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And as ever, it makes pb you-kippers look like a miserable old bunch. Moan bloody moan day-in day-out. I'm reminded of that wonderful moment Reagan turned to the equally miserable and sour-faced Walter Mondale and said 'there you go again.'
"As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April...
"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.
"For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all.
"Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."
Has a #rebateshambles started up on the twittersphere yet ?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/07/uk-pays-full-eu-rebate-despite-osborne-claim-he-halved-it
"The government has accepted a £1.7bn top-up bill to the EU budget despite repeatedly denouncing its size as unacceptable.
George Osborne, the chancellor, has won a respite, however – avoiding a 1 December deadline and deferring the payment interest-free until next September, well after the general election.
Britain’s automatic rebate on its contributions to the EU budget was expected to knock €1bn off the demand for €2.1bn, leading the chancellor to brag that he had halved the payment......
While insisting that the invoice had been reduced, Treasury aides conceded that Britain will pay the £850m while also returning the rebate cheque to Brussels, meaning that the full £1.7bn will still be paid."
Fargle and Reckless must think Christmas has come early.
Can anyone give me the details of how much France has had its refund reduced by?
If the rebate was always going to be paid (according to some EU finance ministers) then why was this not mentioned when there was a stonking great argument ongoing a few weeks ago about the size of the bill and why was the rebate not mentioned in the original document.
Indeed....
Fact was it wasn't and it isn't and Dave and George have secured not only a good outcome but have managed to get the rules changed as well. Meanwhile Balls mutters darkly in a corner about a failure to get it all back in full knowledge Labour would have paid it in full on demand. Playing us for fools huh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEhmtKFIq0Q
EU budget row summed up - UK will pay half of £1.7 bn. That's due to rebate. Was always likely to apply tho exact figure unclear 'til today
In 2010 Reckless was candidate for Rochester and Strood, and wasTory candidate for Medway in 2005 and 2001
Smacks of utter desperation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29956289
There's still a ~£100m to bridge the gap between £1.7bn - £785m and the £850m, so it's not quite clear where that's coming from.
Perhaps? Personally I would have preferred to pay nothing further. Odd though that at least one EU finance Minister while stamping his little feet into the cameras stated that if Cameron does not pay on the 1st December he will pay on the 2nd?
Not going to happen though is it? As you say we will see ?
IMHO he'd have a lot better to keep his gob shut on the matter during the by-election campaign.
Who was it who could believe two contrary things at the same time?
Shakes head.
From the news reports I've seen its generally being reported as a win for George.
I can see the election campaign now - it is going to be vile.
Lab 1.94
Con 2.12
http://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/market?id=1.101416473
'I'll Give You a Cast iron Guarantee'
'No Plans to raise VAT'
'Paying Down The Debt'
'No I didn't ride Rebekah's Horse'
'We've reduced the bill by half'
Quote from current BBC Essex page.
They're being sentenced "later".
Just saying.
Slightly surprising to see the Conservatives unveil it here, given how this by-election seems to be going.
If someone's a sceptic they may view a foreign finance minister's words with suspicion.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
According to Sky
3 EU finance ministers have now challenged Cameron's and Osborne's silly smoke and mirrors U turn:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2824783/Cameron-defiant-1-7bn-Euro-bill.html
"Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said he did not know the basis on which Mr Osborne made his calcuation, adding: "The instalments will be paid over a period of time. My understanding is that the UK will pay the whole amount, but there will be no penalties attached."
Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said: "The UK has ... a rebate, which they have had for a very long time and of course this mechanism of rebate will also apply on the new contribution.
"So it's not as if the British have been given a discount today. The old mechanism of the rebate will also apply on the UK contribution, which will increase."
And Austria's Hans Joerg Schelling said: "Whether the money is to be paid in instalments or as a lump sum is a discussion we can have. But the amount cannot be put in question." "
“@Number10gov: PM on £1.7bn EU bill: It’s been halved, it’s been delayed" <- Tesco accounting
My best guess is that the EU with the £1.7bn number either (a) quoted the gross number or (b) applied the current rebate rather than the historical rebate.
IMV, this is a modest, but real, victory for Osborne, but he's overspun it as an Austerlitz-like triumph
The reality, however, is that the rabid Kippers won't believe anything that he or Cameron say. Most people will read the headlines and think that he's done a decent job in getting the bill halved.
And nothing will change in the end.
https://twitter.com/haroldleeewebb
Interesting CON attack on Mark Reckless
Is it an 'attack' when it is pointed out that Mark Reckless was previously supporting building on the site and apparently is now against building on the site? He has the opportunity to say that when the facts change he changes his mind. But have the facts changed - are the nightingales no longer on the site?
Sky, the FT, Bloomberg, the Guardian, the Times are not being so generous.
@ToryTreasury: The rebate we have secured on the £1.7bn, reducing it to £850m, is totally separate from the normal rebate and will not reduce it in future
1. The original demand was, as everyone agrees, £1.7bn payable by December 1st.
2. There was no mention until today of any rebate on this. £1.7bn was the figure bandied about, and was the figure which Cameron said was excessive.
3. Osborne has done three things. (a) He has negotiated a delay in payment, so that it is payable not by 1st December but in two tranches next year. (b) In addition - and this is the important bit - he has pointed out that the rebate should apply to this payment, cutting the net demand, as he said, to £850m. (c) Normally this rebate would be payable the following year, but he's also negotiated an effective advance on this by a year, so it can be offset immediately next year.
So, IF you argue that the rebate 'was always going to be paid by the EU' , then what the other finance ministers are saying is correct. It's also compatible with what Kristalina Georgieva said, in rather garbled English.
However, this idea that the rebate was always going to be paid is a new development. There has been no suggestion before this meeting, at least in public or in the UK media, that the payment was subject to a rebate. So, relative to the public position of absolutely everyone before this meeting, Osborne is right: the bill has been halved.
Maybe it was always going to be halved, but, if so, the EU, the press, politicians and the other finance ministers were remarkably coy on the matter.
It looks as though it's quite simple: the EU and the other governments had forgotten about the rebate, until Osborne pointed it out.
Every policy seems to have been positioned to appeal to the Red Liberals rather than to reach out to a broader group, hence the issue he now has with UKIP
The rebate being deducted off isn't the rebate off just this payment: it's obviously too high for that because the rebate is a lot less than half of our gross contribution. The rebate is €4 billion off a gross contribution of €17 billion. The rebate payment being deducted off it is part of the UK's general rebate payment off our overall contribution.
I think they are paying £850m too much.
But they are paying £850m less than everyone thought they were going to have to.
Osborne isn't fit to stack shelves.
As opposed to the £1.7bn that the public have been hearing about for weeks.
@ToryTreasury: The rebate we have secured on the £1.7bn, reducing it to £850m, is totally separate from the normal rebate and will not reduce it in future
That's how other EU Leaders evidently see it. No other Country is being asked for more, which would of course be the case if there was a genuine reduction in the UK bill. The rebate has always been there, available for us to use as we see fit. 'There's no question of the UK getting a discount', one said.
Well done George for getting the delay. That's worth having. Not sure though that there is any reduction other than in the most abstract sense.
@hendopolis: MORNING STAR: Burnham foils Blairites coup #tomorrowspapersyoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/GkZE5JOxtQ
"A FORMER SNP defence spokesman is to stand for the Liberal Democrats in a key city seat at next year’s Westminster elections.
Stuart Crawford, who spent nearly 20 years in the army, has been chosen as the candidate for Edinburgh South, one of the Lib Dems’ top target seats in the UK.
The 59-year-old former lieutenant colonel said he had quit the SNP after becoming less convinced of the case for independence."
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/ex-snp-man-stuart-crawford-to-stand-for-lib-dems-1-3469668
The rebate is calculated as approximately two-thirds of the amount by which UK payments into the EU exceed EU expenditure returning to the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_rebate
Furthermore, I realise it has only once happened in our 41 years but what would happen if we didn't actually pay in more than we received out and there was no rebate? Where would the saving be then?
The deal is due to be finalised later this month or next. On the phone from Brussels, a commission aide told me that Osborne will
‘pay first and then get the rebate.’
This implies that Osborne will, despite his protestations, pay the full £1.7 billion – albeit with a refund to follow shortly, which Britain was always likely to receive.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/11/about-that-eu-bill-heres-what-george-osborne-didnt-mention/
The electorate will not be fooled IMO
There are also people here of no fixed political view who call things as they see them.
The second group of people have called this as a defeat for Osborne.