Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
Also: both Cambridge and Oxford have been very happy to give EE offers to students who impressed enormously at interview. (And, indeed, I got a EE offer from UCL.)
Slacker. I got a UU offer from UCL.
For those who weren’t around in the 90s, UCL would do this with groups of students with very high predicted grades. According to a prof, the actual results didn’t drop off much, if at all.
Since I’d taken 2 A levels a year early, I got a place on the spot….
The boasting by @rcs1000 that his daughter is smarter than him is touching and lovely, until one remembers that @rcs1000 is basically a car park attendant
It is always impressive when kids can do something better than their parents.
Fox jr2 had to do a still life for the school art prize once, never having done one before, and in his first year at secondary school. I suggested he do one for practice, and when I suggested that he needed to show 3 dimensions better, he demonstrated his technique for the highlights and shadows, within minutes they were on the paper.
I was awed, and he won the prize. Later got an A at fine art A level.
I honestly don't think my kids can do anything better than me. Except: be more nice, and be more sober. They are great at that whereas I was a fiercely competitive fuck up and a madcap drunk, and then a proper junkie
I love my kids. I like their friends. I like their generation for their amiability, and their gentleness. Inspiring, they are not. We are all fucked
Getting a bit of a Logan Roy vibe off you.
Just read Money by Martin Amis and you'll find Leon's voice burping out from every page.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Today was the first day I've been to Sainsbury's without a mask.
What’s different about today?
The person who drives me to Sainsbury's stopped wearing a mask last week. Sorry it is so mundane.
No worries. But why did they stop? Genuine question - why would someone stop now? Rather than any other point?
Not sure, tbh. His wife had been ill but there might also have been an element of him continuing to wear a mask because I did, and me because he did. It might even have been as mundane as running out of disposable masks.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
What we forfeited by leaving the Single Market was nothing special and did nothing to resolve our problems you rightly highlight when it comes to productivity, investment, housing etc all of which mounted up while we were in the Single Market.
We have the trade deal minus the politics nonsense, that's exactly what suits the UK. Let that lie, and solve our real problems rather than fictional ones.
"The Duke of Cambridge, I think it was, said that he was against all change, even for the better. This seems on the face of it absurd, but I have come to know what he meant, even if I do not myself go quite so far as did he: for the desire for change denotes a state of dissatisfaction. Its opposite, satisfaction, is preferable as a state of mind not only because it is more pleasant in itself but because dissatisfaction breeds a tendency to all kinds of imaginary perfections, which the attempt to put into practice usually ends in hell, or at least hellishness, on earth."
Though on the other hand all progress is wrought by unreasonable people, who try to alter the world rather than to conform to it as reasonable people do.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Thank fuck you “accept” it. To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence of his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms.
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
WhatsApp messaging in government is the latest version of sofa politics of the Blair era, just sadly for the users it’s an electronic record of what was said.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
We both have planning. Tax is in the mix for sure, although we likely disagree about what that means specifically.
I don’t know what you mean about state/quangos or public procurement.
Net zero is not currently a growth blocker I think. Not too 5 anyway. It could be, in the absence of a coherent industrial policy. Since we don’t have that, and Rishi is ideologically opposed to them, it will shortly become one.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Thank fuck you “accept” it. To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
You have so much anger about this. People can have different views without being dim witted, or ‘a rotting artichoke’. I believe we have a free trade deal with the EU, you, for some reason, seem to think we don’t. The deal we have has led to issues with friction and being in the single market would reduce this. I’d like that to happen. I voted remain. But sometimes things people say need to be countered.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Thank fuck you “accept” it. To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
You have so much anger about this. People can have different views without being dim witted, or ‘a rotting artichoke’. I believe we have a free trade deal with the EU, you, for some reason, seem to think we don’t. The deal we have has led to issues with friction and being in the single market would reduce this. I’d like that to happen. I voted remain. But sometimes things people say need to be countered.
You are deliberately obtuse and then hide behind “but I voted Remain!”
Of course we have a trade deal, of a kind. I’m afraid you’re simply a troll.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Thank fuck you “accept” it. To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
You have so much anger about this. People can have different views without being dim witted, or ‘a rotting artichoke’. I believe we have a free trade deal with the EU, you, for some reason, seem to think we don’t. The deal we have has led to issues with friction and being in the single market would reduce this. I’d like that to happen. I voted remain. But sometimes things people say need to be countered.
Treat him with some sympathy though. He's bitter because he's lost. He's more bitter because he was wrong and the data has not gone his way. He's even more bitter that the world and even politicians he thought were on his side like Sir Keir Starmer are moving on without him.
He's an angry man shouting at clouds at this point.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
You can’t fool everyone for ever. People talk to people directly affected. Travel issues, exports cancelled, businesses damaged, etc.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
How can you be against all change? Impermanence is the default state of our bodies, our relationships and our societies. It's like being categorically opposed to death. If you're satisfied with the status quo that leads inevitably to anguish. Because it has ceased to exist the very moment it came into being.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
I was starting to wonder if any British media outlet was going to report the NYT article. Be interesting to see what other outlets decide to be at all curious about this.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
How can you be against change? Impermanence is the default state of our bodies, our relationships and our societies. It's like being categorically opposed to death.
No one is against all change, that's just shorthand. Some change is good. But not all change is good, which is where chiding people for not getting with the times or whatever does not always work.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
Rejoin needs to be a Tory project. The Murdoch press and the Mail need to be driving the rejoin campaign, without them it won't work. So cutting to the chase, rejoin isn't happening anytime soon.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We were in the EU. Explains the low growth, all of the EU had low growth.
Now we've left and you want to put the shackles back on.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Your firm growing is not the same as growth, though. Firms can grow by delivering the same thing with less resource and that's proper growth. Firms can grow by accumulating market share at the expense of competitors and that's not really growth.
Is it just me or given that we know how interested foreign intelligence services (both friend and foe) are in accessing world leaders phones, should we not be rather concerned how our leaders clearly use their phones for private and personal messages on WhatsApp with careless abandon.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We were in the EU. Explains the low growth, all of the EU had low growth.
Now we've left and you want to put the shackles back on.
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
I see you accept that we have a free trade deal with the EU.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
Thank fuck you “accept” it. To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
You have so much anger about this. People can have different views without being dim witted, or ‘a rotting artichoke’. I believe we have a free trade deal with the EU, you, for some reason, seem to think we don’t. The deal we have has led to issues with friction and being in the single market would reduce this. I’d like that to happen. I voted remain. But sometimes things people say need to be countered.
You are deliberately obtuse and then hide behind “but I voted Remain!”
Of course we have a trade deal, of a kind. I’m afraid you’re simply a troll.
Why are you so nasty to posters you do not agree with
We are all entitled to our opinions and to argue for and against, but you seem incapable of avoiding personal abuse and I can say that having experienced it many times from you
If you watch the entire panel discussion that this clip is taken from, it's actually remarkable how poorly Adam Posen's remarks have dated. His major argument was that Brexit was about restricting the labour market and "reimposing pre-Thatcher conditions", but we've seen that this hasn't happened at all.
How can you be against change? Impermanence is the default state of our bodies, our relationships and our societies. It's like being categorically opposed to death.
No one is against all change, that's just shorthand. Some change is good. But not all change is good, which is where chiding people for not getting with the times or whatever does not always work.
Well. Thomas Dalrymple is supposed to be writing a serious article. Change doesn't have to be good or bad. But it is inevitable on every level. Whether anyone likes it or not.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
So... let's say Labour win a spring 2024 election. You expect Brexit to gain in popularity from that point, at least til people start to become jaded with the new government?
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We were in the EU. Explains the low growth, all of the EU had low growth.
Now we've left and you want to put the shackles back on.
Wake me up when the high growth starts.
Well we've started getting trade agreements with faster growing parts of the world, that's a good start.
And the opposition are looking at tackling planning restrictions on the economy, even if the Government aren't. That's a promising potential future start.
Returning back to the failed issues of the past that got us exactly where we are now isn't going to be a transformative change.
That won't do the Labour vote in Scotland any good, his being Boris Johnson Mk 2.
Yougov actually found only 42% of Scots would see free movement to and from the EU as an acceptable price for full free trade with the EU. Although that was higher than the 33% of UK voters overall who thought that it was lower than the 44% of Londoners who backed restoring free movement from the EU as an acceptable price for full free trade with the EU
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
Well unless the SNP have changed policy, I guess it would be Humsa. But I don't think anybody cares what he thinks about anything...
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
So... let's say Labour win a spring 2024 election. You expect Brexit to gain in popularity from that point, at least til people start to become jaded with the new government?
Since I don't expect Rejoin or Brexit to be a Labour 2024 election issue, no I don't.
I expect it will continue to fade away as an issue. Something clung to like obsessive people in the noughties banging on about the closure of the pits while the rest of the country has moved on.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
Meanwhile in the ever expanding book of Vote Leave broken promises the government confirms its no longer interested in a US UK trade deal .
Any trade deal will happen only if and when it joins the CPTPP
That’s not a trade deal with the US. That’s a much weaker deal, and not what was promised.
The big prize for Brexiters was to join NAFTA 2.0, and to hell with those kiddy-fiddlers in Brussels.
The idea that we no longer even want a US trade deal is a massive failure.
There really aren’t so many blocs for the UK to secure close FTAs with.
China has issues (and UK is currently begging with US to treat it favourably in the chip wars because it claims to be less invested in China than other big trading economies)
EU we’ve told to fuck off.
USA/NAFTA we are apparently no longer interested.
CPTPP runs a very very very poor forth, and then you’ve got India (very tricky, although something is in the works), GCC (not worth much), Mercosur (ditto), Russia (currently sanctioned).
Post-Brexit trade policy has developed not necessarily to the UK’s advantage.
We have a free trade deal with the EU.
Are you really so dimwitted? It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Is this false then? Do we not have a free trade deal with the EU?
Boris's deal is rather a paltry offering though (albeit probably better than the 'WTO Terms' or 'Australian-style trade deal' that were posited as serious options at one point). I work for a British exporter to the EU (a leader in its field) and the bureaucracy, costs and red tape really have gone off the charts since Brexit. We're sort of okay because, for historical reasons, our major competitors are based in the UK as well, so we're all similarly afflicted. But I pity any UK firm that has to compete with rivals still within the Single Market. There will be withering and death over time - it can't be otherwise.
This might technically qualify as a moderate Russian pundit. It got pretty heated on Solovyov’s show last night
The host tried to convince his cronies that nuking Europe was the only way of convincing the West to stop helping Ukraine. He insisted the US wouldn’t respond but even regular panellist Andrei Sidorov thought he was deluded https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1662025321590435842
That won't do the Labour vote in Scotland any good, his being Boris Johnson Mk 2.
Yougov actually found only 42% of Scots would see free movement to and from the EU as an acceptable price for full free trade with the EU. Although that was higher than the 33% of UK voters overall who thought that it was lower than the 44% of Londoners who backed restoring free movement from the EU as an acceptable price for full free trade with the EU
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We were in the EU. Explains the low growth, all of the EU had low growth.
Now we've left and you want to put the shackles back on.
Demographics is destiny.
If you want a great predictor of economic growth, it's the ratio of retirees to people of working age.
Japan and Italy are demographic disasters and very low growth, averaging about 0.45 retirees for every 1 person of working age.
Australia, Canada and the US are all sub 0.3, and show decent growth.
We're in a better position than the EU (and France is similar), but some way behind Aus, Canada and the US.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
We're basically at the point Brexit will come good because Remainers will save it. Desperate.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
I seemed to remember somebody once did a really interesting video on this ;-)
This might technically qualify as a moderate Russian pundit. It got pretty heated on Solovyov’s show last night
The host tried to convince his cronies that nuking Europe was the only way of convincing the West to stop helping Ukraine. He insisted the US wouldn’t respond but even regular panellist Andrei Sidorov thought he was deluded https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1662025321590435842
In Europe, France and the UK of course have nukes anyway even if the US didn't respond
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
I seemed to remember somebody once did a really interesting video on this ;-)
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
I'm supposed to be working, and I thought I'd look up GDP numbers to prove my point to @Gardenwalker, and I'll grant you that the 2019 to now numbers don't look great:
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
We're basically at the point Brexit will come good because Remainers will save it. Desperate.
Its already come good, which is why the world is moving on already.
Its why Keir Starmer has moved on. Even if some on this site haven't.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
I saw your video and while agreeing with your criticisms, I disagree in macro.
US and German (and other country) productivity figures tell us something real, EVEN if what it tells us is a lack of UK share of global market.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
Well unless the SNP have changed policy, I guess it would be Humsa. But I don't think anybody cares what he thinks about anything...
Quite. And FWIW I respect @BartholomewRoberts view but I don't agree. I think Brexit is still a salient issue in politics today. Tricky for me to state that with confidence because of my own biases. It matters a lot to me still. But I do think that there's a bit of a "don't mention the war!" attitude in high level political circles that's leaving an important current unharnessed. Away from my own potential confirmation bias, the potential bias on the other side would be wishful thinking. Some Brexiters have got to a point they can be reasonably satisfied with, and it'll be a strong hope that this issue does indeed fade away. And we know hope can sometimes spill over into false expectations.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
You are reading far too many fairy tales but then maybe just good with satire !!!!
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
I'm supposed to be working, and I thought I'd look up GDP numbers to prove my point to @Gardenwalker, and I'll grant you that the 2019 to now numbers don't look great:
Worth factoring for per person, too. Probably even more embarrassing.
I'm supposed to be working, and I thought I'd look up GDP numbers to prove my point to @Gardenwalker, and I'll grant you that the 2019 to now numbers don't look great:
Worth factoring for per person, too. Probably even more embarrassing.
Dividing a negative number by a positive number makes it better. The bigger the divisor, the better
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
Using your top 5 format growth blockers, I (presumably an insane person) would go:
Tax Net zero State/quangos Planning Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
As a Founder, by far the biggest barrier to the growth of my firm is being able to get the right staff. (And to be able to let people go if there's not a fit.)
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Britain has pretty high labour market flexibility, and pretty low growth.
You do the math? Or perhaps ask your daughter.
We have growth of about what you'd expect for a medium-large country with average (but worsening) demographics.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
Which European neighbours are we running ahead of? Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
I don't believe productivity numbers tell you anything useful. France has great "productivity" because social charges means that firms can't afford to employ lower skilled workers.
I seemed to remember somebody once did a really interesting video on this ;-)
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
No it isn't. That graphic is plainly dishonest.
I hope you “clicked to save the NHS”. Because if you didn’t, the current clusterfuck is on you.
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
You are reading far too many fairy tales but then maybe just good with satire !!!!
Do you not believe that could be how the future pans out? Curiously, I am watching Seldon in conversation with Kay Burley skewering Johnson. Kay is manfully defending Johnson but Seldon is having none of it.
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
You are reading far too many fairy tales but then maybe just good with satire !!!!
Do you not believe that could be how the future pans out? Curiously, I am watching Seldon in conversation with Kay Burley skewering Johnson. Kay is manfully defending Johnson but Seldon is having none of it.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
No it isn't. That graphic is plainly dishonest.
If it isn't then you must respect the ability of the electorate to process the full range of information they receive, whether dishonest or not.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
Well unless the SNP have changed policy, I guess it would be Humsa. But I don't think anybody cares what he thinks about anything...
I guess you think we should care what Starmer thinks? Even the progressive Starmerist dads are getting nervous.
I'm supposed to be working, and I thought I'd look up GDP numbers to prove my point to @Gardenwalker, and I'll grant you that the 2019 to now numbers don't look great:
Oooft. And when you factor in the recent net migration trend, I'm guessing the GDP per capita figures would look even worse.
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
It was:
The EU tourist deal, FFS Turkey wasn't even in the EU!
Johnson doesn't deserve your implicit defence for his behaviour. Can't you imagine all the inappropriate old nonsense Johnson would be spewing out on all and any platforms?
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
Nothing implicit at all - Johnson's messages together with the other three first ministers should be provided to the enquiry
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
A rejuvenated Johnson might. The newly minted MP for Henley could replace Sunak in a post-election putsch, shelve the enquiry and go on to enjoy the longest premiership of the last hundred years, increasing Sunak's slim majority into a landslide after a couple of years, after getting the credit from Zelensky for a victory over Putin.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
Well unless the SNP have changed policy, I guess it would be Humsa. But I don't think anybody cares what he thinks about anything...
I guess you think we should care what Starmer thinks? Even the progressive Starmerist dads are getting nervous.
Starmer needs to win over working class Leave voting dads in the Redwall and marginal seats in the North and Midlands of England to become PM, not progressive middle class Remain voting dads in London and university towns and big cities in seats which already have Labour or LD MPs
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
Even a rotting artichoke at the back of my fridge knows that Britain needs to rejoin the single market, but that means FOM.
Maybe it’s not your granny’s FOM, because there are possibly protections along the lines much essayed on here against welfare tourism, but it’s still FOM.
But Keir has to rule it out because a good 25% of the population have sub-rotting artichoke IQs, or consume media that encourages them to think like sub-rotting artichokes.
Sad, but politics is the art of the necessary.
Keir has ruled it out because there's absolutely no reason for the UK to rejoin the Single Market, and Keir has like 85%+ of the country moved on and stopped obsessing over bloody Brexit anymore now that its done.
All the myths about collapses or danger to the economy if the UK were to leave the Single Market have been shown to be nonsense and not come to pass, initially people claimed because we didn't invoke Article 50 immediately then for various reasons until eventually people have just moved on.
You should too. Its not healthy anymore.
The rotting artichoke speaks!
You have no credibility on this subject I’m afraid. Trade, investment, and productivity are all in the doldrums.
Anyone who wants growth knows the importance of the single market.
If you want to argue for soporific declinism - and some do - then be honest about it.
Productivity was in the doldrums within the EU. There's indications its already improving post-Brexit, just as some of us predicted.
Anyone who wants growth knows the Single Market is a failure when it comes to growth. Anyone who is an obsessive about the EU and can't put their politics behind looking at the data, will come to your outcome.
You are Hiroo Onoda still fighting the good fight even as the world has moved on.
You are still repeating the “arguments” (and indeed the insults) of 2016.
Talleyrand and the Bourbons applies.
Close to it.
In 2016 I was saying that the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and wouldn't come to pass.
In 2023 I am saying the claims of an immediate recession and millions unemployed if we voted to leave the EU were scaremongering nonsense and didn't come to pass.
Yet when ever Sir Keir Starmer has moved on, you are still stuck in 2016, claiming that disaster is still just over that hill. Just one more heave and we'll fall off that cliff.
I’m not predicting “disaster”. I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction. British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
I agree wholeheartedly on the need to tackle planning etc and have said as much myself. Keir Starmer actually seems to have a semblance of grasping this too, and has to his credit made some positive sounds on this in recent days. Whether he is serious and whether he will follow through when the NIMBYs revolt is another question, but if he does he could be a great Prime Minister.
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
I agree. Rejoin as a policy is more than one GE away. Ultimately though the voters cannot be ignored forever by a politician wanting to get elected, and the voters increasingly feel that Brexit is a crock of shit.
The remarkable thing is the movement that is happening without there being much of a political effort to persuade people. Which politician, today, holds the "Brexit is shit" banner? Previously I'd have said Sturgeon, but there's nobody jumping out at me right now. And even then, surely she wasn't having THAT much cut through across the country. So what's happening? Grass roots?
People tend to say the government or their policies are shit regardless of what it is, especially in midterms when its not coming to an election. And its never going to an election now.
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
And as Brexit is now Starmers policy too, they will continue thinking Brexit is shit after the next GE.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
This is a misreading of the Brexit vote based on the idea that it was mis-sold as the answer to everything when in reality it was just a choice about whether to participate in European political integration or not.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Nothing to do with tricking people then?
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
No it isn't. That graphic is plainly dishonest.
It was, and I said so at the time (as a Leave voter), but people were told it was misleading at the time too, the point was countered.
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
Turkey is no more joining the EU than the USA is. You are part of the problem.
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
It was:
The EU tourist deal, FFS Turkey wasn't even in the EU!
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then we are all dead.
That's just another way of saying that you don't respect people's vote and think they are probably too stupid to have been given a say.
William do you think that ad lied or not?
It was a reference to the visa-free travel deal with Turkey that was pushed through at the same time as a quid-pro-quo for Turkey not sending as many refugees to the EU.
No, it was saying Turkey was joining the EU, it went alongside the ad which literally said "Turkey is joining the EU".
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
It was:
The EU tourist deal, FFS Turkey wasn't even in the EU!
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
Turkey is no more joining the EU than the USA is. You are part of the problem.
At the time it demonstrably was, unless the EU had started membership negotiations with the US, too?
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then we are all dead.
If someone says they are writing a book, are they lying if they've only written the first page?
Comments
I am noting that British trade policy, post-Brexit, is not on course with promises made by Leave.
This gives me no satisfaction.
British growth has been fucked for some time and any sane person who looks at the situation points to
Planning / Housing
Infrastructure
Industrial Policy
Regional Policy
Trade
On the latter, membership of the single market is the single biggest boost we could deliver. No other trade deal comes near, and certainly not the CPTT, which I welcome but i recognise it for what it is.
It appears you are.
We have a trade deal, a very light one, but it is no substitute for what we forfeited by leaving the single market (somewhat acrimoniously).
Reopening the Brexit Hokey Cokey arguing whether we should be in, out, or shake it all about once more is not what is needed to address our problems. Keir is entirely correct to let sleeping dogs lie there.
Read it and understand it.
I accept that being in the single market is far better for trading.
There is no need to be so spiteful and nasty.
We have the trade deal minus the politics nonsense, that's exactly what suits the UK. Let that lie, and solve our real problems rather than fictional ones.
Tax
Net zero
State/quangos
Planning
Public procurement
I wanted to add more explanation, but I tried to stick to the format.
Drakeford took his COVID duties very seriously. Didn't he live in a shed at the bottom of his garden so as not to interact with anyone he shouldn't interact with? I doubt Drakeford would have anything particularly incriminating in his WhatsApp messaging , if he even knew what a WhatsApp message was.
Now Nippy, nothing of interest to the COVID enquiry, but...
To paraphrase myself, even rotting artichokes can “accept” it.
Tax is in the mix for sure, although we likely disagree about what that means specifically.
I don’t know what you mean about state/quangos or public procurement.
Net zero is not currently a growth blocker I think. Not too 5 anyway. It could be, in the absence of a coherent industrial policy. Since we don’t have that, and Rishi is ideologically opposed to them, it will shortly become one.
I’d like that to happen. I voted remain. But sometimes things people say need to be countered.
Of course we have a trade deal, of a kind.
I’m afraid you’re simply a troll.
He's an angry man shouting at clouds at this point.
People talk to people directly affected. Travel issues, exports cancelled, businesses damaged, etc.
I suspect that the single factor which most correlates with economic growth is labour market flexibility.
And I suspect there is essentially zero correlation between energy prices and economic growth. Japan, after all, was the best performing economy globally from 1955 to 1990, despite paying more than twice G7 average rates for energy.
Impermanence is the default state of our bodies, our relationships and our societies.
It's like being categorically opposed to death.
If you're satisfied with the status quo that leads inevitably to anguish. Because it has ceased to exist the very moment it came into being.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/30/the-guardian-metoo-cover-up-nick-cohen-the-observer/
What's happening is that its fading away as an issue and since bitter individuals are the last to let go, especially if you exclude don't knows the issue will inevitably appear more and more negative.
If you ask unprompted what the country needs then a whole swathe of issues come up, none of which are the Single Market or Brexit as people have moved on. Only if you prompt them do people go "oh yeah, that's bad I guess" and forget about it again.
Anyway none of them are likely to be in office when the enquiry reports in 2026
You do the math?
Or perhaps ask your daughter.
Now we've left and you want to put the shackles back on.
Barty will claim that he’s trying to “reverse Brexit”, and TubbyTums will doggedly insist we “already have access”.
Complete hogwash but there’s still a lot of credulous folk out there.
We are all entitled to our opinions and to argue for and against, but you seem incapable of avoiding personal abuse and I can say that having experienced it many times from you
You are not the font of all wisdom
Thomas Dalrymple is supposed to be writing a serious article.
Change doesn't have to be good or bad. But it is inevitable on every level.
Whether anyone likes it or not.
We're running a little ahead of our European neighbours, and a little behind the US, Canada and Australia (who have better dependency ratio trends).
And the opposition are looking at tackling planning restrictions on the economy, even if the Government aren't. That's a promising potential future start.
Returning back to the failed issues of the past that got us exactly where we are now isn't going to be a transformative change.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/08/18/majority-people-think-freedom-movement-fair-price- (p4)
I expect it will continue to fade away as an issue. Something clung to like obsessive people in the noughties banging on about the closure of the pits while the rest of the country has moved on.
In the run up to the referendum the EU didn't feature in the top 3 issues either. It didn't mean that they didn't care, just that they saw Brexit as a solution to their main worries (hence the potency of £350 million per week for the NHS).
It got pretty heated on Solovyov’s show last night
The host tried to convince his cronies that nuking Europe was the only way of convincing the West to stop helping Ukraine. He insisted the US wouldn’t respond but even regular panellist Andrei Sidorov thought he was deluded
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1662025321590435842
Italy? Sure.
British productivity and wealth is behind US, Canada, and Australia, AND its North Western European peers, and, these days, South Korea.
And there’s so sign of “catch up”, which should in theory be possible.
I agree on the critical importance of talented labour pools for business, but it is clearly not enough - or perhaps there are intervening factors that impede the British advantage.
If you want a great predictor of economic growth, it's the ratio of retirees to people of working age.
Japan and Italy are demographic disasters and very low growth, averaging about 0.45 retirees for every 1 person of working age.
Australia, Canada and the US are all sub 0.3, and show decent growth.
We're in a better position than the EU (and France is similar), but some way behind Aus, Canada and the US.
Current Remainer tactics are like trying to convince someone who cancelled a wedding at the last minute that they were stupid by saying, "Look at the house you could have been living in!" It's irrelevant if the marriage didn't feel right.
Its why Keir Starmer has moved on. Even if some on this site haven't.
US and German (and other country) productivity figures tell us something real, EVEN if what it tells us is a lack of UK share of global market.
And FWIW I respect @BartholomewRoberts view but I don't agree. I think Brexit is still a salient issue in politics today.
Tricky for me to state that with confidence because of my own biases. It matters a lot to me still. But I do think that there's a bit of a "don't mention the war!" attitude in high level political circles that's leaving an important current unharnessed.
Away from my own potential confirmation bias, the potential bias on the other side would be wishful thinking. Some Brexiters have got to a point they can be reasonably satisfied with, and it'll be a strong hope that this issue does indeed fade away. And we know hope can sometimes spill over into false expectations.
Probably even more embarrassing.
Because if you didn’t, the current clusterfuck is on you.
Do you think it was a lie to say Turkey was joining the EU or not?
Even the progressive Starmerist dads are getting nervous.
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
I just checked, Turkey is still not a member of the EU.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_1622
4 May 2016: European Commission opens way for decision by June on visa-free travel for citizens of Turkey
By joining, I mean thinking about it. I haven't informed her yet but I am sure she will say yes