If 37% do want Boris back however, that is about 10% more than are now voting Tory under Rishi
Fake news.
Only 24% of people want him back, so actually lower than some Tory VI scores.
And maybe not all that 24% want to vote for him.
Yup.
Some 41 per cent of voters in the Savanta survey believe the current prime minister can “improve” the reputation of the Tory party, only 19 per cent said the same of Mr Johnson.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
I agree with much of that post but not all of it (the destination bit is open to debate).
I regret our leaving, but we've gone, and we better make Johnsonian Brexit work.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
Its purpose is only noble if you believe in it and believe it will make things better for the people of Europe. Given I and many others - including many Remainers who only voted against Brexit out of fear of the alternative - believe none of those things, it is hardly an argument in its favour. And it was certainly not in our self interest. Moreover Parliament can be reformed and has been at regular intervals through its history. Most recently with the reform of the House of Lords. I am sure there will be other reforms in the near future if Starmer gains a majority. But the fundamental basis of the EU and its objectives - not least of ever closer union - are flawed and that cannot be reformed.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
Spot on. Three choices, with variations, only. Stay. Leave. EFTA/EEA. None were good. By far EFTA/EEA would be the best of a bad lot.
The reality that none of the three choices were good ones is, I think, the real reason why both the campaigns were so limited, dishonest, lacking in vision and ideals and just thick.
The fact that no good choices were (and are) available is witness to the melancholy failure of statecraft and democracy which led us there over 40 years. It is in the years 1970-2015 that the damage was done. It will taint our politics for years.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
So our only choices were to change the way we ran our country and how we treated our own citizens to suit membership of the EU.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
Its purpose is only noble if you believe in it and believe it will make things better for the people of Europe. Given I and many others - including many Remainers who only voted against Brexit out of fear of the alternative - believe none of those things, it is hardly an argument in its favour. And it was certainly not in our self interest. Moreover Parliament can be reformed and has been at regular intervals through its history. Most recently with the reform of the House of Lords. I am sure there will be other reforms in the near future if Starmer gains a majority. But the fundamental basis of the EU and its objectives - not least of ever closer union - are flawed and that cannot be reformed.
This excellent and rather depressing piece directly contradicts my earlier comments on Japan managing decline well, and forces me to abandon my brief boycott of the BBC for being shockingly politically compromised.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
We could have imposed transition controls on free movement from the new accession nations but Blair refused.
Job seekers' allowance already is contributory now, just universal credit isn’t
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
Its purpose is only noble if you believe in it and believe it will make things better for the people of Europe. Given I and many others - including many Remainers who only voted against Brexit out of fear of the alternative - believe none of those things, it is hardly an argument in its favour. And it was certainly not in our self interest. Moreover Parliament can be reformed and has been at regular intervals through its history. Most recently with the reform of the House of Lords. I am sure there will be other reforms in the near future if Starmer gains a majority. But the fundamental basis of the EU and its objectives - not least of ever closer union - are flawed and that cannot be reformed.
What a narrow and blinkered view.
Not at all. Its called realism. In contrast to the Europhiles and their blind loyalty to a supranational civil service.
And my view is based on the idea that people should be able to change the actual manner in which they are governed, not just the talking heads doing the governing. Hence the reason I have always said Brexit was only a first necessary step. I view Scottish Independence in the same manner. And wholesale reform of the Parliamentary system and the way we govern our whole country. All to give more and meaningful power to the people rather than having it hoarded by the political classes.
That is an aspiration worth holding rather than the sordid rule by bureaucrat that you advocate. Europhiles bought into the bread and circuses propaganda from the EU. Except the bread was stale and the circus was Eurovision.
You'll be all delighted to know that I've written a piece on the monarchy for tomorrow afternoon.
#God Save the King
Fuck them
Not very Starmer Labour there Horse.
You know I don't have to agree with everything the Labour Party says or does? I am not paid by them, I can say what I like, I'm not asking you to vote for me
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
That was a false Daily Mailesque narrative, as all but a minority of Eastern Europeans came over to engage in the legitimate tax paying employment market..
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
I agree with much of that post but not all of it (the destination bit is open to debate).
I regret our leaving, but we've gone, and we better make Johnsonian Brexit work.
I genuinely don't think we have to. If Starmer is half the man some hope him to be he could craft his own version of Brexit and he has the golden opportunity right now to sell it. Ignore the extremists on both wings - Rejoin and 'This is not a real Brexit' and look for serious solutions which bring us closer to Europe but remaining outside the EU.
Hell, you and I are never going to be politicians but even we could craft a better Brexit than this. We just need to ignore the fanatics on both sides.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
That was a false Daily Mailesque narrative, as all but a minority of Eastern Europeans came over to engage in the legitimate tax paying employment market..
Absolutely, but it was widely believed. And undoubtedly some did come ‘on the take’. That’s human nature - some people are shits, out for everything they can get. The current governing party has a fair number…
This excellent and rather depressing piece directly contradicts my earlier comments on Japan managing decline well, and forces me to abandon my brief boycott of the BBC for being shockingly politically compromised.
Is this the future for insular, mono-ethnic and Introspective countries? Going out not with a bang but a whimper.
One big differentiator between Japan and Britain is immigration. Those opposed to immigration in the UK should read that article and ask themselves is that slow inexorable decline what they want for Britain?
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
That was a false Daily Mailesque narrative, as all but a minority of Eastern Europeans came over to engage in the legitimate tax paying employment market..
Absolutely, but it was widely believed. And undoubtedly some did come ‘on the take’. That’s human nature - some people are shits, out for everything they can get. The current governing party has a fair number…
I never met any Eastern European lead swingers. I met plenty of grafters.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
I agree with much of that post but not all of it (the destination bit is open to debate).
I regret our leaving, but we've gone, and we better make Johnsonian Brexit work.
I genuinely don't think we have to. If Starmer is half the man some hope him to be he could craft his own version of Brexit and he has the golden opportunity right now to sell it. Ignore the extremists on both wings - Rejoin and 'This is not a real Brexit' and look for serious solutions which bring us closer to Europe but remaining outside the EU.
Hell, you and I are never going to be politicians but even we could craft a better Brexit than this. We just need to ignore the fanatics on both sides.
The serious solution is the EEA via EFTA. But Starmer isn't going to do this until we've tried a Labour version of a Hard Brexit (which will be softer than Johnsonian Brexit, granted) - AKA 'Make Brexit Work'. That needs to fail before there is sufficient political will to consider re-joining the single market.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
This excellent and rather depressing piece directly contradicts my earlier comments on Japan managing decline well, and forces me to abandon my brief boycott of the BBC for being shockingly politically compromised.
Is this the future for insular, mono-ethnic and Introspective countries? Going out not with a bang but a whimper.
One big differentiator between Japan and Britain is immigration. Those opposed to immigration in the UK should read that article and ask themselves is that slow inexorable decline what they want for Britain?
I agree with you, but I'm pretty sure they'd read it and say 'Japan has 3% foreign born residents, the UK has 15% - so unlike Japan we've already taken on a lot more people and can now slow it down'.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
And the Common Agricultural Policy, Common Fisheries Policy, the ERM, the euro and dozens of other grandiose but politically correct fuckups. And charging us hundreds of millions a week for the privilege.
This excellent and rather depressing piece directly contradicts my earlier comments on Japan managing decline well, and forces me to abandon my brief boycott of the BBC for being shockingly politically compromised.
Is this the future for insular, mono-ethnic and Introspective countries? Going out not with a bang but a whimper.
One big differentiator between Japan and Britain is immigration. Those opposed to immigration in the UK should read that article and ask themselves is that slow inexorable decline what they want for Britain?
I agree with you, but I'm pretty sure they'd read it and say 'Japan has 3% foreign born residents, the UK has 15% - so unlike Japan we've already taken on a lot more people and can now slow it down'.
Yes, there is a balance between letting in new immigrants with skills and talent and also protecting your culture and heritage and traditions
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We had choices around benefits. We had choices when it came to how quickly to admit citizens from new EU members. We could have been more french in our behaviour and paid lip service far more often.
If benefits were made contributory then new arrivals couldn’t be accused of coming to the U.K. for benefits, as they often were. But we didn’t do that, and so resentment built up and the idea that freedom of movement = free council houses for Bulgarians on arrival. And thus Brexit.
So our only choices were to change the way we ran our country and how we treated our own citizens to suit membership of the EU.
You really aren't going to sell that to anyone.
He is right though.
We had/have an anti-British (not necessarily consciously, but certainly in deed) political and administrative class. The EU was just a way in which that anti-Britishness could be expressed. Not the only way though, as we now find. Leaving it has not solved the real issue, as anyone sensible realised.
This excellent and rather depressing piece directly contradicts my earlier comments on Japan managing decline well, and forces me to abandon my brief boycott of the BBC for being shockingly politically compromised.
Is this the future for insular, mono-ethnic and Introspective countries? Going out not with a bang but a whimper.
One big differentiator between Japan and Britain is immigration. Those opposed to immigration in the UK should read that article and ask themselves is that slow inexorable decline what they want for Britain?
I agree with you, but I'm pretty sure they'd read it and say 'Japan has 3% foreign born residents, the UK has 15% - so unlike Japan we've already taken on a lot more people and can now slow it down'.
Yes, there is a balance between letting in new immigrants with skills and talent and also protecting your culture and heritage and traditions
I can think of at least one sponging foreign born openly corrupt oaf we could do without. But you think he should be PM. No accounting for taste
Foreign born isn't a kind term. It encompasses a great number of people. Boris. Emily Watson. You can't help who you are born to or where. Unless you have faith in karma.
You'll be all delighted to know that I've written a piece on the monarchy for tomorrow afternoon.
Succession via AV?
That's for next weekend.
This is my fair and impartial analysis on the Royals.
Fair and impartial?
You have Oliver Cromwell as your image!
The House of Commons has a statue of Oliver Cromwell.
Britain's first Republican!
Remember, the first incarnation of the (British) Commonwealth was a Republic.
Funny thing of course is that a lot of the Commonwealth leaders turned Republican only out of seeming necessity of the situation, and as the Humble Petition showed plenty of them would have been more than happy not being so.
Speaking of Republicans I did enjoy Robert Harris' Act of Oblivion, about the regicides Edward Whalley and William Goffe, though I would like to read similar stories about Ludlow and some of the others who hid out on the continent.
The devious George Downing, of Downing Street fame, has a brief appearence.
Speaking of Republicans I did enjoy Robert Harris' Act of Oblivion, about the regicides Edward Whalley and William Goffe, though I would like to read similar stories about Ludlow and some of the others who hid out on the continent.
The devious George Downing, of Downing Street fame, has a brief appearence.
Yes I am reading it now, a lot of Puritans who went to America were originally farmers from Essex of course
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
As someone has already mentioned, changes to benefit entitlements could largely have lanced the FOM boil.
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
As someone has already mentioned, changes to benefit entitlements could largely have lanced the FOM boil.
Foreign born isn't a kind term. It encompasses a great number of people. Boris. Emily Watson. You can't help who you are born to or where. Unless you have faith in karma.
Badenoch believes that self-identification — the ability to change gender without medical diagnosis — puts women and girls at risk from predators. “We have no problem with that in the sense that we want people who are trans to be able to live their lives freely and as they wish,” she says. “The problem is that self-identification also makes life a lot easier for other people we don’t want to have those sorts of freedoms. Predators would be able to exploit any system that says you can just say you are what you are.”
“It’s also quite bad for trans people. They then get conflated and associated with the predators and people who are looking to do bad things. That’s why having a stricter regime rather than a loose regime is quite important. The problem is around the rhetoric. Rather than having a disagreement on whether you think self-identification is OK or not OK, people who have a different view are then abused, insulted, called transphobic. That’s what has really toxified the debate, and made a lot of people scared to say what they think.”
If you’re gay you don’t have to prove you’re gay. Her rhetoric is identical to the anti gay hysteria of the 80s/90s
Gay people were not asking to falsify their birth certificates or to remove existing rights for other groups. They were asking - rightly - to have the same legal rights (eg marriage) as others.
People with gender dysphoria have had the same legal rights as other groups since 2004 and reinforced by the Equality Act. Rightly so.
What no-one has explained is why people who do NOT have gender dysphoria - eg a man with, say, autogynephilia (a sexual fetish whereby men get sexual satisfaction from dressing up as women) - should have the legal right to change gender and call themselves women. Why?
The other comparison with S.28 is well set out by the Scottish lesbian writer Sally Wainwright in a recent article in The Times. According to equality lawyers, the effect of the Haldane judgment is that women-only associations would have to admit men who have a GRC because they are legally female. So a lesbian-only association would not be able to exclude a man with a GRC who claims that he is a female attracted to other females. Bluntly, lesbians would be pushed partly back into the closet.
Scare-mongering?
No - see what Stonewall has said accusing lesbians of being like racists etc if they exclude physical males from their dating pool. Seek also the "cotton ceiling" training.
No - precisely this has happened in Tasmania which passed a law on self-ID similar to the Scottish Bill and where a court has ruled that as a result lesbians cannot exclude physical males from lesbian meetings / events etc.
Socially progressive?
I am old enough to remember when women who didn't want to have sex with a particular man would be accused of being a lesbian or, if you were a lesbian, you were told that all you needed was sex with a man. Now lesbians are being told that it is transphobic for them not to be attracted to male bodies.
Again, I ask: what is socially progressive about this?
Good luck getting listened to. Expect plenty of mansplaining.....
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
As someone has already mentioned, changes to benefit entitlements could largely have lanced the FOM boil.
It could have addressed the edges. But it wouldn't have changed the fact a vast amount of unskilled labour would have continued to be imported, which would set us up badly for the coming automation wave.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
You Brexiteer Tories are very rude this evening. A little disappointed in how it's panning out? Despite the disappointment a little decorum would be appreciated please.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
And the Common Agricultural Policy, Common Fisheries Policy, the ERM, the euro and dozens of other grandiose but politically correct fuckups. And charging us hundreds of millions a week for the privilege.
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
As someone has already mentioned, changes to benefit entitlements could largely have lanced the FOM boil.
It could have addressed the edges. But it wouldn't have changed the fact a vast amount of unskilled labour would have continued to be imported, which would set us up badly for the coming automation wave.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Britain's destiny lies in the EU. The freedoms that we have voted for are precious. But I still acknowledge that had we taken effective steps to stop health and benefit tourism, a great deal of the sting would have been removed from FOM as an issue.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
You Brexiteer Tories are very rude this evening. A little disappointed in how it's panning out? Despite the disappointment a little decorum would be appreciated please.
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
And the Common Agricultural Policy, Common Fisheries Policy, the ERM, the euro and dozens of other grandiose but politically correct fuckups. And charging us hundreds of millions a week for the privilege.
You won. Suck it up!
Brexit was a manifestation of our national decline, but also an acceleration of it.
Let's quit, it can't get worse. Yet it does.
Which is why the polling shows that Britons see Brexit as a mistake. The Tories have chained themselves to a corpse, and won't become electable again until they revert to the pro-EU position of the half century to 2016.
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
You can make your own trade deals if you're part of the EEA via EFTA.
I would have taken Richard Tyndall’s Brexit without a moment’s hesitation.
I don't think freedom of movement and inability to make our own trade deals, all while having no political representation in Brussels, would have been acceptable to many people.
EFTA via the EEA does not prevent you making your own trade deals at all. It does entail freedom of movement and I accept that is an issue for some. But not, I believe, for most.
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
With the 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon the anti woke brigade are getting up in arms with the rainbow effect from the prism. An album released before the rainbow flag was created. They clearly are bonkers and it is very sad that Dark Side of the Moon is clearly unknown to them.
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
We are doing shit at the moment because we have erected trade barriers on ourselves, producing a massive drag on our economy, making it even more dificult to pay for our lockdown bills and expanding NHS and social care needs. I can't see anything improving in the short term because we have a shit government from a shit party with tax grifters in all areas of power.
Yeah, bollocks though - Brexit is just the scapegoat, as the EU was before.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
So you’re essentially admitting that Brexit was pointless, and the idea that Brexit would solve all our problems was bollocks? That I’ve lost my cherished European citizenship and freedom of movement for no real reason?
But I suppose it’s all good anyway, ‘cos now the Tories can take a wrecking ball to all those pesky regs they despise, like worker and environmental protections. Potentially, if not wilfully, causing chaos and dodging parliamentary oversight of new laws via the EU Retained Law Bill. No deal by another name.
Taking Back Control, indeed.
Wonderful.
Clearly, this level of debate is beyond you so you’re trying to narrow it down to something much more simple that your mind can both comprehend and engage with.
You knock yourself out, but I have better things to do with my time.
You don't engage with posters who disagree with your rather simplistic view of the world, instead you choose to be rude and dismissive.
One of the problems is that people tend to have quite fixed views on things, especially things as contentious and long running as Brexit. I’d suspect that there are few on this board whose opinions are just waiting to be swayed by the correctly crafted argument. It’s certainly the case that the EU bogeyman was blamed for a lot of stuff. It would have been best kept that way. The SNP have the ‘English’ and ‘Westminster’ in that very same role. Some might reflect on what happens when the troublesome fox is troubling no more. And now some are casting Brexit in the bogeyman role…
All three have a germ of truth buried somewhere. There were some issues with our EU membership (nothing that couldn’t have been resolved, mind). There are issues for Scotland with the current settlement, but the SNP cannot fairly blame Westminster for everything. And Brexit isn’t the sole reason for the UKs current struggles, but it’s certainly part of it.
The idea that we could do anything to resolve the issues with the EU after having failed to do so for 40 years shows the same disconnect from reality as is exhibited by the No Dealer Brexiteers. It is simply fanciful.
Either you accepted our membership of a flawed institution which was incapable of meaningful reform and destined for something even most Remainers didn't want or you accepted we had to leave. Those were the choices. Nothing else was on the table.
We seem lumbered with the Houses of Parliament and the respective ways in which they are ‘resourced’ yet both are flawed institutions incapable of reform and delivering outcomes and behaviour that very many people don’t want, with nothing else on the table.
Yes, the EU is flawed, but its purpose is both noble and in our own self interest, and as it happens it gave me the only votes of my lifetime in any national election that actually counted for anything.
The EU's "purpose is both noble and in our own self interest".
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
The idea that votes for the European parliament count for anything is an amusing thought. When was the last time the European elections had any effect at all on EU policy?
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
Except he isn't, he is promising more plastic fake plods who have f##k all powers. And what is the focus for him, the daily knife crime, the drug gangs where county lines originate from....some vague BS about being proactive with the new fake plods.
Sir Mark singled out three priorities including “targeting men who perpetuate violence against women and children”, building “the strongest ever neighbourhood policing”, and “taking an increasingly proactive approach to reducing crime”.
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
They are surplus, retired from service five years ago. So, yes.
We have surplus? That’s a surprise.
All Sea Kings for the navy were retired as of 5 years ago (I think they started this process over 7 years ago), as the design of them is 50 years old and they stopped being made 30 years ago. So it isn't about surplus, its old kit that isn't being used.
I guess my worry would be a bit like the ancient kit the Germans tried to send to Ukraine early on the war, are they still actually reliable.
I guess my worry would be a bit like the ancient kit the Germans tried to send to Ukraine early on the war, are they still actually reliable. Helicopters in particularly are notoriously high maintenance.
BREAKING: Ukraine has received the first Sea King helicopter from Britain
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
That's either staggering ignorance or a crude psy-op.
None of these 3 SK are ASW capable and one of them, starting life as a HU5, never was. They were demilitarised years ago and sold to HeliOps for German SK type conversion training. The MoD recently bought them back from HeliOps in what I'm sure was outstanding value for the British tax payer.
They are very good for commando/SF ops are they are relatively quiet when they work. Average age of these three is 45 years old so I'm not sure what level of workingness can be sustained. The Indian Naval Air Arm could be of great assistance here were they so minded.
Neither Smarkets nor BF seem to be offering a market on the next US president, as opposed to the winner of WH2024. I was wondering what price might be available for Kevin McCarthy. Scenario: Biden and Harris both fall from office in a single classified documents scandal. Unlikely, but at a price of 500 I'd buy.
Badenoch believes that self-identification — the ability to change gender without medical diagnosis — puts women and girls at risk from predators. “We have no problem with that in the sense that we want people who are trans to be able to live their lives freely and as they wish,” she says. “The problem is that self-identification also makes life a lot easier for other people we don’t want to have those sorts of freedoms. Predators would be able to exploit any system that says you can just say you are what you are.”
“It’s also quite bad for trans people. They then get conflated and associated with the predators and people who are looking to do bad things. That’s why having a stricter regime rather than a loose regime is quite important. The problem is around the rhetoric. Rather than having a disagreement on whether you think self-identification is OK or not OK, people who have a different view are then abused, insulted, called transphobic. That’s what has really toxified the debate, and made a lot of people scared to say what they think.”
If you’re gay you don’t have to prove you’re gay. Her rhetoric is identical to the anti gay hysteria of the 80s/90s
Gay people were not asking to falsify their birth certificates or to remove existing rights for other groups. They were asking - rightly - to have the same legal rights (eg marriage) as others.
People with gender dysphoria have had the same legal rights as other groups since 2004 and reinforced by the Equality Act. Rightly so.
What no-one has explained is why people who do NOT have gender dysphoria - eg a man with, say, autogynephilia (a sexual fetish whereby men get sexual satisfaction from dressing up as women) - should have the legal right to change gender and call themselves women. Why?
The other comparison with S.28 is well set out by the Scottish lesbian writer Sally Wainwright in a recent article in The Times. According to equality lawyers, the effect of the Haldane judgment is that women-only associations would have to admit men who have a GRC because they are legally female. So a lesbian-only association would not be able to exclude a man with a GRC who claims that he is a female attracted to other females. Bluntly, lesbians would be pushed partly back into the closet.
Scare-mongering?
No - see what Stonewall has said accusing lesbians of being like racists etc if they exclude physical males from their dating pool. Seek also the "cotton ceiling" training.
No - precisely this has happened in Tasmania which passed a law on self-ID similar to the Scottish Bill and where a court has ruled that as a result lesbians cannot exclude physical males from lesbian meetings / events etc.
Socially progressive?
I am old enough to remember when women who didn't want to have sex with a particular man would be accused of being a lesbian or, if you were a lesbian, you were told that all you needed was sex with a man. Now lesbians are being told that it is transphobic for them not to be attracted to male bodies.
Again, I ask: what is socially progressive about this?
Good luck getting listened to. Expect plenty of mansplaining.....
"Mansplaining"
I mean, you do realise that you accuse the other side of trying to stifle debate on this topic, and then you say something like that? Having a differing view from you on a topic under discussion is not 'mansplaining'.
Except he isn't, he is promising more plastic fake plods who have f##k all powers. And what is the focus for him, the daily knife crime, the drug gangs where county lines originate from....some vague BS about being proactive with the new fake plods.
Sir Mark singled out three priorities including “targeting men who perpetuate violence against women and children”, building “the strongest ever neighbourhood policing”, and “taking an increasingly proactive approach to reducing crime”.
Is there no end to the sleaze of this administration, they have to go, just have to. They 80% off the written media in their pocket, they even have two TV channels broadly sympathetic to their cause, the chairman of the BBC is obviously a stooge, if nothing else for the sake of democracy they must go, can anyone contemplate them winning the next election, after all of this, emigration would be a serious option
Comments
Or just for the Lolz; not everyone takes politics as seriously as us.
Only 24% of people want him back, so actually lower than some Tory VI scores.
Furthermore Sunak is deemed more trustworthy, economically competent, and likely to win votes
See the Independent for the details
Ps: nothing on the story on the BBC website. What’s that smell?
Some 41 per cent of voters in the Savanta survey believe the current prime minister can “improve” the reputation of the Tory party, only 19 per cent said the same of Mr Johnson.
I regret our leaving, but we've gone, and we better make Johnsonian Brexit work.
None were good. By far EFTA/EEA would be the best of a bad lot.
The reality that none of the three choices were good ones is, I think, the real reason why both the campaigns were so limited, dishonest, lacking in vision and ideals and just thick.
The fact that no good choices were (and are) available is witness to the melancholy failure of statecraft and democracy which led us there over 40 years. It is in the years 1970-2015 that the damage was done. It will taint our politics for years.
You really aren't going to sell that to anyone.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63830490
Is this the future for insular, mono-ethnic and Introspective countries? Going out not with a bang but a whimper.
Job seekers' allowance already is contributory now, just universal credit isn’t
This is my fair and impartial analysis on the Royals.
And my view is based on the idea that people should be able to change the actual manner in which they are governed, not just the talking heads doing the governing. Hence the reason I have always said Brexit was only a first necessary step. I view Scottish Independence in the same manner. And wholesale reform of the Parliamentary system and the way we govern our whole country. All to give more and meaningful power to the people rather than having it hoarded by the political classes.
That is an aspiration worth holding rather than the sordid rule by bureaucrat that you advocate. Europhiles bought into the bread and circuses propaganda from the EU. Except the bread was stale and the circus was Eurovision.
You have Oliver Cromwell as your image!
Hell, you and I are never going to be politicians but even we could craft a better Brexit than this. We just need to ignore the fanatics on both sides.
But Starmer isn't going to do this until we've tried a Labour version of a Hard Brexit (which will be softer than Johnsonian Brexit, granted) - AKA 'Make Brexit Work'. That needs to fail before there is sufficient political will to consider re-joining the single market.
What a tonnage of horseshit.
You seem to have forgotten how their "nobility" and "self interest" played out over Covid vaccines.
We had/have an anti-British (not necessarily consciously, but certainly in deed) political and administrative class. The EU was just a way in which that anti-Britishness could be expressed. Not the only way though, as we now find. Leaving it has not solved the real issue, as anyone sensible realised.
But you think he should be PM.
No accounting for taste
Remember, the first incarnation of the (British) Commonwealth was a Republic.
It encompasses a great number of people. Boris. Emily Watson. You can't help who you are born to or where.
Unless you have faith in karma.
The devious George Downing, of Downing Street fame, has a brief appearence.
I don't.
Emma Watson, otoh...
Let's quit, it can't get worse. Yet it does.
Which is why the polling shows that Britons see Brexit as a mistake. The Tories have chained themselves to a corpse, and won't become electable again until they revert to the pro-EU position of the half century to 2016.
But an interesting divide between the critics and the audiences. Critics' score 45%, audience score 92%.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/whitney_houston_i_wanna_dance_with_somebody
Critics' score 20%, audience score 70%.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tyler_perrys_a_madea_christmas_2013
Critics generally hate Tyler Perry movies, but his audience apparently know what they like.
Why does Case still have a job? He appears to be fail the most basic standards required of a civil servant.
Single news night:
Zahawi negotiated his tax bill with HMRC while Chancellor.
BBC Chairman helped arrange a loan guarantee for Johnson while applying for his current role.
Hancock met with Palantir during Covid to offer up Briton’s private health information.
Scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hostel.
Britain pledged 3 Sea Kings to Ukraine in November 2022
The Sea King is well-equipped for anti-submarine warfare so it will strengthen Ukraine's defensive position against Russia in the Black Sea and further weaken Russia's post-Moskva sinking position
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1616930634236059648
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/20/met-police-chief-put-bobbies-beat-ever-tackle-crime/
Except he isn't, he is promising more plastic fake plods who have f##k all powers. And what is the focus for him, the daily knife crime, the drug gangs where county lines originate from....some vague BS about being proactive with the new fake plods.
Sir Mark singled out three priorities including “targeting men who perpetuate violence against women and children”, building “the strongest ever neighbourhood policing”, and “taking an increasingly proactive approach to reducing crime”.
I guess my worry would be a bit like the ancient kit the Germans tried to send to Ukraine early on the war, are they still actually reliable.
Six more classified documents seized at Biden home
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64362655
None of these 3 SK are ASW capable and one of them, starting life as a HU5, never was. They were demilitarised years ago and sold to HeliOps for German SK type conversion training. The MoD recently bought them back from HeliOps in what I'm sure was outstanding value for the British tax payer.
They are very good for commando/SF ops are they are relatively quiet when they work. Average age of these three is 45 years old so I'm not sure what level of workingness can be sustained. The Indian Naval Air Arm could be of great assistance here were they so minded.
I mean, you do realise that you accuse the other side of trying to stifle debate on this topic, and then you say something like that? Having a differing view from you on a topic under discussion is not 'mansplaining'.
Perhaps he can start by sorting that out.