On topic, so only a minority of people support Rejoin at 31%, then, whilst nearly 70% are opposed?
Glad we got that straight.
If you're going to count the DKs as 'oppose' you'd need to accept that 62.5% of the electorate 'opposed' Brexit.
Only 31% support Rejoin in this poll.
There is no getting away from that.
It shows, unlike the false binary polls of Rejoin v. Stay Out (which people basically respond to as a hypothetical re-run) just how badly Rejoin could actually do if ever a uber-Remainy government were dumb enough to actually run a referendum on it.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
There have been some awkward cases of people criticising mixed race politicians on the assumption they are white of course - skin colour has quite the range outside our very broad classifications.
In a few generations most of the world will hopefully have Brazilianised, with the majority of people having a mixture of genes and there being no need to talk of mixed race anymore because everyone already is.
“Mixed race” is an awful expression, implying as it does that Humans are made up of canine-style breeds. Nobody talks about “mixed hair colour”.
There’s a bit of a battle of ideas between the 90s concept of a future where we’re all colourblind, and the 2010s+ era where we must pay close attention to race so that we can understand prejudice and privilege. I preferred the colourblindness, even if that marks me out as a naive centrist dad. I saw in both my children that they had no conception of racial difference at school until people told them about it.
Yes, I find the modern trend to be both depressing and bizarre in some ways. Yes, we may not have reached a place where there is total colour blindness in action or in the more tricky sense of ingrained attitudes/institutional disparities, but isn't it a good goal at least?
Whereas a hyperfocus on how we apparently differentiate from one another on race, gender, whatever, and who owes the other this or that, should feel guilt or a sense of oppression regardless of the actions and views they personally hold, seems like a bad goal to me. One which is not as helpful at redressing inequalities as what we were doing before.
Isn't there a place where we don't dismiss there may be work to do, without making race in particular the main distinguising factor in our lives? If nothing else it often presupposes people of one 'race' (such as that is even a thing, given as you point out the difficulties there) are supposed to think the same things, since the arguments are always framed in absolutist terms, speaking for everyone of a particular type, or against a type.
I feel l ike we are going backwards on this topic.
The lady who wrote “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” specifically says that claiming to be ‘colourblind’ is just a way to deny the existence of structural racism
I actually can believe that. But I don't think it requires acceptance of every claim of structural racism, which seems to be all encompassing on pretty much every issue, or that the focus placed on racial minutaie and blame casting of people down the generations, is a good way to combat that structural effect even if people accept it is there.
I can understand the frustration with people who claim that everything’s sorted so what’s the fuss. Same with gender politics. But the problem is what’s the end game? Surely an end game that’s colour blind is better than one where racial difference is everything.
This is another example of American hang ups infecting British culture because we happen to speak the same language and use the same apps.
This is absolutely spot on.
The idea that this is just an imported american hang up is a common delusion that downplays the seriousness of the problems. 'Woke' ideology is actually working against a 'colourblind' future. It seeks to divide people up in to different socially constructed identity groups who then operate in shifting patterns of warring alliances. If western civilisation is to successfully reinvent itself for another few generations there needs to be a more inclusive and positive ideology that replaces all this. Otherwise the west will ultimately just get crushed or enslaved by stronger and more cohesive and self confident civilisations.
'Woke ideology' is entirely an invention of the right. Where is the 'woke ideology' manifesto and who wrote it?
Have you heard of people like Derrick Bell or Kimberlé Crenshaw?
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
There have been some awkward cases of people criticising mixed race politicians on the assumption they are white of course - skin colour has quite the range outside our very broad classifications.
In a few generations most of the world will hopefully have Brazilianised, with the majority of people having a mixture of genes and there being no need to talk of mixed race anymore because everyone already is.
“Mixed race” is an awful expression, implying as it does that Humans are made up of canine-style breeds. Nobody talks about “mixed hair colour”.
There’s a bit of a battle of ideas between the 90s concept of a future where we’re all colourblind, and the 2010s+ era where we must pay close attention to race so that we can understand prejudice and privilege. I preferred the colourblindness, even if that marks me out as a naive centrist dad. I saw in both my children that they had no conception of racial difference at school until people told them about it.
Yes, I find the modern trend to be both depressing and bizarre in some ways. Yes, we may not have reached a place where there is total colour blindness in action or in the more tricky sense of ingrained attitudes/institutional disparities, but isn't it a good goal at least?
Whereas a hyperfocus on how we apparently differentiate from one another on race, gender, whatever, and who owes the other this or that, should feel guilt or a sense of oppression regardless of the actions and views they personally hold, seems like a bad goal to me. One which is not as helpful at redressing inequalities as what we were doing before.
Isn't there a place where we don't dismiss there may be work to do, without making race in particular the main distinguising factor in our lives? If nothing else it often presupposes people of one 'race' (such as that is even a thing, given as you point out the difficulties there) are supposed to think the same things, since the arguments are always framed in absolutist terms, speaking for everyone of a particular type, or against a type.
I feel l ike we are going backwards on this topic.
The lady who wrote “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” specifically says that claiming to be ‘colourblind’ is just a way to deny the existence of structural racism
I actually can believe that. But I don't think it requires acceptance of every claim of structural racism, which seems to be all encompassing on pretty much every issue, or that the focus placed on racial minutaie and blame casting of people down the generations, is a good way to combat that structural effect even if people accept it is there.
I can understand the frustration with people who claim that everything’s sorted so what’s the fuss. Same with gender politics. But the problem is what’s the end game? Surely an end game that’s colour blind is better than one where racial difference is everything.
This is another example of American hang ups infecting British culture because we happen to speak the same language and use the same apps.
This is absolutely spot on.
The idea that this is just an imported american hang up is a common delusion that downplays the seriousness of the problems. 'Woke' ideology is actually working against a 'colourblind' future. It seeks to divide people up in to different socially constructed identity groups who then operate in shifting patterns of warring alliances. If western civilisation is to successfully reinvent itself for another few generations there needs to be a more inclusive and positive ideology that replaces all this. Otherwise the west will ultimately just get crushed or enslaved by stronger and more cohesive and self confident civilisations.
'Woke ideology' is entirely an invention of the right. Where is the 'woke ideology' manifesto and who wrote it?
Have you heard of people like Derrick Bell or Kimberlé Crenshaw?
I certainly havent, and suspect only twitterati on the right have and maybe 0.1% of the left or centre. So the idea they drive political thought of the left or centre of politics is all a bit weird.
"Everyone agrees Brexit was a mistake! Let's push our advantage and Rejoin even though it means the euro, losing the rebate, and all our opt-outs and vetoes!"
"Oh WAIT, only 22% of the entire British electorate voted for it in the referendum, and all in Dundee, North London, Oxbridge and Brighton at that, and James O'Brien cried after having eggs thrown at him, and Steve Bray got a Union Flag with sparklers pushed up his bottom?"
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
You mean, in the same way we still talk about Mozart but nobody ever thinks of Napoleon these days?
Off topic, but possibly of betting importance: Yesterday, I saw the first mention of Nikki Haley on a local news program. Our "mainstream" news organizations have been reluctant to even mention alternatives to the Loser, except for a brief spell when DeSantis got some coverage.
That's partly because they want viewers and clicks, and partly because most "mainstream" journalists like the damage he's doing to the Republican Party.)
I do think Haley is worth a small-ish flutter at odds of around 15-1 for Iowa. Trump will probably be okay, but it isn't temperamentally the best red state for him, he's stubbornly shy of a majority in primary polls there, and he underperformed there in 2016 (losing to Cruz and almost slipping to third behind Rubio when polls had him as likely winner).
For Haley, there is a reasonable chance Republicans there who aren't sold on Trump will rally around her with the De Santis campaign apparently having a slow puncture which has led to it deflating over many months, and Ramaswamy also basically on the slide.
Caucuses are also decided by those that turn up (well, all votes are but caucuses take more of an effort). I just wonder if Trump dominating the process may lead to lazy assumptions of invincibility by supporters on the day.
I'd not say it's likely, but Trump hasn't fully sewn it up.
If the race can resolve to Trump v Haley quite quickly (fuck off Ron) and Trump's national poll numbers start to slide a bit in response to legal developments and further revelations and stupid shit that he says, then it could get interesting. Things might look very different in say 3 months to how they look today.
I think there's a big chance of this. The Trump situation is inherently unstable and primed to blow up. I really do feel that. I'm just waiting to see precisely what triggers it, and when, and how the dust settles. His 2.6 price for the WH reflects none of this. It's crazy short imo. All trees and no wood.
If Trump were a normal candidate, I could see Haley winning and then she’d be favourite for the main event. But Trump won’t lose. I mean, he may get fewer votes, but he’ll still insist he won, he’ll never drop out, he’ll contest everything, muddy the waters, stand as an independent where he can.
That's why I love the Dems at 2.2 for the WH. Better imo than 3.5 for Joe specifically.
You think Joe should be longer than 1.4 for the nom ?
Actually no. Not rationally. Shorter if anything. But my hunch is he won't be the candidate and if he is I'm not confident he'll win.
People in general like an excuse, I didn't get on because I came from a council estate, i went to a life in crime because I came from a broken home, I didn't get on because my class is wrong
Its total bollocks. They didn't get on because instead of working at education they ignored it because people persuaded them they would always be failures no matter what they did.
Hang on, aren't you the one who has often complained that you're still only earning what you were 20 years ago? How well have you got on?
Didn't mean i didn't get on well compared to those in my cohort, they are two different things
"Everyone agrees Brexit was a mistake! Let's push our advantage and Rejoin even though it means the euro, losing the rebate, and all our opt-outs and vetoes!"
"Oh WAIT, only 22% of the entire British electorate voted for it in the referendum, and all in Dundee, North London, Oxbridge and Brighton at that, and James O'Brien cried after having eggs thrown at him, and Steve Bray got a Union Flag with sparklers pushed up his bottom?"
"Oh shit, it's all over. Forever."
Don’t worry, you’ll get to stay out of the EU for a while yet.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
You mean, in the same way we still talk about Mozart but nobody ever thinks of Napoleon these days?
And everyone talks about Putin and not Tatu. But interested to see whether people talk about Trump and not Taylor Swift in the future, hoping that Trump doesn’t get the chance to make a bigger mark.
"Everyone agrees Brexit was a mistake! Let's push our advantage and Rejoin even though it means the euro, losing the rebate, and all our opt-outs and vetoes!"
"Oh WAIT, only 22% of the entire British electorate voted for it in the referendum, and all in Dundee, North London, Oxbridge and Brighton at that, and James O'Brien cried after having eggs thrown at him, and Steve Bray got a Union Flag with sparklers pushed up his bottom?"
"Oh shit, it's all over. Forever."
Don’t worry. You’ll get to enjoy being out of the EU for a bit longer. Say, 10-15 years, maybe longer if we join the SM beforehand.
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
I spent this morning placing Farrow and Ball swatches against various walls in our barn and choosing green smoke, lime white and something else I don’t remember. I suggested to the architect that we could buy the F&B in the UK as it’s about a third cheaper than in France and she borderline snorted. “Well you could buy actual Farrow (the French don’t bother with the “and ball”) but we were going to colour match otherwise you will have no budget left.
Paint is horrendously expensive here. F&B is affordable only to oligarchs.
ON topic as much as I dislike this pollling, I can’t deny it
I do wonder if PM Starmer will briskly push through Single Market membership (without a referendum). What’s the point in a 200 seat majority if you don’t use it to do something dramatic. This would be it
He will never get a better chance than in his first year or two, Blair’s premiership teaches us that
Being in the Single Market subject to its rules but without any say in them is untenable in the long-term. May as well rejoin.
On topic, so only a minority of people support Rejoin at 31%, then, whilst nearly 70% are opposed?
Glad we got that straight.
If you're going to count the DKs as 'oppose' you'd need to accept that 62.5% of the electorate 'opposed' Brexit.
Only 31% support Rejoin in this poll.
There is no getting away from that.
It shows, unlike the false binary polls of Rejoin v. Stay Out (which people basically respond to as a hypothetical re-run) just how badly Rejoin could actually do if ever a uber-Remainy government were dumb enough to actually run a referendum on it.
Many more people think Brexit was a mistake but don’t want another load of referendum drama. It’s not that much of a surprise . Most Remainers I know detest Brexit but don’t want another referendum and think it needs to be for future generations to make that decision .
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
You mean, in the same way we still talk about Mozart but nobody ever thinks of Napoleon these days?
And everyone talks about Putin and not Tatu. But interested to see whether people talk about Trump and not Taylor Swift in the future, hoping that Trump doesn’t get the chance to make a bigger mark.
Taylor Swift has already written the anthem for Trump's write-in campaign if he is kept off the ballot:
"I've got a blank space baby, and I'll write your name."
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
I spent this morning placing Farrow and Ball swatches against various walls in our barn and choosing green smoke, lime white and something else I don’t remember. I suggested to the architect that we could buy the F&B in the UK as it’s about a third cheaper than in France and she borderline snorted. “Well you could buy actual Farrow (the French don’t bother with the “and ball”) but we were going to colour match otherwise you will have no budget left.
Paint is horrendously expensive here. F&B is affordable only to oligarchs.
I think he's proven to be quite likable and normal.
It's not as though I'm a fan of Farage's, but I don't think on a personal level he has historically come across as that objectionable. Political views people will disagree about, some despise him for that, but he's personable and his success in building and maintaining his profile suggests he engages well with people who are open to his messaging.
He's always benefitted from exposure (such as the debates with Nick Clegg). People who seek to stitch him up (as there is a little evidence that ITV have tried to do) need to remember that. I did 'warn' them (as if they read me on PB) that it would be very difficult to do that as Farage is a very wily operator. And ITV, with the best will in the world, aren't.
Best example of that are indeed the debates with Clegg; most politico’s declared them a defeat for Farage I seem to remember. Would be interesting to re-read the PB threads
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
I spent this morning placing Farrow and Ball swatches against various walls in our barn and choosing green smoke, lime white and something else I don’t remember. I suggested to the architect that we could buy the F&B in the UK as it’s about a third cheaper than in France and she borderline snorted. “Well you could buy actual Farrow (the French don’t bother with the “and ball”) but we were going to colour match otherwise you will have no budget left.
Paint is horrendously expensive here. F&B is affordable only to oligarchs.
Nobody actually buys Farrow and Ball.
Weren't they the double act with the piano?
You were thinking of that one off ITV Christmas special in the 80’s with Mia Farrow and Bobby Ball where they tried to pull off something similar to Morecombe and Wise with Andre Previn. Never quite worked though as Mia Farrow was too distracted trying to keep an eye on her kids for some reason.
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
It seems that Matt Hancock thinks that there was no point in trying to keep covid out of the country and that lockdown should have begun before anyone had died of it.
Presumably this lockdown would have had to be continued until the entire populace had been vaccinated.
Or until society and the economy had collapsed if it had taken longer to develop vaccines or they had been less effective.
Of course Matt Hancock thought that lockdown restrictions only applied to the 'little people'.
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
ON topic as much as I dislike this pollling, I can’t deny it
I do wonder if PM Starmer will briskly push through Single Market membership (without a referendum). What’s the point in a 200 seat majority if you don’t use it to do something dramatic. This would be it
He will never get a better chance than in his first year or two, Blair’s premiership teaches us that
Being in the Single Market subject to its rules but without any say in them is untenable in the long-term. May as well rejoin.
Or, by the same token, we sign-up and nothing really happens to growth and so we decide to leave it again.
I am one of those who think that Brexit is over, despite some bitter remainers.
What is not over, and never will be, is the demand on our politicians to take advantage of the opportunities and freedoms that they have gained through it. To take an obvious example we should have increased capital allowances to 150% of the investment to drive a boost in investment and, hopefully, productivity. EU rules would have prevented that but there is nothing stopping us from doing it now other than their own incompetence and cowardice.
So we have not done some things we could have done. Maybe Starmer will make a better fist of exploiting Brexit. Now that would be ironic.
"Everyone agrees Brexit was a mistake! Let's push our advantage and Rejoin even though it means the euro, losing the rebate, and all our opt-outs and vetoes!"
"Oh WAIT, only 22% of the entire British electorate voted for it in the referendum, and all in Dundee, North London, Oxbridge and Brighton at that, and James O'Brien cried after having eggs thrown at him, and Steve Bray got a Union Flag with sparklers pushed up his bottom?"
"Oh shit, it's all over. Forever."
Don’t worry. You’ll get to enjoy being out of the EU for a bit longer. Say, 10-15 years, maybe longer if we join the SM beforehand.
It's quite funny how so many irreconcilable see this as inevitable.
There is no such thing as inevitability and history does not only march one way.
I notice that the Irish media outlet that wrote the background of the knifeman has been contacted by the police a day after the day to say the individual you were talking about (no names were given) isn't the suspect. Yes same age, yes same original nationality, correct story of their asylum process, no wrong person. No more to be said.
The authorities reaction is really weird. Yes fair legal process etc, but normally details by now there is context and back story been made available to the media.
Having a vacuum just leads to speculation and incorrect information being spread.
There is an unverified rumour that the suspect is linked with an Irish politician.
Something like this happened in the Malcolm McArthur case in Ireland in the 1980's. It nearly brought down Haughey's government. So it is not beyond the bounds of possibilities.
But who knows what lies behind this event and the reaction.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
And didn't Mother Theresa die on the same day as Cilla?
I think he's proven to be quite likable and normal.
It's not as though I'm a fan of Farage's, but I don't think on a personal level he has historically come across as that objectionable. Political views people will disagree about, some despise him for that, but he's personable and his success in building and maintaining his profile suggests he engages well with people who are open to his messaging.
He's always benefitted from exposure (such as the debates with Nick Clegg). People who seek to stitch him up (as there is a little evidence that ITV have tried to do) need to remember that. I did 'warn' them (as if they read me on PB) that it would be very difficult to do that as Farage is a very wily operator. And ITV, with the best will in the world, aren't.
Best example of that are indeed the debates with Clegg; most politico’s declared them a defeat for Farage I seem to remember. Would be interesting to re-read the PB threads
I rewatched them - admittedly after a few drinks - a couple of years ago, and I was staggered by how superficial they were.
They contained much that was - at best - wildly inaccurate or impossible to judge. (Highlights being Farage's claim that 70% of UK legislation was written in Brussels and Clegg's claim that Brexit could cost 20% of GDP.)
I would hope that if either of them watched them now, then they would be ashamed. Sadly, I suspect neither would.
I don’t think Farage would resile from the 70% claim.
It simply isn't true, though.
The House of Commons library - back in 2010 - reported "6.8% of primary legislation and 14.1% of secondary legislation from 1997 to 2009 were EU-related."
There is nothing 'simply' about it. The BBC said this in 2016:
"If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105
And all sources freely acknowledge that it's difficult to measure because the origins of EU-inspired legislation have often been unclear.
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
I see The Guardian has named the royals mentioned in the Dutch translation of the book. Surely the BBC has to at some point as well?
It’s kinda funny this because the only people really obsessed with the whiteness of the skin colour of mixed race kids are Asian people, they really want the skin colour to be really white.
Was also my experience when I sired mixed race kids.
Mine, too; although in my case it was half-Thai grandchildren.
Everyone wants to be white. It’s a human universal dating back thousands of years. “Fairness” in women is prized in Sumerian texts
I remember on our wedding day the make up people tried to give my wife some kind of skin bleach, which was ridiculous as (a) she is a stunningly beautiful dark skinned Sri Lankan woman whose skin tone could not be improved upon and (b) presumably if I'd wanted to marry a fair skinned woman I wouldn't have been marrying her. They tried to achieve something similar by overexposing the wedding picture, the result of which is that I look like a ghost. The whole thing is very odd to me as Sri Lankans are quite a good looking bunch and it's odd that they'd want to look more like white people. Our children are a Farrow and Ball colour chart of skin tones. Our eldest is so fair that when we lived in the US (where people seem to be a bit more focused on skin colour than here) some people refused to believe my wife was her mother.
There have been some awkward cases of people criticising mixed race politicians on the assumption they are white of course - skin colour has quite the range outside our very broad classifications.
In a few generations most of the world will hopefully have Brazilianised, with the majority of people having a mixture of genes and there being no need to talk of mixed race anymore because everyone already is.
“Mixed race” is an awful expression, implying as it does that Humans are made up of canine-style breeds. Nobody talks about “mixed hair colour”.
There’s a bit of a battle of ideas between the 90s concept of a future where we’re all colourblind, and the 2010s+ era where we must pay close attention to race so that we can understand prejudice and privilege. I preferred the colourblindness, even if that marks me out as a naive centrist dad. I saw in both my children that they had no conception of racial difference at school until people told them about it.
Yes, I find the modern trend to be both depressing and bizarre in some ways. Yes, we may not have reached a place where there is total colour blindness in action or in the more tricky sense of ingrained attitudes/institutional disparities, but isn't it a good goal at least?
Whereas a hyperfocus on how we apparently differentiate from one another on race, gender, whatever, and who owes the other this or that, should feel guilt or a sense of oppression regardless of the actions and views they personally hold, seems like a bad goal to me. One which is not as helpful at redressing inequalities as what we were doing before.
Isn't there a place where we don't dismiss there may be work to do, without making race in particular the main distinguising factor in our lives? If nothing else it often presupposes people of one 'race' (such as that is even a thing, given as you point out the difficulties there) are supposed to think the same things, since the arguments are always framed in absolutist terms, speaking for everyone of a particular type, or against a type.
I feel l ike we are going backwards on this topic.
The lady who wrote “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” specifically says that claiming to be ‘colourblind’ is just a way to deny the existence of structural racism
I actually can believe that. But I don't think it requires acceptance of every claim of structural racism, which seems to be all encompassing on pretty much every issue, or that the focus placed on racial minutaie and blame casting of people down the generations, is a good way to combat that structural effect even if people accept it is there.
I can understand the frustration with people who claim that everything’s sorted so what’s the fuss. Same with gender politics. But the problem is what’s the end game? Surely an end game that’s colour blind is better than one where racial difference is everything.
This is another example of American hang ups infecting British culture because we happen to speak the same language and use the same apps.
This is absolutely spot on.
The idea that this is just an imported american hang up is a common delusion that downplays the seriousness of the problems. 'Woke' ideology is actually working against a 'colourblind' future. It seeks to divide people up in to different socially constructed identity groups who then operate in shifting patterns of warring alliances. If western civilisation is to successfully reinvent itself for another few generations there needs to be a more inclusive and positive ideology that replaces all this. Otherwise the west will ultimately just get crushed or enslaved by stronger and more cohesive and self confident civilisations.
'Woke ideology' is entirely an invention of the right. Where is the 'woke ideology' manifesto and who wrote it?
This argument is one you keep coming out with, 'it can't be easily defined so it doesn't exist, it is all in your imagination'. In the end if you want to really believe that then fair enough. But there are lots of books written on the subject by both sides.
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner (certainly than your average PBer........)
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
I think she’s being a little optimistic there. They still have a long way to go.
I concur with her on one thing though, and that’s the male chauvinism of much of Georgian society. It feels like Italy 30 years ago. Very religious, very conservative, and a country where women still get regularly patronised.
We had one driver who, after telling an old legend about some conqueror or other remarking on the beauty of Georgian women, said “I don’t know what went wrong since. Our women are rather plain. These days I much prefer the Ukrainian and Russian ladies”. Well, I should have said, a man of your tremendous looks should be grateful for what he can get.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
And didn't Mother Theresa die on the same day as Cilla?
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
So where is Sunak best placed to win?
Not public services.
Unlikely to be tax cuts- he's still got to fund a fuel duty freeze.
I think I'd advise him to be boring, but I suspect that loses as well.
Government bond yields rose after experimental official data indicated that unemployment in Britain was much lower in the first half of the year than first thought, providing what analysts called a “hawkish impetus” for the Bank of England.
Experimental data published in October by the Office for National Statistics indicated that Britain’s unemployment rate had been much lower over the three months to the end of May at 3.5 per cent and the three months to the end of August at 3.8 per cent. Official numbers for those respective periods had suggested that the jobless rate was 4 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.
Lower unemployment would correlate with higher immigration and would suggest that either GDP should be higher, workers are doing fewer hours or that productivity is even worse.
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
It won't be money related ones either so what else is left that Sunak has any chance of winning.
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
And thankfully, as we're no longer members, they're excited about going somewhere else, rather than our rainy haven.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to leave The Grand Tour, bringing an end to their 20-year presenting partnership.
The men, who hosted the BBC series Top Gear from 2003, have all decided to leave the series on Amazon Prime after five seasons.
Asked if they were leaving, Clarkson told The Times: “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.
...Clarkson is set to release at least one more series of his popular programme Clarkson’s Farm, also on Amazon. May, 60, also stars in travelogues for the streamer where he has visited Japan and Italy, with a new series in India due soon.
This reminds me of when JFK was assassinated the same day as Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died.
Stalin and Prokofiev died on the same day. One day people will still be in awe of the music of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Cinderella' and little girls will be stunned by the ballet, and we shall ask 'Who was he?' of Stalin.
And didn't Mother Theresa die on the same day as Cilla?
That was a right surprise surprise
No - she died a few days after Diana, didn't she? Mother Teresa - not Cilla.
There is no provision charging income tax for 2024/25.
This means that there will be another Budget before April and an associated Finance Bill and thus the possibility of changing rates.
Just the 334 pages. Introducing Finance Bills changing things to such an extent every six months sums up the total short-termism in UK politics, and is certainly a contribution to the lack of investment. Who will invest if the rules change every six months?
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
And thankfully, as we're no longer members, they're excited about going somewhere else, rather than our rainy haven.
Yes thank God this funny and attractive woman is not going to be coming over here. Another Brexit dividend!
I am one of those who think that Brexit is over, despite some bitter remainers.
What is not over, and never will be, is the demand on our politicians to take advantage of the opportunities and freedoms that they have gained through it. To take an obvious example we should have increased capital allowances to 150% of the investment to drive a boost in investment and, hopefully, productivity. EU rules would have prevented that but there is nothing stopping us from doing it now other than their own incompetence and cowardice.
So we have not done some things we could have done. Maybe Starmer will make a better fist of exploiting Brexit. Now that would be ironic.
If Brexit is not done, it is in the sense that the rulesets agreed have not been fully implemented, such that the difference between how our border actually operates diverges vastly more from the agreed rules, than any such discrepancies for competitor nations.
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
'Sunsk' a mixture of Sunak and Skunk?
I think it's reasonably clear that Sunak is bright, and far more so in a practical sense that Boris. May was/is hard to judge, but certainly Brown was a comparative thicko.
So... Intelligent PM, why doesn't it show? I think there's a bit of a parallel here with Ed Balls - Harvard think he knows his economics, and yet when in office he seemed a village fool on that subject.
With Balls my theory is that he just wasn't aligned with the sort of crap Labour that Brown enforced. Perhaps Sunak is the same, perhaps he's not a Tory! (I speak as a relatively new not-a-Tory)
I’m glad someone mentioned Farrow & Ball’s specific matte, chalky finish. It simply can’t be replaced, at least on interiors.
Americans are obsessed with race. Britons with class; the French with sex.
Personally I think one’s socio-economic status (class, if you like) is overwhelmingly the main determinant of how you get on in life. Posh black people beat poor white people, at least in Britain.
Of course, to actually address these inequalities require a much more redistributive tax system, and it is frankly much easier to simply pretend the problem in society is race inequality, and DEI consultants are relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things.
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
And thankfully, as we're no longer members, they're excited about going somewhere else, rather than our rainy haven.
They didn’t say they they were excited about going anywhere.
Roger, what exactly was the point of that anecdote, specifically the part about Londoners being shit? You really don’t help, you know that don’t you?
I was picked up by a very funny and attractive Uber driver in Nice today. She spoke perfect French and her English was passable. She told me she was from Georgia but had come to France with her mother and sister because the men from the caucases are chauvinists particularly her father and her mother didn't want to spend her time in the kitchen. She loved living in France and struck me as more cosmopolitan even than your average Londoner....
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
And thankfully, as we're no longer members, they're excited about going somewhere else, rather than our rainy haven.
There aren’t many Georgians in London, much is the pity. I was talking to one in Kakheti who had spent 10 years in Tottenham but went back because he despaired of ever affording a house.
Most Georgians in Europe go to Italy, Spain and other winemaking regions. Rather like the Romanians.
But my most remarkable migration anecdote was from a chap who divided his time between driving tourists and running a sunflower seed factory. He’d bought the factory from his uncle. Why did his industrialist uncle sell up, I asked. Because he left Georgia. Not to Europe, where they have visa free travel. But to Mexico, from where he made the dangerous crossing of the Rio Grande into the US. He’s now an Uber driver in New York.
On topic, so only a minority of people support Rejoin at 31%, then, whilst nearly 70% are opposed?
Glad we got that straight.
If you're going to count the DKs as 'oppose' you'd need to accept that 62.5% of the electorate 'opposed' Brexit.
Only 31% support Rejoin in this poll.
There is no getting away from that.
It shows, unlike the false binary polls of Rejoin v. Stay Out (which people basically respond to as a hypothetical re-run) just how badly Rejoin could actually do if ever a uber-Remainy government were dumb enough to actually run a referendum on it.
Many more people think Brexit was a mistake but don’t want another load of referendum drama. It’s not that much of a surprise . Most Remainers I know detest Brexit but don’t want another referendum and think it needs to be for future generations to make that decision .
Exactly. No more close divisive Refs please. Slowly reintegrate until we're a quasi member then a vote to rubberstamp and formalise the de facto. Maybe in 20 years. Low key boring exercise. 75/25. Not predicting it (mugs game) but if we are going to drop the pretensions and rejoin the fold I think it will happen like this.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
It seems that Matt Hancock thinks that there was no point in trying to keep covid out of the country and that lockdown should have begun before anyone had died of it.
Presumably this lockdown would have had to be continued until the entire populace had been vaccinated.
Or until society and the economy had collapsed if it had taken longer to develop vaccines or they had been less effective.
Of course Matt Hancock thought that lockdown restrictions only applied to the 'little people'.
Aside from all that though, he's basically a hero - right?
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
'Sunsk' a mixture of Sunak and Skunk?
I think it's reasonably clear that Sunak is bright, and far more so in a practical sense that Boris. May was/is hard to judge, but certainly Brown was a comparative thicko.
So... Intelligent PM, why doesn't it show? I think there's a bit of a parallel here with Ed Balls - Harvard think he knows his economics, and yet when in office he seemed a village fool on that subject.
With Balls my theory is that he just wasn't aligned with the sort of crap Labour that Brown enforced. Perhaps Sunak is the same, perhaps he's not a Tory! (I speak as a relatively new not-a-Tory)
Surely 'Sunsk' is better thought of as a mix of 'Sunak' and 'Kursk' in that this vessel is going down with all hands.
I think he's proven to be quite likable and normal.
It's not as though I'm a fan of Farage's, but I don't think on a personal level he has historically come across as that objectionable. Political views people will disagree about, some despise him for that, but he's personable and his success in building and maintaining his profile suggests he engages well with people who are open to his messaging.
He's always benefitted from exposure (such as the debates with Nick Clegg). People who seek to stitch him up (as there is a little evidence that ITV have tried to do) need to remember that. I did 'warn' them (as if they read me on PB) that it would be very difficult to do that as Farage is a very wily operator. And ITV, with the best will in the world, aren't.
Best example of that are indeed the debates with Clegg; most politico’s declared them a defeat for Farage I seem to remember. Would be interesting to re-read the PB threads
I rewatched them - admittedly after a few drinks - a couple of years ago, and I was staggered by how superficial they were.
They contained much that was - at best - wildly inaccurate or impossible to judge. (Highlights being Farage's claim that 70% of UK legislation was written in Brussels and Clegg's claim that Brexit could cost 20% of GDP.)
I would hope that if either of them watched them now, then they would be ashamed. Sadly, I suspect neither would.
I don’t think Farage would resile from the 70% claim.
It simply isn't true, though.
The House of Commons library - back in 2010 - reported "6.8% of primary legislation and 14.1% of secondary legislation from 1997 to 2009 were EU-related."
There is nothing 'simply' about it. The BBC said this in 2016:
"If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105
And all sources freely acknowledge that it's difficult to measure because the origins of EU-inspired legislation have often been unclear.
No. That’s not true. That’s not true at all. EU legislation takes the form of directives (which tell member states what to do), regulations (directly effective in domestic law) and treaty provisions (likewise). If the domestic legislation is not implementing one of those, it’s not EU inspired, and it’s easy to tell which is which.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Yawn. Back on Gardenwalker's least convincing hobby horse again.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
Oh and if Gardenwalker thinks the EU was just about international trade then I am sure someone has a bridge to sell him.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
'Sunsk' a mixture of Sunak and Skunk?
I think it's reasonably clear that Sunak is bright, and far more so in a practical sense that Boris. May was/is hard to judge, but certainly Brown was a comparative thicko.
So... Intelligent PM, why doesn't it show? I think there's a bit of a parallel here with Ed Balls - Harvard think he knows his economics, and yet when in office he seemed a village fool on that subject.
With Balls my theory is that he just wasn't aligned with the sort of crap Labour that Brown enforced. Perhaps Sunak is the same, perhaps he's not a Tory! (I speak as a relatively new not-a-Tory)
Surely 'Sunsk' is better thought of as a mix of 'Sunak' and 'Kursk' in that this vessel is going down with all hands.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
One of the reasons I voted against brexit was the assumption that the political class would f*ck up any resulting possible benefits.
This was meaningful when he was saying similar things like 10 years ago, but now it just seems like mopey attention grabbing. Ronnie O'Sullivan says he "can't be bothered any more" with snooker despite securing a UK Championship quarter-final place. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/67580668
There is no provision charging income tax for 2024/25.
This means that there will be another Budget before April and an associated Finance Bill and thus the possibility of changing rates.
Just the 334 pages. Introducing Finance Bills changing things to such an extent every six months sums up the total short-termism in UK politics, and is certainly a contribution to the lack of investment. Who will invest if the rules change every six months?
This has been the complaint of North Sea firms for decades. They changed the tax regulations 4 times in one year a few years ago..
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
Man who is a citizen of nowhere as he is from new zealand, lived in the uk for a while now lives in new york opining on whats best for the country.....yeah go fuck yourself
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
ON topic as much as I dislike this pollling, I can’t deny it
I do wonder if PM Starmer will briskly push through Single Market membership (without a referendum). What’s the point in a 200 seat majority if you don’t use it to do something dramatic. This would be it
He will never get a better chance than in his first year or two, Blair’s premiership teaches us that
Being in the Single Market subject to its rules but without any say in them is untenable in the long-term. May as well rejoin.
Or, by the same token, we sign-up and nothing really happens to growth and so we decide to leave it again.
May as well make our own laws.
But what if freedom of movement with EU citizens is something voters want? Surely we should be able to make our own laws / trade deals facilitating that?
It is, after all, a two-way freedom and many want to be able to retire somewhere sunny or work in different places. It's notable that emigration levels have dropped a lot since we left the EU, contributing to the rise in net migration.
And it's not like the EU will expand massively again anytime soon - I believe the population will peak very soon and then decline. Not everyone will move here.
If losing freedom of movement does nothing to stop immigration, but stops British people from living in a wide range or places, who exactly is gaining from the loss in this freedom?
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
The good news, whether you’re a rejoiner or stay-outer I think, is that the vast majority of Europeans still seem to want us back. There’s surprisingly little good-riddance sentiment out there. And I’m talking largely about people from countries that are net contributors and money never comes up as a factor in conversation.
They see us as part of the club, even after Brexit. Allies. Friends. They’d like us back, more than they’d like the Swiss to join for example, but won’t be offended if we stay out. There’s still plenty of goodwill out there.
Notwithstanding our current government I think we’re a pretty friendly country. I anticipate once the Tories get ditched next year Britain’s image will get a boost and we may even find ourselves an important redoubt of European liberalism as the Putin-aligned populists sweep the continent.
There is nothing 'simply' about it. The BBC said this in 2016:
"If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105
And all sources freely acknowledge that it's difficult to measure because the origins of EU-inspired legislation have often been unclear.
Were you deliberately disingenuous, or did you not read the article?
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
Want to buy a bridge?
I seem to recall it was Boris offering various bridges, in London, to Northern Ireland, and even a second crossing of some sort to France.
There is no provision charging income tax for 2024/25.
This means that there will be another Budget before April and an associated Finance Bill and thus the possibility of changing rates.
Just the 334 pages. Introducing Finance Bills changing things to such an extent every six months sums up the total short-termism in UK politics, and is certainly a contribution to the lack of investment. Who will invest if the rules change every six months?
This has been the complaint of North Sea firms for decades. They changed the tax regulations 4 times in one year a few years ago..
The latest North Sea strategic tax review does offer a bit of hope on that front. A more stable mechanism for both tax rates and investment allowances, which Labour also supports.
ON topic as much as I dislike this pollling, I can’t deny it
I do wonder if PM Starmer will briskly push through Single Market membership (without a referendum). What’s the point in a 200 seat majority if you don’t use it to do something dramatic. This would be it
He will never get a better chance than in his first year or two, Blair’s premiership teaches us that
Being in the Single Market subject to its rules but without any say in them is untenable in the long-term. May as well rejoin.
Or, by the same token, we sign-up and nothing really happens to growth and so we decide to leave it again.
May as well make our own laws.
But what if freedom of movement with EU citizens is something voters want? Surely we should be able to make our own laws / trade deals facilitating that?
It is, after all, a two-way freedom and many want to be able to retire somewhere sunny or work in different places. It's notable that emigration levels have dropped a lot since we left the EU, contributing to the rise in net migration.
And it's not like the EU will expand massively again anytime soon - I believe the population will peak very soon and then decline. Not everyone will move here.
If losing freedom of movement does nothing to stop immigration, but stops British people from living in a wide range or places, who exactly is gaining from the loss in this freedom?
less than 1 percent of the population want to retire to the uk or can afford to....suggesting we pay 10 billion a year is funding the well off to do what they want...they also move back when health gets poor to leech of uk tax payers so fuck them
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
Man who is a citizen of nowhere as he is from new zealand, lived in the uk for a while now lives in new york opining on whats best for the country.....yeah go fuck yourself
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
I'm fascinated where these people will go next in terms of escalating demands on politicians. They themselves should stand for office, as they have very strong 'If I do it, it cannot be wrong or illegal' feelings.
The good news, whether you’re a rejoiner or stay-outer I think, is that the vast majority of Europeans still seem to want us back. There’s surprisingly little good-riddance sentiment out there. And I’m talking largely about people from countries that are net contributors and money never comes up as a factor in conversation.
They see us as part of the club, even after Brexit. Allies. Friends. They’d like us back, more than they’d like the Swiss to join for example, but won’t be offended if we stay out. There’s still plenty of goodwill out there.
Notwithstanding our current government I think we’re a pretty friendly country. I anticipate once the Tories get ditched next year Britain’s image will get a boost and we may even find ourselves an important redoubt of European liberalism as the Putin-aligned populists sweep the continent.
The Putin aligned ?
Are you predicting a comeback for Gazprom Schroeder and GDR Merkel ?
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Excuse me. I think it was a great idea.
I excluded lunatics and maximum security prisoners from my analysis. 😆
Man who is a citizen of nowhere as he is from new zealand, lived in the uk for a while now lives in new york opining on whats best for the country.....yeah go fuck yourself
You sweet talking devil, you.
Look fom benefitted you. You may as well have used it...sorry most of us either didnt want it or couldnt do it so no benefit to us so the idea we should order ourselves to benefit the likes of the 1% is wrong
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
This looks to me like a kind of comforting narrative to absolve yourself of culpability for buggering up the country.
But even if you are correct, it was not “Boris” who became PM, it was “Brexit Boris”. He governed as the apotheosis of the Brexit spirit, quite differently than he had as Mayor of London.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
Nah, I was behind all the decisions that lay up to it and how it was carried out.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
In what way? He won an in/out referendum, and he took us out of the EU. Job done?
The problem with a simple in/out question was that he was able to convince those who thought it meant a low tax Singapore style economy, and those who thought it meant more public expenditure which would solve all issues around the NHS, to vote the same way. Neither were ever going to be delivered, both would be impossible.
Best movie soundtrack of all time - at least for those of us who were 18 in 1996.
Wasn't bad for those of us who were 21!
Those of us who were 22, on the other hand, found it far too difficult to comprehend.
I was 23. A younger friend was really raving about wanting to watch it, but I just thought: "Why would I want to sit in the cinema watching the sad antics of a load of druggies? I lived in London for five years..."
Wait. You still haven't seen it?
Actually, I haven't. Not particularly interested in it; saw enough of that sort of world in London. And, to think of it, before.
There was a drug problem even in a tiny town like provincial Uttoxeter, in the late 1980s, at least.
I've seen loads of clips, and I daresay it's well-acted and well-written, but it's just not my cup of tea. Or syringe of heroin.
Perhaps I missed out on something. But there are certain types of films I just don't like. Courtroom dramas bore me (sorry, all PB's lawyers). Mafia films ditto. Though to be fair, there are exceptions in each category.
It's not really a gritty-realism film. More a slightly surreal dark comedy.
For gritty realism of heroin addiction it is hard to beat "Christiane F", it is on BFI player, and a brilliant film. Slightly controversial now because of the age of the main star. Great Bowie soundtrack too.
I would argue that the best movie soundtrack is "Easy Rider", yet another druggie film.
'Born to be Wild' was a staple for a few years. Steppenwolf must have been going through a dry spell as you could use it for very little which I did on at least three occasions and if I never hear it again it'll be too soon.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
That was his calculation yes. But the other way would have been a duel with Osborne and I'm not sure he'd have prevailed there.
I'm fascinated where these people will go next in terms of escalating demands on politicians. They themselves should stand for office, as they have very strong 'If I do it, it cannot be wrong or illegal' feelings.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
In what way? He won an in/out referendum, and he took us out of the EU. Job done?
The problem with a simple in/out question was that he was able to convince those who thought it meant a low tax Singapore style economy, and those who thought it meant more public expenditure which would solve all issues around the NHS, to vote the same way. Neither were ever going to be delivered, both would be impossible.
Politicians have fucked us for decades because they dont rule for the good of the people of the uk. They rule for the benefit of people like themselves. How they handled brexit is merely the latest example of this. Not a uk thing either i am sure most people in most democracies would say the same
I'm fascinated where these people will go next in terms of escalating demands on politicians. They themselves should stand for office, as they have very strong 'If I do it, it cannot be wrong or illegal' feelings.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
That was his calculation yes. But the other way would have been a duel with Osborne and I'm not sure he'd have prevailed there.
Boris may have needed a crisis to become PM. Obviously he likes to think of himself as a new Churchill, but in this it's similar.
I stumbled across some kind of 'woke test' thing, which had all these questions and white men power and patriarchy and so on, supposedly juding on things like 'fighting power'/ 'challenging norms', 'intersectional solidarity'. I answered as negatively as I could and was somewhat astonished to only rate as 'slightly non-woke' (things go into non-woke through to anti-woke).
It is indeed true even those interested in defining it have trouble on specifics (not that that is a deal breaker, but it obviously makes things harder).
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
That was his calculation yes. But the other way would have been a duel with Osborne and I'm not sure he'd have prevailed there.
I think he would have - it was only quite late on that Osborne seemed to really enter the picture as a credible prospect, assuming Cameron being able to hand things over simply.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
This looks to me like a kind of comforting narrative to absolve yourself of culpability for buggering up the country.
But even if you are correct, it was not “Boris” who became PM, it was “Brexit Boris”. He governed as the apotheosis of the Brexit spirit, quite differently than he had as Mayor of London.
How so? Seems to me he spent most of his time as PM dealing with the pandemic, which he did in quite a big state way. He increased public spending and put up taxes didn’t he?
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
In what way? He won an in/out referendum, and he took us out of the EU. Job done?
The problem with a simple in/out question was that he was able to convince those who thought it meant a low tax Singapore style economy, and those who thought it meant more public expenditure which would solve all issues around the NHS, to vote the same way. Neither were ever going to be delivered, both would be impossible.
Politicians have fucked us for decades because they dont rule for the good of the people of the uk. They rule for the benefit of people like themselves. How they handled brexit is merely the latest example of this. Not a uk thing either i am sure most people in most democracies would say the same
In those political tribe diagrams you’re definitely one of the disengaged traditionalists. The largest single grouping apparently, with 18%.
I'm fascinated where these people will go next in terms of escalating demands on politicians. They themselves should stand for office, as they have very strong 'If I do it, it cannot be wrong or illegal' feelings.
It's insane.
I don't like to be unkind, or take a firm stance on anything really, but these types are so entitled about how laws should not apply to them (and imaginary laws should apply to their opponents), that I am prepared to say it - it is pretty barmy. They don't even like democracy because people don't do as they believe they should, yet love to claim the moral power of the entire population.
I also don't like how they make me react like a grouchy old fart.
There is no provision charging income tax for 2024/25.
This means that there will be another Budget before April and an associated Finance Bill and thus the possibility of changing rates.
Just the 334 pages. Introducing Finance Bills changing things to such an extent every six months sums up the total short-termism in UK politics, and is certainly a contribution to the lack of investment. Who will invest if the rules change every six months?
This has been the complaint of North Sea firms for decades. They changed the tax regulations 4 times in one year a few years ago..
Do you think there's any legs in my idea of making the windfall tax deductable against investments that add to UK capacity?
Sunsk needs to choose his battles carefully in the next few months. Ones he’s best placed to win. Which are largely not foreign policy or cultural ones.
'Sunsk' a mixture of Sunak and Skunk?
I think it's reasonably clear that Sunak is bright, and far more so in a practical sense that Boris. May was/is hard to judge, but certainly Brown was a comparative thicko.
So... Intelligent PM, why doesn't it show? I think there's a bit of a parallel here with Ed Balls - Harvard think he knows his economics, and yet when in office he seemed a village fool on that subject.
With Balls my theory is that he just wasn't aligned with the sort of crap Labour that Brown enforced. Perhaps Sunak is the same, perhaps he's not a Tory! (I speak as a relatively new not-a-Tory)
I was always surprised by how poorly Ed Balls came across in the Commons. I remember one of his budget responses and just finding it utterly lacklustre.
Government bond yields rose after experimental official data indicated that unemployment in Britain was much lower in the first half of the year than first thought, providing what analysts called a “hawkish impetus” for the Bank of England.
Experimental data published in October by the Office for National Statistics indicated that Britain’s unemployment rate had been much lower over the three months to the end of May at 3.5 per cent and the three months to the end of August at 3.8 per cent. Official numbers for those respective periods had suggested that the jobless rate was 4 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.
Lower unemployment would correlate with higher immigration and would suggest that either GDP should be higher, workers are doing fewer hours or that productivity is even worse.
I heard Timothy Martin on the Today program today. He said that 18% of the working age population of Manchester is on out of work benefits. I have no idea if he was right about that but it seemed extraordinary. We have far too many people deemed not fit for work or, frankly, so poorly committed to work that it makes foreign workers more attractive. FWIW he also claimed it was getting easier to find staff as unemployment grows.
These figures do not pass the sniff test to me but even if they were true I fear that there are too many deemed simply unfit.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
The thing about Brexit, which the dwindling band of true believers refuse to understand, is that Boris-ism was baked into it from the beginning.
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it. Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
What you fail to understand is that Boris was going to be PM whether we voted for Brexit or not. His calculation was simply which would get him there faster.
This looks to me like a kind of comforting narrative to absolve yourself of culpability for buggering up the country.
But even if you are correct, it was not “Boris” who became PM, it was “Brexit Boris”. He governed as the apotheosis of the Brexit spirit, quite differently than he had as Mayor of London.
How so? Seems to me he spent most of his time as PM dealing with the pandemic, which he did in quite a big state way. He increased public spending and put up taxes didn’t he?
Indeed, Truss (despite backing him), identified a need to move away from the Boris approach to economic matters, typified as being part of the usual consensus.
The thing about Brexit is that nobody apart from Casino now thinks it was a great idea.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
I think brexit was a wonderful idea fucked up by politicians like boris so not only casino
In what way? He won an in/out referendum, and he took us out of the EU. Job done?
The problem with a simple in/out question was that he was able to convince those who thought it meant a low tax Singapore style economy, and those who thought it meant more public expenditure which would solve all issues around the NHS, to vote the same way. Neither were ever going to be delivered, both would be impossible.
Politicians have fucked us for decades because they dont rule for the good of the people of the uk. They rule for the benefit of people like themselves. How they handled brexit is merely the latest example of this. Not a uk thing either i am sure most people in most democracies would say the same
In those political tribe diagrams you’re definitely one of the disengaged traditionalists. The largest single grouping apparently, with 18%.
I am very far from a tradionalist as I want to burn the whole thing down and start again. Our democracy is not fit for purpose it is captured by vested interests who do not care about the little people.....how does that make me a traditionalist?
Government bond yields rose after experimental official data indicated that unemployment in Britain was much lower in the first half of the year than first thought, providing what analysts called a “hawkish impetus” for the Bank of England.
Experimental data published in October by the Office for National Statistics indicated that Britain’s unemployment rate had been much lower over the three months to the end of May at 3.5 per cent and the three months to the end of August at 3.8 per cent. Official numbers for those respective periods had suggested that the jobless rate was 4 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.
Lower unemployment would correlate with higher immigration and would suggest that either GDP should be higher, workers are doing fewer hours or that productivity is even worse.
I heard Timothy Martin on the Today program today. He said that 18% of the working age population of Manchester is on out of work benefits. I have no idea if he was right about that but it seemed extraordinary. We have far too many people deemed not fit for work or, frankly, so poorly committed to work that it makes foreign workers more attractive. FWIW he also claimed it was getting easier to find staff as unemployment grows.
These figures do not pass the sniff test to me but even if they were true I fear that there are too many deemed simply unfit.
I thought Brexit would give these people their time to shine, but it seems it’s still too easy to not work & claim benefits.
Matthew Parris wrote a couple of articles recently about the epidemic of ‘mental health problems’ stopping people working - I wonder how many Eastern European immigrants are claiming that? Not many I should think
Comments
There is no getting away from that.
It shows, unlike the false binary polls of Rejoin v. Stay Out (which people basically respond to as a hypothetical re-run) just how badly Rejoin could actually do if ever a uber-Remainy government were dumb enough to actually run a referendum on it.
Starting with the opening line:
'I don't believe in panicking before it's absolutely necessary, but I came close to considering it on the morning of Tuesday 7th October.'
My reaction is much as yours.
"Oh WAIT, only 22% of the entire British electorate voted for it in the referendum, and all in Dundee, North London, Oxbridge and Brighton at that, and James O'Brien cried after having eggs thrown at him, and Steve Bray got a Union Flag with sparklers pushed up his bottom?"
"Oh shit, it's all over. Forever."
"I've got a blank space baby, and I'll write your name."
Osborne, the former top Conservative finance minister, waded into the diplomatic row over the ancient sculptures.
https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi-sunak-hissy-fit-kyriakos-mitsotakis-stop-greece-marbles-deal-parthenon-british-museum-george-osborne/
.........and then came the coup de grace.......
She told me that Georgia had been trying to join the EU for the last 20 years and they've just been or are about to be accepted and everyone's really excited......
Been going to Pogues gigs regularly for a while now. Each time expecting it to be the last time I saw the brilliant frontman
Presumably this lockdown would have had to be continued until the entire populace had been vaccinated.
Or until society and the economy had collapsed if it had taken longer to develop vaccines or they had been less effective.
Of course Matt Hancock thought that lockdown restrictions only applied to the 'little people'.
May as well make our own laws.
What is not over, and never will be, is the demand on our politicians to take advantage of the opportunities and freedoms that they have gained through it. To take an obvious example we should have increased capital allowances to 150% of the investment to drive a boost in investment and, hopefully, productivity. EU rules would have prevented that but there is nothing stopping us from doing it now other than their own incompetence and cowardice.
So we have not done some things we could have done. Maybe Starmer will make a better fist of exploiting Brexit. Now that would be ironic.
There is no such thing as inevitability and history does not only march one way.
Something like this happened in the Malcolm McArthur case in Ireland in the 1980's. It nearly brought down Haughey's government. So it is not beyond the bounds of possibilities.
But who knows what lies behind this event and the reaction.
"If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105
And all sources freely acknowledge that it's difficult to measure because the origins of EU-inspired legislation have often been unclear.
I concur with her on one thing though, and that’s the male chauvinism of much of Georgian society. It feels like Italy 30 years ago. Very religious, very conservative, and a country where women still get regularly patronised.
We had one driver who, after telling an old legend about some conqueror or other remarking on the beauty of Georgian women, said “I don’t know what went wrong since. Our women are rather plain. These days I much prefer the Ukrainian and Russian ladies”. Well, I should have said, a man of your tremendous looks should be grateful for what he can get.
https://www.ocado.com/products/farrow-s-giant-marrowfat-processed-peas-12351011?ds_rl=1291426&ds_rl=1290929&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgqGrBhDtARIsAM5s0_mybw_RE_DYOui6EnbYzJ0dq_4XZdN5hQ6OGBRHiylDNDYgB0u9EEoaAsNVEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Not public services.
Unlikely to be tax cuts- he's still got to fund a fuel duty freeze.
I think I'd advise him to be boring, but I suspect that loses as well.
Government bond yields rose after experimental official data indicated that unemployment in Britain was much lower in the first half of the year than first thought, providing what analysts called a “hawkish impetus” for the Bank of England.
Experimental data published in October by the Office for National Statistics indicated that Britain’s unemployment rate had been much lower over the three months to the end of May at 3.5 per cent and the three months to the end of August at 3.8 per cent. Official numbers for those respective periods had suggested that the jobless rate was 4 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gilt-yields-rise-after-dw5k5h8g6
Lower unemployment would correlate with higher immigration and would suggest that either GDP should be higher, workers are doing fewer hours or that productivity is even worse.
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-border-target-operating-model-august-2023/the-border-target-operating-model-august-2023#:~:text=Instead of the originally planned,rather than 31 January 2024.
I think it's reasonably clear that Sunak is bright, and far more so in a practical sense that Boris. May was/is hard to judge, but certainly Brown was a comparative thicko.
So... Intelligent PM, why doesn't it show? I think there's a bit of a parallel here with Ed Balls - Harvard think he knows his economics, and yet when in office he seemed a village fool on that subject.
With Balls my theory is that he just wasn't aligned with the sort of crap Labour that Brown enforced. Perhaps Sunak is the same, perhaps he's not a Tory! (I speak as a relatively new not-a-Tory)
Americans are obsessed with race.
Britons with class; the French with sex.
Personally I think one’s socio-economic status (class, if you like) is overwhelmingly the main determinant of how you get on in life. Posh black people beat poor white people, at least in Britain.
Of course, to actually address these inequalities require a much more redistributive tax system, and it is frankly much easier to simply pretend the problem in society is race inequality, and DEI consultants are relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things.
Roger, what exactly was the point of that anecdote, specifically the part about Londoners being shit? You really don’t help, you know that don’t you?
Most Georgians in Europe go to Italy, Spain and other winemaking regions. Rather like the Romanians.
But my most remarkable migration anecdote was from a chap who divided his time between driving tourists and running a sunflower seed factory. He’d bought the factory from his uncle. Why did his industrialist uncle sell up, I asked. Because he left Georgia. Not to Europe, where they have visa free travel. But to Mexico, from where he made the dangerous crossing of the Rio Grande into the US. He’s now an Uber driver in New York.
Full blown return to the EU is not at all inevitable, but history (and public opinion) has spoken: it was an essentially a hoax perpetuated on the public.
The long era since the vote is essentially a course in “international trade for slow learners”.
Ronnie O'Sullivan says he "can't be bothered any more" with snooker despite securing a UK Championship quarter-final place.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/67580668
No Boris, no Brexit.
It’s one of the explicit reasons I rejected it.
Apart from its intrinsic failings, it was being pushed by a pack of lying clowns who would clearly be empowered by a vote in favour.
And lo, some years of governmental debauch later, we are where we are.
It is, after all, a two-way freedom and many want to be able to retire somewhere sunny or work in different places. It's notable that emigration levels have dropped a lot since we left the EU, contributing to the rise in net migration.
And it's not like the EU will expand massively again anytime soon - I believe the population will peak very soon and then decline. Not everyone will move here.
If losing freedom of movement does nothing to stop immigration, but stops British people from living in a wide range or places, who exactly is gaining from the loss in this freedom?
They see us as part of the club, even after Brexit. Allies. Friends. They’d like us back, more than they’d like the Swiss to join for example, but won’t be offended if we stay out. There’s still plenty of goodwill out there.
Notwithstanding our current government I think we’re a pretty friendly country. I anticipate once the Tories get ditched next year Britain’s image will get a boost and we may even find ourselves an important redoubt of European liberalism as the Putin-aligned populists sweep the continent.
They themselves should stand for office, as they have very strong 'If I do it, it cannot be wrong or illegal' feelings.
Are you predicting a comeback for Gazprom Schroeder and GDR Merkel ?
But even if you are correct, it was not “Boris” who became PM, it was “Brexit Boris”. He governed as the apotheosis of the Brexit spirit, quite differently than he had as Mayor of London.
The problem with a simple in/out question was that he was able to convince those who thought it meant a low tax Singapore style economy, and those who thought it meant more public expenditure which would solve all issues around the NHS, to vote the same way. Neither were ever going to be delivered, both would be impossible.
It is indeed true even those interested in defining it have trouble on specifics (not that that is a deal breaker, but it obviously makes things harder). I think he would have - it was only quite late on that Osborne seemed to really enter the picture as a credible prospect, assuming Cameron being able to hand things over simply.
I also don't like how they make me react like a grouchy old fart.
These figures do not pass the sniff test to me but even if they were true I fear that there are too many deemed simply unfit.
And the arguments put forward by both sides have not changed one iota.
Matthew Parris wrote a couple of articles recently about the epidemic of ‘mental health problems’ stopping people working - I wonder how many Eastern European immigrants are claiming that? Not many I should think