I think you are being unrealistic in thinking that the UK would not be fully consulted about further regulation of the financial services market if we were a part of the EEA, London's dominance would make it crazy not to.
It might be different if we were not in the EEA. That is why I favour being in it and retaining benefits such as the single passport that are important to UK businesses that actually make money and pay taxes (unlike the steel industry, for example).
Avoiding my previous (and often-made) points about our input into the formulation of financial services regulations, which, simply, I don't think would be as great, although greater than zero, if we were in the EEA (there I made it again ), that of course leaves the freedoms.
The Leave EU pamphlet says we will "enhance our country's security by re-establishing the vital control of our borders." While Remain is not without its disingenuousness, Leave really does have to spell out, very clearly, its position on free movement of people and the EEA.
I think it would help Leave if there was consistency on this point but it is clear that the choice given to the people is binary: in or out? What out means will therefore have to be resolved afterwards. For me, I accept that membership of the EEA involves acceptance of the 4 freedoms (do you think this could win over Nicky? Maybe not) but I think it is a price worth paying for essential trade combined with far more freedom to suit ourselves.
In principle what's not to like; in practice, I would feel very nervous being shut out of the latter and voting rounds of EU Fin Regs. End of the world? Obvs not, but IMO we would slightly be playing with fire, given the importance of that industry to our national interest.
This really gets to the heart of the matter: with further integration of the EZ and QMV what is our vote worth and will we be able to protect our essential national interests better on the inside? My fear is not a lot but I accept the other view can be taken quite rationally.
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.........
Government lending money at market rates to banks so they can overcome a liquidity crisis is not a subsidy. Similarly injecting equity into banks is not a subsidy provided the shares are subsequently sold at a profit, as is the case with Lloyds and likely also with RBS.
Overall the Government/Bank of England has made a profit from loan interest, guarantee fees, equity injections and asset sales resulting from the bank rescues.
The chances of taxpayers getting their money back from RBS is zero. Lloyds about 50-50.
Oh and we still guarantee their debts in the national accounts. A guarantee is a subsidy by other means.
Don't we charge a fee for the guarantee? We certainly used to.
The question is more can they buy their debt insurance in the open market ? If they can't it's taxpayer assistance.
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
No there is no direct comparison. Steel, produced worldwide, we can't compete with cost of production no matter who runs it. Woolworths, there was a sound UK based business concept in a basically a cheap department store and others have shown it is possible to make it work.
We can compete with Steel worldwide - if we roll back employee laws, minimum wages, energy taxes, etc.
But nobody wants to that for some reason...
Well it's the same as Trump saying he will bring iPhone production to the US. The only way to do that is to repeal employment protection laws, eliminate any kind of minimum wage and have people work for $1.50/h.
The main reason our steel industry is uncompetitive is because of unit labour costs, obviously we could act to reduce other burdens such as eco taxes but it would still be a losing battle.
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it oe 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.
I'll try not to be so sensitive today.
I think you are being unrealistic in thinking that the UK would not be fully consulted about further regulation of the financial services market if we were a part of the EEA, London's dominance would make it crazy not to.
It might be different if we were not in the EEA. That is why I favour being in it and retaining benefits such as the single passport that are important to UK businesses that actually make money and pay taxes (unlike the steel industry, for example).
Well, in a democratic society, the supporters of Leave.EU and Vote Leave have different views. But in any event the decision will be made by the elected government of the UK
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
Is a good point.
Cameron has said what he will do. He'll invoke Article 50 and give the EU notice of the UK's intention to leave the EU. He'll then begin negotiations. We know he believes EU membership is in the UK's brdt interests, so any Brexit deal he does will be as close as possible to EU membership - ie, he'll aim to keep us in the EEA.
Of course, the reality is that he'll resign and the new Tory leader will lead the negotiations. We won't know what he/she thinks until the election campaign. And it will be the Tory membership that gets to decide. It should be fun.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
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!
Man, email is slow over there! You don't use BT do you?
I wish, my current provider makes BT look like a paragon of value and efficiency!
The HO don't seem to "do" email, it was just a regular airmail letter that took almost 4 months to get here!
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
Woolies could have been transformed into a profitable business, but I expect that the investment needed and the view of the brand would be too much and too difficult that it would effectively be easier to start again/ allow competitors to take the void.
Similar to the steel works, the investment needed is just too high.
The same was said about the car industry. The bones of BL are now two of our most successful exporters. Mini and JLR.
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
And you have to sting successful businesses with higher taxes to pay for the bad apples.
And flowers apparently. I've no idea why poppers don't count. We took those occasionally back in the 80s and made us very horny for 5mins. Aren't they prescribed for slow heart conditions?
"The opening of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station should be pushed back at least two years and its reactor technology redesigned, according to a letter from senior engineers on the project."
I honestly can't think of anyone who is still in favour of this deal other than Osborne, the Chinese state and the French state.
It really is time to pull the plug on this. Just way too expensive. If we are going to have any serious users of energy in the UK with a future we cannot afford to commit ourselves to these kinds of rates when our competitors might be paying significantly less.
Yes, the guaranteed price is way too high. We need to shit can Nuclear, go for CCGTs in the short term and look at MSRs and fusion in the long term. The Boron fusion that JJ posted about here looks extremely promising as it doesn't emit neutron radiation.
And flowers apparently. I've no idea why poppers don't count. We took those occasionally back in the 80s and made us very horny for 5mins. Aren't they prescribed for slow heart conditions?
I watched an interesting thing yesterday where a new known US liberal tv guy talks about how far too many "progressives" are now actually the "regressives". I believe he got that from Maajid Nawaz.
He cites the incident on Bill Maher show, another famous liberal, where Ben Affleck loses his shit at Maher and a famous philosopher and just screams racist \ homophobe at them. It is worth watching as it is exactly how "SAFEEEEEEE SPACEEEEEE" crowd try to shut down any debate or criticism of any idea they don't agree with.
The modern left's attachment to some of the settlements from the middle part of the last century, and their resistance to change, strike me as the exact opposite of progressive.
No forward movement, no radical thought, no concession to the modern world - just plough on using the thinking, funding and delivery models of sixty or seventy years ago, no matter how dysfunctional or discredited they have become.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
The 1936 Soviet Constitution (confirmed by its replacement in 1977) said that the people of the USSR had all the rights in the world. They had right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom to vote, etc. etc.
However, none of those rights mattered. What mattered was the clause that said 'as long as these do not conflict with the welfare of the state.'
This gave rise to the old Soviet joke:
What is the difference between something that is prohibited and something that is permitted?
In America, everything is permitted except what is prohibited. In Germany, everything is prohibited except what is permitted. In France, everything is permitted, even when it is prohibited. In the Soviet Union everything is prohibited, even when it is permitted.
Similarly with Corbyn and the Labour left. Everyone is free, and equal and has basic rights. Except, of course, rights they don't approve of. So everyone has self-determination, except the people of the Falklands (or Northern Ireland) who keep giving the wrong answer. Everyone must say what they like, unless of course it is something that conflicts with a fundamental belief on the left. Everyone must be supported and campaigned for, unless they are horrible people who want to do what they want, rather than what the Left wants.
Looking back to 1936, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
...We know [Cameron] believes EU membership is in the UK's brdt interests, so any Brexit deal he does will be as close as possible to EU membership - ie, he'll aim to keep us in the EEA.
That doesn't follow. Obviously I can't speak for Cameron, but like him I believe that EU membership is in the UK's best interests, given the realistic alternatives. My second-best alternative is not the EEA, however; on the contrary, I think it's the worst of both worlds. If we are going to leave, then my view would be that we should go for the big one, and accept that we might have to pay the price in terms of market access in order to get fuller sovereignty and in particular control over EU immigration.
"The opening of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station should be pushed back at least two years and its reactor technology redesigned, according to a letter from senior engineers on the project."
I honestly can't think of anyone who is still in favour of this deal other than Osborne, the Chinese state and the French state.
It really is time to pull the plug on this. Just way too expensive. If we are going to have any serious users of energy in the UK with a future we cannot afford to commit ourselves to these kinds of rates when our competitors might be paying significantly less.
Yes, the guaranteed price is way too high. We need to shit can Nuclear, go for CCGTs in the short term and look at MSRs and fusion in the long term. The Boron fusion that JJ posted about here looks extremely promising as it doesn't emit neutron radiation.
We seem to be on the brink of some fairly radical changes in energy production with a number of different possibilities bubbling under. That makes a mega capital and running cost power station like Hinkley Point just too risky to me. It is frustrating that the utterly incompetent Secretary of State for Energy in the last Labour government failed to open or approve a single power station whilst in office and I understand the arguments about base load but I think we will have to survive on gas until better alternatives become available.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
The Falklands are not leased as opposed to Hong Kong which was.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't?
The mainland part was. The island technically wasn't part of the lease, but as it was unviable to divide the two they had to be handed back together or not at all. The PLA indicated that the second was not an option that was on the table.
As it happens, I think there were quite a number in Hong Kong who would have voted to join with China anyway, although possibly not a majority. In the Falkland Islands (the settlers, incidentally, are not Argentinian - they are descended from colonists brought by the Royal Navy) - there are I think three people in total in favour of a transfer to Argentina. The circumstances are not really comparable!
EDIT - Hong Kong was also very close to China and the Chinese negotiated favourable terms (admittedly they haven't kept them) to secure re-entry. The first doesn't apply to the Falklands, the second doesn't apply to Gibraltar.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't it?
So thats OK then?
Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula were permanent British Territory. Only the New Territories were leased.
But, yes, they did make a very basic error in their paper. I seem to remember pointing it oe 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.
I'll try not to be so sensitive today.
I think you are being unrealistic in thinking that the UK would not be fully consulted about further regulation of the financial services market if we were a part of the EEA, London's dominance would make it crazy not to.
It might be different if we were not in the EEA. That is why I favour being in it and retaining benefits such as the single passport that are important to UK businesses that actually make money and pay taxes (unlike the steel industry, for example).
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
Is a good point.
Cameron has said what he will do. He'll invoke Article 50 and give the EU notice of the UK's intention to leave the EU. He'll then begin negotiations. We know he believes EU membership is in the UK's brdt interests, so any Brexit deal he does will be as close as possible to EU membership - ie, he'll aim to keep us in the EEA.
Of course, the reality is that he'll resign and the new Tory leader will lead the negotiations. We won't know what he/she thinks until the election campaign. And it will be the Tory membership that gets to decide. It should be fun.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
It would be quite funny if he managed to negotiate a deal very similar to what he came back with from the recent renegotiations.
I don't get why people aren't on his case... the betting markets say it's a 33% ish chance... if there was a one in three chance of us being invaded by Aliens on a specific date, I'd like to know exactly what our elected PM proposed to do in the not that unlikely event of that Alien invasion
...We know [Cameron] believes EU membership is in the UK's brdt interests, so any Brexit deal he does will be as close as possible to EU membership - ie, he'll aim to keep us in the EEA.
That doesn't follow. Obviously I can't speak for Cameron, but I believe that EU membership is in the UK's best interests, given the realistic alternatives. My second-best alternative is not the EEA, however; on the contrary, I think it's the worst of both worlds. If we are going to leave, then my view should be we should go for the big one, and accept that we might have to pay the price in terms of market access in order to get fuller sovereignty and in particular control over EU immigration.
Fair enough. As I say, post a Leave win it's going to be a lot of fun. The City will hate your second best.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't?
The mainland part was. The island technically wasn't part of the lease, but as it was unviable to divide the two they had to be handed back together or not at all. The PLA indicated that the second was not an option that was on the table.
As it happens, I think there were quite a number in Hong Kong who would have voted to join with China anyway, although possibly not a majority. In the Falkland Islands (the settlers, incidentally, are not Argentinian - they are descended from colonists brought by the Royal Navy) - there are I think three people in total in favour of a transfer to Argentina. The circumstances are not really comparable!
Three people were not in favour of British rule. So the number in favour of Argentinian rule would logically be a subset of those 3 people. {0,1,2,3}
Gani is the imam of the Tooting Islamic Centre, and has repeatedly called on his followers to discriminate against Ahmadis. Chillingly, the cleric was even reportedly involved in a boycott of Ahmadi shopkeepers.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't it?
So thats OK then?
Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula were permanent British Territory. Only the New Territories were leased.
And pretty much unviable without the New Territories.
'However, none of those rights mattered. What mattered was the clause that said 'as long as these do not conflict with the welfare of the state.''
And today we are in a similar position with the EU, i.e. you can have all the safeguards and notional protections you want but these will be overridden if they are deemed to conflict with the goal of 'ever closer union'.
...We know [Cameron] believes EU membership is in the UK's brdt interests, so any Brexit deal he does will be as close as possible to EU membership - ie, he'll aim to keep us in the EEA.
That doesn't follow. Obviously I can't speak for Cameron, but I believe that EU membership is in the UK's best interests, given the realistic alternatives. My second-best alternative is not the EEA, however; on the contrary, I think it's the worst of both worlds. If we are going to leave, then my view should be we should go for the big one, and accept that we might have to pay the price in terms of market access in order to get fuller sovereignty and in particular control over EU immigration.
Fair enough. As I say, post a Leave win it's going to be a lot of fun. The City will hate your second best.
A Leave win and/or Trump POTUS is just a touch under evens
"The opening of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station should be pushed back at least two years and its reactor technology redesigned, according to a letter from senior engineers on the project."
I honestly can't think of anyone who is still in favour of this deal other than Osborne, the Chinese state and the French state.
It really is time to pull the plug on this. Just way too expensive. If we are going to have any serious users of energy in the UK with a future we cannot afford to commit ourselves to these kinds of rates when our competitors might be paying significantly less.
Yes, the guaranteed price is way too high. We need to shit can Nuclear, go for CCGTs in the short term and look at MSRs and fusion in the long term. The Boron fusion that JJ posted about here looks extremely promising as it doesn't emit neutron radiation.
We seem to be on the brink of some fairly radical changes in energy production with a number of different possibilities bubbling under. That makes a mega capital and running cost power station like Hinkley Point just too risky to me. It is frustrating that the utterly incompetent Secretary of State for Energy in the last Labour government failed to open or approve a single power station whilst in office and I understand the arguments about base load but I think we will have to survive on gas until better alternatives become available.
We've had a Conservative PM for 6 years, it is time to stop blaming Labour for our problems. If the PM was serious about energy security we would have made these moves in 2010:
Change the remit of the department, demerge climate change and put it in with environment rather than energy.
Make Philip Hammond energy secretary and have him remove the green subsidies to level the playing field
Approve a raft of new CCGTs
Legislate to allow fracking to proceed without local interference, ensure a proportion of receipts are shared with landowners (the US manages to work that system profitably, so should we) and there are no subsidies.
Fair enough. As I say, post a Leave win it's going to be a lot of fun. The City will hate your second best.
It will, and rightly so from its point of view. But if the UK public votes to leave, then we should leave, not sign straight back into all the things they most hate about the EU, which is what the EEA option would mean.
Also, I don't accept that the Leave side are all that divided on this point. Both Vote Leave and Leave.EU talk about a new UK-EU treaty, and both list control over immigration as an important reason for leaving. Neither mentions the EEA as an option, as far as I can see. In political terms, I really don't see that any government could realistically interpret a Leave result as a vote in favour of an EEA-style deal.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
The main reason our steel industry is uncompetitive is because of unit labour costs, obviously we could act to reduce other burdens such as eco taxes but it would still be a losing battle.
The same is true of just about all manufacturing and increasingly will be for services, frankly I marvel at people that think this isnt going to be a massive problem over the next decade. There is a load of manufacturing here in the Philippines where wage have changed by very little in the last decade, and population/workforce is growing about 2% per year.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Congratulations Mr Herdson and good luck.
It's only a bit (I assume) longer than you expected at approx 500 pages? How long were you expecting it to be?!!
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
No there is no direct comparison. Steel, produced worldwide, we can't compete with cost of production no matter who runs it. Woolworths, there was a sound UK based business concept in a basically a cheap department store and others have shown it is possible to make it work.
We can compete with Steel worldwide - if we roll back employee laws, minimum wages, energy taxes, etc.
But nobody wants to that for some reason...
Well it's the same as Trump saying he will bring iPhone production to the US. The only way to do that is to repeal employment protection laws, eliminate any kind of minimum wage and have people work for $1.50/h.
The main reason our steel industry is uncompetitive is because of unit labour costs, obviously we could act to reduce other burdens such as eco taxes but it would still be a losing battle.
The alternative would be substantial increases in corporation tax for companies who have offshored jobs.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Good luck! You're braver than I am.
From the little I know of such things, that might be a little long for a first book. But I've heard in these days of E-books that might not still be the case ...
Jihadist bombers who attacked Brussels airport and metro last week also searched the internet for information about Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel's office and home, reports say. Details were found on a computer dumped in a rubbish bin after the attacks.
Unconfirmed reports suggest it may have contained files with building plans as well as photos of the prime minister's office from the street.
That suggests the terrorist were rather less well trained that had been supposed, that is a disaster from the OpSec perspective. They gave away a lot of "intentions" type material because of sloppiness or poor training.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
The Falklands is not held on a lease, it was always known that HK would return to China. I think the cases might be slightly different.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Jihadist bombers who attacked Brussels airport and metro last week also searched the internet for information about Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel's office and home, reports say. Details were found on a computer dumped in a rubbish bin after the attacks.
Unconfirmed reports suggest it may have contained files with building plans as well as photos of the prime minister's office from the street.
That suggests the terrorist were rather less well trained that had been supposed, that is a disaster from the OpSec perspective. They gave away a lot of "intentions" type material because of sloppiness or poor training.
They might have been panicking and brought their plans forward due to the arrest a few days earlier. Instead of their real desired targets, just attack what they can before the police (*) come knocking.
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
Woolies could have been transformed into a profitable business, but I expect that the investment needed and the view of the brand would be too much and too difficult that it would effectively be easier to start again/ allow competitors to take the void.
Similar to the steel works, the investment needed is just too high.
The same was said about the car industry. The bones of BL are now two of our most successful exporters. Mini and JLR.
Cars are not commodities, most bulk steel is.
Mini has a great USP, and JLR have several. Plus the "British" brand. Does not read across to standard spec rolled steel or whatever sadly. My father used to work for a company which made the corner (bendy) bits of various metal pipes (!). They finally went bust in the 1990s having lost most of their simple business in the 80s to competition from first japan, then Korea, and even Nigeria and random S. American countries. They clung on with selling high tech non-commodity things for a while (stuff for the inside of nuclear power stations, high grade alloys etc) but eventually could no longer compete with emerging markets.
Surely a tory government will not take on a plant losing £1M per day making stuff lots of cheaper countries in the world can make, and mandate other industries to pay over the odds for steel?!
Port Talbot et al need to make high tech stuff nobody else can make, or make as well. Maybe this is possible, i hope so, and I know they are already to some degree going in this direction. But subsidising bog standard stuff would be throwing good money after bad.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Congratulations Mr Herdson and good luck.
It's only a bit (I assume) longer than you expected at approx 500 pages? How long were you expecting it to be?!!
Thank you (and to the others who've given their kind comments).
I thought it might be about 120000 words (so 20% up). I probably didn't account for the number of extended footnotes I ended up writing. I don't know what the standard is for E-books but I thought they might make good 'pop-ups' in that format.
Although it has turned out biggish, the format should make it easily readable so I'm hoping that won't count too much against it.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't?
The mainland part was. The island technically wasn't part of the lease, but as it was unviable to divide the two they had to be handed back together or not at all. The PLA indicated that the second was not an option that was on the table.
As it happens, I think there were quite a number in Hong Kong who would have voted to join with China anyway, although possibly not a majority. In the Falkland Islands (the settlers, incidentally, are not Argentinian - they are descended from colonists brought by the Royal Navy) - there are I think three people in total in favour of a transfer to Argentina. The circumstances are not really comparable!
Three people were not in favour of British rule. So the number in favour of Argentinian rule would logically be a subset of those 3 people. {0,1,2,3}
I am not suggesting handing over the Falklands or wherever, just pointing out that we have not in the past always asked colonists what they want before changing their status. Indeed most of the time we have not!
Paying £350m seems cheaper than losing 25000 direct and indirect jobs.
Go on then. Will you be paying cash or cheque? I didn't know you had £350m spare, but if you do, I'm sure the Indian board of Tata will appreciate it...
...oh, you wanted somebody else to pay the money. Ah. Awkward pause...
OK, less glibly for the moment. If government uses tax money to subsidise uneconomic industries, then it is taking money from economic industries to do so, so it makes the economy worse off. There is also an opportunity cost: money spent on uneconomic industries is money not spent elsewhere. There is also the problems inherent in focussing resources on producing goods that people don't want to buy in enough numbers to make it profitable to make them: you end up with stockpiles, shoddy goods, or worse
We tried this in the post-war period for about thirty years, and we ended up with industries that spent a lot of money making stuff that we didn't want to buy because we could buy them cheaper and better from abroad.
The 25,000 people you refer to will eventually find other jobs. Given their ages and skillsets they will not necessarily be good jobs and the transition process will be painful (to say the least!) but mostly they will. If you genuinely want to help (and I assume you do: I'm not being sarky here) then offer things like tax rebates, special development areas, redundancy payments, genuine sympathy, and let them work their own way out. The people are not stupid and - given enough help[1] - they'll find solutions eventually.
Nick Herbert is awful on Sky, smug and patronising. And wearing a shiny grey suit. I'd no idea what he looked like and his manner caught my attention whilst making lunch.
He's winning no undecided Remain voters like this.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Good luck! You're braver than I am.
From the little I know of such things, that might be a little long for a first book. But I've heard in these days of E-books that might not still be the case ...
Discrimination against long books that is. I've only just managed to trim my own Magnum opus from circa 400000 to 250000!
But then even fantasy is not usually door stopper length anymore.
Jihadist bombers who attacked Brussels airport and metro last week also searched the internet for information about Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel's office and home, reports say. Details were found on a computer dumped in a rubbish bin after the attacks.
Unconfirmed reports suggest it may have contained files with building plans as well as photos of the prime minister's office from the street.
That suggests the terrorist were rather less well trained that had been supposed, that is a disaster from the OpSec perspective. They gave away a lot of "intentions" type material because of sloppiness or poor training.
They might have been panicking and brought their plans forward due to the arrest a few days earlier. Instead of their real desired targets, just attack what they can before the police (*) come knocking.
P'haps.
(*) Even Belgian police.
Perhaps the Belgian police did not engage the little grey cells to good effect?
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
No Leave is a concept. It is a step in a direction. EEA and closed borders are different destinations but they both have the same first step.
If Cameron wanted to know what the public clearly wanted he could have passed a two-stage referendum with Q2 being "If the result of the first question is Leave, then should the government seek to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)" and the referendum could have been clearer.
But that question wasn't asked. There is no lie. It's like being in a pub at 11:00 at night and it's closing time, you could Remain longer but that's not really a good idea and the landlord has made it clear you won't get served if you Remain. Or you could Leave the pub and find a more suitable destination to continue drinking. Or you could Leave the pub and go home and close the doors and get some sleep.
Your mates are wanting to know what you do next. You can Leave and decide where you want to go next with two very different outcomes, but you can't Remain where you are and get what you want. Leaving is not a lie though, even if you haven't agreed where you're going next yet.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Anyway, as seant would say, enough of this. The big news of the day: I've finished my book!
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
What's it about? Best of luck.
It's a compilation of my politicalbetting articles from 2009-11, each of which I've reviewed and assessed in the light of how the predictions and tips turned out: where I was right, where I was wrong, and - to the best I can - why.
The 2009-11 period was a good place to start both because of the amount of political activity in that timeframe - Expenses Scandal through to AV vote, with a whole lot in between - and also because in nearly all cases, events have moved on far enough to be able to judge the analysis and comment in their light. That's not necessarily the case with more recent pieces.
Emily Thornberry refused to confirm that Jeremy Corbyn accepts that Falkland Islanders should decide their own future @talkRADIO
He wants a straightforward socialist power sharing agreement.
Argies have all the power and the Falklanders do all the sharing.
Most Falklanders are actually descended from Argentinians.
Not sure that is true!
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't?
The mainland part was. The island technically wasn't part of the lease, but as it was unviable to divide the two they had to be handed back together or not at all. The PLA indicated that the second was not an option that was on the table.
As it happens, I think there were quite a number in Hong Kong who would have voted to join with China anyway, although possibly not a majority. In the Falkland Islands (the settlers, incidentally, are not Argentinian - they are descended from colonists brought by the Royal Navy) - there are I think three people in total in favour of a transfer to Argentina. The circumstances are not really comparable!
Three people were not in favour of British rule. So the number in favour of Argentinian rule would logically be a subset of those 3 people. {0,1,2,3}
I am not suggesting handing over the Falklands or wherever, just pointing out that we have not in the past always asked colonists what they want before changing their status. Indeed most of the time we have not!
Certain,y true, but I guess that means we have evolved to be more reasonable.
On the Falklands, I recall reports at the time saying one of the votes against the current arrangement may have wanted full independence. Must be awkward for the other two though
Rivers of red and gold, glinting in the sunlight. It's a bit of an environmental disaster, but it's great to swim in and tastes nice if a bit tinny and odd, like it's less dense than water. Compare to the limestone-rich pipe-clogging South East England water, all brackish. Barry Cryer said the latter had character, but if so, it's the character you don't want to sit next to on the bus.
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.........
Government lending money at market rates to banks so they can overcome a liquidity crisis is not a subsidy. Similarly injecting equity into banks is not a subsidy provided the shares are subsequently sold at a profit, as is the case with Lloyds and likely also with RBS.
Overall the Government/Bank of England has made a profit from loan interest, guarantee fees, equity injections and asset sales resulting from the bank rescues.
The chances of taxpayers getting their money back from RBS is zero. Lloyds about 50-50.
Oh and we still guarantee their debts in the national accounts. A guarantee is a subsidy by other means.
Don't we charge a fee for the guarantee? We certainly used to.
The question is more can they buy their debt insurance in the open market ? If they can't it's taxpayer assistance.
No nuclear power plant has ever been insured by a private insurer. (For some reason...)
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
Woolies could have been transformed into a profitable business, but I expect that the investment needed and the view of the brand would be too much and too difficult that it would effectively be easier to start again/ allow competitors to take the void.
Similar to the steel works, the investment needed is just too high.
The same was said about the car industry. The bones of BL are now two of our most successful exporters. Mini and JLR.
You are absolutely right. There are plenty of profitable steel works in Europe, including some in much higher cost areas than Redcar.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
and yet you are voting for them... although it is starting to sound like you are a member of the "undecided".
I am undecided in the fact I have not fully made my mind up. For the reason I'm strongly leaning towards leave, see my post in this thread and, in fact, in many other places over the last couple of years.
It's up to you if you believe me or not. If you do not, then that's your issue, not mine.
Nick Herbert is awful on Sky, smug and patronising. And wearing a shiny grey suit. I'd no idea what he looked like and his manner caught my attention whilst making lunch.
He's winning no undecided Remain voters like this.
The sad thing is, he is very clever and must know that he is talking rubbish. Perhaps that is how this manifests itself - in an unconvincing, even repellent, manner.
The Steel industry is simply not feasible. The moment you nationalise/bail them out, then any failing industry can come and drain more and more resources into bad businesses. Why not this company, or that company.....etc etc.
Woolworths was the example given by a caller into R5 this morning.
Actually Woolworths is a terrible example...their business was badly run and carried too many stock lines (and too many nobody wanted), but there is a market for a Woolworths type store...the likes of Wilko and B&M have shown that and grown massively since Woolies went under.
Again, as with FIFA, Woolworths is therefore a good example because there is a huge market for steel. Thing is, it is more cheaply produced (and arguably of higher quality) in other countries.
Woolies could have been transformed into a profitable business, but I expect that the investment needed and the view of the brand would be too much and too difficult that it would effectively be easier to start again/ allow competitors to take the void.
Similar to the steel works, the investment needed is just too high.
The same was said about the car industry. The bones of BL are now two of our most successful exporters. Mini and JLR.
You are absolutely right. There are plenty of profitable steel works in Europe, including some in much higher cost areas than Redcar.
RCS, in your opinion, why do you think Tata are losing £1M a day at Port Talbot?
"The online sample, too many people are conforming to the political attitudes of the demographic group of which they are a part. Holding contradictory opinions or inconsistent views about politics is a normal state for most people, most of the time not least because people aren't normally thinking about politics. "
Well, in a democratic society, the supporters of Leave.EU and Vote Leave have different views. But in any event the decision will be made by the elected government of the UK
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
A very good point, Mr Isam. Why doesn´t Mr Cameron speak out clearly and explain his thinking? It would make it much easier for us to make up our minds. And much easier for everybody to interpret the results afterwards.
Well, in a democratic society, the supporters of Leave.EU and Vote Leave have different views. But in any event the decision will be made by the elected government of the UK
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
A very good point, Mr Isam. Why doesn´t Mr Cameron speak out clearly and explain his thinking? It would make it much easier for us to make up our minds. And much easier for everybody to interpret the results afterwards.
If Cameron explained what he would do in the event of leave it might diminish the sense of potential chaos some might feel at the prospect which would somewhat undermine his intention to minimise the leave vote I think.
Well, in a democratic society, the supporters of Leave.EU and Vote Leave have different views. But in any event the decision will be made by the elected government of the UK
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
A very good point, Mr Isam. Why doesn´t Mr Cameron speak out clearly and explain his thinking? It would make it much easier for us to make up our minds. And much easier for everybody to interpret the results afterwards.
Why should he? Even Cameron is only one man who has already handed in his post-dated retirement notice.
The whole point of Leave is we get to decide at every general election what kind of nation we want. Not what kind of nation one ephemeral politician wants today.
"The online sample, too many people are conforming to the political attitudes of the demographic group of which they are a part. Holding contradictory opinions or inconsistent views about politics is a normal state for most people, most of the time not least because people aren't normally thinking about politics. "
Paying £350m seems cheaper than losing 25000 direct and indirect jobs.
Go on then. Will you be paying cash or cheque? I didn't know you had £350m spare, but if you do, I'm sure the Indian board of Tata will appreciate it...
...oh, you wanted somebody else to pay the money. Ah. Awkward pause...
OK, less glibly for the moment. If government uses tax money to subsidise uneconomic industries, then it is taking money from economic industries to do so, so it makes the economy worse off. There is also an opportunity cost: money spent on uneconomic industries is money not spent elsewhere. There is also the problems inherent in focussing resources on producing goods that people don't want to buy in enough numbers to make it profitable to make them: you end up with stockpiles, shoddy goods, or worse
We tried this in the post-war period for about thirty years, and we ended up with industries that spent a lot of money making stuff that we didn't want to buy because we could buy them cheaper and better from abroad.
The 25,000 people you refer to will eventually find other jobs. Given their ages and skillsets they will not necessarily be good jobs and the transition process will be painful (to say the least!) but mostly they will. If you genuinely want to help (and I assume you do: I'm not being sarky here) then offer things like tax rebates, special development areas, redundancy payments, genuine sympathy, and let them work their own way out. The people are not stupid and - given enough help[1] - they'll find solutions eventually.
[1] That bit's important
The government currently takes taxes from struggling business like steel to subsidise profiable businesses like Starbucks and Google. They do it through paying benefits to their workers. That doesn't appear to disturb you too much.
"The online sample, too many people are conforming to the political attitudes of the demographic group of which they are a part. Holding contradictory opinions or inconsistent views about politics is a normal state for most people, most of the time not least because people aren't normally thinking about politics. "
I blame TSE.
I filled in a random party each time on the pre-election Daily Yougov.
Alooha in Urdu means potatoes. So effectively Ted Cruz said
'Potatoes are great'
In the midst of a ponderous and chilling tale about terrorism and political correctness, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a delightful mispronunciation of the Takbīr—the multivalent Arabic phrase, “Allāhu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” Cruz went with something like...Alooha akbar? Aloha akbar?
Anyway, keep practicing! Arabic is a difficult language to learn.
The new Stamp Duty rules come in on Friday with the surcharge for second properties, which although aimed (at least in political terms) at the BTL market, appear to screw over a few other groups of voters that might not have expected to be in the Chancellor's sights.
If your prospective partner has a flat, and you are going to get married and buy a house together, you are going to get stung for the extra 3%, because if either party already owns a property, the new purchase is at the higher rate. If you rented out your main home, and are currently living in rented accommodation, and then decide to buy a new home, you are going to be paying the 3%. George sure knows how to make friends.
Alooha in Urdu means potatoes. So effectively Ted Cruz said
'Potatoes are great'
In the midst of a ponderous and chilling tale about terrorism and political correctness, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a delightful mispronunciation of the Takbīr—the multivalent Arabic phrase, “Allāhu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” Cruz went with something like...Alooha akbar? Aloha akbar?
Anyway, keep practicing! Arabic is a difficult language to learn.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEAVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
Paying £350m seems cheaper than losing 25000 direct and indirect jobs.
Go on then. Will you be paying cash or cheque? I didn't know you had £350m spare, but if you do, I'm sure the Indian board of Tata will appreciate it...
...oh, you wanted somebody else to pay the money. Ah. Awkward pause...
OK, less glibly for the moment. If government uses tax money to subsidise uneconomic industries, then it is taking money from economic industries to do so, so it makes the economy worse off. There is also an opportunity cost: money spent on uneconomic industries is money not spent elsewhere. There is also the problems inherent in focussing resources on producing goods that people don't want to buy in enough numbers to make it profitable to make them: you end up with stockpiles, shoddy goods, or worse
We tried this in the post-war period for about thirty years, and we ended up with industries that spent a lot of money making stuff that we didn't want to buy because we could buy them cheaper and better from abroad.
The 25,000 people you refer to will eventually find other jobs. Given their ages and skillsets they will not necessarily be good jobs and the transition process will be painful (to say the least!) but mostly they will. If you genuinely want to help (and I assume you do: I'm not being sarky here) then offer things like tax rebates, special development areas, redundancy payments, genuine sympathy, and let them work their own way out. The people are not stupid and - given enough help[1] - they'll find solutions eventually.
[1] That bit's important
The government currently takes taxes from struggling business like steel to subsidise profiable businesses like Starbucks and Google. They do it through paying benefits to their workers. That doesn't appear to disturb you too much.
Nor does the fact that our steel industry would be more competitive if it wasn't tied to ridiculous EU directives.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
A Treasury spokesman gave us the following statement:
“The methodology used by Rothschild is the same as that used by the independent Office of Budget Responsibility in their analysis of the government’s interventions in the banking sector, and by the US Treasury.
“The Rothschild report clearly sets out that [UK] taxpayers can expect to get back £14 billion more than they put into the banks, if you take into account the sales the government has authorised so far, the fees the government has received, the outstanding payments, and the value of the remaining shares.”
So according to two organisations that have been repeatedly incorrect about financial events (be it through mendacity or incompetence or both) we might potentially make a modest cash profit at some unspecified future date.
Have we, or have we not, sold off existing shares at a loss, which was my original point?
I am not an economist or a banker, and I accept I could be wrong. However, I'm going to require more than dubious figures from Rothschild and reported "independent sources" via the Treasury, neither of which I trust an inch, before I'm satisfied that we're in the black so far.
A rational argument could of course be made that whatever the losses, they are less than if RBS and HBOS had crashed entirely. I'm just dubious about the idea of selling these shares off at a loss for what seem to me to be no good reason when ten years from now we might get a profit.
I believe that if you look at the buy and sell price on the shares alone then no, but that excludes any fees etc that the government has received. Factor those in and I believe for Lloyds at least the government has made a profit.
You need to look at the whole picture and not just a fraction of it.
Alooha in Urdu means potatoes. So effectively Ted Cruz said
'Potatoes are great'
In the midst of a ponderous and chilling tale about terrorism and political correctness, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a delightful mispronunciation of the Takbīr—the multivalent Arabic phrase, “Allāhu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” Cruz went with something like...Alooha akbar? Aloha akbar?
Anyway, keep practicing! Arabic is a difficult language to learn.
Alooha in Urdu means potatoes. So effectively Ted Cruz said
'Potatoes are great'
In the midst of a ponderous and chilling tale about terrorism and political correctness, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a delightful mispronunciation of the Takbīr—the multivalent Arabic phrase, “Allāhu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” Cruz went with something like...Alooha akbar? Aloha akbar?
Anyway, keep practicing! Arabic is a difficult language to learn.
Well, in a democratic society, the supporters of Leave.EU and Vote Leave have different views. But in any event the decision will be made by the elected government of the UK
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
A very good point, Mr Isam. Why doesn´t Mr Cameron speak out clearly and explain his thinking? It would make it much easier for us to make up our minds. And much easier for everybody to interpret the results afterwards.
Why should he? Even Cameron is only one man who has already handed in his post-dated retirement notice.
The whole point of Leave is we get to decide at every general election what kind of nation we want. Not what kind of nation one ephemeral politician wants today.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
(Snip)
That's a bit rich considering some leavers think Cameron should create their position for them!
Quite amazing that people demand that LEAVE have a solid, agreed upon strategy for Brexit, when no one who favours LEAVE would be in any position whatsoever to be able to make good on it. All they can do is outline possible scenarios
Cameron, on the other hand, will be PM the day after the vote, and should be outlining what he would do in either circumstance
A very good point, Mr Isam. Why doesn´t Mr Cameron speak out clearly and explain his thinking? It would make it much easier for us to make up our minds. And much easier for everybody to interpret the results afterwards.
Why should he? Even Cameron is only one man who has already handed in his post-dated retirement notice.
The whole point of Leave is we get to decide at every general election what kind of nation we want. Not what kind of nation one ephemeral politician wants today.
The other day, Mr Thompson, you were arguing that we had already had an election, so the government (under the leadership of Mr Cameron) had a mandate to something - whatever - as a result of the EU referendum.
The problem is that nobody knows what the something is - so nobody has any real idea how to vote in the referendum.
The ball is quite clearly in Cameron´s court. He ought to tell us now precisely how he will interpret a REMAIN result and how a LEAVE one.
After all he was the one who imposed this referendum on us. And the meaningless question.
A Treasury spokesman gave us the following statement:
“The methodology used by Rothschild is the same as that used by the independent Office of Budget Responsibility in their analysis of the government’s interventions in the banking sector, and by the US Treasury.
“The Rothschild report clearly sets out that [UK] taxpayers can expect to get back £14 billion more than they put into the banks, if you take into account the sales the government has authorised so far, the fees the government has received, the outstanding payments, and the value of the remaining shares.”
So according to two organisations that have been repeatedly incorrect about financial events (be it through mendacity or incompetence or both) we might potentially make a modest cash profit at some unspecified future date.
Have we, or have we not, sold off existing shares at a loss, which was my original point?
I am not an economist or a banker, and I accept I could be wrong. However, I'm going to require more than dubious figures from Rothschild and reported "independent sources" via the Treasury, neither of which I trust an inch, before I'm satisfied that we're in the black so far.
A rational argument could of course be made that whatever the losses, they are less than if RBS and HBOS had crashed entirely. I'm just dubious about the idea of selling these shares off at a loss for what seem to me to be no good reason when ten years from now we might get a profit.
I believe that if you look at the buy and sell price on the shares alone then no, but that excludes any fees etc that the government has received. Factor those in and I believe for Lloyds at least the government has made a profit.
You need to look at the whole picture and not just a fraction of it.
RBS has racked up £50bn of losses since it was bailed out. Looking at the total picture can you see us getting that back ?
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver eithere
Actually, Vote Leave are very explicit:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE? ... - We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals. .. - We take back control of migration policy .. - We will build a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way.
- We will negotiate a new UK-EU Treaty and end the legal supremacy of EU law and the European Court before the 2020 election.
- We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests.
I don't think they could be much clearer than that, TBH. Whether it's feasible is another matter, of course.
Leave.EU don't agree on Article 50, but otherwise are saying much the same:
In the event of a vote to 'Leave' at the upcoming referendum on EU membership, our government would be obliged to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty). This consists of two elements: one is a two year notice period, after which, the UK ceases to be an EU Member State. The second puts in place the framework for negotiations towards an alternative trading agreement (for which there is no set time limit) with the EU after we leave. ... As an EU member, the UK has to have open borders and cannot restrict access to EU citizens. Only on leaving the EU, can the UK impose restrictions on the length of stay and right to work of all persons entering the country.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
So we should see everything that those on the Leave side say as being aspirations? Maybe they should make that clearer. Thus a vote to quit the EU would not be a vote to take back control of our borders, it might be a vote to take them back. We might negotiate some free trade agreements, but we might not. Sovereignty may be restored to Parliament, but then again it's quite possible it won't be. And so on.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
I agree, but the idea of chivalrous obligations seems to apply to more than one side. People have been fainting hysterically on here from Cameron and remain acting like politicians and going after their opponents. Now, it might be a bad idea for them to do it, but it's politics, nothing beyond the pale. Leave just need to focus and hit back in the best manner they can and , hopefully, win, neither side owes the other favours, though of course I hope neither gets dirty.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
So we should see everything that those on the Leave side say as being aspirations? Maybe they should make that clearer. Thus a vote to quit the EU would not be a vote to take back control of our borders, it might be a vote to take them back. We might negotiate some free trade agreements, but we might not. Sovereignty may be restored to Parliament, but then again it's quite possible it won't be. And so on.
At best, all one can do is outline alternatives, after a post-Brexit vote.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver eithere
Actually, Vote Leave are very explicit:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE? ... - We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals. .. - We take back control of migration policy .. - We will build a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way.
- We will negotiate a new UK-EU Treaty and end the legal supremacy of EU law and the European Court before the 2020 election.
- We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests.
I don't think they could be much clearer than that, TBH. Whether it's feasible is another matter, of course.
Leave.EU don't agree on Article 50, but otherwise are saying much the same:
In the event of a vote to 'Leave' at the upcoming referendum on EU membership, our government would be obliged to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty). This consists of two elements: one is a two year notice period, after which, the UK ceases to be an EU Member State. The second puts in place the framework for negotiations towards an alternative trading agreement (for which there is no set time limit) with the EU after we leave. ... As an EU member, the UK has to have open borders and cannot restrict access to EU citizens. Only on leaving the EU, can the UK impose restrictions on the length of stay and right to work of all persons entering the country.
Morph, the Plasticine mischief-maker who first appeared alongside Tony Hart nearly 40 years ago, is to be remoulded by Sky.
The stop-motion animated favourite will be brought back, along with his buddy Chas, as part of a new drive into children’s programming that includes a new Sky Kids app.
Morph, the Plasticine mischief-maker who first appeared alongside Tony Hart nearly 40 years ago, is to be remoulded by Sky.
The stop-motion animated favourite will be brought back, along with his buddy Chas, as part of a new drive into children’s programming that includes a new Sky Kids app.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
I agree, but the idea of chivalrous obligations seems to apply to more than one side. People have been fainting hysterically on here from Cameron and remain acting like politicians and going after their opponents. Now, it might be a bad idea for them to do it, but it's politics, nothing beyond the pale. Leave just need to focus and hit back in the best manner they can and , hopefully, win, neither side owes the other favours, though of course I hope neither gets dirty.
LEAVE is nothing more or less than an instruction to parliament to end our membership of the EU. Democratic process will deal with the rest.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver eithere
Actually, Vote Leave are very explicit:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE? ... - We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals. .. - We take back control of migration policy .. - We will build a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way.
- We will negotiate a new UK-EU Treaty and end the legal supremacy of EU law and the European Court before the 2020 election.
- We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests.
I don't think they could be much clearer than that, TBH. Whether it's feasible is another matter, of course.
Leave.EU don't agree on Article 50, but otherwise are saying much the same:
In the event of a vote to 'Leave' at the upcoming referendum on EU membership, our government would be obliged to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty). This consists of two elements: one is a two year notice period, after which, the UK ceases to be an EU Member State. The second puts in place the framework for negotiations towards an alternative trading agreement (for which there is no set time limit) with the EU after we leave. ... As an EU member, the UK has to have open borders and cannot restrict access to EU citizens. Only on leaving the EU, can the UK impose restrictions on the length of stay and right to work of all persons entering the country.
Campaign organisation pseudo-manifestoes bring about a wishlist of unknowable future knowns.
Actually David Cameron's wants and whims are irrelevant in the face of a "leave" vote - it'll be Gove, or God forbid Boris that decides the future in that scenario !!
A lot, I think. If Leave wins, then obviously politicans will look to what the campaigns promised (especially the official campaign, when it is finally designated) to interpret what Leave voters thought they were voting for.
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
So we should see everything that those on the Leave side say as being aspirations? Maybe they should make that clearer. Thus a vote to quit the EU would not be a vote to take back control of our borders, it might be a vote to take them back. We might negotiate some free trade agreements, but we might not. Sovereignty may be restored to Parliament, but then again it's quite possible it won't be. And so on.
The will be like Remain then, they might aspire that we might carry on as before, but on the other hand we might have to become part of a common EU Border Force policing our borders, or a common EU Army fighting in conflicts that the British People or even government might not approve of, we could end up being part of a common EU Judicial system that ends centuries of trial by jury and where police from other EU states can make arrests on our streets. We may have all sorts of damage inflicted on the City of London by new financial regulations adopted under QMV. But then again its possible that some or none of this might happen. And so on.
That may be so, but he should be being quizzed as to what he would do as much as any leaver, more so in fact as it will be he who negotiates
(Snip)
Sorry, but that's rubbish on several levels. Cameron's position is that we should be in; what happens after will depend on, amongst other things, the strength of any leave vote. But he will have little idea of what the public precisely want as leave are purposefully being unclear.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
You keep saying this, but I completely disagree.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
There seems to be this odd notion that Leave have some chivalrous obligation to make their opponents' job easier for them.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
So we should see everything that those on the Leave side say as being aspirations? Maybe they should make that clearer. Thus a vote to quit the EU would not be a vote to take back control of our borders, it might be a vote to take them back. We might negotiate some free trade agreements, but we might not. Sovereignty may be restored to Parliament, but then again it's quite possible it won't be. And so on.
At best, all one can do is outline alternatives, after a post-Brexit vote.
Maybe this is something that the Leave campaigners should be clearer about: these things might happen, but they might not, it depends.
Reading Leave literature it is hard to conclude other than voters are being promised an end to mass migration from EU member states and ongoing free access to the single market. As you say, that is not something that can be promised.
Actually David Cameron's wants and whims are irrelevant in the face of a "leave" vote - it'll be Gove, or God forbid Boris that decides the future in that scenario !!
I rather think our EU friends might have a bit of a say in the matter as well.
A lot, I think. If Leave wins, then obviously politicans will look to what the campaigns promised (especially the official campaign, when it is finally designated) to interpret what Leave voters thought they were voting for.
Oh right! Well in that case, for them to make the claims that you dismiss as ludicrous is the perfectly sensible option
Comments
The main reason our steel industry is uncompetitive is because of unit labour costs, obviously we could act to reduce other burdens such as eco taxes but it would still be a losing battle.
Of course, the reality is that he'll resign and the new Tory leader will lead the negotiations. We won't know what he/she thinks until the election campaign. And it will be the Tory membership that gets to decide. It should be fun.
Also not sure that people have always been consulted before handovers in the past. Did Maggie do a plebiscite in Hong Kong before handing them over to the Chinese Communists?
The HO don't seem to "do" email, it was just a regular airmail letter that took almost 4 months to get here!
No forward movement, no radical thought, no concession to the modern world - just plough on using the thinking, funding and delivery models of sixty or seventy years ago, no matter how dysfunctional or discredited they have become.
However, none of those rights mattered. What mattered was the clause that said 'as long as these do not conflict with the welfare of the state.'
This gave rise to the old Soviet joke:
What is the difference between something that is prohibited and something that is permitted?
In America, everything is permitted except what is prohibited.
In Germany, everything is prohibited except what is permitted.
In France, everything is permitted, even when it is prohibited.
In the Soviet Union everything is prohibited, even when it is permitted.
Similarly with Corbyn and the Labour left. Everyone is free, and equal and has basic rights. Except, of course, rights they don't approve of. So everyone has self-determination, except the people of the Falklands (or Northern Ireland) who keep giving the wrong answer. Everyone must say what they like, unless of course it is something that conflicts with a fundamental belief on the left. Everyone must be supported and campaigned for, unless they are horrible people who want to do what they want, rather than what the Left wants.
Looking back to 1936, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...
HK was a 99-year lease we handed back, wasn't it?
"Sadiq, are you pleased Jeremy Corbyn's team think you're hostile to the Labour leader?" https://t.co/hhFOpVGu9h https://t.co/kbds2LVxZq
As it happens, I think there were quite a number in Hong Kong who would have voted to join with China anyway, although possibly not a majority. In the Falkland Islands (the settlers, incidentally, are not Argentinian - they are descended from colonists brought by the Royal Navy) - there are I think three people in total in favour of a transfer to Argentina. The circumstances are not really comparable!
EDIT - Hong Kong was also very close to China and the Chinese negotiated favourable terms (admittedly they haven't kept them) to secure re-entry. The first doesn't apply to the Falklands, the second doesn't apply to Gibraltar.
Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula were permanent British Territory. Only the New Territories were leased.
It would be quite funny if he managed to negotiate a deal very similar to what he came back with from the recent renegotiations.
I don't get why people aren't on his case... the betting markets say it's a 33% ish chance... if there was a one in three chance of us being invaded by Aliens on a specific date, I'd like to know exactly what our elected PM proposed to do in the not that unlikely event of that Alien invasion
http://order-order.com/2016/03/30/tooting-iman-agitated-against-ahmadi-shopkeepers/
And guess who he is associated with....
And today we are in a similar position with the EU, i.e. you can have all the safeguards and notional protections you want but these will be overridden if they are deemed to conflict with the goal of 'ever closer union'.
Change the remit of the department, demerge climate change and put it in with environment rather than energy.
Make Philip Hammond energy secretary and have him remove the green subsidies to level the playing field
Approve a raft of new CCGTs
Legislate to allow fracking to proceed without local interference, ensure a proportion of receipts are shared with landowners (the US manages to work that system profitably, so should we) and there are no subsidies.
Also, I don't accept that the Leave side are all that divided on this point. Both Vote Leave and Leave.EU talk about a new UK-EU treaty, and both list control over immigration as an important reason for leaving. Neither mentions the EEA as an option, as far as I can see. In political terms, I really don't see that any government could realistically interpret a Leave result as a vote in favour of an EEA-style deal.
And all because leave are trying to include anti-immigration people along with the EEA'ers in a desperate fight for votes.
If leave are so incompetent as not to come up with firm proposals to the public, why should Cameron when he's on the other side of the debate. It's one colossal failure of responsibility by leave.
Leave is The Big Lie. it's disgraceful politics, and I can imagine the screeching from them if (say) the EU tried similar tactics.
"A Diary of the Future", submitted on spec to a first publisher and we'll see how things go from there. It's turned out a big longer than I'd expected - 142000 words - but fingers crossed that there'll be some interest.
Fingers duly crossed on your behalf.
It's only a bit (I assume) longer than you expected at approx 500 pages? How long were you expecting it to be?!!
From the little I know of such things, that might be a little long for a first book. But I've heard in these days of E-books that might not still be the case ...
P'haps.
(*) Even Belgian police.
Mini has a great USP, and JLR have several. Plus the "British" brand. Does not read across to standard spec rolled steel or whatever sadly. My father used to work for a company which made the corner (bendy) bits of various metal pipes (!). They finally went bust in the 1990s having lost most of their simple business in the 80s to competition from first japan, then Korea, and even Nigeria and random S. American countries. They clung on with selling high tech non-commodity things for a while (stuff for the inside of nuclear power stations, high grade alloys etc) but eventually could no longer compete with emerging markets.
Surely a tory government will not take on a plant losing £1M per day making stuff lots of cheaper countries in the world can make, and mandate other industries to pay over the odds for steel?!
Port Talbot et al need to make high tech stuff nobody else can make, or make as well. Maybe this is possible, i hope so, and I know they are already to some degree going in this direction. But subsidising bog standard stuff would be throwing good money after bad.
I thought it might be about 120000 words (so 20% up). I probably didn't account for the number of extended footnotes I ended up writing. I don't know what the standard is for E-books but I thought they might make good 'pop-ups' in that format.
Although it has turned out biggish, the format should make it easily readable so I'm hoping that won't count too much against it.
...oh, you wanted somebody else to pay the money. Ah. Awkward pause...
OK, less glibly for the moment. If government uses tax money to subsidise uneconomic industries, then it is taking money from economic industries to do so, so it makes the economy worse off. There is also an opportunity cost: money spent on uneconomic industries is money not spent elsewhere. There is also the problems inherent in focussing resources on producing goods that people don't want to buy in enough numbers to make it profitable to make them: you end up with stockpiles, shoddy goods, or worse
We tried this in the post-war period for about thirty years, and we ended up with industries that spent a lot of money making stuff that we didn't want to buy because we could buy them cheaper and better from abroad.
The 25,000 people you refer to will eventually find other jobs. Given their ages and skillsets they will not necessarily be good jobs and the transition process will be painful (to say the least!) but mostly they will. If you genuinely want to help (and I assume you do: I'm not being sarky here) then offer things like tax rebates, special development areas, redundancy payments, genuine sympathy, and let them work their own way out. The people are not stupid and - given enough help[1] - they'll find solutions eventually.
[1] That bit's important
He's winning no undecided Remain voters like this.
But then even fantasy is not usually door stopper length anymore.
Good luck to mr herdson
If Cameron wanted to know what the public clearly wanted he could have passed a two-stage referendum with Q2 being "If the result of the first question is Leave, then should the government seek to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)" and the referendum could have been clearer.
But that question wasn't asked. There is no lie. It's like being in a pub at 11:00 at night and it's closing time, you could Remain longer but that's not really a good idea and the landlord has made it clear you won't get served if you Remain. Or you could Leave the pub and find a more suitable destination to continue drinking. Or you could Leave the pub and go home and close the doors and get some sleep.
Your mates are wanting to know what you do next. You can Leave and decide where you want to go next with two very different outcomes, but you can't Remain where you are and get what you want. Leaving is not a lie though, even if you haven't agreed where you're going next yet.
The 2009-11 period was a good place to start both because of the amount of political activity in that timeframe - Expenses Scandal through to AV vote, with a whole lot in between - and also because in nearly all cases, events have moved on far enough to be able to judge the analysis and comment in their light. That's not necessarily the case with more recent pieces.
On the Falklands, I recall reports at the time saying one of the votes against the current arrangement may have wanted full independence. Must be awkward for the other two though
Rivers of red and gold, glinting in the sunlight. It's a bit of an environmental disaster, but it's great to swim in and tastes nice if a bit tinny and odd, like it's less dense than water. Compare to the limestone-rich pipe-clogging South East England water, all brackish. Barry Cryer said the latter had character, but if so, it's the character you don't want to sit next to on the bus.
http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Polls-Apart-29-March-2016.pdf
The key findings are on pages 22 and 23.
It's up to you if you believe me or not. If you do not, then that's your issue, not mine.
demographic group of which they are a part. Holding contradictory opinions or inconsistent
views about politics is a normal state for most people, most of the time not least because people aren't normally thinking about politics. "
The whole point of Leave is we get to decide at every general election what kind of nation we want. Not what kind of nation one ephemeral politician wants today.
'Potatoes are great'
In the midst of a ponderous and chilling tale about terrorism and political correctness, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a delightful mispronunciation of the Takbīr—the multivalent Arabic phrase, “Allāhu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” Cruz went with something like...Alooha akbar? Aloha akbar?
Anyway, keep practicing! Arabic is a difficult language to learn.
http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-mangles-pronunciation-of-allahu-akbar-in-the-1767884149?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gawker_twitter
If your prospective partner has a flat, and you are going to get married and buy a house together, you are going to get stung for the extra 3%, because if either party already owns a property, the new purchase is at the higher rate. If you rented out your main home, and are currently living in rented accommodation, and then decide to buy a new home, you are going to be paying the 3%. George sure knows how to make friends.
If Farage or Boris, or any other LEAVE campaigner for that matter, said "This is what we will do if we vote LEAVE", what weight would that carry? How can any such promise be made without opposition saying "What authority do you have to make good on this?" to which the answer is "none". They might as well promise the moon on a stick or free gold bullion, it doesn't matter, because they cant deliver either
On the other hand, Cameron is the only one who has the authority to make any decision post Brexit, yet he hasn't outlined any plan and no one seems to ask him. Being PM he should be making it clear what he will do, and how big the margin is (realistically if it is LEAVE it wont be that big) doesn't matter a jot
But you say the first is bad, but the second good. Very strange
They say Labour; they vote UKIP.
Here, they will say Don't Know; they will vote Leave.
This is a binary choice. Not a competing set of manifestos.
You need to look at the whole picture and not just a fraction of it.
Republicans do seem to have problems with potatoes.
The problem is that nobody knows what the something is - so nobody has any real idea how to vote in the referendum.
The ball is quite clearly in Cameron´s court. He ought to tell us now precisely how he will interpret a REMAIN result and how a LEAVE one.
After all he was the one who imposed this referendum on us. And the meaningless question.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE VOTE LEAVE?
...
- We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals.
..
- We take back control of migration policy
..
- We will build a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way.
- We will negotiate a new UK-EU Treaty and end the legal supremacy of EU law and the European Court before the 2020 election.
- We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests.
http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal
I don't think they could be much clearer than that, TBH. Whether it's feasible is another matter, of course.
Leave.EU don't agree on Article 50, but otherwise are saying much the same:
In the event of a vote to 'Leave' at the upcoming referendum on EU membership, our government would be obliged to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty). This consists of two elements: one is a two year notice period, after which, the UK ceases to be an EU Member State. The second puts in place the framework for negotiations towards an alternative trading agreement (for which there is no set time limit) with the EU after we leave.
...
As an EU member, the UK has to have open borders and cannot restrict access to EU citizens. Only on leaving the EU, can the UK impose restrictions on the length of stay and right to work of all persons entering the country.
http://leave.eu/en/faqs
Morph, the Plasticine mischief-maker who first appeared alongside Tony Hart nearly 40 years ago, is to be remoulded by Sky.
The stop-motion animated favourite will be brought back, along with his buddy Chas, as part of a new drive into children’s programming that includes a new Sky Kids app.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/30/sky-revives-morph-for-new-sky-kids-app?CMP=twt_gu
Actually David Cameron's wants and whims are irrelevant in the face of a "leave" vote - it'll be Gove, or God forbid Boris that decides the future in that scenario !!
Reading Leave literature it is hard to conclude other than voters are being promised an end to mass migration from EU member states and ongoing free access to the single market. As you say, that is not something that can be promised.