Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
If firearms and explosives are involved, as they usually are in military actions these days, the limitation "with a view to influencing a government or IGO" goes out of the window (TA 2000 s. 1(3)), which nullifies what is in any case a very weak argument trying to extract limitations to the ambit of the act from a passage stating the breadth of its ambit. Statutes mean what they say. And I am talking about state persecution of minorities, not the suppression of terrorism.
The literal rule is displaced when it leads to manifest absurdity. Lord Esher MR's views in R v City of London Court Judge [1892] 1 QB 273, 290 (CA) no longer represent the law of England. Section 1 makes no distinction between acts committed within the United Kingdom and without. On your construction, signing up for the armed forces of the Crown could fall within the ambit of s. 1 of the 2000 Act under certain circumstances. That is so clearly contrary to public policy and the intention of the Parliament that no court would entertain it. State action cannot be terrorism, and a public authority and/or legality exception would be necessarily implied into section 1 by any English Court.
Just back from a canvsassing trip to Rochester. Canvassed a mixed area in Strood... The whole area had a rather downbeat feel - poorly maintained streets, quite a large proportion of houses run down and rather unkempt.
Strood is all like that, or so say my friends in Rochester.
I looked at Strood when we were buying our first house.
I chose Gillingham over Strood... and those of you who know Medway will know Gillingham is not the greatest of areas (or certainly not in 1983)
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
That puts Labour as largest party with around the same seats as the Tories in 2010, assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate.
Do you mean "assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate" *and* nothing changes between the time the polls were done and next May?
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland, however the SNP will cost so many seats that Labour will not have a majority even if they gain 70 Tory seats.
That puts Labour as largest party with around the same seats as the Tories in 2010, assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate.
Do you mean "assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate" *and* nothing changes between the time the polls were done and next May?
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland, however the SNP will cost so many seats that Labour will not have a majority even if they gain 70 Tory seats.
Unless anything recent has happened - those polls were a couple of months old and took 6 weeks for the data to be published - old news.
From Richmond (1989) to Newark (2014), the Tories failed to win a parliamentary by-election whilst in the Government. Even allowing for 13 years out of office, this is an abysmal record.
After their easy victory in Newark against a euro-exhausted UKIP, in an unpromising area for UKIP, facing a suspect candidate, the Tories casually jettisoned 25 years of failure after one exceptional result. After Clacton and now probably Rochester, normal service has been resumed.
What on Earth got into the Tories when Reckless defected?
They would definitely make an interesting read. I am not in the least bit surprised that Darling is standing down at the next GE, I think that he only left it this long to announce it because he wanted to concentrate on the Indy Referendum.
I wonder when Darling's memoirs will be released..?
On the basis that they are already written, presumably they will be published so as to have the greatest impact after the 2015 GE - I would suggest after Ed Miliband's resignation or perhaps just prior to next year's Labour Conference.
That puts Labour as largest party with around the same seats as the Tories in 2010, assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate.
Do you mean "assuming the constituency polls in england & wales are accurate" *and* nothing changes between the time the polls were done and next May?
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland
Or if there is no major movement between the time they were done and next May....
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
I don't think that a Labour-LD-SNP coalition government will let Britain to leave even if the EU started to peel off members. But if somehow UKIP manages to get enough MP's to provide a working coalition with Labour I can imagine that Labour might ditch their europhile partners in exchange for UKIP support with the price of an EU exit.
It could happen, Labour did do deals with all kinds of MP's in the seventies to remain in power, even with Enoch Powell.
They would definitely make an interesting read. I am not in the least bit surprised that Darling is standing down at the next GE, I think that he only left it this long to announce it because he wanted to concentrate on the Indy Referendum.
I wonder when Darling's memoirs will be released..?
On the basis that they are already written, presumably they will be published so as to have the greatest impact after the 2015 GE - I would suggest after Ed Miliband's resignation or perhaps just prior to next year's Labour Conference.
Not only have they already been written ... they've already been published. (Though I'm sure they could be updated.).
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland, however the SNP will cost so many seats that Labour will not have a majority even if they gain 70 Tory seats.
Ashcroft had the swing at 11% in Sept 2013, 5% in Sept 2014, and since then Labour's vote has tanked.
Darling didn't get the credit he deserved for beating Salmond in that first independence debate IMO. I can't imagine any other Westminster politician being able to make Salmond look like the chancer he is, as Darling did that night.
A banana would have won the first debate, Salmond was diabolically bad. After a crushing opening Darling let his initial complete and total dominance slip away by tripping over himself and being made to look tetchy.
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
I don't think that a Labour-LD-SNP coalition government will let Britain to leave even if the EU started to peel off members. But if somehow UKIP manages to get enough MP's to provide a working coalition with Labour I can imagine that Labour might ditch their europhile partners in exchange for UKIP support with the price of an EU exit.
It could happen, Labour did do deals with all kinds of MP's in the seventies to remain in power, even with Enoch Powell.
I do not think there is any chance of Labour contemplating exit from the EU with Miliband as leader
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
Is there a serious Eurosceptic party in Spain?
Greece would be my bet for first (non UK) EU exit, I just can't see Spain or Italy or Ireland going for it. (Not least because Spain and Ireland have done - on balance - pretty well out of the EU. Both have gone from middle income countries to high income countries in the last quarter century.)
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three), I suspect the FN will get get hammered (again) in the second round.
On the relatively esoteric issue of EU voting - the suggestion that voting in national elections be allowed has come up now and then in European discussion, though nobody was especially keen. I do quite often meet western Euriopeans (Dutch, French, German etc.) who are very interested and would like to vote in GEs (they can and often do vote in locals). I'm not sure that they would vote very differently to the Brits, though presumably less UKIP. Eastern Europeans are in my experience on average less interested, and don't bother to vote in locals, unless they've gone as far as taking British nationality.
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland, however the SNP will cost so many seats that Labour will not have a majority even if they gain 70 Tory seats.
Ashcroft had the swing at 11% in Sept 2013, 5% in Sept 2014, and since then Labour's vote has tanked.
Labour need a 4% swing to form a majority, they still got it in England & Wales, but in Scotland they are being hit by a massive SNP surge. That is why they will be largest party but not with a majority, they will gain 50-70 Tory seats in E&W, but lose 20-30 in Scotland to the SNP.
If UKIP get any higher Labour might peel off seats to UKIP, but the Tories will lose many times more to UKIP than Labour.
Also the LD collapse will shed an almost equal amount of seats to Labour and the Tories, about a dozen to each them, so that cancels out any Tory hopes from there.
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
I don't think that a Labour-LD-SNP coalition government will let Britain to leave even if the EU started to peel off members. But if somehow UKIP manages to get enough MP's to provide a working coalition with Labour I can imagine that Labour might ditch their europhile partners in exchange for UKIP support with the price of an EU exit.
It could happen, Labour did do deals with all kinds of MP's in the seventies to remain in power, even with Enoch Powell.
I do not think there is any chance of Labour contemplating exit from the EU with Miliband as leader
Do you really think Milliband cares about the EU more than about his personal political prospects? If he genuinely thought advocating leaving the EU would result in certain election success (ten years in number 10!!!), he would go for it like a shot.
However, he believes that advocating EU withdrawal would lose his soft metropolitan left to the LibDems, and that either (a) he won't lose many (if any) seats to UKIP in the North anyway, or (b) that backing EU exit would do nothing to change the anger in places like Rotherham anyway.
If firearms and explosives are involved, as they usually are in military actions these days, the limitation "with a view to influencing a government or IGO" goes out of the window (TA 2000 s. 1(3)), which nullifies what is in any case a very weak argument trying to extract limitations to the ambit of the act from a passage stating the breadth of its ambit. Statutes mean what they say. And I am talking about state persecution of minorities, not the suppression of terrorism.
The literal rule is displaced when it leads to manifest absurdity. Lord Esher MR's views in R v City of London Court Judge [1892] 1 QB 273, 290 (CA) no longer represent the law of England. Section 1 makes no distinction between acts committed within the United Kingdom and without. On your construction, signing up for the armed forces of the Crown could fall within the ambit of s. 1 of the 2000 Act under certain circumstances. That is so clearly contrary to public policy and the intention of the Parliament that no court would entertain it. State action cannot be terrorism, and a public authority and/or legality exception would be necessarily implied into section 1 by any English Court.
There is no manifest absurdity. Your straw man about signing up to our own Armed Forces is a straw man.
Darling didn't get the credit he deserved for beating Salmond in that first independence debate IMO. I can't imagine any other Westminster politician being able to make Salmond look like the chancer he is, as Darling did that night.
A banana would have won the first debate, Salmond was diabolically bad. After a crushing opening Darling let his initial complete and total dominance slip away by tripping over himself and being made to look tetchy.
I still do not understand why Darling agreed to a second debate.
From Richmond (1989) to Newark (2014), the Tories failed to win a parliamentary by-election whilst in the Government. Even allowing for 13 years out of office, this is an abysmal record.
After their easy victory in Newark against a euro-exhausted UKIP, in an unpromising area for UKIP, facing a suspect candidate, the Tories casually jettisoned 25 years of failure after one exceptional result. After Clacton and now probably Rochester, normal service has been resumed.
What on Earth got into the Tories when Reckless defected?
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
I don't think that a Labour-LD-SNP coalition government will let Britain to leave even if the EU started to peel off members. But if somehow UKIP manages to get enough MP's to provide a working coalition with Labour I can imagine that Labour might ditch their europhile partners in exchange for UKIP support with the price of an EU exit.
It could happen, Labour did do deals with all kinds of MP's in the seventies to remain in power, even with Enoch Powell.
I do not think there is any chance of Labour contemplating exit from the EU with Miliband as leader
Do you really think Milliband cares about the EU more than about his personal political prospects? If he genuinely thought advocating leaving the EU would result in certain election success (ten years in number 10!!!), he would go for it like a shot.
However, he believes that advocating EU withdrawal would lose his soft metropolitan left to the LibDems, and that either (a) he won't lose many (if any) seats to UKIP in the North anyway, or (b) that backing EU exit would do nothing to change the anger in places like Rotherham anyway.
Are we seriously believing that the soft metropolitan left will go to a party so hated by all as the LD's?
Labour has complacently followed a strategy of reassuring its core vote and confronting business. It suddenly faces the risk not only of failure but of disaster
Labour has complacently followed a strategy of reassuring its core vote and confronting business. It suddenly faces the risk not only of failure but of disaster
I honestly wonder if these people believe these things. The Labour "core vote" are exactly the kind of people who are most pissed off with Labour's policies.
Suppose you're a Commonwealth citizen who's paid taxes to HM Exchequer for years?
Suppose you're an American citizen who's paid taxes to HM Exchequer for years? Why should they be placed behind, say, Kenyans?
If they have Indefinite Leave to Remain, they should be eligible to vote.
But they have not chosen to become British citizens. If they wished to participate in the democratic process, they could apply for - and easily attain - British citizenship.
Under our law they don't need it.
So they've chosen not to integrate. Fine, if that's their choice, but then they shouldn't get decision making power in the future of our nation.
I dare say the right is now an anachronism. But the least of our worries...
"this is what comes of 'Empire Building'", Breaker Morant, 1980
Breaker Morant is a very interesting film.
I am not sure that a contemporary version would suggest that shooting surrendered prisoners was anything other than a warcrime.
You might be surprised that the treatment of franc-tireurs (partisans) was not settled from the Hague Convention (1899) through to the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1948), and their summary execution was, in certain circumstances, deemed permissable...
I suppose that falls to the question of whether the Boer Commandos were partisans, or were the army of a state.
"It's a new kind of war, George. A new war for a new century. I suppose this is the first time the enemy hasn't been in uniform. They're farmers. They come from small villages, and they shoot at us from behind walls and from farmhouses. Some of them are women, some of them are children, and some of them... are missionaries, George." Breaker Morant, 1980
The rules on shooting captured partisans are indeed interesting. As partisans do not often give quarter they cannot expect it.
Domestic opinion has moved on though, and a film about the trial of a soldier who admitted shooting prisoners would not depict him in such a positive light. In part this is because Breaker Morant was a 1980 film and at the time there was little sympathy for Boers.
Make the same film about the Black and Tans counter insurgency war, with a rogue officer shooting captured IRA men, and a priest, and see how that goes down!
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
Is there a serious Eurosceptic party in Spain?
Greece would be my bet for first (non UK) EU exit, I just can't see Spain or Italy or Ireland going for it. (Not least because Spain and Ireland have done - on balance - pretty well out of the EU. Both have gone from middle income countries to high income countries in the last quarter century.)
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three), I suspect the FN will get get hammered (again) in the second round.
Are we seriously believing that the soft metropolitan left will go to a party so hated by all as the LD's?
So your post becomes even more bizarre, then.
My point was: Milliband is a career politician who does things only for his own political gain. If he advocates EU withdrawl then he worries about his metropolitan left going to the LibDems.
If that is impossible, as you suggest, then you seem to be of the belief that Ed Milliband would rather fail to become Prime Minister for the next decade because of his love of Brussels.
He is therefore truly the most idealistic politician anyone on this site has ever come across.
The Sunil on Sunday's ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) for 2nd November. 9 polls with a total weighted sample of 10,880 (inc. today's YouGov).
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three)
He may not even be a candidate.
As things stand Marine Le Pen has the momentum and France isn't getting any better. Today another poll came out in which 60% said that she is the best opposition leader.
die out, die, become extinct, cease to be/exist, be no more, come to an end, end, pass away, pass into oblivion, expire, perish, wither away, leave no trace.
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
I don't think ........
I do not think there is any chance of Labour contemplating exit from the EU with Miliband as leader
Do you really think Milliband cares about the EU more than about his personal political prospects? If he genuinely thought advocating leaving the EU would result in certain election success (ten years in number 10!!!), he would go for it like a shot.
However, he believes that advocating EU withdrawal would lose his soft metropolitan left to the LibDems, and that either (a) he won't lose many (if any) seats to UKIP in the North anyway, or (b) that backing EU exit would do nothing to change the anger in places like Rotherham anyway.
In the recent much trumpeted Ipsos Mori EU poll only 14% of the electorate actually support the direction in which the EU is travelling (i.e. ever closer union), less than half prefer either maintaining the status quo or going down the closer Union route. It is easier politically to wrap oneself in a Union Jack and turn away from the EU (given justification for the EU is less than tenuous) than it is to dig ones heels in over it but that is what Miliband has done so far and I believe will continue to do so. Nobody to my mind has ever found EU membership to be politically beneficial, a vote winner, so there must be other reasons and most of those I suspect are ideological. Why else would establishment politicians cling to Brussels so tightly?
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
Is there a serious Eurosceptic party in Spain?
Greece would be my bet for first (non UK) EU exit, I just can't see Spain or Italy or Ireland going for it. (Not least because Spain and Ireland have done - on balance - pretty well out of the EU. Both have gone from middle income countries to high income countries in the last quarter century.)
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three), I suspect the FN will get get hammered (again) in the second round.
There is no mention on that page you linked to them advocating exit of the EU (although they do advocate exit from NATO), and a google for them "Podemos EU exit" does not come up with any policy suggestion of that type. I've also searched for "Podemos EU policy", and failed to come up with any info.
Given how committed most of the Spanish polity is to the EU, the fact that Spanish employment as a percentage of the population is not higher than when the country entered the Euro, and that the country is growing again (not to mention the surge in FDI they have received is because of their EU membership), I would be very surprised if Spain were to leave the EU first.
15-1 on Spain first? Bet goes to me if no-one leaves before 2020?
The rules on shooting captured partisans are indeed interesting. As partisans do not often give quarter they cannot expect it.
Domestic opinion has moved on though, and a film about the trial of a soldier who admitted shooting prisoners would not depict him in such a positive light. In part this is because Breaker Morant was a 1980 film and at the time there was little sympathy for Boers.
Make the same film about the Black and Tans counter insurgency war, with a rogue officer shooting captured IRA men, and a priest, and see how that goes down!
These things are always coloured by time, location, retrospect, partisanship.
But Breaker Morant is a great film, one of the greatest. It asks the question "What would you do, in the same circumstances?" It's hard not to answer "Quite possibly, the same", and be drawn irresistibly to the identical conclusion as the defendant who had his sentence commuted - that these men were "Scapegoats of the Empire", sacrificed for some supposed higher goal - a grubby deal to end a war that couldn't be won... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Witton
Labour has complacently followed a strategy of reassuring its core vote and confronting business. It suddenly faces the risk not only of failure but of disaster
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
Is there a serious Eurosceptic party in Spain?
Greece would be my bet for first (non UK) EU exit, I just can't see Spain or Italy or Ireland going for it. (Not least because Spain and Ireland have done - on balance - pretty well out of the EU. Both have gone from middle income countries to high income countries in the last quarter century.)
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three), I suspect the FN will get get hammered (again) in the second round.
There is no mention on that page you linked to them advocating exit of the EU (although they do advocate exit from NATO), and a google for them "Podemos EU exit" does not come up with any policy suggestion of that type. I've also searched for "Podemos EU policy", and failed to come up with any info.
Given how committed most of the Spanish polity is to the EU, the fact that Spanish employment as a percentage of the population is not higher than when the country entered the Euro, and that the country is growing again (not to mention the surge in FDI they have received is because of their EU membership), I would be very surprised if Spain were to leave the EU first.
15-1 on Spain first? Bet goes to me if no-one leaves before 2020?
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
And when its all over? Will it be any different? Only marginally. And it will be moot if it is better - although i could live nwith being in the EEA. We will still be in the single market and subject to EU single market rules, and if we are lucky it will be done quicky and not be disruptive to the economy and our inward investment. This to me is the real point about negotiating first rather than walking out and hoping for something after.
Immigration? Leaving aside whether there will be any real change, just what will be the position of the 2 million British people in the EU? Its all very well ignoring that constituency now (and their relatives & dependants - another 5 million?) but start to change their relationship, start to maybe force them home, start to make working in the EU difficult, and then a whole new area for complaint will emerge.
But then again UKIP are not about the EU they are not about whats good for Britain, they are just a coalition of hate.
die out, die, become extinct, cease to be/exist, be no more, come to an end, end, pass away, pass into oblivion, expire, perish, wither away, leave no trace.
Not quite disappears then.
Only the blind can fail to see the direction of travel.
So far there is still a big swing to Labour in constituencies polled by Ashcroft, enough to give them a majority if there was no major movement in scotland, however the SNP will cost so many seats that Labour will not have a majority even if they gain 70 Tory seats.
Ashcroft had the swing at 11% in Sept 2013, 5% in Sept 2014, and since then Labour's vote has tanked.
Labour need a 4% swing to form a majority, they still got it in England & Wales, but in Scotland they are being hit by a massive SNP surge. That is why they will be largest party but not with a majority, they will gain 50-70 Tory seats in E&W, but lose 20-30 in Scotland to the SNP.
If UKIP get any higher Labour might peel off seats to UKIP, but the Tories will lose many times more to UKIP than Labour.
Also the LD collapse will shed an almost equal amount of seats to Labour and the Tories, about a dozen to each them, so that cancels out any Tory hopes from there.
In the recent much trumpeted Ipsos Mori EU poll only 14% of the electorate actually support the direction in which the EU is travelling (i.e. ever closer union), less than half prefer either maintaining the status quo or going down the closer Union route. It is easier politically to wrap oneself in a Union Jack and turn away from the EU (given justification for the EU is less than tenuous) than it is to dig ones heels in over it but that is what Miliband has done so far and I believe will continue to do so. Nobody to my mind has ever found EU membership to be politically beneficial, a vote winner so there must be other reasons and most of those I suspect are ideological why establishment politicians cling to Brussels so tightly.
Yet UKIP (at best) scores 22% in the polls. And perhaps 58% (on a good day) support EU exit, which is pretty much the typical level for the last 30 years.
OK, let me help you out here.
The main reasons Labour does not advocate EU withdrawal is:
a) Scars from 1983. Last time the party went for EU withdrawal it was a disaster and they did - indeed - shed voted to the another party. b) Because they don't think they'll win UKIP voters back. Would Labour be taken seriously? If not, they'd merely lose a bunch of voters under (a), and not gain any back from UKIP.
There may also be:
c) They genuinely believe the three fundamental freedoms of the EEA - freedom of goods, freedom of labour, freedom of capital - are good for the UK, and for its people.
However, like all politicians (including Nigel Farage) they are mostly making a narrow political calculation about what will garner the most votes.
Hopefully we can depart this useless project without even having to go through a silly "re-negotiation" and referendum.
Farage may actually have to get off the gravy train soon. Who would have thunk it? :^O
I don't think that the present parliament will vote for a simple exit. The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote. The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
We'll it won't be this side of the election, but I'm not sure we'll have to wait many years.
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
And when its all over? Will it be any different? Only marginally. And it will be moot if it is better - although i could live nwith being in the EEA. We will still be in the single market and subject to EU single market rules, and if we are lucky it will be done quicky and not be disruptive to the economy and our inward investment. This to me is the real point about negotiating first rather than walking out and hoping for something after.
Immigration? Leaving aside whether there will be any real change, just what will be the position of the 2 million British people in the EU? Its all very well ignoring that constituency now (and their relatives & dependants - another 5 million?) but start to change their relationship, start to maybe force them home, start to make working in the EU difficult, and then a whole new area for complaint will emerge.
But then again UKIP are not about the EU they are not about whats good for Britain, they are just a coalition of hate.
I think you've cornered the market on hatred in they way you obsess about UKIP. Its not healthy you know. Ever thought about counselling?
The rules on shooting captured partisans are indeed interesting. As partisans do not often give quarter they cannot expect it.
Domestic opinion has moved on though, and a film about the trial of a soldier who admitted shooting prisoners would not depict him in such a positive light. In part this is because Breaker Morant was a 1980 film and at the time there was little sympathy for Boers.
Make the same film about the Black and Tans counter insurgency war, with a rogue officer shooting captured IRA men, and a priest, and see how that goes down!
These things are always coloured by time, location, retrospect, partisanship.
But Breaker Morant is a great film, one of the greatest. It asks the question "What would you do, in the same circumstances?" It's hard not to answer "Quite possibly, the same", and be drawn irresistibly to the identical conclusion as the defendant who had his sentence commuted - that these men were "Scapegoats of the Empire", sacrificed for some supposed higher goal - a grubby deal to end a war that couldn't be won...
I suspect that many British Soldiers feel the same over the Bloody Sunday inquiry, for example. Being hung out to dry "for the greater good" is not unique to the Boer War.
Twas ever thus: " It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy go away, but saviour of his country when the band begins to play..."
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
die out, die, become extinct, cease to be/exist, be no more, come to an end, end, pass away, pass into oblivion, expire, perish, wither away, leave no trace.
Not quite disappears then.
Is Prime Minister, meaning:
Currently, now, presently, contemporaneously with the utterance of this statement, occupies the position of head of the government.
In the recent much trumpeted Ipsos Mori EU poll only 14% of the electorate actually support the direction in which the EU is travelling (i.e. ever closer union), less than half prefer either maintaining the status quo or going down the closer Union route. It is easier politically to wrap oneself in a Union Jack and turn away from the EU (given justification for the EU is less than tenuous) than it is to dig ones heels in over it but that is what Miliband has done so far and I believe will continue to do so. Nobody to my mind has ever found EU membership to be politically beneficial, a vote winner so there must be other reasons and most of those I suspect are ideological why establishment politicians cling to Brussels so tightly.
Yet UKIP (at best) scores 22% in the polls. And perhaps 58% (on a good day) support EU exit, which is pretty much the typical level for the last 30 years.
OK, let me help you out here.
The main reasons Labour does not advocate EU withdrawal is:
a) Scars from 1983. Last time the party went for EU withdrawal it was a disaster and they did - indeed - shed voted to the another party. b) Because they don't think they'll win UKIP voters back. Would Labour be taken seriously? If not, they'd merely lose a bunch of voters under (a), and not gain any back from UKIP.
There may also be:
c) They genuinely believe the three fundamental freedoms of the EEA - freedom of goods, freedom of labour, freedom of capital - are good for the UK, and for its people.
However, like all politicians (including Nigel Farage) they are mostly making a narrow political calculation about what will garner the most votes.
On a) 1983: In 1983 the EEC was not as unpopular as the EU today especially with swing voters back then. Today the average swing voter is drifting to either UKIP or the Greens which have programs more extreme than Thacher or Foot in 1983.
On c): It costs now more to pay for EU membership than tariffs if Britain was not an EU member.
@George_Osborne: People have right to know exactly much tax they pay & how it's spent. Now for 1st time 24million taxpayers get a new personal #taxsummary
i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
In 1986, the UK and Ireland dominated FDI in Europe. Ireland is still number one, but Spain and Portugal and now second and third.
As an aside, Spain is now the second biggest car maker in the EU, behind Germany. They have quietly overtaken Italy, France and the UK. There are massive new plants being built by Nissan, GM, Ford, VW and others in northern Spain (mostly around Bilbao), and it is likely they will overtake Mexico and Brazil in the next three years.
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers. The support for radical parties continues to rise everywhere in western europe regardless.
hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The idea that Ireland would leave the EU before the UK is for the birds. A political impossibility. Even if the UK left first things have changed greatly from the early 70s when Ireland had no choice but to join when the UK did and I seriously doubt they would leave even then. Sinn Fein's rise over the course of the current Dail has very little to do with its euroscepticism (which I have little doubt it would drop in a heartbeat if it made power more likely) and is mostly down to being the only main opposition party who hasnt recently run the country into the ground at a time when the government parties are having to do seriously unpopular things.
i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
In 1986, the UK and Ireland dominated FDI in Europe. Ireland is still number one, but Spain and Portugal and now second and third.
As an aside, Spain is now the second biggest car maker in the EU, behind Germany. They have quietly overtaken Italy, France and the UK. There are massive new plants being built by Nissan, GM, Ford, VW and others in northern Spain (mostly around Bilbao), and it is likely they will overtake Mexico and Brazil in the next three years.
And yet somehow the people don't care about your statistics, more and more are switching to radical left wing or right wing parties. Case in point: If Ireland and Spain are doing so well why is support for Sinn Fein and Podemos rising?
Just finished watching the F1 race. I had to stop watching live and then watch it on my dvr. Every single commercial was political, featuring how every democrat was tied to Obama.
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
There haven't been many polls asking specifically about EU in/out questions, however there are about the eurozone: http://www.people.ie/press/redc.pdf
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls. However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
In the recent much trumpeted Ipsos Mori EU poll only 14% of the electorate actually support the direction in which the EU is travelling (i.e. ever closer union), less than half prefer either maintaining the status quo or going down the closer Union route. It is easier politically to wrap oneself in a Union Jack and turn away from the EU (given justification for the EU is less than tenuous) than it is to dig ones heels in over it but that is what Miliband has done so far and I believe will continue to do so. Nobody to my mind has ever found EU membership to be politically beneficial, a vote winner so there must be other reasons and most of those I suspect are ideological why establishment politicians cling to Brussels so tightly.
Yet UKIP (at best) scores 22% in the polls. And perhaps 58% (on a good day) support EU exit, which is pretty much the typical level for the last 30 years.
OK, let me help you out here.
The main reasons Labour does not advocate EU withdrawal is:
a) Scars from 1983. Last time the party went for EU withdrawal it was a disaster and they did - indeed - shed voted to the another party. b) Because they don't think they'll win UKIP voters back. Would Labour be taken seriously? If not, they'd merely lose a bunch of voters under (a), and not gain any back from UKIP.
There may also be:
c) They genuinely believe the three fundamental freedoms of the EEA - freedom of goods, freedom of labour, freedom of capital - are good for the UK, and for its people.
However, like all politicians (including Nigel Farage) they are mostly making a narrow political calculation about what will garner the most votes.
Well as you seem to have it all sussed out I'll leave you to it but I'll pass on the 'help' if you don't mind because frankly your interpretation of things seems a tad superficial and shortsighted to me.There again the way the establishment parties do politics these days tends to be short sighted and superficial. It probably explains why the establishment parties are in such a mess......
However, I still think MIliband's attachment to the EU is far stronger than just cynical political calculation just as Clegg's is.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant. Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time. Public attitudes will harden.
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls. However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
I think you misunderstand the nature of euroscepticism in Ireland. Refusing to ratify Nice or Lisbon (at the first time of asking) is not the same as supporting leaving the EU. Sinn Fein hasnt risen that much in the last year (their breakthrough came much earlier in the Dail). I would suggest the reason you cant find any evidence of Irish support for leaving the EU is because there isnt any.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls. However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
I think you misunderstand the nature of euroscepticism in Ireland. Refusing to ratify Nice or Lisbon (at the first time of asking) is not the same as supporting leaving the EU. Sinn Fein hasnt risen that much in the last year (their breakthrough came much earlier in the Dail). I would suggest the reason you cant find any evidence of Irish support for leaving the EU is because there isnt any.
Find me an irish opinion poll which asks "do you want to leave the EU or not?".
The thing is, if the Euston Travelodge costs £200 a night and the luxurious ME London costs £350 a night, it makes more sense to save up a bit and go to the ME London instead.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Thanks!
TripAdvisor Booking.com
should always be your first port of call.
Expedia is useful as well.
You can use sites like Kayak and Orbitz for flights.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant. Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time. Public attitudes will harden.
Wonderful Kipper reasoning!
So, let's get this straight: you think that a headline indicating Cameron might be taking us out of the EU is a reason for people who want to leave the EU not to vote for him?
@George_Osborne: People have right to know exactly much tax they pay & how it's spent. Now for 1st time 24million taxpayers get a new personal #taxsummary
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls. However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
I think you misunderstand the nature of euroscepticism in Ireland. Refusing to ratify Nice or Lisbon (at the first time of asking) is not the same as supporting leaving the EU. Sinn Fein hasnt risen that much in the last year (their breakthrough came much earlier in the Dail). I would suggest the reason you cant find any evidence of Irish support for leaving the EU is because there isnt any.
Find me an irish opinion poll which asks "do you want to leave the EU or not?".
You want me to find evidence to back up your argument? I dont think there is any evidence to back up your argument. And from this I guess you dont either.
It's almost like Angela Merkel has conducted a negotiation before and may have hit on the concept of using the media.
Sweet how naive the little kippers are though.
Yes, the true significance is that our EU friends are beginning to take renegotiation seriously. Until recently they've just ignored it, assuming that it would just go away as an issue.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Thanks!
TripAdvisor Booking.com
should always be your first port of call.
Expedia is useful as well.
You can use sites like Kayak and Orbitz for flights.
www.holidayugo.com for airport to hotel transfers.
For £22 I somehow managed to get a private cab both ways from Antalya airport to the Kemer resort hotel I was staying at.
@George_Osborne: People have right to know exactly much tax they pay & how it's spent. Now for 1st time 24million taxpayers get a new personal #taxsummary
Artus Mas the nationalist Catalonian leader is being outflanked by even more nationalist parties who demand a declaration of independence without the spanish banned referendum.
@George_Osborne: People have right to know exactly much tax they pay & how it's spent. Now for 1st time 24million taxpayers get a new personal #taxsummary
Another Osborne gift for future profligate Labour chancellors, like the OBR
If anybody actually reads this stuff it'll be good for progressive causes like benefits spending and overseas aid, since the voters tend to vastly overestimate how much the government is spending on them.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant. Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time. Public attitudes will harden.
Wonderful Kipper reasoning!
So, let's get this straight: you think that a headline indicating Cameron might be taking us out of the EU is a reason for people who want to leave the EU not to vote for him?
Run that one past me again..
No, we kippers just want to drive you old tory diehards nuts, and to realise that a new force is arising that doesn't care a damn for the lies and sneakiness of a party that has lost its way.
It's almost like Angela Merkel has conducted a negotiation before and may have hit on the concept of using the media.
Sweet how naive the little kippers are though.
Yes, the true significance is that our EU friends are beginning to take renegotiation seriously. Until recently they've just ignored it, assuming that it would just go away as an issue.
Yep and from reports Dave has already peed his pants in fear of upsetting her.
Cameron forced to tear up plan to cap EU migration after Merkel warns it would be 'point of no return' for Britain
Policies: Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has. If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit. Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
The proportion of Spaniards (above the age of 15) in employment is higher now than in 1999. 46.2% versus 44.1%. Both are pretty shit numbers compared to the UK.
Yet somehow like in Ireland, the people are not grateful with your economic numbers.
Have you any polling to back up the suggestion that popular opinion in Ireland is receptive to leaving the EU at all never mind ahead of the UK?
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls. However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
I think you misunderstand the nature of euroscepticism in Ireland. Refusing to ratify Nice or Lisbon (at the first time of asking) is not the same as supporting leaving the EU. Sinn Fein hasnt risen that much in the last year (their breakthrough came much earlier in the Dail). I would suggest the reason you cant find any evidence of Irish support for leaving the EU is because there isnt any.
Find me an irish opinion poll which asks "do you want to leave the EU or not?".
You want me to find evidence to back up your argument? I dont think there is any evidence to back up your argument. And from this I guess you dont either.
So you can't find an opinion poll that asks that question either.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Dear PB brains: completely off topic but any tips for hotels in Istanbul. Planning a trip there in mid December with family. A decade since last there.
Thanks!
Istanbul has lots of overpriced hotels. I've had two poor experiences there. The renovated Pera Palace looks good though.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant. Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time. Public attitudes will harden.
Wonderful Kipper reasoning!
So, let's get this straight: you think that a headline indicating Cameron might be taking us out of the EU is a reason for people who want to leave the EU not to vote for him?
Run that one past me again..
For "taking us out of the EU", read " having his bluff called" and see how it sounds then.
No, we kippers just want to drive you old tory diehards nuts, and to realise that a new force is arising that doesn't care a damn for the lies and sneakiness of a party that has lost its way.
Oh, quite. Driving sensible people nuts is exactly what you want to do. It is indeed very frustrating to see such madness risking destroying all the progress that has been made. You may well succeed in putting Ed Miliband - a spectacularly incompetent Europhile - into No 10, and, yes, I know you don't care a damn about that.
Never in my lifetime have I seen such a piece of self-harm as UKIP. It's like the SDP but without the excuse which they had, which was that Labour had lost their marbles.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant. Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time. Public attitudes will harden.
Wonderful Kipper reasoning!
So, let's get this straight: you think that a headline indicating Cameron might be taking us out of the EU is a reason for people who want to leave the EU not to vote for him?
Run that one past me again..
Nope, the headline is about Germany saying no to renegotiation forcing Cameron to surrender as usual. It's the 3rd time in 2 weeks, people will get notice of it.
Comments
Sunil on Sunday's ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) update 2nd Nov. Lab 32.9%, Con 32.2, UKIP 16.3, LD 7.5
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/529018633784406016
The LD will not permit it to even come to a vote.
The next parliament will be extraordinarily messy with a possible 3 party coalition government having to face another economic crash in europe, so anything before 2020 is unlikely.
With the rise of anarchists in Spain, nationalists in France, left wing radicals in Ireland and Greece, Britain might not be the first one to leave the EU.
http://www.romaniatv.net/live
I chose Gillingham over Strood... and those of you who know Medway will know Gillingham is not the greatest of areas (or certainly not in 1983)
The Europeans don't really want us to stay and the British seem to want to leave.
Looks like we're "consciously uncoupling" to me. Things can move surprisingly quickly when momentum starts to build...
From Richmond (1989) to Newark (2014), the Tories failed to win a parliamentary by-election whilst in the Government. Even allowing for 13 years out of office, this is an abysmal record.
After their easy victory in Newark against a euro-exhausted UKIP, in an unpromising area for UKIP, facing a suspect candidate, the Tories casually jettisoned 25 years of failure after one exceptional result. After Clacton and now probably Rochester, normal service has been resumed.
What on Earth got into the Tories when Reckless defected?
It could happen, Labour did do deals with all kinds of MP's in the seventies to remain in power, even with Enoch Powell.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
Lab 33%
Con 32%
UKIP 17%
LD 8%
Greens 5%
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/uk-polling-report-average-2
Greece would be my bet for first (non UK) EU exit, I just can't see Spain or Italy or Ireland going for it. (Not least because Spain and Ireland have done - on balance - pretty well out of the EU. Both have gone from middle income countries to high income countries in the last quarter century.)
France could be more interesting, but with Hollande almost certain not to make the top top two (and he may not even make the top three), I suspect the FN will get get hammered (again) in the second round.
Just for fun (don't hold me to this!), I suspect we'll get a 4-point Tory lead in some poll before Christmas.
I stand by my prediction (Sep 2013) that true crossover will occur by Jan 2015...
That is why they will be largest party but not with a majority, they will gain 50-70 Tory seats in E&W, but lose 20-30 in Scotland to the SNP.
If UKIP get any higher Labour might peel off seats to UKIP, but the Tories will lose many times more to UKIP than Labour.
Also the LD collapse will shed an almost equal amount of seats to Labour and the Tories, about a dozen to each them, so that cancels out any Tory hopes from there.
However, he believes that advocating EU withdrawal would lose his soft metropolitan left to the LibDems, and that either (a) he won't lose many (if any) seats to UKIP in the North anyway, or (b) that backing EU exit would do nothing to change the anger in places like Rotherham anyway.
http://t.co/DV0pI6e23z
I honestly wonder if these people believe these things. The Labour "core vote" are exactly the kind of people who are most pissed off with Labour's policies.
Domestic opinion has moved on though, and a film about the trial of a soldier who admitted shooting prisoners would not depict him in such a positive light. In part this is because Breaker Morant was a 1980 film and at the time there was little sympathy for Boers.
Make the same film about the Black and Tans counter insurgency war, with a rogue officer shooting captured IRA men, and a priest, and see how that goes down!
They are currently first in the opinion polls.
You should play with your L&N electoral train models less.
SNP + Greens + Plaid Cymru + UKIP (Others Excl NI) on 10.... chortle !
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/conlist_c_e.html#Clacton
Clacton 89.5% chance Tory hold...
My point was: Milliband is a career politician who does things only for his own political gain. If he advocates EU withdrawl then he worries about his metropolitan left going to the LibDems.
If that is impossible, as you suggest, then you seem to be of the belief that Ed Milliband would rather fail to become Prime Minister for the next decade because of his love of Brussels.
He is therefore truly the most idealistic politician anyone on this site has ever come across.
The Sunil on Sunday's ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) for 2nd November. 9 polls with a total weighted sample of 10,880 (inc. today's YouGov).
Lab 32.9% (-0.5)
Con 32.2% (-0.1)
UKIP 16.3% (+0.4)
LD 7.5% (0.2)
Lab lead 0.7% (-0.4)
Changes from our first ELBOW on 17th August:
Lab -3.3%
Con -1.0%
UKIP +3.2%
LD -1.3%
Lab lead -2.3% (ie. was 3.0, now 0.7)
Take home: Crossover approaching! Will this be the last ELBOW to show a Lab lead?
Was it all you were hoping for?
Today another poll came out in which 60% said that she is the best opposition leader.
die out, die, become extinct, cease to be/exist, be no more, come to an end, end, pass away, pass into oblivion, expire, perish, wither away, leave no trace.
Not quite disappears then.
Given how committed most of the Spanish polity is to the EU, the fact that Spanish employment as a percentage of the population is not higher than when the country entered the Euro, and that the country is growing again (not to mention the surge in FDI they have received is because of their EU membership), I would be very surprised if Spain were to leave the EU first.
15-1 on Spain first? Bet goes to me if no-one leaves before 2020?
But Breaker Morant is a great film, one of the greatest. It asks the question "What would you do, in the same circumstances?" It's hard not to answer "Quite possibly, the same", and be drawn irresistibly to the identical conclusion as the defendant who had his sentence commuted - that these men were "Scapegoats of the Empire", sacrificed for some supposed higher goal - a grubby deal to end a war that couldn't be won...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Witton
You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understanding, withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
That means that they want Spain to at least have some serious opt outs from the EU, many more than Britain has.
If the EU has a problem with the modest British opts, the Podemos demands will lead to a Spanish EU exit.
Also spanish umeployment is 24%, in 2002 it was 11%, and i'm sure the surge in FDI in 1986 was impressive, but hungry people won't really care (see Sinn Fein Ireland).
Immigration? Leaving aside whether there will be any real change, just what will be the position of the 2 million British people in the EU?
Its all very well ignoring that constituency now (and their relatives & dependants - another 5 million?) but start to change their relationship, start to maybe force them home, start to make working in the EU difficult, and then a whole new area for complaint will emerge.
But then again UKIP are not about the EU they are not about whats good for Britain, they are just a coalition of hate.
Just now: "[Ed] looks like a bloody retard!"
OK, let me help you out here.
The main reasons Labour does not advocate EU withdrawal is:
a) Scars from 1983. Last time the party went for EU withdrawal it was a disaster and they did - indeed - shed voted to the another party.
b) Because they don't think they'll win UKIP voters back. Would Labour be taken seriously? If not, they'd merely lose a bunch of voters under (a), and not gain any back from UKIP.
There may also be:
c) They genuinely believe the three fundamental freedoms of the EEA - freedom of goods, freedom of labour, freedom of capital - are good for the UK, and for its people.
However, like all politicians (including Nigel Farage) they are mostly making a narrow political calculation about what will garner the most votes.
Twas ever thus: " It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy go away, but saviour of his country when the band begins to play..."
Currently, now, presently, contemporaneously with the utterance of this statement, occupies the position of head of the government.
In 1983 the EEC was not as unpopular as the EU today especially with swing voters back then.
Today the average swing voter is drifting to either UKIP or the Greens which have programs more extreme than Thacher or Foot in 1983.
On c):
It costs now more to pay for EU membership than tariffs if Britain was not an EU member.
@George_Osborne: Look out for your personalised tax summary - more transparency means government held to account http://t.co/f8cKcNFHj8
Another Osborne gift for future profligate Labour chancellors, like the OBR
As an aside, Spain is now the second biggest car maker in the EU, behind Germany. They have quietly overtaken Italy, France and the UK. There are massive new plants being built by Nissan, GM, Ford, VW and others in northern Spain (mostly around Bilbao), and it is likely they will overtake Mexico and Brazil in the next three years.
The support for radical parties continues to rise everywhere in western europe regardless.
Case in point: If Ireland and Spain are doing so well why is support for Sinn Fein and Podemos rising?
I can't wait for this to be over.
Maybe you could check out your super duper NFL service and tell us who is top of the NFC East..?
Cheers
http://www.nfl.com/standings
The good news is that America's Team leaves for London tomorrow.
http://www.people.ie/press/redc.pdf
"There are relatively high levels of resistance among the Irish public (69%) to any
suggestion of cuts to areas such as pay, welfare or pensions; if these were
required by people in the Eurozone to ensure the continued existence of the
euro currency"
That is unfortunately almost a year old, and since then Sinn Fein has risen in the polls.
However euroscepticism in Ireland is not new, they had problems ratifying the Nice and Lisbon treaties with referendums.
Thanks!
Booking.com
should always be your first port of call.
However, I still think MIliband's attachment to the EU is far stronger than just cynical political calculation just as Clegg's is.
This will become another potent issue for the PM, just after the EU bill and the European Arrest Warrant.
Three hits from Europe in 2 weeks time.
Public attitudes will harden.
So, let's get this straight: you think that a headline indicating Cameron might be taking us out of the EU is a reason for people who want to leave the EU not to vote for him?
Run that one past me again..
Sweet how naive the little kippers are though.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03093/ATS-mockup-60000-2_3093409c.jpg
I would that 90% of people have no idea the break down is anything like this.
For £22 I somehow managed to get a private cab both ways from Antalya airport to the Kemer resort hotel I was staying at.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/junqueras-skilfully-surfs-catalan-independence-wave-1.1984006
http://www.thelocal.es/20141101/tense-standoff-over-catalonia-independence-vote
Artus Mas the nationalist Catalonian leader is being outflanked by even more nationalist parties who demand a declaration of independence without the spanish banned referendum.
Cameron forced to tear up plan to cap EU migration after Merkel warns it would be 'point of no return' for Britain
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2817630/Cameron-forced-tear-plan-cap-EU-migration-Merkel-warns-point-no-return-Britain.html
Never in my lifetime have I seen such a piece of self-harm as UKIP. It's like the SDP but without the excuse which they had, which was that Labour had lost their marbles.
It's the 3rd time in 2 weeks, people will get notice of it.