Mr. 1000, still choices to make within that. Gas (as someone, perhaps yourself, pointed out) would be far more cost-effective than the Hinkley shambles.
That's what the free market's for.
There is no free lunch. Energy independence destroys a who bunch of other industries.
There isn't a free market in energy. Competing our unsubsidised domestic energy against subsidised ti be cheaper foreign energy isn't a free market - it's a rigged market.
But let's take your rationale on a few years. We shut all our steelworks now. We let north seat oil and gas shut down now. Because it's temporarily cheaper now. What happens to prices in a free market when there is no competition? What price will "cheaper" become when there is no alternative on offer?
And here's the rather basic point. What coat do you attribute to national security. Control of energy and basic industry is national security - wars have been fought for control of them
And yet George seems happy for the Chinese state to own part of our power generation network (Hinkley) despite their hostile nature and unaligned global outlook.
I can follow the national security argument for actually having the physical factory in your country (although it's pretty obvious that it's bullshit covering for protectionism) but what's the argument for needing to _own_ that stuff? It's not like the Chinese get to tow the power station home if war breaks out.
Because it will change our policy towards them if they own loads of our industry and power generation. We already don't take them to task on human rights abuses and territorial skirmishes with neighbouring countries, it will get worse if we let them into our liberalised markets with no dissenting voices allowed.
The same is true if Britain exports stuff to China. (Actually more so, for the reasons given by me and Philip_Thompson upthread.) Are you against exporting to China as well?
No, of course it isn't the same. The act of us selling goods and services to Chinese people in China is not the same as the Chinese state buying our key infrastructure.
Well right, this is my point. In fact the leverage works in the opposite direction, because ownership of British assets is a promise by the British government to pay future revenue to the Chinese, which the British are at liberty to honour or not.
Chance of a future British Gov't not honouring the payments ?
Practically zero - and it would cause all sorts of knock on credit effects if we did.
Because it will change our policy towards them if they own loads of our industry and power generation. We already don't take them to task on human rights abuses and territorial skirmishes with neighbouring countries, it will get worse if we let them into our liberalised markets with no dissenting voices allowed.
Chance of this type of influence extending ?
Practically 100%.
Hinkley point is an absolubte stinker anyway as @rcs1000 has pointed out.
Well sure, the chances of getting into the kind of dispute with China where it matters who owns what are minimal. This is another reason why the national security argument is such a pile of pants. These arguments aren't serious - it's a really unconvincing way to defend protectionism.
It's true that any positive-sum engagement is going to make the British government less willing to criticise China, although the flip side is that it makes the Chinese government more likely to actually care what the British think about them. But like I say, if you think that's a net negative then it's exports to China you should be trying to stop, not investment by China.
1. Hitachi have NOT set up their global or even EU base at Newton Aycliffe. No trains for export will ever be built there - they'll be built at the Ansaldo factory they bought in Italy which has a continental gauge connection to EU railways that Aycliffe does not. Ironically local MPs cheered the announcement from Great Western that they were bung from Hitachi - I had to point out these trains would be built in Italy 2. Buy British is simple. Start with food. Aldi are making a great play for domestic fresh produce. Move onto cars and give public vehicle contracts to something built here - parts may be imported now but expand operations and they won't be. Then we need to bring back tech companies - it's not like Dyson needs 3rd world wages as his products are premium priced anyway. 3. Are we so stupid as a nation that we think being reliant on foreign energy and steel is preferable to having domestic capacity? Imports may be a fraction cheaper in the short term but what about the medium and long term? What about national security and the infrastructure that requires - do UK governments nit have a duty to put our interests in 2050 ahead of their mates making a one off profit now?
From memory, the reason why the great western trains are being built in Italy is because they are needed in 2020 (alongside a large number of other trains for health and safety reasons) so can't be built in aycliffe as that will be at capacity working on the trains already ordered.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
The gross figure (less rebate) is reasonable.
The UK government's spending priorities may be very different to the EU's.
They might choose to subsidise steel rather than farming, for example.
1. Hitachi have NOT set up their global or even EU base at Newton Aycliffe. No trains for export will ever be built there - they'll be built at the Ansaldo factory they bought in Italy which has a continental gauge connection to EU railways that Aycliffe does not. Ironically local MPs cheered the announcement from Great Western that they were bung from Hitachi - I had to point out these trains would be built in Italy 2. Buy British is simple. Start with food. Aldi are making a great play for domestic fresh produce. Move onto cars and give public vehicle contracts to something built here - parts may be imported now but expand operations and they won't be. Then we need to bring back tech companies - it's not like Dyson needs 3rd world wages as his products are premium priced anyway. 3. Are we so stupid as a nation that we think being reliant on foreign energy and steel is preferable to having domestic capacity? Imports may be a fraction cheaper in the short term but what about the medium and long term? What about national security and the infrastructure that requires - do UK governments nit have a duty to put our interests in 2050 ahead of their mates making a one off profit now?
From memory, the reason why the great western trains are being built in Italy is because they are needed in 2020 (alongside a large number of other trains for health and safety reasons) so can't be built in aycliffe as that will be at capacity working on the trains already ordered.
Also hitachi' a global railway offices are in central London. That was never going to be up north as it would add half a day to the journey time from Tokyo.
Project Fear in full swing this morning, methinks the govt, who will have more data and info than anybody, are worried. It's noticeable however that the name calling on here from certain Remainers has waned.
Amongst the public I never hear the EU discussed after from by committed Leavers, which is very rare.
Low turnout, narrow Leave win, only those that care will be bothered to vote and there's not enough Remainers who'll miss the European football to vote.
Sounds like an echo of Sindy ref. Apparently No had No supporters at all if you believed the frothers.
I hear supporters of Remain talking fairly often, at work, at social gatherings, even down the pub watching the footy.
Jacks ARSE was pretty close to the pb NOJAM consensus. I would be more confident of the former than the latter in terms of past prediction. Probing the internals of Jacks ARSE is not for the fainthearted, but it does seem quite weighted by demographic breakdown.
The game's up mate, no football fans ever use the word "footy". And if you're discussing the EU referendum whilst watching the football I imagine you have plenty of space to yourself.
Yeah. Leicester City are noted for empty stadiums and quiet crowds, especially this season!
You have to get to the pub early if trying to watch away games, difficult to get a view otherwise. People talk about many things while waiting for the games.
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings--
Whereas in Barnsley pubs I gather the chat is mainly about Latin idioms.
There is in Yorkshire the legendary story of Gilbert Gray QC who was representing a working man from the town before a judge of particular pomposity who, at one point snootily interjected: "I take it Mr Gray your client is familiar with the maxim: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Indeed my Lord," responded the QC drily. "In Barnsley they talk of little else."
The best put-down remains that of F E Smith, who was appearing before an exceptionally thick judge (so he must have been moron level, if current judges are anything to go by):
'I must tell you, Mr Smith, I am none the wiser after your comments.'
'Perhaps not, my lord,' shot back F E, 'but I trust your lordship is at least somewhat better informed.'
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
Outside the EU and in the EEA we would be better off by £1.7bn.
Yes, it's quite simple really. EU exit opens the door to a menu of options which can be decided on by democratic votes (shock, horror!). Staying in means no options and our domestic policies being decided largely, and increasingly, abroad.
Except that you propose that we should immediately close off most of those options by applying to join the EEA agreement, resulting in many domestic policies still be decided abroad, and with us have no vote in them.
The EEA/EFTA option is already a big improvement on the current situation, as Richard T, myself and others have posted on here many times (and you have desperately tried to deny many times).
If we find it is still too restrictive in key areas then we have the option of electing a government that supports that, and negotiating a more detached relationship still. If our journey needs more than one step, then so be it. It's all about the direction of travel.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
Outside the EU and in the EEA we would be better off by £1.7bn.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
Outside the EU and in the EEA we would be better off by £1.7bn.
There's no reason why "protectionists and nationalisers" shouldn't support Leave. Beyond supporting the UK's withdrawal from the EU, there's no reason why Leave supporters should agree on anything else. I'm starting to see the heterogeneous nature of Leave as a strength, not a weakness.
That's the whole point of Leave: it opens up a plethora of national policy options, right across the political divide, and that's its greatest strength.
The challenge Leave have is to square the circle with the short-term exit strategy and reassure on it. Because we know Remain are going to go in very, very hard on that and, if Leave still don't have a credible answer* by June, then that is going to be a problem.
(*of course, we all know it'd be EEA-EFTA in the medium-term)
We don't 'know' that. We may believe it's the case, or want to believe it, but there's no guarantee. Also, why would they want us, or give us a good deal, if it's 'medium'-term' and we're going to p*ss off soon?
It's hardly a good negotiating position: "Let us in, but we're leaving soon."
Just another part of leave's big lie.
(And for the feeble of mind, I remind people that I'm probably going to vote leave for the reasons I've given before. But that shouldn't stop me being able to criticise leave. Or remain. Or the EU.).
Why do you think we would leave the EEA-EFTA if we joined?
I suspect that's where we would stay: what we voted for in 1976 and what polls suggest people want today - a trading area.
There's no "big lie" about it. Of course there are some people who would want to restrict immigration completely and, as a result, would not be willing to join EEA. They are entitled to campaign to leave EEA, but I doubt they will be successful.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
Outside the EU and in the EEA we would be better off by £1.7bn.
The Civitas paper made a very basic mistake in not taking into account the per capita GDP differential between the UK and Norway. Norway's GDP per capita was more than double ours in 2013 (2.5x higher in fact, $42k vs $102k, source World Bank). We would not make the same payment because our economy is weaker than Norway's. You can't just use the Norwegian figure and extrapolate it to our economy, it isn't comparable. On a per capita basis, which is how the EU calculates the required contribution, we stand to save significantly more, even taking into account the requirement to fund our own agricultural subsidies programme.
Co-operation involves mutual interest. Most problems have a solution that works for both sides if you approach it logically.
The EU doesn't involve collaboration: at the end of the day QMV is majority voting. That might work for continental European countries that have a broadly similar political, philsophical and legal history. But our interests are fundamentally different on too many occasions - and we (plus the Scandis and the Baltics) are too often in a minority.
The balance of interests doesn't favour us, and the wins we get aren't sufficient to outweigh the losses
In your opinion. But even if that's the case, there's no guarantee (ore reason to believe) that the balance of interests will be better outside. That's wishful thinking.
There's no guarantees about anything in life.
The example I use is that the EU wants to enter a deal with Mercosur to open up Latin American to engineering products (which is highly beneficial to Germany and Northern Italy). Mercosur wants access to the EU prime beef cattle market in return - this hits Scotland and the North of England disproportionately.
At a EU level this deal makes a great deal of sense and is value added for the EU as a whole. For the UK it's a terrible deal.
That's a good example of where the costs outweigh the benefits - it's my belief that with a union of 28 countries we don't get enough overall benefits to outweigh the costs.
If we were outside the EU we could do a deal with Mercosur ourselves. Perhaps we trade off access to their financial services market for them having access to our beef market? I don't know, and don't really care - the important thing is we could do a deal that works for both parties.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I would like us to 1. Impose USA level tariffs on the chinese steel and 2. Remove the climate change burdens on the cost of energy supplied to steel companies.
Now, can we do that whilst in the EU? 1. No we cannot impose our own tariffs. 2. Anyone know if we can also do the second?
The EEA/EFTA option is already a big improvement on the current situation, as Richard T, myself and others have posted on here many times (and you have desperately tried to deny many times).
If we find it is still too restrictive in key areas then we have the option of electing a government that supports that, and negotiating a more detached relationship still. If our journey needs more than one step, then so be it. It's all about the direction of travel.
As I said, it's really very simple.
Well, if you think that the EEA is better, fair enough. I disagree; personally I think that a deal which means we are still subject to freedom of movement, employment law, enivrionmental law, consumer protection law, and competion law, and with a saving of only a few billion a year, is not worth the cost of the transition and the loss of influence in those laws. Saying I've 'deparately tried to deny it' would be offensive if it wasn't so bonkers as to make you look just silly. Disagreeing on the balance of the argument is hardly 'desperate'.
As for the 'direction of travel' argument, I find that amusingly ironic. It's the mirror image of what you, Richard T and others lay into Ted Heath over. It's also unrealistic - surely we are not going to go through all this all over again. The EEA deal would be for life, not for Christmas.
The more I look at it, the more unrealistic, in political terms, the EEA option looks. I simply don't see how, if Leave wins, it would be possible to turn round and say to the public 'Oh, well in that case we'll ignore all your major concerns and sign straight back in to what you thought you'd just voted to leave'.
There's no reason why "protectionists and nationalisers" shouldn't support Leave. Beyond supporting the UK's withdrawal from the EU, there's no reason why Leave supporters should agree on anything else. I'm starting to see the heterogeneous nature of Leave as a strength, not a weakness.
That's the whole point of Leave: it opens up a plethora of national policy options, right across the political divide, and that's its greatest strength.
The challenge Leave have is to square the circle with the short-term exit strategy and reassure on it. Because we know Remain are going to go in very, very hard on that and, if Leave still don't have a credible answer* by June, then that is going to be a problem.
(*of course, we all know it'd be EEA-EFTA in the medium-term)
We don't 'know' that. We may believe it's the case, or want to believe it, but there's no guarantee. Also, why would they want us, or give us a good deal, if it's 'medium'-term' and we're going to p*ss off soon?
It's hardly a good negotiating position: "Let us in, but we're leaving soon."
Just another part of leave's big lie.
(And for the feeble of mind, I remind people that I'm probably going to vote leave for the reasons I've given before. But that shouldn't stop me being able to criticise leave. Or remain. Or the EU.).
Why do you think we would leave the EEA-EFTA if we joined?
I suspect that's where we would stay: what we voted for in 1976 and what polls suggest people want today - a trading area.
There's no "big lie" about it. Of course there are some people who would want to restrict immigration completely and, as a result, would not be willing to join EEA. They are entitled to campaign to leave EEA, but I doubt they will be successful.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
My understanding from parliamentary questions to the Business Secretary was that the UK Conservative Government lobbied the EU to keep the tariff on Chinese steel below the maximum it could be in order to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I would like us to 1. Impose USA level tariffs on the chinese steel and 2. Remove the climate change burdens on the cost of energy supplied to steel companies.
Now, can we do that whilst in the EU? 1. No we cannot impose our own tariffs. 2. Anyone know if we can also do the second?
Britain wouldn't do (1) if it was outside the EU either, because unlike the US it doesn't have a lot of producer interests in swing states / marginal seats, so the government is free to do what's best for the whole economy.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I would like us to 1. Impose USA level tariffs on the chinese steel and 2. Remove the climate change burdens on the cost of energy supplied to steel companies.
Now, can we do that whilst in the EU? 1. No we cannot impose our own tariffs. 2. Anyone know if we can also do the second?
AIUI, our green energy bills are somewhat higher than European regulations require, as part of a drive by a former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to show how hip-hop and right-on he was.
Was he a bad Secretary of State? Hell, yes, he was a bad SoS, although not quite as bad as he was as a leader of the opposition.
(As an aside, that is typical of the way many EU laws are implemented here. The infamous example was of a directive on the welfare of chickens - twelve pages as originally drafted, 7 pages in France, 246 pages after DEFRA had got their useless mitts on it.)
Fraser Nelson Why is Gus O’Donnell misrepresenting EU rules? Britain needs to give 2yrs notice of leaving - can be given any time. Timing in our hands.
Hasn't Cameron said that he will immediately give notice of our intention to leave following a Leave vote?
O'Donnell's comments illustrate perfectly that the defeatist malaise that has afflicted the FCO for the last 50 years, has infected the rest of the Civil Service.
The "it's too difficult, we're too weak, weedy, want to go home and see our mummies" attitude being displayed, rather than accepting that they just need to knuckle down and do some work is quite pathetic.
And never mind that he was party to the initial negotiations over the 2 year deal in the first place.
Impressive! You clicked everything right and got the perfect score. You most likely have what's called an "eidetic" memory. This means that you have a remarkable ability to recall images and colors. You pay attention to detail, you notice the small things, and you have a gut intuition that kicks in when you've seen something more than once. You have a great analytic abilities and you're a natural born problem solver.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
Outside the EU and in the EEA we would be better off by £1.7bn.
The Civitas paper made a very basic mistake in not taking into account the per capita GDP differential between the UK and Norway. Norway's GDP per capita was more than double ours in 2013 (2.5x higher in fact). We would not make the same payment because our economy is weaker than Norway's. You can't just use the Norwegian figure and extrapolate it to our economy, it isn't comparable. On a per capita basis, which is how the EU calculates the required contribution, we stand to save significantly more, even taking into account the requirement to fund our own agricultural subsidies programme.
"Civitas made a very basic mistake."
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
Fraser Nelson Why is Gus O’Donnell misrepresenting EU rules? Britain needs to give 2yrs notice of leaving - can be given any time. Timing in our hands.
Hasn't Cameron said that he will immediately give notice of our intention to leave following a Leave vote?
O'Donnell's comments illustrate perfectly that the defeatist malaise that has afflicted the FCO for the last 50 years, has infected the rest of the Civil Service.
The "it's too difficult, we're too weak, weedy, want to go home and see our mummies" attitude being displayed, rather than accepting that they just need to knuckle down and do some work is quite pathetic.
And never mind that he was party to the initial negotiations over the 2 year deal in the first place.
O'Donnell wasn't at the FCO.
He made an even more impressive mess of running first the Treasury and then the Cabinet Office in the 2000s than the FCO did over the Constitution/Lisbon though, so the point can stand.
According to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Home Office has deported more than 2,000 failed child asylum seekers to Afghanistan since 2007.
Perfect. Trying to understand why it is hard tbh. People don't read instructions carefully?
Whilst I also got a perfect score, it was not clear at first that you were to click the colours on subsequent screens rather than on the first screen. So some people will have got out of sequence by the time the second screeen loaded.
I thought I had made this mistake and it may be that I did but the system gives most peopel a perfect score regardless of their actual performance - just to make them feel good about the Sun newspaper.
On Topic. Mike's article uses the GE turnout figures. But this is a one off referendum on a subject that is often pointed out as having a very low level of interest from voters... Therefore it will mainly be those voters who find the subject of the EU highly relevant to them, who are going to vote. My current guesstimated spreadsheet has a 58.4% turnout. The UKIP voters, within this I guess will be 95% for LEAVERs and 80% of those will turnout and vote LEAVE. These UKIP LEAVERs (based on 14% GE15) will therefore provide a whopping 18% of the LEAVE's circa 50%+. It only needs 32%+ to come from the other political groups. UKIPs voters are older than most and both more motivated to vote and contain many of the types who usually vote. Is my 80% guess for UKIP GE15 turnout on the low side?
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
I don't think there is a single right answer. The UK parliamentary briefing report says "If the UK left the EU and instead contributed to the EU budget on the same basis as Norway, its contributions would fall by around 17%.", but the exact amount would depend on what we negotiated and the degree to which we signed up to optional EU programmes.
That's why I always say 'a few £bn' would be saved in the EEA option; you can't really be more precise than that.
Perfect. Trying to understand why it is hard tbh. People don't read instructions carefully?
Either: (a) most people don't bother reading instructions properly and go too quickly, or (b) it's a trick and most people can actually do it - they're just pretending 95% of people fail.
The more I read about South Africa, re crime, education, etc, you really wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the near future the whole thing broke down. Everything seems to be going in the wrong direction in a big way.
Perfect. Trying to understand why it is hard tbh. People don't read instructions carefully?
Whilst I also got a perfect score, it was not clear at first that you were to click the colours on subsequent screens rather than on the first screen. So some people will have got out of sequence by the time the second screeen loaded.
I thought I had made this mistake and it may be that I did but the system gives most peopel a perfect score regardless of their actual performance - just to make them feel good about the Sun newspaper.
Mr. 1000, still choices to make within that. Gas (as someone, perhaps yourself, pointed out) would be far more cost-effective than the Hinkley shambles.
That's what the free market's for.
There is no free lunch. Energy independence destroys a who bunch of other industries.
Indeed isn't the high cost of energy in the UK (driven partly by global warming fears) part of the reason that Port Talbot is threatened over other Tata plants?
That is what Tata and the media keep parroting but it is a strange excuse. Port Talbot produces steel in blast furnaces, hence is mostly powered by coking coal rather than electricity. Coal is very cheap at the moment.
Yep coal may be cheap but coal isn't coking coal. That coking process is both time and energy intensive.
and it's the closure of the coking works that kills these factories. Once shut down as things cool the ovens collapse stopping the factory from ever reopening. It's the collapse of the coke works in Redcar that has made things permanent there nothing else.
That's all true, but there isn't a big difference in the cost of coking in the UK relative to the rest of Europe which is not the case with electricity prices. Port Talbot is on the coast, unlike many integrated steel plants including Scunthorpe, so can unload its coking coal directly from boat to plant at a very competitive cost. Energy is being used as a poor excuse when the fault for what is happening lies with many underlying issues in the UK stretching back over 40-50 years. I don't have the time or inclination to waffle on about them on here but as someone who has worked in the steel sector for nearly 20 years I have spent a lot of time pondering them. I chatted briefly with a senior manager I know in Tata this morning and the mood in the company seems less bleak than the media would have you believe.
According to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Home Office has deported more than 2,000 failed child asylum seekers to Afghanistan since 2007.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
It's an easy mistake to make. They cited the HoC library figures for Norway's net contribution and then extrapolated the gross £22 per capita saving to the UK population. They didn't adjust their figures for our per capita GDP difference which is how the EU calculates each nation's gross contribution (famously forcing our government to pay an additional £1.7bn because of the black economy).
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it out at the time as well.
You are right about the money anyway, I don't think the £6bn or £1.7bn really makes a big difference to the argument for me. It is, and has always been the direction of our trade, long run trade growth with the EU is -0.7% per year (-2.7% since 2011) and long term RoW trade growth is 5% per year. Not being able to form trade deals with fast growing economies and waiting for the EU to do it and then gut the parts of the deal we want (services) as the first option in order to get the deal done is something we should not be part of. That's why I'm in favour of being in the EEA so we can continue to trade with the EU but regain our trade competency so we can also form trade deals with mid-sized developing nations.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
My understanding from parliamentary questions to the Business Secretary was that the UK Conservative Government lobbied the EU to keep the tariff on Chinese steel below the maximum it could be in order to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese.
The Hansard 'Javid' excerpts pointed out by Islam on twitter today certainly point to that being the case. And we know who His Master's Voice is
All in all it's just another brick in (Osborne's) wall..
Fraser Nelson Why is Gus O’Donnell misrepresenting EU rules? Britain needs to give 2yrs notice of leaving - can be given any time. Timing in our hands.
Hasn't Cameron said that he will immediately give notice of our intention to leave following a Leave vote?
O'Donnell's comments illustrate perfectly that the defeatist malaise that has afflicted the FCO for the last 50 years, has infected the rest of the Civil Service.
The "it's too difficult, we're too weak, weedy, want to go home and see our mummies" attitude being displayed, rather than accepting that they just need to knuckle down and do some work is quite pathetic.
And never mind that he was party to the initial negotiations over the 2 year deal in the first place.
O'Donnell wasn't at the FCO.
I know, and never suggested he was. Just that the 'its easier to give up / managed decline' attitude at the FCO has cross infected the rest of the Civil Service.
Perfect. Trying to understand why it is hard tbh. People don't read instructions carefully?
Either: (a) most people don't bother reading instructions properly and go too quickly, or (b) it's a trick and most people can actually do it - they're just pretending 95% of people fail.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
I don't think there is a single right answer. The UK parliamentary briefing report says "If the UK left the EU and instead contributed to the EU budget on the same basis as Norway, its contributions would fall by around 17%.", but the exact amount would depend on what we negotiated and the degree to which we signed up to optional EU programmes.
That's why I always say 'a few £bn' would be saved in the EEA option; you can't really be more precise than that.
But we have a very different commercial relationship to the rest of the EU compared to Norway (significantly more imports), so in all likelihood it would fall by more than 17%.
"Another feature identified in the report is that those who respond to phone polls are more likely to give socially liberal responses than those online."
What does it tell us about the character of people who are so ashamed of their right wing views that they won't even confide in an anonymous telephone pollster?
It doesn't tell us any such thing, rather, it tells us that there is a pervasive intolerance coming from the leftish/politically correct segment - an intolerance which pervades the main daily news channels and repeats almost hourly that, for example, people should be ashamed of not wanting to let another 5,000 per day "refugees" into Europe/Britain ....
The FIFA analogy is superb, people immediately think Blatter, Qatar, bungs etc. The comparison with the EU is there for all to see.
On a Spurs blog the impact of Brexit on football was brought up, one bloke said he'd be voting Remain because Lloris is the best keeper in the league and to see him sent back to France would be devestating.
An Ex-Labour Home Secretary today launched a devastating attack on Jeremy Corbyn and his top shadow cabinet lieutenants, accusing them of giving “tacit support” to al Qaeda.
Charles Clarke said the failure of the Labour leader and his key frontbench supporters to back officially listing al Qaeda as a terror group just six months before 9/11 had given effective backing to the extremists.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I would like us to 1. Impose USA level tariffs on the chinese steel and 2. Remove the climate change burdens on the cost of energy supplied to steel companies.
Now, can we do that whilst in the EU? 1. No we cannot impose our own tariffs. 2. Anyone know if we can also do the second?
AIUI, our green energy bills are somewhat higher than European regulations require, as part of a drive by a former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to show how hip-hop and right-on he was.
Was he a bad Secretary of State? Hell, yes, he was a bad SoS, although not quite as bad as he was as a leader of the opposition.
(As an aside, that is typical of the way many EU laws are implemented here. The infamous example was of a directive on the welfare of chickens - twelve pages as originally drafted, 7 pages in France, 246 pages after DEFRA had got their useless mitts on it.)
We have had 6 years without Ed M at the helm in the energy dept to do something about it.
According to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Home Office has deported more than 2,000 failed child asylum seekers to Afghanistan since 2007.
Mr. 1000, still choices to make within that. Gas (as someone, perhaps yourself, pointed out) would be far more cost-effective than the Hinkley shambles.
That's what the free market's for.
There is no free lunch. Energy independence destroys a who bunch of other industries.
There isn't a free market in energy. Competing our unsubsidised domestic energy against subsidised ti be cheaper foreign energy isn't a free market - it's a rigged market.
But let's take your rationale on a few years. We shut all our steelworks now. We let north seat oil and gas shut down now. Because it's temporarily cheaper now. What happens to prices in a free market when there is no competition? What price will "cheaper" become when there is no alternative on offer?
And here's the rather basic point. What coat do you attribute to national security. Control of energy and basic industry is national security - wars have been fought for control of them
When you say there is no free market in energy, what do you mean? The price of oil, or LNG is the price. Those that have attempted to distort the price of these commodities through subsidies have wrought terrible economic damage on their economies.
Frankly, the view that the government should choose which industries (and by definition companies) should survive is scary. Corporatism sucks. The government is a terrible allocator of capital.
Will there be postal voting for this referendum? Looks like I shall be out of the country on the day of destiny.
Yes, you can apply for a postal vote. It'll be easier than normal because they already know what to print on the ballot papers so they can mail them out earlier.
I better apply today then! Last week I received a letter from the Home Office posted in early December! Fortunately it was only for information and didn't require a prompt reply!
On topic, who will turn out to vote? How will polling accurately predict the voting intentions?
I suspect one of the fundamental flaws in polling is that it is reactive. It adjusts to the situation that it last experienced, it is not able to adjust to the experience voters are about to have.
Looking at the EU there are many identified groups of voters. By AB C1 C2 etc, by age, by party, by non voter and I'm sure many more.
The question is if historical (mostly GE) voting patterns are relevant.
How will the non voter who is disenfranchised as it is all a LabConLibDem stitch up and there is no difference between them react? How do pollsters count them? How will the EU referendum motivate leavers, remainers and undecideds? No history. Voters are more changeable and dynamic than historically, how can polling track this? Loyalties are weaker to parties than they used to be (for a large number) and stronger for the highly committed. How to model this? How will antipolitcs feeling (or anti establishment as the police, Drs and Teachers tumble in popularity in time to catch up with politicians and journalists) effect voting and be recorded? It is a 'free' vote - a non party affair, allowing extra freedom for some voters to hand out a kicking as they see fit. Tough to model.
And all the while pollsters are catching up working out models that fit the previous set of now obsolete criteria.
A far better measure would be drop the headline numbers, have a consistent methodology and report the % as +/- change over time to show a trend. The trend is far more measurable than the % support for a party or remain / leave.
Problem is there is then no sensational headline to sell so the value of polling is reduced!
Miss Plato, one of my exam papers was horrendously mismarked at university. I got about 90%, and it should've been, ahem, a little lower. Sadly, it didn't count towards my degree.
Mind you, 4/6 of my Religious Studies A-level exams were marked down by miles (I could only resit the first couple, where my grades were assisted by being marked by someone other than Stevie Wonder).
Fraser Nelson Why is Gus O’Donnell misrepresenting EU rules? Britain needs to give 2yrs notice of leaving - can be given any time. Timing in our hands.
Hasn't Cameron said that he will immediately give notice of our intention to leave following a Leave vote?
O'Donnell's comments illustrate perfectly that the defeatist malaise that has afflicted the FCO for the last 50 years, has infected the rest of the Civil Service.
The "it's too difficult, we're too weak, weedy, want to go home and see our mummies" attitude being displayed, rather than accepting that they just need to knuckle down and do some work is quite pathetic.
And never mind that he was party to the initial negotiations over the 2 year deal in the first place.
O'Donnell wasn't at the FCO.
He made an even more impressive mess of running first the Treasury and then the Cabinet Office in the 2000s than the FCO did over the Constitution/Lisbon though, so the point can stand.
Yes. There was also his joint book with Balls... O'Donnell was however the overall Head of the Civil Service and it was his staff who in the FO negotiated these various clauses. Therefore as Charles pointed out earlier, O'Donnell should first apologise for the terrible mistakes his staff made and say sorry to the British public for creating the mess. Of course he should also explain why he did not point out these problems publicly, when Cameron first announced the renegotiation as it would have given more time to tackle the mess. But to apologise for the mistakes of his staff, O'Donnell would have to start acting as O'Donnell and not GoD.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
I don't think there is a single right answer. The UK parliamentary briefing report says "If the UK left the EU and instead contributed to the EU budget on the same basis as Norway, its contributions would fall by around 17%.", but the exact amount would depend on what we negotiated and the degree to which we signed up to optional EU programmes.
That's why I always say 'a few £bn' would be saved in the EEA option; you can't really be more precise than that.
Yes I actually added the point about "a few billion" for that reason. I was the first to pour scorn on those who wanted an independent Scotland for, what was it £50? Whereas I thought it should be more Cry Freedom than that.
I wouldn't like to see the EU ref come down to a similar thing, even though, as Dirksen famously said...a billion here, a billion there....
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
But we have a very different commercial relationship to the rest of the EU compared to Norway (significantly more imports), so in all likelihood it would fall by more than 17%.
I agree that the £1.7bn estimate is the probably too low. On the other hand, there's not a snowflake's chance in hell that we'd save the £18bn which Vote Leave claim, in the EEA option or indeed any option.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
I don't think there is a single right answer. The UK parliamentary briefing report says "If the UK left the EU and instead contributed to the EU budget on the same basis as Norway, its contributions would fall by around 17%.", but the exact amount would depend on what we negotiated and the degree to which we signed up to optional EU programmes.
That's why I always say 'a few £bn' would be saved in the EEA option; you can't really be more precise than that.
But we have a very different commercial relationship to the rest of the EU compared to Norway (significantly more imports), so in all likelihood it would fall by more than 17%.
Norway's imports from the EU (on a per capita basis) are quite a lot higher than us, I think.
Perfect. Trying to understand why it is hard tbh. People don't read instructions carefully?
Either: (a) most people don't bother reading instructions properly and go too quickly, or (b) it's a trick and most people can actually do it - they're just pretending 95% of people fail.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
"Another feature identified in the report is that those who respond to phone polls are more likely to give socially liberal responses than those online."
What does it tell us about the character of people who are so ashamed of their right wing views that they won't even confide in an anonymous telephone pollster?
It doesn't tell us any such thing, rather, it tells us that there is a pervasive intolerance coming from the leftish/politically correct segment - an intolerance which pervades the main daily news channels and repeats almost hourly that, for example, people should be ashamed of not wanting to let another 5,000 per day "refugees" into Europe/Britain ....
Or not wearing a wristband, or giving to charidee, or going on a march, or signing a petition. I'm not sure who invented the term virtue signalling but it is brilliant, we should have a tv show, contestants demonstrate how worthy they are, just how much they care.
Miss Plato, one of my exam papers was horrendously mismarked at university. I got about 90%, and it should've been, ahem, a little lower. Sadly, it didn't count towards my degree. Mind you, 4/6 of my Religious Studies A-level exams were marked down by miles (I could only resit the first couple, where my grades were assisted by being marked by someone other than Stevie Wonder).
A child of mine also had their RS GCE paper re-graded from C to A.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Germany loaded eco subsidies onto its consumers. Gordon Brown loaded them on to UK industry. Who's in better shape ?
Mr. Betting, exams 2 and 3 were initially D and E, but magically became B and C when I resat (no more or less confident either before or after the exams than the first time). It irked me, as I ended up with a C overall, and it should've probably been higher (not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but still).
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
A saving of £18bn a year!!!
Yet the Leave side have the nerve to accuse the government of being dishonest.
Well the gross payment from HMG to the EU will be about that, the EU will then give the government a rebate worth 10% and fund around £7bn worth of CAP subsidies and development projects in the UK. It's technically correct, but I agree it shouldn't be characterised as £18bn. The £9-11bn figure is fair game though. Even if we join EFTA there is a £6-7bn saving in it.
The gross figure (less rebate) is reasonable.
The UK government's spending priorities may be very different to the EU's.
They might choose to subsidise steel rather than farming, for example.
And, TBF, they are not claiming it is a "saving" but as money they can spend on their priorities - unlike what @Richard_Nabavi claimed they said
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
Norway is Europe's largest oil producer, the world's second largest natural gas exporter, and is an important supplier of both oil and natural gas to other European countries; Norway is the largest oil producer and exporter in Western Europe; Norway is the second largest exporter of natural gas after Russia and ranks fourth in world natural gas production
With a population of only 5 million it is not surprising that Norway has a high GDP per head.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
It's an easy mistake to make. They cited the HoC library figures for Norway's net contribution and then extrapolated the gross £22 per capita saving to the UK population. They didn't adjust their figures for our per capita GDP difference which is how the EU calculates each nation's gross contribution (famously forcing our government to pay an additional £1.7bn because of the black economy).
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it out at the time as well.
You are right about the money anyway, I don't think the £6bn or £1.7bn really makes a big difference to the argument for me. It is, and has always been the direction of our trade, long run trade growth with the EU is -0.7% per year (-2.7% since 2011) and long term RoW trade growth is 5% per year. Not being able to form trade deals with fast growing economies and waiting for the EU to do it and then gut the parts of the deal we want (services) as the first option in order to get the deal done is something we should not be part of. That's why I'm in favour of being in the EEA so we can continue to trade with the EU but regain our trade competency so we can also form trade deals with mid-sized developing nations.
...is a perfectly logical POV.
My issue with that is that in services, for example in financial services, the EU and EUR-business is a huge part of the City's activities. I believe we gain more from being part of the bandwagon, helping to spec it out, than off it. Plus I can't see a coherent reason why the ECB wouldn't want to repatriate eg EUR clearing business back to the EZ if we were no longer an EU member, but we have been round those houses many times before and the last thing I want to do is to send @DavidL running from here screaming.
Project Fear in full swing this morning, methinks the govt, who will have more data and info than anybody, are worried. It's noticeable however that the name calling on here from certain Remainers has waned.
Amongst the public I never hear the EU discussed after from by committed Leavers, which is very rare.
Low turnout, narrow Leave win, only those that care will be bothered to vote and there's not enough Remainers who'll miss the European football to vote.
Sounds like an echo of Sindy ref. Apparently No had No supporters at all if you believed the frothers.
I hear supporters of Remain talking fairly often, at work, at social gatherings, even down the pub watching the footy.
Jacks ARSE was pretty close to the pb NOJAM consensus. I would be more confident of the former than the latter in terms of past prediction. Probing the internals of Jacks ARSE is not for the fainthearted, but it does seem quite weighted by demographic breakdown.
The game's up mate, no football fans ever use the word "footy". And if you're discussing the EU referendum whilst watching the football I imagine you have plenty of space to yourself.
Yeah. Leicester City are noted for empty stadiums and quiet crowds, especially this season!
You have to get to the pub early if trying to watch away games, difficult to get a view otherwise. People talk about many things while waiting for the games.
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings--
Whereas in Barnsley pubs I gather the chat is mainly about Latin idioms.
There is in Yorkshire the legendary story of Gilbert Gray QC who was representing a working man from the town before a judge of particular pomposity who, at one point snootily interjected: "I take it Mr Gray your client is familiar with the maxim: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Indeed my Lord," responded the QC drily. "In Barnsley they talk of little else."
The best put-down remains that of F E Smith, who was appearing before an exceptionally thick judge (so he must have been moron level, if current judges are anything to go by):
'I must tell you, Mr Smith, I am none the wiser after your comments.'
'Perhaps not, my lord,' shot back F E, 'but I trust your lordship is at least somewhat better informed.'
My person favourite was FE Smith in front of a judge who was a notable drunk:
"In mitigation, my client was a drunk as a judge"
"Surely you mean 'as drunk as a lord' Mr Smith?" said the judge
@rcs1000 What are your thoughts on renewables, and the bank bailouts ?
There should be no renewable subsidies. If wind or solar can economically compete, good for it.
The principle beneficiaries of the bank bailouts were, of course, the depositors. If RBS had been allowed to just "go bust" it would have dragged most of its corporate customers with it. We are -fortunately- moving to dramatically improve bank regulation through CoCos and "living wills". These should lessen the chances of similar problems happening in future.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
No.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
And, TBF, they are not claiming it is a "saving" but as money they can spend on their priorities - unlike what @Richard_Nabavi claimed they said
Err, they say:
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
There's only one possible way of interpreting that, namely that we would have saved £18bn a year from our EU contributions. Which is, to put it gently, utter nonsense in the EEA option, and highly misleading in any other option.
An Ex-Labour Home Secretary today launched a devastating attack on Jeremy Corbyn and his top shadow cabinet lieutenants, accusing them of giving “tacit support” to al Qaeda.
Charles Clarke said the failure of the Labour leader and his key frontbench supporters to back officially listing al Qaeda as a terror group just six months before 9/11 had given effective backing to the extremists.
But it won't upset most of Corbyn's supporters. Many of them will be pleased with him for refusing to proscribe such organisations, incredible though that may seem to the rest of us. Indeed, given their views on Charles Clarke, they are likely to be even more supportive of Corbyn than they were before (if that were possible).
Until a senior figure who is undeniably on the left comes out and points out that everyone supporting Corbyn is actually giving effective backing to Osborne and Cameron, the love-in will continue. As it is very hard to think of a sufficiently senior, unambiguously leftist figure that might do it - we're talking about John Prescott style here, and I don't think anyone listens to him now - Labour continue to be stuck with him.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
No.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
As has been pointed out before all eneergy is subsidised to some extent. Wind, nuclear, solar.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Germany loaded eco subsidies onto its consumers. Gordon Brown loaded them on to UK industry. Who's in better shape ?
German industry also moved - very rationally and very quickly - towards cogen. If you go to plants in Germany, they very often have their own combined heat and power gas turbine in the basement, effectively removing themselves from the increased cost of electricity.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
It's an easy mistake to make. They cited the HoC library figures for Norway's net contribution and then extrapolated the gross £22 per capita saving to the UK population. They didn't adjust their figures for our per capita GDP difference which is how the EU calculates each nation's gross contribution (famously forcing our government to pay an additional £1.7bn because of the black economy).
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it out at the time as well.
You are right about the money anyway, I don't think the £6bn or £1.7bn really makes a big difference to the argument for me. It is, and has always been the direction of our trade, long run trade growth with the EU is -0.7% per year (-2.7% since 2011) and long term RoW trade growth is 5% per year. Not being able to form trade deals with fast growing economies and waiting for the EU to do it and then gut the parts of the deal we want (services) as the first option in order to get the deal done is something we should not be part of. That's why I'm in favour of being in the EEA so we can continue to trade with the EU but regain our trade competency so we can also form trade deals with mid-sized developing nations.
...is a perfectly logical POV.
My issue with that is that in services, for example in financial services, the EU and EUR-business is a huge part of the City's activities. I believe we gain more from being part of the bandwagon, helping to spec it out, than off it. Plus I can't see a coherent reason why the ECB wouldn't want to repatriate eg EUR clearing business back to the EZ if we were no longer an EU member, but we have been round those houses many times before and the last thing I want to do is to send @DavidL running from here screaming.
Which is why the EEA option is a good compromise for me, we still keep full passport rights and EUR trade, but we also bring back our other trade competencies and get out of ECJ jurisdiction.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
No.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
We could at least get rid of the eco-subsidies that industry (and consumers) have to pay for, no need for subsidies.
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
No.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
As has been pointed out before all eneergy is subsidised to some extent. Wind, nuclear, solar.
As for banks.........
Couldn't we compromise, and ask the banks to generate power using the hot air from the boardroom and the heat from all the roulette wheels whizzing round?
EU tariff on Chinese steel 24% USA tariff on Chinese steel 266%
Must be the fault of Westminster/UK Govt/Cameron...... Or is it the fault of being in the EU?
I agree. But what does this plant for energy. Electric or coal? If the latter then we needed to also retain some of the coal industry.
This board scares me sometimes. Businessmen begging politicians for protections in return for taxpayers money, on the basis of their industry being "strategic".
Let me be clear. i am not arguing for protections for steel. Just level the playing field with the Chinese subsidies through tariffs and remove as far as possible the climate change eco burdens that are loaded on the industry.
No.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
As has been pointed out before all eneergy is subsidised to some extent. Wind, nuclear, solar.
As for banks.........
Just because other people do stupid things, it doesn't mean we have to.
Comments
Mr. Observer, yes. Cameron also said that if he couldn't get meaningful reform and protect the City he'd recommend we vote to Leave.
I think it's unlikely, but that's contingency planning.
It's true that any positive-sum engagement is going to make the British government less willing to criticise China, although the flip side is that it makes the Chinese government more likely to actually care what the British think about them. But like I say, if you think that's a net negative then it's exports to China you should be trying to stop, not investment by China.
The UK government's spending priorities may be very different to the EU's.
They might choose to subsidise steel rather than farming, for example.
'I must tell you, Mr Smith, I am none the wiser after your comments.'
'Perhaps not, my lord,' shot back F E, 'but I trust your lordship is at least somewhat better informed.'
One of the 1st things Corbyn did was to kick the steelworkers union off Labour NEC for hard-left bakers.
If we find it is still too restrictive in key areas then we have the option of electing a government that supports that, and negotiating a more detached relationship still. If our journey needs more than one step, then so be it. It's all about the direction of travel.
As I said, it's really very simple.
Perhaps we're ALL just better than the rest
Edit: summary
https://youtu.be/XhwlFOgbEN8
I suspect that's where we would stay: what we voted for in 1976 and what polls suggest people want today - a trading area.
There's no "big lie" about it. Of course there are some people who would want to restrict immigration completely and, as a result, would not be willing to join EEA. They are entitled to campaign to leave EEA, but I doubt they will be successful.
The example I use is that the EU wants to enter a deal with Mercosur to open up Latin American to engineering products (which is highly beneficial to Germany and Northern Italy). Mercosur wants access to the EU prime beef cattle market in return - this hits Scotland and the North of England disproportionately.
At a EU level this deal makes a great deal of sense and is value added for the EU as a whole. For the UK it's a terrible deal.
That's a good example of where the costs outweigh the benefits - it's my belief that with a union of 28 countries we don't get enough overall benefits to outweigh the costs.
If we were outside the EU we could do a deal with Mercosur ourselves. Perhaps we trade off access to their financial services market for them having access to our beef market? I don't know, and don't really care - the important thing is we could do a deal that works for both parties.
1. Impose USA level tariffs on the chinese steel and
2. Remove the climate change burdens on the cost of energy supplied to steel companies.
Now, can we do that whilst in the EU?
1. No we cannot impose our own tariffs.
2. Anyone know if we can also do the second?
As for the 'direction of travel' argument, I find that amusingly ironic. It's the mirror image of what you, Richard T and others lay into Ted Heath over. It's also unrealistic - surely we are not going to go through all this all over again. The EEA deal would be for life, not for Christmas.
The more I look at it, the more unrealistic, in political terms, the EEA option looks. I simply don't see how, if Leave wins, it would be possible to turn round and say to the public 'Oh, well in that case we'll ignore all your major concerns and sign straight back in to what you thought you'd just voted to leave'.
Was he a bad Secretary of State? Hell, yes, he was a bad SoS, although not quite as bad as he was as a leader of the opposition.
(As an aside, that is typical of the way many EU laws are implemented here. The infamous example was of a directive on the welfare of chickens - twelve pages as originally drafted, 7 pages in France, 246 pages after DEFRA had got their useless mitts on it.)
The "it's too difficult, we're too weak, weedy, want to go home and see our mummies" attitude being displayed, rather than accepting that they just need to knuckle down and do some work is quite pathetic.
And never mind that he was party to the initial negotiations over the 2 year deal in the first place.
You seem a v sensible person (bloke?) who is knowledgeable about a ton of stuff, as evidenced by your postings on here. And you are saying that Civitas, in their flagship pro-Brexit paper, made a very basic mistake.
You sure? Can you pls link to the docs that show the calculation methodology. Although I don't necessarily want to get into a he said:she said ding-dong. Plus if it's a few more billion I don't think that should necessarily be the critical argument.
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
BANTS....erhh yeah and definitely to see if had a dead man's handle (thats why the text mentioned that important info)...WAAAAAA HEEEYYYYY
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35923820
He made an even more impressive mess of running first the Treasury and then the Cabinet Office in the 2000s than the FCO did over the Constitution/Lisbon though, so the point can stand.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35861970
Now that rings a bell...who are they again...mmmhhh...I am sure they are trustworthy source.
I thought I had made this mistake and it may be that I did but the system gives most peopel a perfect score regardless of their actual performance - just to make them feel good about the Sun newspaper.
But this is a one off referendum on a subject that is often pointed out as having a very low level of interest from voters... Therefore it will mainly be those voters who find the subject of the EU highly relevant to them, who are going to vote. My current guesstimated spreadsheet has a 58.4% turnout.
The UKIP voters, within this I guess will be 95% for LEAVERs and 80% of those will turnout and vote LEAVE. These UKIP LEAVERs (based on 14% GE15) will therefore provide a whopping 18% of the LEAVE's circa 50%+.
It only needs 32%+ to come from the other political groups.
UKIPs voters are older than most and both more motivated to vote and contain many of the types who usually vote. Is my 80% guess for UKIP GE15 turnout on the low side?
That's why I always say 'a few £bn' would be saved in the EEA option; you can't really be more precise than that.
Either: (a) most people don't bother reading instructions properly and go too quickly, or (b) it's a trick and most people can actually do it - they're just pretending 95% of people fail.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35883919
The more I read about South Africa, re crime, education, etc, you really wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the near future the whole thing broke down. Everything seems to be going in the wrong direction in a big way.
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it out at the time as well.
You are right about the money anyway, I don't think the £6bn or £1.7bn really makes a big difference to the argument for me. It is, and has always been the direction of our trade, long run trade growth with the EU is -0.7% per year (-2.7% since 2011) and long term RoW trade growth is 5% per year. Not being able to form trade deals with fast growing economies and waiting for the EU to do it and then gut the parts of the deal we want (services) as the first option in order to get the deal done is something we should not be part of. That's why I'm in favour of being in the EEA so we can continue to trade with the EU but regain our trade competency so we can also form trade deals with mid-sized developing nations.
All in all it's just another brick in (Osborne's) wall..
I like quizzes like this.
But we have a very different commercial relationship to the rest of the EU compared to Norway (significantly more imports), so in all likelihood it would fall by more than 17%.
On a Spurs blog the impact of Brexit on football was brought up, one bloke said he'd be voting Remain because Lloris is the best keeper in the league and to see him sent back to France would be devestating.
An Ex-Labour Home Secretary today launched a devastating attack on Jeremy Corbyn and his top shadow cabinet lieutenants, accusing them of giving “tacit support” to al Qaeda.
Charles Clarke said the failure of the Labour leader and his key frontbench supporters to back officially listing al Qaeda as a terror group just six months before 9/11 had given effective backing to the extremists.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-accused-of-tacit-support-for-al-qaeda-in-runup-to-911-a3214021.html
Frankly, the view that the government should choose which industries (and by definition companies) should survive is scary. Corporatism sucks. The government is a terrible allocator of capital.
Let the free market work.
How will polling accurately predict the voting intentions?
I suspect one of the fundamental flaws in polling is that it is reactive. It adjusts to the situation that it last experienced, it is not able to adjust to the experience voters are about to have.
Looking at the EU there are many identified groups of voters. By AB C1 C2 etc, by age, by party, by non voter and I'm sure many more.
The question is if historical (mostly GE) voting patterns are relevant.
How will the non voter who is disenfranchised as it is all a LabConLibDem stitch up and there is no difference between them react? How do pollsters count them?
How will the EU referendum motivate leavers, remainers and undecideds? No history.
Voters are more changeable and dynamic than historically, how can polling track this?
Loyalties are weaker to parties than they used to be (for a large number) and stronger for the highly committed. How to model this?
How will antipolitcs feeling (or anti establishment as the police, Drs and Teachers tumble in popularity in time to catch up with politicians and journalists) effect voting and be recorded?
It is a 'free' vote - a non party affair, allowing extra freedom for some voters to hand out a kicking as they see fit. Tough to model.
And all the while pollsters are catching up working out models that fit the previous set of now obsolete criteria.
A far better measure would be drop the headline numbers, have a consistent methodology and report the % as +/- change over time to show a trend. The trend is far more measurable than the % support for a party or remain / leave.
Problem is there is then no sensational headline to sell so the value of polling is reduced!
Mind you, 4/6 of my Religious Studies A-level exams were marked down by miles (I could only resit the first couple, where my grades were assisted by being marked by someone other than Stevie Wonder).
O'Donnell was however the overall Head of the Civil Service and it was his staff who in the FO negotiated these various clauses. Therefore as Charles pointed out earlier, O'Donnell should first apologise for the terrible mistakes his staff made and say sorry to the British public for creating the mess. Of course he should also explain why he did not point out these problems publicly, when Cameron first announced the renegotiation as it would have given more time to tackle the mess.
But to apologise for the mistakes of his staff, O'Donnell would have to start acting as O'Donnell and not GoD.
I wouldn't like to see the EU ref come down to a similar thing, even though, as Dirksen famously said...a billion here, a billion there....
Test: I pressed Red every time.
Result: "Almost Perfect! You have a good memory"
Hmmm.
TODAY'S #EUREF spread betting @SportingIndex market mid-points make it REMAIN victory by 7% on a 61% turnout
sportingindex.com/spread-betting…
(2015 figures have Norway's per capita GDP at 1.7x the UK's btw)
Norway is Europe's largest oil producer, the world's second largest natural gas exporter, and is an important supplier of both oil and natural gas to other European countries; Norway is the largest oil producer and exporter in Western Europe; Norway is the second largest exporter of natural gas after Russia and ranks fourth in world natural gas production
With a population of only 5 million it is not surprising that Norway has a high GDP per head.
My issue with that is that in services, for example in financial services, the EU and EUR-business is a huge part of the City's activities. I believe we gain more from being part of the bandwagon, helping to spec it out, than off it. Plus I can't see a coherent reason why the ECB wouldn't want to repatriate eg EUR clearing business back to the EZ if we were no longer an EU member, but we have been round those houses many times before and the last thing I want to do is to send @DavidL running from here screaming.
There's lots of weird decisions made
"In mitigation, my client was a drunk as a judge"
"Surely you mean 'as drunk as a lord' Mr Smith?" said the judge
"As you wish, my lord"
The principle beneficiaries of the bank bailouts were, of course, the depositors. If RBS had been allowed to just "go bust" it would have dragged most of its corporate customers with it. We are -fortunately- moving to dramatically improve bank regulation through CoCos and "living wills". These should lessen the chances of similar problems happening in future.
Small economies are usually more open, so that's no real surprise.
Just because they are messing up their economy through subsidies, doesn't mean we should. Distort price signals at your peril.
Seventh, we will be able to spend our money on our priorities. Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and education.
There's only one possible way of interpreting that, namely that we would have saved £18bn a year from our EU contributions. Which is, to put it gently, utter nonsense in the EEA option, and highly misleading in any other option.
Until a senior figure who is undeniably on the left comes out and points out that everyone supporting Corbyn is actually giving effective backing to Osborne and Cameron, the love-in will continue. As it is very hard to think of a sufficiently senior, unambiguously leftist figure that might do it - we're talking about John Prescott style here, and I don't think anyone listens to him now - Labour continue to be stuck with him.
As for banks.........
The Conservative Government might wish they had done this if there is a low turnout and only LEAVE are passionate enough to vote.
Mind you, FE criticising someone else for inebriation? Pot, kettle and dark colours spring to mind.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35924701
We were making different points.