as always, judge by what was happening at the time. France, our dear friends and allies impounded and seized PPE that was on its way to the UK. Labour was screaming about lack of PPE.
The government did its best and got some things badly wrong. I suspect, from the Graun story, the Mone is a wrong 'un and hopefully will be persued to the full extent of the law if laws have been broken.
But we were in extraordinary times.
True. But if there was major corruption I don't think "but there was a pandemic on" is a good enough defence to get them off. Esp if the people who benefitted were connected to decision makers.
Its not a defence but it does explain a lack of scrutiny at the time. If she has done as it appears, then Lady no more and lets have some jail time. But thats for a court of law to decide, not some randoms on an obscure political betting AI/woke/UAP blog.
There were clearly a lot of nonsense legal actions trying to punish the government for taking expedited action which, in the circumstances, was both lawful and appropriate, even if it meant the risks of some level of, say, fraud, was increased. High standards and proper process is incredibly important, but proper process usually includes provision for emergencies, which we were definitely in. So many of the lawsuits were just unreasonable.
However, there is a level at which even in such times people should not have gotten close to perpetrating such a scandal.
The VIP access via politicians is pure third worldery. What was ever wrong with a Civil Service procurement body, staffed by the likes of the buyers for Primark and M&S? who after all were at a loose end at the time.
I’ve told this funny story before.
The ammunition buying team at the MOD was binned as old fashioned. One civil servant described them as gun nuts*.
Their replacements simply bought the cheapest ammo on the market. Which jammed very nicely.
The replacement team were top of Methodology, Value For Money etc
*he actually said to me “Do you think the British Military should have a bunch of gun nuts buying the ammunition”. To which I replied - “Yes”
Very, very off-topic - but has anyone else received refunds from Amazon that they didn't ask for? I've had about five over the past month or so - including emails saying "thank you for returning the item in good condition." I've tried their customer service who - at best - say "Yeah, that is a bit weird".
Just a few minutes ago they gave me a *second* refund for a pair of slippers that I'm currently wearing.
I'm not exactly in tears at getting a 'free' £100 quid or so from them - but... it's a bit odd.
I’d be a bit concerned. Someone possibly has hacked into your account and is testing how much attention you pay to transactions.
I wondered about that for a bit too - but there's a good strong password on the account and I changed it after the first notification. And the emails from Amazon also say they have physically received the items back.
I'm inclined to think there's just something going wrong in their systems somewhere - but all I can really do is tell their customer service people so I've 'done the right thing'.
Just wondered if it was just me. None of my friends or networks seem to have had it - so either it is just me, or a small random set of people.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
The more I think about it, the more mind-boggling and unnerving AI becomes. As that article says, consider the trillions of ways the car changed human society. AI is much bigger than the car. Probably bigger than the internet. It is, in a sense, the apotheosis of the internet
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
The more I think about it, the more mind-boggling and unnerving AI becomes. As that article says, consider the trillions of ways the car changed human society. AI is much bigger than the car. Probably bigger than the internet. It is, in a sense, the apotheosis of the internet
Time will tell.
Although we’re due a new revolution anyway.
Internet (95?), social media (05) and mobile phones (07) were starting to look a bit old hat.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
Brazil should have scored a few more like Gareth’s boys
This is the biggest political scandal that I can remember. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Is there a next minister to leave the Cabinet market up currently?
Really? The biggest? You either have a poor memory, or this is a recency bias (we attribute more recent events as better or worse than more distant ones).
More than £200mn of taxpayers money given to a shady offshore network of companies whose beneficiary seems to be a politician from the governing party and her family, by ministers from the same party, for defective equipment, with £100mn of profits, in the middle of a pandemic, via a channel set up to prioritise people close to the governing party... It puts Neil Hamilton's brown envelopes full of banknotes to shame that's for sure. £200mn is a hell of a lot of money, and based on what the Graun is reporting it looks like pretty outrageous corruption. What scandal do you remember that's bigger than this one?
World cup to Qatar and the French get rather a lot of defence orders.
Incidently, whether or not the Grauniad have this story correct, what is the status of the money? If money was paid for goods not delivered, or deemed not to be fit for the role, surely the government is going after the suppliers for the money back?
I'm talking about UK political scandals. I agree if we go global there are bigger ones. I believe the government is trying to recover its money, and perhaps coincidentally Lady Mone is selling her properties and yacht. The real scandal is the VIP lane system that the government put in place, which seems (as one would have imagined) to have hindered rather than helped the cost effective delivery of equipment. Setting up that system was at best stupid and naive, at worst a deliberate invitation to corruption. We need an independent inquiry, urgently.
I agree we should look at what happened. I only ask, as always, judge by what was happening at the time. France, our dear friends and allies impounded and seized PPE that was on its way to the UK. Labour was screaming about lack of PPE.
The government did its best and got some things badly wrong. I suspect, from the Graun story, the Mone is a wrong 'un and hopefully will be persued to the full extent of the law if laws have been broken.
But we were in extraordinary times.
True. But if there was major corruption I don't think "but there was a pandemic on" is a good enough defence to get them off. Esp if the people who benefitted were connected to decision makers.
Its not a defence but it does explain a lack of scrutiny at the time. If she has done as it appears, then Lady no more and lets have some jail time. But thats for a court of law to decide, not some randoms on an obscure political betting AI/woke/UAP blog.
There were clearly a lot of nonsense legal actions trying to punish the government for taking expedited action which, in the circumstances, was both lawful and appropriate, even if it meant the risks of some level of, say, fraud, was increased. High standards and proper process is incredibly important, but proper process usually includes provision for emergencies, which we were definitely in. So many of the lawsuits were just unreasonable.
However, there is a level at which even in such times people should not have gotten close to perpetrating such a scandal.
The VIP access via politicians is pure third worldery. What was ever wrong with a Civil Service procurement body, staffed by the likes of the buyers for Primark and M&S? who after all were at a loose end at the time.
Woudl not have been a bad idea.
And re. the 'there's a pandemic on' mitigation - I think it's the opposite, she saw the whole thing as an unbeatable opportunity for using her connections to trouser a load of taxpayers' money.
Mitigation for the government's actions, not Mone's.
The VIP lane for friends and family of the Conservative Party can't be justified by the pandemic. Especially as it seems to have hindered rather than helped the procurement process (as even a moment's thought could have predicted). There are a lot of unanswered questions here.
Current HMG is early 21st-century answer to the infamous "Republic of Pals" that contributed greatly to rotting out the potential of the French to resist German aggression culminating in the Blitzkrieg and Fall of France in 1940.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Global services trade, backed up by the presence of as many high skilled people we can import and a friendly regulatory environment. Then restrict low skilled workers to push up wages at the bottom.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
And no one in Croatia will give a damn. Sport is about winning. Great sides find a way. Brazil have looked great in some games against lesser opposition. First game against a good side, the WC finalists from 2018, and they can’t score in the 90, get a goal, assume they’ve won and cough up an equaliser. Don’t fall for the romance. There are better teams left.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
The game is the game. If you’re ahead at the end you win.
Brazil’s problem is that they weren’t very good tonight. If they’d been at their best, Croatian negativity would have meant nothing.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
The more I think about it, the more mind-boggling and unnerving AI becomes. As that article says, consider the trillions of ways the car changed human society. AI is much bigger than the car. Probably bigger than the internet. It is, in a sense, the apotheosis of the internet
Time will tell.
Although we’re due a new revolution anyway.
Internet (95?), social media (05) and mobile phones (07) were starting to look a bit old hat.
And VR is not yet ready for prime time.
AI is probably a bigger revolution than those three combined
As @TimS says, it is the replacement of the human mind the same way industrialisation replaced the human body
The impact on education alone is monumental. Will universities still be around in ten or twenty years? What will they teach? What's the point? AI will do everything better. Humans might as well commit themselves to mindless pleasure
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Global services trade, backed up by the presence of as many high skilled people we can import and a friendly regulatory environment. Then restrict low skilled workers to push up wages at the bottom.
At the highest level, that *was* the model. Migration was always higher skilled than the native population.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
The game is the game. If you’re ahead at the end you win.
Brazil’s problem is that they weren’t very good tonight. If they’d been at their best, Croatian negativity would have meant nothing.
Football is at its best when there are three points for a win. But that’s done now and being able to defend deep and take penalties is well rewarded in knockout football.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
OK betting strategy: I am going to back the (90 min) draw in all remaining matches, using mainly free bets, at £10 a go. I formulated this strategy at lunch time, wish I had implemented it then.
BTW for those that usually bet only on politics, free bets are out there, from all the bookies you haven't signed up to cos they dinnae do politics. Oddschecker is a useful resource.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Global services trade, backed up by the presence of as many high skilled people we can import and a friendly regulatory environment. Then restrict low skilled workers to push up wages at the bottom.
At the highest level, that *was* the model. Migration was always higher skilled than the native population.
Not overall surely? The bulk seemed to be people willing to do low paid jobs that the locals wouldn’t, such as care work, hospitality and picking crops. And a tiny minority of high skilled people in Unis and the city.
There's no question that that match was a bit of a shame. In the last match they produced shades of the Brazil of the 70's and 80's not seen for many years, and that might be one of the best Brazil sides seen for many years, too. In the 70's and 80's they didn't have to contend with such fit and professionally athlete European sides.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
And no one in Croatia will give a damn. Sport is about winning. Great sides find a way. Brazil have looked great in some games against lesser opposition. First game against a good side, the WC finalists from 2018, and they can’t score in the 90, get a goal, assume they’ve won and cough up an equaliser. Don’t fall for the romance. There are better teams left.
The Croatian goalkeeper was superb. The defence was very good. But going forward they had nothing.
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Global services trade, backed up by the presence of as many high skilled people we can import and a friendly regulatory environment. Then restrict low skilled workers to push up wages at the bottom.
At the highest level, that *was* the model. Migration was always higher skilled than the native population.
Not overall surely? The bulk seemed to be people willing to do low paid jobs that the locals wouldn’t, such as care work, hospitality and picking crops. And a tiny minority of high skilled people in Unis and the city.
Yes, overall. Well attested. As for “tiny minority”, that doesn’t really describe the key London service industries like tech etc.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
The more I think about it, the more mind-boggling and unnerving AI becomes. As that article says, consider the trillions of ways the car changed human society. AI is much bigger than the car. Probably bigger than the internet. It is, in a sense, the apotheosis of the internet
Time will tell.
Although we’re due a new revolution anyway.
Internet (95?), social media (05) and mobile phones (07) were starting to look a bit old hat.
And VR is not yet ready for prime time.
AI is probably a bigger revolution than those three combined
As @TimS says, it is the replacement of the human mind the same way industrialisation replaced the human body
The impact on education alone is monumental. Will universities still be around in ten or twenty years? What will they teach? What's the point? AI will do everything better. Humans might as well commit themselves to mindless pleasure
The replacement of aspects of the mind. If AI ever does everything better, then it will be something rather different in kind, not just competence, to what’s around now.
Incidentally, the fear of AI is what sparked Musk’s interest in Neuralink. That is further off (and Musk’s effort is probably not the best), but the merger of mind and computing isn’t a complete fantasy.
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
And no one in Croatia will give a damn. Sport is about winning. Great sides find a way. Brazil have looked great in some games against lesser opposition. First game against a good side, the WC finalists from 2018, and they can’t score in the 90, get a goal, assume they’ve won and cough up an equaliser. Don’t fall for the romance. There are better teams left.
The Croatian goalkeeper was superb. The defence was very good. But going forward they had nothing.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It astounds me that so many are reluctant to recognise that we were getting closer and closer to insolvency whilst our standard of living declined in the SM. That was mainly our own fault but the idea that continuing on the same course was either viable or sane really is delusional. I completely accept that the necessary changes could have been done within the EU but disruption and poor relative performance was inevitable.
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
Not everything is about politics.
Can’t support players who wanted Bolsonaro to win and the further destruction of the rainforest and the destruction of Brazilian democracy . With these leaders if you don’t get them out at the first chance they will load the dice , see Orban for what happens .
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
AI/VR is fascinating but how does it map to the big global issues? It's easy in our gilded bubble to forget what these are. So a reminder of the top 5:
Abject poverty Oppression of women Political repression Pollution War
If it doesn't help eradicate these things it's no gamechanger imo.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It was a big economy. Slightly smaller nowadays, relatively speaking.
As for the balance of trade, the sort of argument you are implying died out about two hundred years ago.
Croatia defended and did nothing until they were behind. Their goal was their only shot on target in 120 minutes. That type of negativity is not good for football.
And no one in Croatia will give a damn. Sport is about winning. Great sides find a way. Brazil have looked great in some games against lesser opposition. First game against a good side, the WC finalists from 2018, and they can’t score in the 90, get a goal, assume they’ve won and cough up an equaliser. Don’t fall for the romance. There are better teams left.
The Croatian goalkeeper was superb. The defence was very good. But going forward they had nothing.
Since they came back from a goal down, a bit more than ‘nothing’.
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
Not everything is about politics.
Can’t support players who wanted Bolsonaro to win and the further destruction of the rainforest and the destruction of Brazilian democracy . With these leaders if you don’t get them out at the first chance they will load the dice , see Orban for what happens .
It must be quite tiring to be that worked up about what players for a country thousands of miles away do in the ballot box.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It astounds me that so many are reluctant to recognise that we were getting closer and closer to insolvency whilst our standard of living declined in the SM. That was mainly our own fault but the idea that continuing on the same course was either viable or sane really is delusional. I completely accept that the necessary changes could have been done within the EU but disruption and poor relative performance was inevitable.
The idea that Britain’s “standard of living declined in the SM” is…
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
How on earth could we let Northern and Midlands and Essex and Welsh working class oiks get a say on more tightly controlling immigration? All they have done is made my nanny, cleaner and plumber supply more restricted, meant I have to queue an hour longer when going skiing in Klosters and to our summer villa in Tuscany and reduced the number of corporate deals across the EU my firm deals with.
How dare they!!!
Yes, indeed, but if Brexit is fucking up London then it is fucking up UK PLC
London rejected Brexit even in 2016, in part it was 2 fingers to London from the English provinces and Wales, not just to Brussels.
Most Leavers wanted Levelling up and reduced immigration and regained sovereignty, not an even stronger globalist London disconnected from the rest of the country
But we aren't getting reduced immigration. We imported half a million people last year, and Labour will do the same
Meanwhile the dinghy people keep coming
I can understand why many Leavers, rich or poor, are now looking at the state of things and wondering: What was Brexit all FOR?
Personally, I can see the arguments from democracy and sovereignty, but I get why many don't
Apart from controlling immigration from Europe there was nothing of importance we wanted to do that we couldn't have done as EU members. Although there were a couple of big forbidden things we didn't want to do - (i) old style clause 4 socialism and (ii) deregulated cowboy capitalism. Both of these adventures would have been impossible, so required Brexit.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Perhaps both?
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
Social media is like the printing press: opening up politics and propaganda to the hoi polloi, accelerating the rate of diffusion and evolution of memes
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
The more I think about it, the more mind-boggling and unnerving AI becomes. As that article says, consider the trillions of ways the car changed human society. AI is much bigger than the car. Probably bigger than the internet. It is, in a sense, the apotheosis of the internet
Time will tell.
Although we’re due a new revolution anyway.
Internet (95?), social media (05) and mobile phones (07) were starting to look a bit old hat.
And VR is not yet ready for prime time.
AI is probably a bigger revolution than those three combined
As @TimS says, it is the replacement of the human mind the same way industrialisation replaced the human body
The impact on education alone is monumental. Will universities still be around in ten or twenty years? What will they teach? What's the point? AI will do everything better. Humans might as well commit themselves to mindless pleasure
The replacement of aspects of the mind. If AI ever does everything better, then it will be something rather different in kind, not just competence, to what’s around now.
Incidentally, the fear of AI is what sparked Musk’s interest in Neuralink. That is further off (and Musk’s effort is probably not the best), but the merger of mind and computing isn’t a complete fantasy.
Yes. Something like Neuralink is probably the best bet: for humanity to avoid a pretty grim fate: becoming largely irrelevant
I feel for people in education. They will get hit first, and that hit is happening right now. How can you now set writing assignments with ChatGPT available on every phone and computer? And so on
I've still got people in my circle who are blithely unaware of ChatGPT. They don't understand what it is, let alone what it means
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It was a big economy. Slightly smaller nowadays, relatively speaking.
As for the balance of trade, the sort of argument you are implying died out about two hundred years ago.
The entrepôt was not everything, but it paid for much of the rest of the stuff. Just one example, Hunt had to pay for the budget by kicking out social care funding until after the next election, which his government is very likely to lose.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It was a big economy. Slightly smaller nowadays, relatively speaking.
As for the balance of trade, the sort of argument you are implying died out about two hundred years ago.
Can you find a Chinese or German economist who agrees with you on that?
HOWEVER, he is NOT a 24/7 disaster zone like his predecessor(s). His value is limited, but more than nil.
Whereas BJ was big fat zero, certainly that was the average: up a mountain at the start, down a hole at the end.
And LT was less than zero, from Budget Soup to Fracking Nuts.
If natural gas in the US was anywhere near the price it is in the UK, you might be a little less disparaging of 'Fracking Nuts.' I am reminded of Biden's deeply hypocritical (not to mention diplomatically disgraceful) intervention in criticising Truss's cutting the top rate of income tax, when its proposed rate was still a lot higher than the top rate in the US.
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
Not everything is about politics.
Can’t support players who wanted Bolsonaro to win and the further destruction of the rainforest and the destruction of Brazilian democracy . With these leaders if you don’t get them out at the first chance they will load the dice , see Orban for what happens .
It must be quite tiring to be that worked up about what players for a country thousands of miles away do in the ballot box.
I’m not worked up . But Neymar et al got what they deserved .
What a shock . Looks like some of the Brazilian footballers who supported Bolsonaro have reaped the karma they deserved . Neymar in particular who was full on the Trump of South America .
Although some others were notable opponents of his. Richarlison for one.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It astounds me that so many are reluctant to recognise that we were getting closer and closer to insolvency whilst our standard of living declined in the SM. That was mainly our own fault but the idea that continuing on the same course was either viable or sane really is delusional. I completely accept that the necessary changes could have been done within the EU but disruption and poor relative performance was inevitable.
The idea that Britain’s “standard of living declined in the SM” is…
…unique.
We were living well beyond our means with a standard of living we were not earning and falling into debt. Those are the facts. We went from having a significant surplus on foreign investment to an almost unsustainable deficit because so many assets were sold to cover the deficits. If you think that was success you really are delusional.
'Sir: On the day after the Brexit vote, I met my daughter (a City lawyer) who was absolutely incandescent at my decision. She did not mince her words. Nearly seven years on she was right and I was wrong. There is no defence to Brexit.'
Right about what? If the question was Brexit will make the country better off in 7 years time, then fine, it’s not. But that wasn’t the question was it? Brexit was about more than just GDP. It was about opting out of the European super state. It was about free trade with the whole world, not just the cartel on our doorstep.
Oh my god, you still believe all of that? Wow, just wow.
Which bit? Opting out of ever closer union? Trading more widely with the world? I missed the adverts which said Brexit is purely about GDP.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
The very concept “trading more widely with the world” betrays a fundamental error of logic.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
Yes of course it makes more sense to trade freely with Europe. I could be forgiven for thinking we had a free trade agreement in place…
Eh?
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose. It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
The UK is a big economy in its own right, and the balance of trade in the single market was not in its favour. Thinking that it can prosper as merely a European entrepôt is more of a dead duck than a golden goose.
It was a big economy. Slightly smaller nowadays, relatively speaking.
As for the balance of trade, the sort of argument you are implying died out about two hundred years ago.
The entrepôt was not everything, but it paid for much of the rest of the stuff. Just one example, Hunt had to pay for the budget by kicking out social care funding until after the next election, which his government is very likely to lose.
Well, absolutely. Brexit means we can no longer afford the things we used to. That’s true for government and consumers.
Some will say it is worth it for the extra sovereignty.
Comments
Wow, just wow.
Course if Labour offered (i) or the Tories (ii) in a general election they'd get their arses handed to them because there's no appetite for either vision. The upshot is a bit Donald Rumsfeld: By leaving the EU we can now do things we don't want to do, but we won't since we don't want to, and in return for this privilege it's become harder, in some cases impossible, to do lots of things we do want to do
Democracy in action or just a bit stupid?
Scotland and Northern Ireland ironically closer to London than the North and Wales on Brexit
Someone possibly has hacked into your account and is testing how much attention you pay to transactions.
BTW I voted remain. But I understand why others voted for Brexit, and I found it an agonising choice. Never had so much mental wrangling over a vote.
So she was being dishonest before?"
Judge for yourself: "Sinema began her political career in the Arizona Green Party and rose to prominence for her progressive advocacy, supporting causes such as LGBT rights and opposing the war on terror. She left the Green Party to join the Arizona Democratic Party in 2004 and was elected to a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2012. After her election, she joined the New Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, amassing one of the most conservative voting records in the Democratic caucus."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrsten_Sinema
(She reminds me a bit of Tulsi Gabbard -- who I don't understand, either.)
Although the economic loss from Brexit is
worth much more than £350m a week, so in that sense it’s gone to New York and Amsterdam and Paris.
On the the two biggest issues since Brexit - covid and Ukraine - the UK has responded better than the EU. Granted, technically, those reponses coukd uave been done inside the EU: realistically, they could not. And the financial clouds hanging over the EU have not gone away. It is still my view that being outside the EU is the lower risk position. Some sectors of the workforce have seen benefits: generally those with quieter voices. The argument that government should be responsive to democratic levers, rather than technocratic, remains.
I voted leave because I thought the arguments for leaving were, on balance, stronger thanthose for remaining. I am slightly more convinced of this positiom than I was in 2016, not least because the biggest fears of remain did not materialise.
The impacts of civid and Ukraine have, in any case, dwarved those of Brexit.
My view is that much of the current hostility to Brexit is actually hostility to the current malaise, which is driven primarily by covid and Ukraine. The political travails of the past 6 years have certainly not helped, and are certainly related to Brexit, but I would argue a 52-48 vote for remain would have also led to a similarly shambolic situation (as would no vote at all).
It's certainly the case that a lack of consensus on what sort of Brexit we should have - globalist or insular - is hindering us. Personally I favour the former. Leavers bear responsibility got addressing this, but the Remainers who couldn't compromise with the electorate in the 16-19 parliament bear a measure of responsibility too. Though having Jeremy Corbyn as LOTO added something of a wildcard.
But as I said, thus is very much an 'on balance' position. But this is as it should be - I am suspicious of anyone on either side of this debate who sees absolutely no merits in the arguments of the other side.
If you are still swallowing that canard, I pity you.
I can see a pretty convincing argument that Brexit was the right decision taken at the wrong time. You couldn't choose a worse time to seriously upset your trading arrangments than: just before a global plague, a European war, and a worldwide slowdown (or even a slump). So the democratic motivation was justified but it was done at a stupidly bad time
However - I hate to bang on - all this is overshadowed by AI
Over the next five-ten-twenty years this tech is going to utterly transform the world economy, in ways good and bad, and in ways we cannot imagine:
"If you’re looking for historical analogues, this would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding"
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/openai-chatgpt-writing-high-school-english-essay/672412/?utm_source=apple_news
In that enormous context, maybe Brexit does not really matter at all
I had a flying work visit to NY a few weeks ago and was shocked. It's the first time for decades I've been in a foreign country and felt poor due to my nationality. $30 for a starter, $50 upwards for a main course in decidedly middle of the road restaurants.
People moan about £5 pints but they've been 4 or 5 quid for years. By rights they should probably be about a tenner now but they're not. They certainly are in NY. £20 for a bog standard glass of wine at a very bog standard bar, $10 for about 400ml of some craft beer or other.
And we have free museums here too.
The ammunition buying team at the MOD was binned as old fashioned. One civil servant described them as gun nuts*.
Their replacements simply bought the cheapest ammo on the market. Which jammed very nicely.
The replacement team were top of Methodology, Value For Money etc
*he actually said to me “Do you think the British Military should have a bunch of gun nuts buying the ammunition”. To which I replied - “Yes”
I'm inclined to think there's just something going wrong in their systems somewhere - but all I can really do is tell their customer service people so I've 'done the right thing'.
Just wondered if it was just me. None of my friends or networks seem to have had it - so either it is just me, or a small random set of people.
I think it is giving me flashbacks to multiple England penalty flops
AI more like the steam engine: steam devalued the human body, AI devalues the human mind forcing us to adopt a completely different model of labour
Trade with Europe has fallen, and trade beyond Europe doesn’t look very healthy either.
Britain’s economic position was as a highly amenable entrepôt inside Europe, and thus the default choice of traders and investors around the world.
Although I agree that this was insufficient in spreading wealth around the country, the blame for that lies inside Westminster and Treasury.
Brexit killed the golden goose.
It is truly difficult to think of viable alternative economic models.
Although we’re due a new revolution anyway.
Internet (95?), social media (05) and mobile phones (07) were starting to look a bit old hat.
And VR is not yet ready for prime time.
"Kingdom of Cronies?"
They were in the 2018 final having beaten England in the Semi-finals.
If you’re ahead at the end you win.
Brazil’s problem is that they weren’t very good tonight. If they’d been at their best, Croatian negativity would have meant nothing.
As @TimS says, it is the replacement of the human mind the same way industrialisation replaced the human body
The impact on education alone is monumental. Will universities still be around in ten or twenty years? What will they teach? What's the point? AI will do everything better. Humans might as well commit themselves to mindless pleasure
Migration was always higher skilled than the native population.
BTW for those that usually bet only on politics, free bets are out there, from all the bookies you haven't signed up to cos they dinnae do politics. Oddschecker is a useful resource.
And a tiny minority of high skilled people in Unis and the city.
As for “tiny minority”, that doesn’t really describe the key London service industries like tech etc.
If AI ever does everything better, then it will be something rather different in kind, not just competence, to what’s around now.
Incidentally, the fear of AI is what sparked Musk’s interest in Neuralink. That is further off (and Musk’s effort is probably not the best), but the merger of mind and computing isn’t a complete fantasy.
I completely accept that the necessary changes could have been done within the EU but disruption and poor relative performance was inevitable.
Pleased for Croatia though.
Abject poverty
Oppression of women
Political repression
Pollution
War
If it doesn't help eradicate these things it's no gamechanger imo.
As for the balance of trade, the sort of argument you are implying died out about two hundred years ago.
…unique.
I feel for people in education. They will get hit first, and that hit is happening right now. How can you now set writing assignments with ChatGPT available on every phone and computer? And so on
I've still got people in my circle who are blithely unaware of ChatGPT. They don't understand what it is, let alone what it means
Still, Croatia, hard as nails. If you don't beat them in 90 you don't beat them.
Richarlison for one.
Brexit means we can no longer afford the things we used to. That’s true for government and consumers.
Some will say it is worth it for the extra sovereignty.