And some other things those and similar people have told us include:
Nothing is happening in Rotherham ditto many other places Stafford hospital is safe ditto many others Jimmy Savile is a wonderful person ditto many others Politicians expenses are honest Elections in Tower Hamlets are fait Saddam Hussein has WMD There will be no more than 10-15,000 Eastern European migrants to the UK The banks are well run There will not be a recession in 2008
My model forecast 6/3/16. Trump inching towards the nomination, 1237 required.
Trump 1227 Cruz 413 Rubio 262 Kasich 52 Carson 84
Carson is vastly overstated, due to the presence of very old polls in places such as California. There are also about 300 delegates from states so far unpolled, and Trump must surely have at least 20% or ~60 of them.
The model has so far underestimated Trump by about 20, and over-estimated Rubio by about 20, mainly due to Rubio being in third place in states that allocate by Congressional District, and the model being a little too generous in its estimates there.
So perhaps a more realistic point forecast at this time would put Trump on 1300, well over the winning line.
Of course, we're only 40% way through the contest, and some of the state polls have been clearly wrong. But Trump seems to be strengthening in the national polls, and Cruz fading, whatever relevance that may have.
It's hard to see Trump not winning a clear plurality of delegates. The only question appears to be whether he wins a majority, and what happens if he doesn't.
Have you taken account of the recent move against Trump caused by the debate and Romney? Is there not a recent shift as seen in lousiana? Maybe we have seen Peak Trump. My money is mainly on Cruz though he is a nasty piece of work I admit.
The model is based on actual results so far, and forecast forthcoming results based on polls, with a little intuition used [in the shrinking number of places] where there are no polls.
There is clear divergence between Cruz's recent outperformance in a few places, and his sinking in the national polls [now placing third].
My personal favourite was Richard's fawning (or was it feigning) admiration for the independent and knowledgeable credit ratings agencies.
Ah, good point. You never did explain why you thought they too were part of the conspiracy, along with all the banks, politicians in all major countries, the CBI, the TUC, academic economists, etc etc.
What exactly is in it for the credit rating agencies?
One of the great things of this site is the wide range of posters with experts in many fields who you can learn from.
Now on the issue of the economics of BREXIT I see on one side successful and knowledgeable business / financial people including RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall.
On the other there are a few bleaters and tweeters of vague background.
Now which side seems the most likely to be correct ?
I find that quite an arrogant assertion though I'm not terribly surprised by it.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Or you find it arrogant that RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall are successful and knowledgeable business / financial people.
If you know of a pro-EU group of PBers to compare with them please point them out.
There's Southam - who is always worth reading - but his support for the EU appears to be more on 'human rights' grounds.
I find it arrogant to believe that all the wisdom in the EU debate on PB is on the LEAVE side and everyone who is in favour of remain are "bleaters" from "a vague background".
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Certainly one should do that. Here's a list of some knowledgeable people and organisations:
- The PM - The Chancellor of the Exchequer - The Home Secretary - The Business Secretary - The Foreign Secretary - The leaders of all the GB political parties with more than one MP - The IMF - Goldman Sachs - Credit Suisse - Citibank - BNP Paribas - The CBI - The TUC - The 20 finance ministers of the G20
There are many more, of course.
So you think Digby Jones, Michael Howard, Norman Lamont, Michael Portillo and Nigel Lawson should be listened to??
Just glancing at the debate on here it all seems so bizarre to me.
I've read PB for over 10 years, I'm interested in politics and I'm indifferent between Leave and Remain. I don't think either option will make much difference to the UK and its people going forward - there are some plusses and some minuses and some uncertainties on both sides of the equation.
But I can tell that people on here are whipping themselves up into a frenzy in support of their chosen side. And people on here are more wound up about this than any other subject since the start of PB.
Am I the only person on here who finds it all just a bit odd?
No. I do as well.
Thanks - glad I'm not the only one.
The frenzy is from Cameron and Osborne haters who are using the issue as a surrogate. My opinion such as it is is that these are long time losers and refuniks who despise Cameron for his success. And then there are the kippers of course.
I agree that if we were to leave the EU and join the EEA/EFTA then we would be not much different but that would not satisfy the anti immigrant mob. I do not like the thought of a leave vote unleashing this lot.
I have always been genuinely perplexed as to why the sovereignty issue, which seems to be "man-the-barricades" issue for the LEAVERS, doesn't have the same resonance in the other 27 countries.
Different countries have different political cultures. If you've emerged from dictatorship, fairly recently, your outlook may be quite different to our own.
Fair enough, but why only the Brits - not the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Irish, the Swedes, the Danes, the Italians etc etc. Don't get me wrong I don't believe the EU is perfect or anything like but if it really is as appalling as many LEAVERS tell us why does nobody else seem to be really bothered? Even in the UK it has only ever been an obsession of the political right until immigration muddied the waters recently.
That last sentence isn't quite true. Until Delors and Thatcher, much of the left was anti-EU.
The EU is not appalling. It has good points. But many other countries in Europe only recently became democratic and/or a nation relatively recently and/or have had appalling political structures and so view the EU more benignly and less of a threat to long-standing and pre-existing and strong political structures and culture.
I'm afraid it just doesn't just stack up to me. I can see that argument for the Baltic nations etc but are you really saying that we some how have a superior democracy and political structure to France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Ireland etc?
The Fifth French Republic dates back all the way to 1958. Not exactly long-standing. The Fourth Republic was unstable and threatened by military insurgency over Algeria. There was Vichy, of course. The Third Republic was hardly a model to be emulated and did not survive the stresses of the 1930's in the way the UK's political structures did.
Ireland is not really a model for the UK to emulate.
Germany has political structures which were largely created by, in part, the British. A significant part of Germany was under Communist dictatorship until 1989 i.e. one generation ago.
I don't know about the other countries so cannot comment on them.
The point is that, given their history, it makes sense for many Continental European countries to view the EU differently to Britain.
My model forecast 6/3/16. Trump inching towards the nomination, 1237 required.
Trump 1227 Cruz 413 Rubio 262 Kasich 52 Carson 84
Carson is vastly overstated, due to the presence of very old polls in places such as California. There are also about 300 delegates from states so far unpolled, and Trump must surely have at least 20% or ~60 of them.
The model has so far underestimated Trump by about 20, and over-estimated Rubio by about 20, mainly due to Rubio being in third place in states that allocate by Congressional District, and the model being a little too generous in its estimates there.
So perhaps a more realistic point forecast at this time would put Trump on 1300, well over the winning line.
Of course, we're only 40% way through the contest, and some of the state polls have been clearly wrong. But Trump seems to be strengthening in the national polls, and Cruz fading, whatever relevance that may have.
It's hard to see Trump not winning a clear plurality of delegates. The only question appears to be whether he wins a majority, and what happens if he doesn't.
Have you taken account of the recent move against Trump caused by the debate and Romney? Is there not a recent shift as seen in lousiana? Maybe we have seen Peak Trump. My money is mainly on Cruz though he is a nasty piece of work I admit.
What shift against Trump ?
The only state where Trump had an absolute maybe poor performance was Kansas, and there has been no polling there. His vote held up very well in KY and LA. It was the collapse of the Rubio vote to Cruz which made Trump look poorer than he otherwise might on the night.
One of the great things of this site is the wide range of posters with experts in many fields who you can learn from.
Now on the issue of the economics of BREXIT I see on one side successful and knowledgeable business / financial people including RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall.
On the other there are a few bleaters and tweeters of vague background.
Now which side seems the most likely to be correct ?
I find that quite an arrogant assertion though I'm not terribly surprised by it.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Or you find it arrogant that RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall are successful and knowledgeable business / financial people.
If you know of a pro-EU group of PBers to compare with them please point them out.
There's Southam - who is always worth reading - but his support for the EU appears to be more on 'human rights' grounds.
I find it arrogant to believe that all the wisdom in the EU debate on PB is on the LEAVE side and everyone who is in favour of remain are "bleaters" from "a vague background".
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
Didn't the Economist and FT both think we should join the Euro?
One of the great things of this site is the wide range of posters with experts in many fields who you can learn from.
Now on the issue of the economics of BREXIT I see on one side successful and knowledgeable business / financial people including RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall.
On the other there are a few bleaters and tweeters of vague background.
Now which side seems the most likely to be correct ?
I find that quite an arrogant assertion though I'm not terribly surprised by it.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Or you find it arrogant that RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall are successful and knowledgeable business / financial people.
If you know of a pro-EU group of PBers to compare with them please point them out.
There's Southam - who is always worth reading - but his support for the EU appears to be more on 'human rights' grounds.
I find it arrogant to believe that all the wisdom in the EU debate on PB is on the LEAVE side and everyone who is in favour of remain are "bleaters" from "a vague background".
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
Didn't the Economist and FT both think we should join the Euro?
Yep. Along with many of those who are now claiming all manner of disaster if we leave the EU.
One of the great things of this site is the wide range of posters with experts in many fields who you can learn from.
Now on the issue of the economics of BREXIT I see on one side successful and knowledgeable business / financial people including RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall.
On the other there are a few bleaters and tweeters of vague background.
Now which side seems the most likely to be correct ?
I find that quite an arrogant assertion though I'm not terribly surprised by it.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Or you find it arrogant that RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall are successful and knowledgeable business / financial people.
If you know of a pro-EU group of PBers to compare with them please point them out.
There's Southam - who is always worth reading - but his support for the EU appears to be more on 'human rights' grounds.
I find it arrogant to believe that all the wisdom in the EU debate on PB is on the LEAVE side and everyone who is in favour of remain are "bleaters" from "a vague background".
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
You can do what you want but I see you don't name PBers I should read.
If I wanted to read the Economist or FT (didn't they both support the UK adopting the Euro ?)instead of PB I would but I don't.
One of the great things of this site is the wide range of posters with experts in many fields who you can learn from.
Now on the issue of the economics of BREXIT I see on one side successful and knowledgeable business / financial people including RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall.
On the other there are a few bleaters and tweeters of vague background.
Now which side seems the most likely to be correct ?
I find that quite an arrogant assertion though I'm not terribly surprised by it.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Or you find it arrogant that RCS, Charles, MaxPM and Richard Tyndall are successful and knowledgeable business / financial people.
If you know of a pro-EU group of PBers to compare with them please point them out.
There's Southam - who is always worth reading - but his support for the EU appears to be more on 'human rights' grounds.
I find it arrogant to believe that all the wisdom in the EU debate on PB is on the LEAVE side and everyone who is in favour of remain are "bleaters" from "a vague background".
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
Didn't the Economist and FT both think we should join the Euro?
Yep. Along with many of those who are now claiming all manner of disaster if we leave the EU.
There's a great billboard to be made of mugshots of all those currently backing Remain who were in favour of the Euro, with a tagline "wrong then, wrong now."
It would be, if their making money depended on us staying in the EU. Which it doesn't.
It doesn't need to depend on it. It just needs to be affected by it.
We're all affected by it, apart perhaps from some particularly well-tenured academic economists. But they are nearly all firmly in the the camp saying Brexit would be economically very damaging.
They might be wrong, of course, but bear in mind that we only got into this exchange because of the amusing post by another_richard, whose choice of 'experts' was, shall we say, incomplete.
You find it arrogant that you can learn from more knowledgeable people ?
Certainly one should do that. Here's a list of some knowledgeable people and organisations:
- The PM - The Chancellor of the Exchequer - The Home Secretary - The Business Secretary - The Foreign Secretary - The leaders of all the GB political parties with more than one MP - The IMF - Goldman Sachs - Credit Suisse - Citibank - BNP Paribas - The CBI - The TUC - The 20 finance ministers of the G20
There are many more, of course.
And some other things those and similar people have told us include:
Nothing is happening in Rotherham ditto many other places Stafford hospital is safe ditto many others Jimmy Savile is a wonderful person ditto many others Politicians expenses are honest Elections in Tower Hamlets are fait Saddam Hussein has WMD There will be no more than 10-15,000 Eastern European migrants to the UK The banks are well run There will not be a recession in 2008
You tell me I should be "learning" from 4 BP posters and vote BREXIT because they happen to be in finance but ignore all the people Richard lists who have far greater experience? .Totally illogical. You forget to throw in "Project Fear".
The sovereignty thing matters in the UK because it is just about big enough to make a go of sovereignty, though it would be incomplete - particularly on economic matters, as even the United States finds (vis a vis Mr Trump's "Chiana!"). If you are Dutch, say, you don't entertain dreams of frequent bilateral meetings with the President of the USA, the UN Security Council, the head of Chinese Communism, etc., the way Cameron/Osborne do. The only other EU countries with the money and power to imagine full sovereignty are Germany and France. Germany's national idea would never admit sovereignty. The last time they behaved that way, they killed millions and brought occupation on themselves. That has an impact. They believe in bringing Europeans together under a rule-based system to dissuade one of the world's wealthiest regions from a repeat of competitive conflict. In contrast, most British people do not feel any guilt about Empire, and many (most?) think it was a good thing for the world. France is somewhere in between these two perspectives and its support for the EU has always been shallow and conditional.
As they did when they helped Greece con their way into the single currency?
Yes, exactly. No political agenda at all.
No one said political agenda. Stop changing the terms of the discussion.
OK, tell me what you think Goldman Sachs' agenda is. As far as I can see, there's zero reason to suppose they are giving anything other than their best estimate of the economic effects of Brexit. What particular reason to doubt that are you suggesting?
And then repeat the exercise for all the other sources I gave (I'll let you off the UK politicians).
My only quibble was with the downer on Javid's argument: in economics and social science there is a concept called path dependence. To cut a long story short, policy space and achievable outcomes evolve over time, depending on previous decisions. What is done often can't be - at least not neatly, cleanly, cheaply or completely - undone, and sometimes one just has to make the most of whatever mess one's previous misjudgments have tangled into. Whether Javid is correct to claim that the UK's best outcomes will come from "locking in" a previous poor choice is debatable. Doubling down is not always the best strategy. But it can be a rational argument, say something like: "we had a chance to develop stronger trading ties with the Commonwealth/US/emerging countries, but we blew it by sacrificing those interests for European ones, and now the world has moved on we would not be in such good a position to rekindle those relationships. We are now better to foster those ties under EU auspices because of the global trend towards large trading blocs and the extra weight in negotiations the EU possesses compared to ourselves alone." May well be a wrong argument, but it's coherent, not just lazy. Britain alone in 2016 is not the same Britain alone we could have been had we spent 40 years carving out the role.
The last sentence or two of the header deserve to be in bold. Meaty stuff. Few politicians have dared touch on it, and we are all worse off for it.
An interesting day in the USA - Peyton Manning retires, and Nancy Reagan dies.
Manning is a first ballot Hall of Famer.
I remember Reagan coming into office, after one of the most disappointing presidencies (Obama I suspect will be compared to it) in US history.
A shining city on a hill, Morning in America, the bear in the woods - it was a great time to live in the US.
Though unlike Carter Obama got re-elected
Because Romney was a terrible candidate. Obama was eminently beatable in 2012.
Gallup presently gives Obama an approval rating of 48%, that is above the rating of George W Bush, Nixon and Carter when they left office but below that of Clinton, Reagan and Eisenhower and almost identical to that of LBJ, Ford and Bush Snr ie mid-table
Obama would cruise to a third term if it weren't for that pesky Amendment He's be wiping the floor with Sanders, Clinton wouldn't even try Then Trump or Cruz? No chance guys
These US primaries are based on such tiny samples and why do some of these places like Guam even get a vote? The Puerto Rico Republican primary looks like a particularly low-turnout by-election in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, if Harris and Lewis weren't actually in the UK
These US primaries are based on such tiny samples and why do some of these places like Guam even get a vote? The Puerto Rico Republican primary looks like a particularly low-turnout by-election in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, if Harris and Lewis weren't actually in the UK
Puerto Rico actually gets a decent turnout for their Democrat primary. Was 388,000 back in 2008. If it was allowed in the US GE, it would almost certainly be blue. The turnout for the GOP today was utterly awful though, Romney got 100k votes (Santorum 10k) last time, today that was sub 40,000.
The sovereignty thing matters in the UK because it is just about big enough to make a go of sovereignty, though it would be incomplete - particularly on economic matters, as even the United States finds (vis a vis Mr Trump's "Chiana!"). If you are Dutch, say, you don't entertain dreams of frequent bilateral meetings with the President of the USA, the UN Security Council, the head of Chinese Communism, etc., the way Cameron/Osborne do. The only other EU countries with the money and power to imagine full sovereignty are Germany and France. Germany's national idea would never admit sovereignty. The last time they behaved that way, they killed millions and brought occupation on themselves. That has an impact. They believe in bringing Europeans together under a rule-based system to dissuade one of the world's wealthiest regions from a repeat of competitive conflict. In contrast, most British people do not feel any guilt about Empire, and many (most?) think it was a good thing for the world. France is somewhere in between these two perspectives and its support for the EU has always been shallow and conditional.
Nope. Pretty contorted, as is the article as is My Burning Ears' eulogy.
The sovereignty thing matters in the UK because it is just about big enough to make a go of sovereignty, though it would be incomplete - particularly on economic matters, as even the United States finds (vis a vis Mr Trump's "Chiana!"). If you are Dutch, say, you don't entertain dreams of frequent bilateral meetings with the President of the USA, the UN Security Council, the head of Chinese Communism, etc., the way Cameron/Osborne do. The only other EU countries with the money and power to imagine full sovereignty are Germany and France. Germany's national idea would never admit sovereignty. The last time they behaved that way, they killed millions and brought occupation on themselves. That has an impact. They believe in bringing Europeans together under a rule-based system to dissuade one of the world's wealthiest regions from a repeat of competitive conflict. In contrast, most British people do not feel any guilt about Empire, and many (most?) think it was a good thing for the world. France is somewhere in between these two perspectives and its support for the EU has always been shallow and conditional.
Nope. Pretty contorted, as is the article as is My Burning Ears' eulogy.
I'm sure we would love to hear your thoughts as to why it is all so much simpler?
I have always been genuinely perplexed as to why the sovereignty issue, which seems to be "man-the-barricades" issue for the LEAVERS, doesn't have the same resonance in the other 27 countries.
Different countries have different political cultures. If you've emerged from dictatorship, fairly recently, your outlook may be quite different to our own.
Fair enough, but why only the Brits - not the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Irish, the Swedes, the Danes, the Italians etc etc. Don't get me wrong I don't believe the EU is perfect or anything like but if it really is as appalling as many LEAVERS tell us why does nobody else seem to be really bothered? Even in the UK it has only ever been an obsession of the political right until immigration muddied the waters recently.
That last sentence isn't quite true. Until Delors and Thatcher, much of the left was anti-EU.
The EU is not appalling. It has good points. But many other countries in Europe only recently became democratic and/or a nation relatively recently and/or have had appalling political structures and so view the EU more benignly and less of a threat to long-standing and pre-existing and strong political structures and culture.
I'm afraid it just doesn't just stack up to me. I can see that argument for the Baltic nations etc but are you really saying that we some how have a superior democracy and political structure to France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Ireland etc?
The Fifth French Republic dates back all the way to 1958. Not exactly long-standing. The Fourth Republic was unstable and threatened by military insurgency over Algeria. There was Vichy, of course. The Third Republic was hardly a model to be emulated and did not survive the stresses of the 1930's in the way the UK's political structures did.
Ireland is not really a model for the UK to emulate.
Germany has political structures which were largely created by, in part, the British. A significant part of Germany was under Communist dictatorship until 1989 i.e. one generation ago.
I don't know about the other countries so cannot comment on them.
The point is that, given their history, it makes sense for many Continental European countries to view the EU differently to Britain.
You are making a good argument for the EU being a democratising civilising peace keeping institution. Something leavers sneer at.
To push France and democracy back to only 1958 is a pretty pathetic tactic
As they did when they helped Greece con their way into the single currency?
Yes, exactly. No political agenda at all.
No one said political agenda. Stop changing the terms of the discussion.
OK, tell me what you think Goldman Sachs' agenda is. As far as I can see, there's zero reason to suppose they are giving anything other than their best estimate of the economic effects of Brexit. What particular reason to doubt that are you suggesting?
And then repeat the exercise for all the other sources I gave (I'll let you off the UK politicians).
Goldman Sachs have given a very large amount of money to the BSE campaign. They did so long before Cameron had got his non-deal from the EU. That moves them from being a neutral observer presenting unbiased assessments to a player with a vested interest in the UK staying in the EU. Not surprising given that it puts such a lot of time and effort into lobbying in Brussels. It is of course so much easier as a big company to get what you want if you only have to lobby one largely unaccountable and undemocratic government body rather than 28 democratic ones.
An interesting day in the USA - Peyton Manning retires, and Nancy Reagan dies.
Manning is a first ballot Hall of Famer.
I remember Reagan coming into office, after one of the most disappointing presidencies (Obama I suspect will be compared to it) in US history.
A shining city on a hill, Morning in America, the bear in the woods - it was a great time to live in the US.
Though unlike Carter Obama got re-elected
Because Romney was a terrible candidate. Obama was eminently beatable in 2012.
Gallup presently gives Obama an approval rating of 48%, that is above the rating of George W Bush, Nixon and Carter when they left office but below that of Clinton, Reagan and Eisenhower and almost identical to that of LBJ, Ford and Bush Snr ie mid-table
Obama would cruise to a third term if it weren't for that pesky Amendment He's be wiping the floor with Sanders, Clinton wouldn't even try Then Trump or Cruz? No chance guys
I am not so sure, even Trump would give Obama a run for his money, now if Bill Clinton could run again rather than his wife then that really would be no contest
Sanders is a dreadful debater - he can scarcely get a sentence out before pivoting back to a prepared sound-bite line from his talking points. His wild gesticulations don't help when it comes to appearing on screen. Add to that his only answer being rich-bashing and spending more and more cash, it is amazing he has got this far.
Sanders is a dreadful debater - he can scarcely get a sentence out before pivoting back to a prepared sound-bite line from his talking points. His wild gesticulations don't help when it comes to appearing on screen. Add to that his only answer being rich-bashing and spending more and more cash, it is amazing he has got this far.
One word Corbyn...
The real reason is this feeling by some of wanting an anti-establishment candidate, which has manifested itself in people rallying behind people who are basically not a very good politicians.
A very good article, as one would expect from Ms Cyclefree. But (you knew there was a 'but' coming..), I think she has set up some straw men.
1. I don't think anyone claims that there has been a big reform of the EU itself. But we have got major opt-outs and the big change in the renegotiation was a formal acknowledgement by our EU friends that we are not heading for the same destination as they are. Yes, the EU will continue to centralise (we want it to, for that matter, so that the Eurozone can work better), but increasingly without us.
2 is just wrong. We actually have a lot of influence in the EU; that's why, for example, it is so strong on disallowing state aid. The Leavers have convinced themselves otherwise, but no-one ever explains why they reach this conclusion except to quote some meaningless statistics about how often we lose votes - statistics which 'show' that Germany has little influence either. If you believe that, you'll believe anything! Instead, you should look at the work of Simon Hix, who has looked at this issue in great detail and with academic rigour:
3 is easy to explain. We might well have preferred an EEA-style deal, or to have had a Singapore-like position relative to our big neighbour. It's certainly possible to imagine a better arrangement for the UK in relation to the EU if we had never joined. But we start from where we are: moving to an EEA-style deal, for example, may not be worth the cost, and other scenarios are no longer practical because both the UK and the EU have developed together - for example, in our very tightly integrated car industry.
4 I won't reopen - we've discussed it often enough.
5 Yes, I agree is pretty much nonsense, although to be fair it's in response to an element in some (but not all, or even most) of the Leave campaign which does seem to see anything which happens in Europe (not even in the EU) as bad.
I am not sure why REMAIN Needs to say anything about the re-negotiations. Everyone knows it was a farce !
The bottom line is: we have to stay IN - so REMAIN. Period.
Won't happen with George Osborne as chancellor. He drops any sort of hard headed much needed reform at the first whiff of gunpowder - the sight of someone getting vaguely upset on Question Time, or one or two strongly worded letters in the Telegraph. live casino
Comments
There is clear divergence between Cruz's recent outperformance in a few places, and his sinking in the national polls [now placing third].
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary
What you make of the overall forecast is up to you.
I do so love the inclusion of Goldman Sachs. It shows just how disconnected from reality you really are.
I prefer to have a more open mind.
https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/48kyzj/why_are_black_americans_voting_for_hillary/d0kv5pf
You lot are such hilarious value.
What exactly is in it for the credit rating agencies?
So 4 individuals have business / financial experience so they must be correct? Really? No disrespect to them but I might just be giving a little more weight to the Economist and The FT than to any PB poster to be honest.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/mailfrontpages?f=images&vertical=default&src=hash
And then there are the kippers of course.
I agree that if we were to leave the EU and join the EEA/EFTA then we would be not much different but that would not satisfy the anti immigrant mob. I do not like the thought of a leave vote unleashing this lot.
And Neil Woodford.
LOL
Anyway its time for bed I'll leave you and my other semi-namesake to continue the discussion.
Ireland is not really a model for the UK to emulate.
Germany has political structures which were largely created by, in part, the British. A significant part of Germany was under Communist dictatorship until 1989 i.e. one generation ago.
I don't know about the other countries so cannot comment on them.
The point is that, given their history, it makes sense for many Continental European countries to view the EU differently to Britain.
The only state where Trump had an absolute maybe poor performance was Kansas, and there has been no polling there. His vote held up very well in KY and LA. It was the collapse of the Rubio vote to Cruz which made Trump look poorer than he otherwise might on the night.
If I wanted to read the Economist or FT (didn't they both support the UK adopting the Euro ?)instead of PB I would but I don't.
Goodnight.
They might be wrong, of course, but bear in mind that we only got into this exchange because of the amusing post by another_richard, whose choice of 'experts' was, shall we say, incomplete.
The only other EU countries with the money and power to imagine full sovereignty are Germany and France.
Germany's national idea would never admit sovereignty. The last time they behaved that way, they killed millions and brought occupation on themselves. That has an impact. They believe in bringing Europeans together under a rule-based system to dissuade one of the world's wealthiest regions from a repeat of competitive conflict. In contrast, most British people do not feel any guilt about Empire, and many (most?) think it was a good thing for the world.
France is somewhere in between these two perspectives and its support for the EU has always been shallow and conditional.
And then repeat the exercise for all the other sources I gave (I'll let you off the UK politicians).
Of course it'll all get undone and then some by Michigan and Mississippi on Tuesday.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx?g_source=PRESIDENTIAL_JOB_APPROVAL&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles
My only quibble was with the downer on Javid's argument: in economics and social science there is a concept called path dependence. To cut a long story short, policy space and achievable outcomes evolve over time, depending on previous decisions. What is done often can't be - at least not neatly, cleanly, cheaply or completely - undone, and sometimes one just has to make the most of whatever mess one's previous misjudgments have tangled into. Whether Javid is correct to claim that the UK's best outcomes will come from "locking in" a previous poor choice is debatable. Doubling down is not always the best strategy. But it can be a rational argument, say something like: "we had a chance to develop stronger trading ties with the Commonwealth/US/emerging countries, but we blew it by sacrificing those interests for European ones, and now the world has moved on we would not be in such good a position to rekindle those relationships. We are now better to foster those ties under EU auspices because of the global trend towards large trading blocs and the extra weight in negotiations the EU possesses compared to ourselves alone." May well be a wrong argument, but it's coherent, not just lazy. Britain alone in 2016 is not the same Britain alone we could have been had we spent 40 years carving out the role.
The last sentence or two of the header deserve to be in bold. Meaty stuff. Few politicians have dared touch on it, and we are all worse off for it.
He's be wiping the floor with Sanders, Clinton wouldn't even try
Then Trump or Cruz? No chance guys
The Puerto Rico Republican primary looks like a particularly low-turnout by-election in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, if Harris and Lewis weren't actually in the UK
Thanks to all for your comments and feedback. Really appreciate it.
To push France and democracy back to only 1958 is a pretty pathetic tactic
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/06/john-kasich-endorsement-arnold-schwarzenegger-republican-election-2016
https://ricochet.com/an-open-letter-to-the-conservative-media-explaining-why-i-have-left-the-movement/
The real reason is this feeling by some of wanting an anti-establishment candidate, which has manifested itself in people rallying behind people who are basically not a very good politicians.
https://twitter.com/PolicyMic/status/706652993500880896
The bottom line is: we have to stay IN - so REMAIN. Period.
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