Mr. Eagles, you do realise Carthage recovered rapidly? In later centuries (7th, I think) it even saved 'Rome' when Heraclius sailed from the Exarchate to depose Flavius Phocas.
Hang on, how will it lead to higher taxes and less public spending?
Reducing immigration will reduce the number of people paying tax at a time when the population is growing older and more people are moving into retirement.
Most immigrants are in low paying jobs that are a negative impact on govt finances when the costs of supporting them and benefits are accounted for.
I don't think that's true.
Which is it that you do not think is true? Is it that most immigrants are low paid or that low paid people are a drain on the govt finances?
I think, like a lot of questions, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Take Pedro, a temporary Spanish immigrant. He comes to the UK, works at Pret a Manger for nine quid an hour for 18 months, and returns home. He claims no benefits while he's here, and doesn't use the NHS. Now, you can make the argument that his presence - by increasing the pool of labour that Pret has to use - has lowered wages. But I don't think you can make the case that he's a drag on government finances.
If you think about the things that the government spends money on - during one's life - it's health, education and social services. If you aren't using any of those services during your time in the UK, then it's unlikely - irrespective of whether you're low paid or not - that you are a drag on government finances.
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. One of them, Miguel, gets in a car accident and needs several operations and a month in hospital. He probably erodes all the taxes paid by his nine mates on minimum wage. The thing about healthcare is that there's a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
The Spanish government would pay.
And how is the NHS's record in collecting the money?
Andrew showing his BBC credentials all impartiality gone. What a shame, he's actually gone red in the face with anger and frustration. I will never trust his impartiality again.
Neil is overall a very fair interviewer giving most a tough time. Yes he was tough on IDS but IDS played a very straight and honest bat and came across well. People such as Osborne and Cameron avoid Neil.
Personally I really dislike Neil's style for the same reason that it annoyed MikeK - forensic questioning is fine, but sarcastic and indignant expressions and similar Paxmanesque posturing make the programme too much about the interviewer - people switch it on to see their hero having fun with someone, rather than to listen to the answers.
Paxo was downright rude ! He basically insulted his interviewee effectively saying that he [ Paxo ] was smarter than him.
I cannot remember Paxo ever bringing our any nugget out of anybody.
Mr. HYUFD, it's fine to have an everyman fan as a host. An ignorant juvenile, on the other hand...
We must agree to disagree on his charisma, or lack thereof.
I have to disagree, you certainly need your technical experts like Coulthard to keep the hardcore fans happy but to draw in a larger audience of non F1 fanatics you want someone presenting who is likeable and charismatic which Jones is
The all-time great commentary combo was Hunt, with his icy-detachment and vast technical background as a former Champion, together with Murray Walker's schoolboy "Look! A flying dinosaur!!" breathless enthusiasm.
Mr. HYUFD, it's fine to have an everyman fan as a host. An ignorant juvenile, on the other hand...
We must agree to disagree on his charisma, or lack thereof.
I have to disagree, you certainly need your technical experts like Coulthard to keep the hardcore fans happy but to draw in a larger audience of non F1 fanatics you want someone presenting who is likeable and charismatic which Jones is
The all-time great commentary combo was Hunt, with his icy-detachment and vast technical background as a former Champion, together with Murray Walker's schoolboy "Look! A flying dinosaur!!" breathless enthusiasm.
Yes but they were commentators, Jones does not do the commentary he just hosts
Nicola on the SNPs First Hundred days 3290 - 3390:
It is not for the party which finished a distant second – or any of those which came after that - to dictate terms or to try and turn this session into one of obstruction for obstruction’s sake. The electorate would look very dimly indeed on any attempt to turn this into a “blocking parliament” – people want efficient government unencumbered by political gamesmanship or needless politicking.
I dont think Cameron is secretly pro brexit but this post from Housepricecrash is a good conspiracy theory:
"I live overseas so only see the news coverage from the newspapers and it is somewhat limited. I am a little surprised by the actions of the Remain camp particularly in respect to DC wheeling out Global leaders and officials to tell the British public that they should stay in the EU. Now, I am no politician, but I have a conspiracy theory that Cameron is secretly in favour of Brexit: Why do I think this, because he has: - Invited Barack Obama over to say we should stay in. I cannot think of anything worse that would make the British public do the opposite. - IMF statement on Friday about falling house prices in the event of Brexit. This is better for MOST people in Britain with the exception of the minority BTL lobby (who would want to Remain anyway for a bigger pool to rent out to). The polls indicate that demographically young people would like to remain in Europe whereas older people would like to leave. I cannot think of a single better strategy of getting young people to vote Brexit other than telling them they might actually stand a chance of owning their own home. - Spent £9mln on a really poor Remain strategy leaflet
As I said, I am not a politician and do not understand these nuances, but it strikes me that DC might actually be in favour of Brexit but cannot let his public persona acknowledge this. Instead he gets his unanchored buddy BoJo to do it for him!
Hang on, how will it lead to higher taxes and less public spending?
Reducing immigration will reduce the number of people paying tax at a time when the population is growing older and more people are moving into retirement.
Most immigrants that are a negative impact on govt finances when the costs of supporting them and benefits are accounted for.
I don't think that's true.
Which is it that you do not think is true? Is it that most immigrants are low paid or that low paid people are a drain on the govt finances?
I think, like a lot of questions, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Take Pedro, a temporary Spanish immigrant. He comes to the UK, works at Pret a Manger for nine quid an hour for 18 months, and returns home his presence - by increasing the pool of labour that Pret has to use - has lowered wages. But I don't think you can make the case that he's a drag on government finances.
If you think about the things that the government spends money on - during one's life - it's health, education and social services. If you aren't using any of those services during your time in the UK, then it's unlikely - irrespective of whether you're low paid or not - that you are a drag on government finances.
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. O a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
Who pays for the healthcare costs of 200k Brits living in Costa del Sol etc. ? And, they are mostly pensioners.
We pay the direct costs, just as the Spanish would pay the direct costs of Spanish nationals treated in the UK. With healthcare, it's the indirect costs that are the issue - home visits, translators, social services etc. These are far less likely to be called on by Pedro in Plumstead than Betty in Benidorm.
So are happy to try and con the Spanish into paying for our old folk? And you think there won't be consequences for them? Try looking at some old people's homes in this country to see the results of your evil little scheme. When Pedro grows old he will at least have been here 30 years; ours will have been there considerably less and won't necessarily be able to speak Spanish.
But, out of sight, out of mind, eh?
I agree that we get a much better deal than the Spanish.
Hang on, how will it lead to higher taxes and less public spending?
Reducing immigration will reduce the number of people paying tax at a time when the population is growing older and more people are moving into retirement.
Most immigrants are in low paying jobs that are a negative impact on govt finances when the costs of supporting them and benefits are accounted for.
I don't think that's true.
Which is it that you do not think is true? Is it that most immigrants are low paid or that low paid people are a drain on the govt finances?
I think, like a lot of questions, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Take Pedro, a temporary Spanish immigrant. He comes to the UK, works at Pret a Manger for nine quid an hour for 18 months, and returns home. He claims no benefits while he's here, and doesn't use the NHS. Now, you can make the argument that his presence - by increasing the pool of labour that Pret has to use - has lowered wages. But I don't think you can make the case that he's a drag on government finances.
If you think about the things that the government spends money on - during one's life - it's health, education and social services. If you aren't using any of those services during your time in the UK, then it's unlikely - irrespective of whether you're low paid or not - that you are a drag on government finances.
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. One of them, Miguel, gets in a car accident and needs several operations and a month in hospital. He probably erodes all the taxes paid by his nine mates on minimum wage. The thing about healthcare is that there's a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
Who pays for the healthcare costs of 200k Brits living in Costa del Sol etc. ? And, they are mostly pensioners.
We pay the direct costs, just as the Spanish would pay the direct costs of Spanish nationals treated in the UK. With healthcare, it's the indirect costs that are the issue - home visits, translators, social services etc. These are far less likely to be called on by Pedro in Plumstead than Betty in Benidorm.
Mr. Eagles, interesting, as I would've had Trump around 35%.
Interestingly, Boris is a 23% chance to be the next Tory leader.
So Boris has a worse chance of being next Tory leader than Trump becoming POTUS or Leave winning.
Only intuition, but I suspect that Boris' thoughts on the EU and Hitler will ring true for a swathe of WWC older Labour voters.
"That Boris - he's the only one telling it how it is!"
Not good news for Labour. Not good news for Remain.
I would be interested to know how many white, working-class, older voters support Labour. I would guess the share is less than a majority. I suspect most of this demographic (outside Scotland) votes for Ukip or Conservatives already.
There was a sub thread going on about the Potato pickers on small wages but their children using our services ?
You know their wages are spent in the UK. Any VAT on their purchases are paid to the HMRC. It is not just about direct taxes and NIC.
The reason they are here is because Brits will not do those jobs. So either we import potatoes and other vegetable and fruits or pay much more for Brits to work [ if they at all do ] at the cost of much higher farm produce price.
I know because LEAVERs do not like Johnny Foreigner they will say they will buy imported produce.
Hang on, how will it lead to higher taxes and less public spending?
Reducing immigration will reduce the number of people paying tax at a time when the population is growing older and more people are moving into retirement.
Most immigrants are in low paying jobs that are a negative impact on govt finances when the costs of supporting them and benefits are accounted for.
I don't think that's true.
Which is it that you do not think is true? Is it that most immigrants are low paid or that low paid people are a drain on the govt finances?
I think, like a lot of questions, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Take Pedro, a temporary Spanish immigrant. He comes to the UK, works at Pret a Manger for nine quid an hour for 18 months, and returns home. He claims no benefits while he's here, and doesn't use the NHS. Now, you can make the argument that his presence - by increasing the pool of labour that Pret has to use - has lowered wages. But I don't think you can make the case that he's a drag on government finances.
If you think about the things that the government spends money on - during one's life - it's health, education and social services. If you aren't using any of those services during your time in the UK, then it's unlikely - irrespective of whether you're low paid or not - that you are a drag on government finances.
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. One of them, Miguel, gets in a car accident and needs several operations and a month in hospital. He probably erodes all the taxes paid by his nine mates on minimum wage. The thing about healthcare is that there's a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
The Spanish government would pay.
And how is the NHS's record in collecting the money?
Abysmal, I seem to recall.
Not if you're from Guernsey - a friend's (very serious) accident, where the NHS did a life saving job, followed up politely but firmly.......
ole policy needs to change and that will cause pain. It might be a price worth paying, but no prominent Leavers are saying that.
Fair go. Please may I ask you to think about one further question before I have to get on with preparing Sunday lunch?
You say, and I agree, "... not all EU immigrants are net contributors ...". Would the UK be better or worse off if we had a system which enabled us to welcome only those people who would be net contributors?
Given the other benefits I think full and unfettered access to the Single Market gives us, then I think as long as we get a net benefit from EU immigration then we're OK. If we leave the Single Market, then clearly immigration from and emigration to the EU are going to be completely reworked.
So, over to Hillary: back of the queue are we, Hillary? If not, Remain look like right twats for getting Obama to spout this line....
I thought Trump gave a model answer - it was basically, I won't say as it's not my business about the vote, but certainly the UK won't be back of the queue.
Let's assume Britain votes Leave. Let's also assume that Britain suffers the economic shock that almost every serious economic commentator is expecting. The "price worth paying" attitude of the committed Leavers is then going to sound awful. Since the Conservative party by that stage will be in their hands, TSE's theory looks sound to me.
If Leave wins part of me is looking forward to sitting back and watching them try and make it work. If it happens I hope every Remain politician walks away on June 24th so Boris & Farage and co can't have anybody else to try and blame if and when things go tits up. If they succeed in convincing the British Public then it needs to absolutely their show from day 1 and everyone else should leave them to it.
That's a classic "picking up the football and going home " type of post if you can't get your own way.
The more sensible amongst us will, whichever way it goes, try to make it work for future generations whatever our personal preferences happen to be. That's democracy and how it should be when the people have spoken.
Wrong. If we Brexit Leavers must be 100% accountable for what happens next. If any Remainers are involved in negotiations etc thy will become the scapegoats if (when) things go tits up. If Leave win, it's their vision that has prevailed and it should absolutely down to them to sort out the country's future in the short term.
I believe Brexit to be wrong but if the majority don't agree with me then it is essential we don't get some sort of fudge that allows Leavers wriggle room to keep complaining that they would have done things differently. May 23rd will be a historic day and if Leave win then, to put it crudely, it will be time for Leavers to put their money where their mouths are.
Quite indicative of how much you actually care about the country's welfare as opposed to settling political scores.
Hang on, how will it lead to higher taxes and less public spending?
Reducing immigration will reduce the number of people paying tax at a time when the population is growing older and more people are moving into retirement.
Most immigrants are in low paying jobs that are a negative impact on govt finances when the costs of supporting them and benefits are accounted for.
I don't think that's true.
Which is it that you do not think is true? Is it that most immigrants are low paid or that low paid people are a drain on the govt finances?
I think, like a lot of questions, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Take Pedro, a temporary Spanish immigrant. He comes to the UK, works at Pret a Manger for nine quid an hour for 18 months, and returns home. He claims no benefits while he's here, and doesn't use the NHS. Now, you can make the argument that his presence - by increasing the pool of labour that Pret has to use - has lowered wages. But I don't think you can make the case that he's a drag on government finances.
If you think about the things that the government spends money on - during one's life - it's health, education and social services. If you aren't using any of those services during your time in the UK, then it's unlikely - irrespective of whether you're low paid or not - that you are a drag on government finances.
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. One of them, Miguel, gets in a car accident and needs several operations and a month in hospital. He probably erodes all the taxes paid by his nine mates on minimum wage. The thing about healthcare is that there's a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
But the ratio isn't 1-in-10. People between 20 and 40, who are in work, contribute to the government coffers.
Where does Pedro live Robert? If it is anywhere near London he will be claiming HB well in excess of any tax or NI he is paying out of his meagre earnings. And how much does it cost us to send Joe on another useless training course at college which he only signed up for because he didn't get the job at Pret a Manger?
These things are complicated, so much so that clear answers are impossible to find.
I dont think Cameron is secretly pro brexit but this post from Housepricecrash is a good conspiracy theory:
"I live overseas so only see the news coverage from the newspapers and it is somewhat limited. I am a little surprised by the actions of the Remain camp particularly in respect to DC wheeling out Global leaders and officials to tell the British public that they should stay in the EU. Now, I am no politician, but I have a conspiracy theory that Cameron is secretly in favour of Brexit: Why do I think this, because he has: - Invited Barack Obama over to say we should stay in. I cannot think of anything worse that would make the British public do the opposite.
...
Outside PB comments, which exhibits an admirably internationalist commitment to right-wing politics worldwide, Barack Obama is one of the most trusted figures among the British public to have spoken out on Brexit, after Mark Carney.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
Let's assume Britain votes Leave. Let's also assume that Britain suffers the economic shock that almost every serious economic commentator is expecting. The "price worth paying" attitude of the committed Leavers is then going to sound awful. Since the Conservative party by that stage will be in their hands, TSE's theory looks sound to me.
If Leave wins part of me is looking forward to sitting back and watching them try and make it work. If it happens I hope every Remain politician walks away on June 24th so Boris & Farage and co can't have anybody else to try and blame if and when things go tits up. If they succeed in convincing the British Public then it needs to absolutely their show from day 1 and everyone else should leave them to it.
That's a classic "picking up the football and going home " type of post if you can't get your own way.
The more sensible amongst us will, whichever way it goes, try to make it work for future generations whatever our personal preferences happen to be. That's democracy and how it should be when the people have spoken.
Wrong. If we Brexit Leavers must be 100% accountable for what happens next. If any Remainers are involved in negotiations etc thy will become the scapegoats if (when) things go tits up. If Leave win, it's their vision that has prevailed and it should absolutely down to them to sort out the country's future in the short term.
I believe Brexit to be wrong but if the majority don't agree with me then it is essential we don't get some sort of fudge that allows Leavers wriggle room to keep complaining that they would have done things differently. May 23rd will be a historic day and if Leave win then, to put it crudely, it will be time for Leavers to put their money where their mouths are.
Quite indicative of how much you actually care about the country's welfare as opposed to settling political scores.
It would be just about forgivable for an ignorant-and-proud-of-it politician like Ukip’s Nigel (“Give us a job, Boris”) Farage to make glib Hitler comparisons about the European Union.
But for over-educated Boris Johnson, steeped in classical history and a biographer of Winston “Boris” Churchill, it is both frivolous and deeply offensive. It puts the former mayor of London in the same league as rampaging Donald Trump, another intellectual conman from the metropolitan elite, currently busy trying to mislead poor people for career advantage.
I dont think Cameron is secretly pro brexit but this post from Housepricecrash is a good conspiracy theory:
"I live overseas so only see the news coverage from the newspapers and it is somewhat limited. I am a little surprised by the actions of the Remain camp particularly in respect to DC wheeling out Global leaders and officials to tell the British public that they should stay in the EU. Now, I am no politician, but I have a conspiracy theory that Cameron is secretly in favour of Brexit: Why do I think this, because he has: - Invited Barack Obama over to say we should stay in. I cannot think of anything worse that would make the British public do the opposite.
...
Outside PB comments, which exhibits an admirably internationalist commitment to right-wing politics worldwide, Barack Obama is one of the most trusted figures among the British public to have spoken out on Brexit, after Mark Carney.
And yet his intervention managed to improve things for Leave. Go figure.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
ole policy needs to change and that will cause pain. It might be a price worth paying, but no prominent Leavers are saying that.
Fair go. Please may I ask you to think about one further question before I have to get on with preparing Sunday lunch?
You say, and I agree, "... not all EU immigrants are net contributors ...". Would the UK be better or worse off if we had a system which enabled us to welcome only those people who would be net contributors?
Yes because you'd need a bureaucratic process for working out who was going to be a net contributor, which would be a huge time sink for everybody, driving away the people who contribute the most to countries less inclined to waste their time, and the government would totally bollocks it up anyhow.
Note that when the government actually does have the power to filter people, with non-EU migration, it manages to turn it into a big net loss, not least because except in exceptional cases where employment is set up in advance with a very patient employer willing to jump through hoops, they try to avoid letting in people who are actually going to try to get a job.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
No, most Scottish polls had No ahead but not by much now the polls are split with several having Leave ahead while only one had Yes ahead pre polling day. Obama came out for Better Together as he has come out for Remain. Tory Cabinet Members have backed Leave while virtually no senior UK politicians backed Yes in Scotland. UKIP won the European elections but of course a majority of Tory voters could vote Leave too, in Scotland significant numbers of Labour voters backed Yes but not a majority, only SNP voters backed independence overall. I expect Remain to win like Better Together but for the result to be even closer than Scotland was
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
It would be just about forgivable for an ignorant-and-proud-of-it politician like Ukip’s Nigel (“Give us a job, Boris”) Farage to make glib Hitler comparisons about the European Union.
But for over-educated Boris Johnson, steeped in classical history and a biographer of Winston “Boris” Churchill, it is both frivolous and deeply offensive. It puts the former mayor of London in the same league as rampaging Donald Trump, another intellectual conman from the metropolitan elite, currently busy trying to mislead poor people for career advantage.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Mr. HYUFD, I have nothing against the concept of totty window dressing, whether for men or women. Finding someone attractive who also knows his arse from his elbow shouldn't be beyond the wit of man.
Mr. Eagles, highly debatable. It had been deliberately re-taken according to Justinian's expansionist policy.
“I think Trump is nuts, but I’d love to have him as a president to see what happens,” says Edward Tucker, a 68-year-old retired carpenter from Steubenville.
Guardian on Clinton's problems in Appalachian region:
I dont think Cameron is secretly pro brexit but this post from Housepricecrash is a good conspiracy theory:
"I live overseas so only see the news coverage from the newspapers and it is somewhat limited. I am a little surprised by the actions of the Remain camp particularly in respect to DC wheeling out Global leaders and officials to tell the British public that they should stay in the EU. Now, I am no politician, but I have a conspiracy theory that Cameron is secretly in favour of Brexit: Why do I think this, because he has: - Invited Barack Obama over to say we should stay in. I cannot think of anything worse that would make the British public do the opposite.
...
Outside PB comments, which exhibits an admirably internationalist commitment to right-wing politics worldwide, Barack Obama is one of the most trusted figures among the British public to have spoken out on Brexit, after Mark Carney.
And yet his intervention managed to improve things for Leave. Go figure.
I think it will weigh on the minds of people in the next month and it dented the open, internationalist case for Brexit. It is evident that there has been a pivot toward the more closed, nationalist case with this conspiracy-culture-immigrant-Hitler line being pushed by not just Mr Farage but the leaders of Vote Leave in more recent weeks.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Reducing the number of immigrants from europe would have quite a few economic effects, some possibly beneficial such as easing pressure on housing, but others less so. The increase in population from young and fertile europeans offsets our ageing baby boomer population. Without them the dependency ratio becomes a lot worse means higher taxes/lower pensions/working longer for the working age population.
The maths doesn't work under your scheme - either these immigrants are going to return home (presumably, if they are EU) with some portable pension rights from the UK government. Alternatively they will stay and require additional people in future to fund them.
The real solution (easy in theory, I warrant!) is to fund pensions on an ongoing basis. But unfortunately as they are currently paid out of taxation this will be very expensive over a 30 years+ basis...
Very little is paid now-a-days from taxation. The state pension is now very small compared to thirty years ago, Most private sector pension schemes are now "money purchase" as opposed to "final salary".
The 2015/16 State pension is estimated to be costing around £90 billion. That is around 12% of total government expenditure. I would hardly say that was 'very little'.
Yes. That is historical legacy. As a percent of GDP that will gradually fall. Of course, if GDP itself does not increase............... [ the last 6 years example ]
Serious question, not at all being difficult. But why should it fall as a percentage of GDP? Our GDP is not expected to rise massively any time soon but our pension age population is rising even taking into account the changes to make people wait longer before they retire (which I understand and agree with).
I don't see how anyone can say with any confidence that the pensions burden on the State is going to reduce significantly in the foreseeable future.
[Assuming long term GDP growth trend ], the percentage will fall as newer pensioners basic pension is a lot less compared to thirty years ago, say. Triple lock or not.
Our governments encouraged people to opt out of SERPS [ remember ? ]. It was a neon light signal to better provide for yourselves.
The basic state pension now-a-days just keeps your head above water. It is the supplementary pension that gives people comfort. Very little is paid by the state for that.
But in real terms after allowing for inflation the State Pension has increased - particularly over recent years as a result of the'triple lock' guaranteeing an annual increase of at least 2.5%.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Not at all. And to be honest this point come sup almost every Sunday. The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editorial teams which often seem to be in outright open conflict with one another. the MoS has long been far more pro Remain than the Daily Mail.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Not at all. And to be honest this point come sup almost every Sunday. The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editorial teams which often seem to be in outright open conflict with one another. the MoS has long been far more pro Remain than the Daily Mail.
Isn't the editor of the MoS a close friend of Cameron's?
Let's assume Britain votes Leave. Let's also assume that Britain suffers the economic shock that almost every serious economic commentator is expecting. The "price worth paying" attitude of the committed Leavers is then going to sound awful. Since the Conservative party by that stage will be in their hands, TSE's theory looks sound to me.
If Leave wins part of me is looking forward to sitting back and watching them try and make it work. If it happens I hope every Remain politician walks away on June 24th so Boris & Farage and co can't have anybody else to try and blame if and when things go tits up. If they succeed in convincing the British Public then it needs to absolutely their show from day 1 and everyone else should leave them to it.
That's a classic "picking up the football and going home " type of post if you can't get your own way.
The more sensible amongst us will, whichever way it goes, try to make it work for future generations whatever our personal preferences happen to be. That's democracy and how it should be when the people have spoken.
Wrong. If we Brexit Leavers must be 100% accountable for what happens next. If any Remainers are involved in negotiations etc thy will become the scapegoats if (when) things go tits up. If Leave win, it's their vision that has prevailed and it should absolutely down to them to sort out the country's future in the short term.
I believe Brexit to be wrong but if the majority don't agree with me then it is essential we don't get some sort of fudge that allows Leavers wriggle room to keep complaining that they would have done things differently. May 23rd will be a historic day and if Leave win then, to put it crudely, it will be time for Leavers to put their money where their mouths are.
Quite indicative of how much you actually care about the country's welfare as opposed to settling political scores.
How on earth does wanting to give Leavers full rein to implement their visions for the UK if they win the referendum equate with not caring about the country's welfare?
Unless of course you secretly believe they will make a total hash of it.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Where is this guy coming from? Oh, North Wales! To Conway Castle dungeons with him.
I disagree with John Rentoul that the Conservative Party will hate Cameron for ever. He has followed the master Blair to success, and for that they will always respect him, because the conservative party is, and always will be the only center right party able to govern anywhere in the UK under FPTP.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Where is this guy coming from? Oh, North Wales! To Conway Castle dungeons with him.
We may not agree on the referendum but funny answer - not sure if they are still there mind you
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Not at all. And to be honest this point come sup almost every Sunday. The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editorial teams which often seem to be in outright open conflict with one another. the MoS has long been far more pro Remain than the Daily Mail.
Thanks for that - I didn't realise that they were different editors
Imagine if Pedro comes over with ten friends who do the same. One of them, Miguel, gets in a car accident and needs several operations and a month in hospital. He probably erodes all the taxes paid by his nine mates on minimum wage. The thing about healthcare is that there's a small chance it costs a very large amount. This means while most minimum wage migrants won't be a net cost, on average they probably will be.
1 in 10 migrants being seriously injured in a RTA? Erm...
* the number of people in GB in 2014[1]: 62,756,300 * the number of people seriously injured in RTAs in GB in 2014[2]: 22,807 * Probability of GB person being seriously injured in RTAs approx = 22,807/62,756,300
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Not at all. And to be honest this point come sup almost every Sunday. The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editorial teams which often seem to be in outright open conflict with one another. the MoS has long been far more pro Remain than the Daily Mail.
Thanks for that - I didn't realise that they were different editors
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Not at all. And to be honest this point come sup almost every Sunday. The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editorial teams which often seem to be in outright open conflict with one another. the MoS has long been far more pro Remain than the Daily Mail.
Thanks for that - I didn't realise that they were different editors
The STimes and Times are different teams too. Not sure about the ST/DT.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
“I think Trump is nuts, but I’d love to have him as a president to see what happens,” says Edward Tucker, a 68-year-old retired carpenter from Steubenville.
Guardian on Clinton's problems in Appalachian region:
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
I do not think he can win in 2020. However he has changed the discourse , so that an anti austerity Labour Politician will be able to get hearing from the British people. Rather than the sterile discussion of treating the UK economy in comparison to a middle class housewife and her personal shopping habits.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
Yes and that includes free movement of labour so if leave win but free movement of labour continues it will be a travesty of democracy and question the validility of the referendum
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
I do not think he can win in 2020. However he has changed the discourse , so that an anti austerity Labour Politician will be able to get hearing from the British people. Rather than the sterile discussion of treating the UK economy in comparison to a middle class housewife and her personal shopping habits.
Isn't it really the case that oppositions don't win elections, Governments lose them? If the Cameron remain strategy fails, it might rest very heavily on how he plays the fallout from that.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
Yes and that includes free movement of labour so if leave win but free movement of labour continues it will be a travesty of democracy and question the validility of the referendum
No it won't, free movement is not on the ballot paper. This is a common argument I hear from Remainers. The referendum is advisory only. The main democratic.process in the UK is the legislative and the elections to it. They have primacy on all issues, except for where treaty obligations negate their decisions via the judicial system.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
Let's assume Britain votes Leave. Let's also assume that Britain suffers the economic shock that almost every serious economic commentator is expecting. The "price worth paying" attitude of the committed Leavers is then going to sound awful. Since the Conservative party by that stage will be in their hands, TSE's theory looks sound to me.
If Leave wins part of me is looking forward to sitting back and watching them try and make it work. If it happens I hope every Remain politician walks away on June 24th so Boris & Farage and co can't have anybody else to try and blame if and when things go tits up. If they succeed in convincing the British Public then it needs to absolutely their show from day 1 and everyone else should leave them to it.
That's a classic "picking up the football and going home " type of post if you can't get your own way.
The more sensible amongst us will, whichever way it goes, try to make it work for future generations whatever our personal preferences happen to be. That's democracy and how it should be when the people have spoken.
Wrong. If we Brexit Leavers must be 100% accountable for what happens next. If any Remainers are involved in negotiations etc thy will become the scapegoats if (when) things go tits up. If Leave win, it's their vision that has prevailed and it should absolutely down to them to sort out the country's future in the short term.
I believe Brexit to be wrong but if the majority don't agree with me then it is essential we don't get some sort of fudge that allows Leavers wriggle room to keep complaining that they would have done things differently. May 23rd will be a historic day and if Leave win then, to put it crudely, it will be time for Leavers to put their money where their mouths are.
Quite indicative of how much you actually care about the country's welfare as opposed to settling political scores.
How on earth does wanting to give Leavers full rein to implement their visions for the UK if they win the referendum equate with not caring about the country's welfare?
Unless of course you secretly believe they will make a total hash of it.
Well we can enjoy ourselves with you arguing I think Leave would hash things up, and me saying you obviously thing they'd do a fabulous job, but saving ourselves some time, I want the people handling the Brexit negotiations and post-Brexit economic policy to be the very best possible team for the job, to secure the very best possible outcome for Britain. Your main aim is for 'Leavers to be 100% accountable'. Your view is really quite contemptible, and I only wonder at you being unguarded enough to reveal it.
The Leave leadership's 'EU membership = Supporting the Nazis' assertion appears to be headlining on every major news outlet. It's very shrill but also quite dark. It also marks a radical shift in Leave's tactics. Hitherto the EU was portrayed as a kind of benign mishap - an inefficient bureaucracy with its heart in the right place but prone to bungling; we'd had enough of it but wished it no ill. (This was very much how Farage used to frame things.) Now Leave are portraying the EU as the very embodiment of evil. The eurosceptic Tories who now control Leave are showing a troubling degree of tone-deafness. Perhaps Farage can step in and calm things down.
Mr. HYUFD, I have nothing against the concept of totty window dressing, whether for men or women. Finding someone attractive who also knows his arse from his elbow shouldn't be beyond the wit of man.
Mr. Eagles, highly debatable. It had been deliberately re-taken according to Justinian's expansionist policy.
Mr. Chelyabinsk, welcome to the site.
He also has charisma though, although I know you disagree. Jake Humphrey who hosted on the BBC was really not much more of an expert on F1 than Jones, that is what you hire experts and former drivers for
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
The Leave leadership's 'EU membership = Supporting the Nazis' assertion appears to be headlining on every major news outlet. It's very shrill but also quite dark. It also marks a radical shift in Leave's tactics. Hitherto the EU was portrayed as a kind of benign mishap - an inefficient bureaucracy with its heart in the right place but prone to bungling; we'd had enough of it but wished it no ill. (This was very much how Farage used to frame things.) Now Leave are portraying the EU as the very embodiment of evil. The eurosceptic Tories who now control Leave are showing a troubling degree of tone-deafness. Perhaps Farage can step in and calm things down.
When it gets to the point where anyone wants Farage to step in to calm things down, we know we have reached a level of unreality unsurpassed in modern.politics
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
Yes and that includes free movement of labour so if leave win but free movement of labour continues it will be a travesty of democracy and question the validility of the referendum
No it won't, free movement is not on the ballot paper. This is a common argument I hear from Remainers. The referendum is advisory only. The main democratic.process in the UK is the legislative and the elections to it. They have primacy on all issues, except for where treaty obligations negate their decisions via the judicial system.
Absolutely. Blocking free movement is not on the ballot paper and will almost certainly no happened even if Leave win.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
I would agree that Leave has lost the short term economic arguments. Undoubtedly if we vote leave there will be turbulence , however as with 99.9 % of flights you come through it and land safely.
However the bigger long term arguments of Immigration , Sovereignty , democracy are won by the leave side.
Anecdotally my father a strong leave is wavering because of the economic and workers rights arguments. My wife a strong remain is now having doubts about immigration and its effect on public services and wage rates.
It is not only splitting the Conservative Party but families as well.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
That applies to EU ref too though
Absolutely, I have banged on and on about how dangerous I think it is to exclude DKs from the EURef results when talking about them.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
Sorry, I didn't mean it to contradict your point, only to provide a recent example of what some in Labour movement now firmly believe: Corbyn can't win.
You are right that it might be possible to stop a Tory majority, but where on earth are the 20 or 30 Labour wins this would require going to come from?
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
That applies to EU ref too though
Absolutely, I have banged on and on about how dangerous I think it is to exclude DKs from the EURef results when talking about them.
Those who do vote will likely lean Remain but not overwhelmingly so
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
That applies to EU ref too though
In act it would be interesting to compare just the DK figures from indyref to EUref. As I remember phone/face to face Polling had very high DKs during IndyRef.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
That applies to EU ref too though
Absolutely, I have banged on and on about how dangerous I think it is to exclude DKs from the EURef results when talking about them.
Those who do vote will likely lean Remain but not overwhelmingly so
I think that's right. Really, it's about who's Project Fear works best. Fear of some mythical economic collapse. Or fear of some mythical Turkish accession to the EU.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Yeah- dropping the feigned ignorance, I find that rather telling. I mean, compare the headlines from similar stages of the campaign:
New IndyRef poll for Scottish Daily Mail from Survation has NO lead back to what it was before the first debate (August 29th, 2014) ICM has it as a decisive win for Salmond – but will his performance swing votes? (August 25th, 2014) Unless independence campaigners can convince the oldies in the next 3 weeks then YES, surely, is doomed (August 24th, 2014) Even though the last 3 polls have edged a touch to an IndyRef YES the betting is still strongly on NO (August 19th, 2014) Yes hits an all time high with YouGov (August 18th, 2014) Indyref polling round up – Could the NHS be what wins it for Yes? (August 17th, 2014)- "To me, the most interesting bit of the polling are these findings, the NHS could turn the tide in favour of Yes... the NHS argument generates a 9% swing in favour of Yes."
A post Brexit vote recession could cost the Tories the next election (May 15th, 2016) Boris’s flexible approach to the truth appears to be catching up with him (May 14th, 2016) How LEAVE responds to authority interventions that it doesn’t like (May 13th, 2016) Vote LEAVE is naive if it thinks it can black-ball Farage for the entire campaign (May 13th, 2016) A BREXIT indicator? UKIP’s National Equivalent Vote share down by nearly half in 3 years (May 9th, 2016) It’s the economy, stupid (May 1st, 2016) - "If Leave wants to win they need to show that Brexit is the better option for the economy"
The Leave leadership's 'EU membership = Supporting the Nazis' assertion appears to be headlining on every major news outlet. It's very shrill but also quite dark. It also marks a radical shift in Leave's tactics. Hitherto the EU was portrayed as a kind of benign mishap - an inefficient bureaucracy with its heart in the right place but prone to bungling; we'd had enough of it but wished it no ill. (This was very much how Farage used to frame things.) Now Leave are portraying the EU as the very embodiment of evil. The eurosceptic Tories who now control Leave are showing a troubling degree of tone-deafness. Perhaps Farage can step in and calm things down.
When it gets to the point where anyone wants Farage to step in to calm things down, we know we have reached a level of unreality unsurpassed in modern.politics
Regardless of the result, the campaign has certainly enhanced the reputation of Nigel Farage. I've now started to appreciate what a deft politician he is. For example, he would never has blundered into the 'EU = Hitler' furore in the way that Boris, IDS and co. have this morning. Moreover, we also learn that Leave are now starting to claim the late Nick Ridley as their spiritual godfather. Younger Leavers need to know that old Nick said one or two things about race in his time that would be less than palatable to contemporary ears. Don't go there.
I think Leave are very wrong (particularly Leave.EU and Nigel) to surrender the economic ground to the Remain blob. They should, as I've always said, attack the economic drawbacks and risks of staying in, of which there are many. Undermining the credibility of the doom mongers is right, but this 'sovereignty' malarkey, whilst absolutely right in actuality imo, is voter poison. Rather a shame, and will be to Leave's detriment I think, but maybe not show in the polling.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
Sorry, I didn't mean it to contradict your point, only to provide a recent example of what some in Labour movement now firmly believe: Corbyn can't win.
You are right that it might be possible to stop a Tory majority, but where on earth are the 20 or 30 Labour wins this would require going to come from?
I suggest the list of Tory marginals provides a good guide as to likely Labour gains. In Wales alone, Labour won 4 seats at last week's Assembly elections which were Tory at the 2015 election. The Tories could easily lose 20 seats to Labour and a few to LibDems. In addition, I rather expect Labour to win back 5 - 10 from SNP.
Just finished a two hour stint handing out leaflets for the Better In campaign. This was in west London in a Tory area so not representative.
I have conversations with about 100 people. About half were for IN, some of them passionately. One joined the stall and two more signed up to help next weekend. About 20% were undecided, but leaning IN. Head over Heart as one put it. One lady had been converted to IN by Theresa May's "warts an'all" speech. About 20% were OUT. And about 10% were anti and abusive - so OUT or NV.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
No it would not, Labour will not form a government if 50 seats behind the Tories, the Tories would have the backing of UKIP and the unionists and while the LDs would not do another Coalition they would not back an SNP Labour deal either (neither would many Labour MPs)
I think Leave are very wrong (particularly Leave.EU and Nigel) to surrender the economic ground to the Remain blob. They should, as I've always said, attack the economic drawbacks and risks of staying in, of which there are many. Undermining the credibility of the doom mongers is right, but this 'sovereignty' malarkey, whilst absolutely right, is voter poison imo. Rather a shame, and will be to Leave's detriment I think, but maybe not show in the polling.
Leave are only 4pts behind on the economy - they aren't ceding any ground to my eyes.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
The problem with your scenario is that Lab + SNP would not be enough. You probably need Lab + SNP + LD + possibly Plaid. The Tories would be rubbing their hands with glee if Lab tried to govern with that coalition.
Also you need to consider the impact of boundary changes (if they go ahead)
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Yeah- dropping the feigned ignorance, I find that rather telling. I mean, compare the headlines from similar stages of the campaign:
New IndyRef poll for Scottish Daily Mail from Survation has NO lead back to what it was before the first debate (August 29th, 2014) ICM has it as a decisive win for Salmond – but will his performance swing votes? (August 25th, 2014) Unless independence campaigners can convince the oldies in the next 3 weeks then YES, surely, is doomed (August 24th, 2014) Even though the last 3 polls have edged a touch to an IndyRef YES the betting is still strongly on NO (August 19th, 2014) Yes hits an all time high with YouGov (August 18th, 2014) Indyref polling round up – Could the NHS be what wins it for Yes? (August 17th, 2014)- "To me, the most interesting bit of the polling are these findings, the NHS could turn the tide in favour of Yes... the NHS argument generates a 9% swing in favour of Yes."
A post Brexit vote recession could cost the Tories the next election (May 15th, 2016) Boris’s flexible approach to the truth appears to be catching up with him (May 14th, 2016) How LEAVE responds to authority interventions that it doesn’t like (May 13th, 2016) Vote LEAVE is naive if it thinks it can black-ball Farage for the entire campaign (May 13th, 2016) A BREXIT indicator? UKIP’s National Equivalent Vote share down by nearly half in 3 years (May 9th, 2016) It’s the economy, stupid (May 1st, 2016) - "If Leave wants to win they need to show that Brexit is the better option for the economy"
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
The comparable date for Sindy was 10 August 2014 - 39 days before.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14) 61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave) 58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave) 57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave) 53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain) 57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Though I believe Darling had won the first debate and the second debate which Salmond won was yet to come
I feel it is particularly dangerous to go with the headline figure rather than Yes/No/DK.
That applies to EU ref too though
Absolutely, I have banged on and on about how dangerous I think it is to exclude DKs from the EURef results when talking about them.
Those who do vote will likely lean Remain but not overwhelmingly so
I think that's right. Really, it's about who's Project Fear works best. Fear of some mythical economic collapse. Or fear of some mythical Turkish accession to the EU.
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
I accept that is what may happen but it's wrong. If Leave win it will almost certainly be on a tide of anti-immigration feeling. That must then be honoured and Leave must then be free to plough its own furough and opt for stopping immigration and losing the single market in the process. If Leave don't get what they want then we will have 20 more years of the Mail, Express, UKIP etc espousing stab-in-the-back theories.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
No it would not, Labour will not form a government if 50 seats behind the Tories, the Tories would have the backing of UKIP and the unionists and while the LDs would not do another Coalition they would not back an SNP Labour deal either (neither would many Labour MPs)
But there would not be a Labour-SNP deal at all. Labour would simply defy the SNP to bring them down. As for the LibDems I don't believe they will lift a finger to help the Tories for another generation. 'Revenge is a dish best served cold'.
The Times reports Cameron believes his leadership is under threat even if Remain wins if it wins by less than 53% to 47%. If Remain wins by more than 10% he will force Eurosceptics to agree the UK stays in the EU for a generation. He also thinks Boris is unstoppable before 2019
Mark Carney again on Marr this morning in complete control of his absolute independence and was a masterclass in integrity. Along comes Boris with the 'Hitler' word which has been the main story on the broadcast media all morning with pretty universal criticism. Put both of these news reports together and the narrative around them and it must be almost impossible for leave to win on economics. Also putting Farage on against David Cameron, with David Cameron following, must be considered a gift to remain as Farage will 'go way over the top on immigration' and has said this morning that GDP is not important. On another subject the Mail on Sunday seemed to be much more balanced today, notwithstanding it's front page, and absolutely nothing like the Daily Mail with it's universal pro leave anti remain narrative across the whole paper and by the individual journalists reports. Does seem strange
Leave has been poor on economics, because they have ignored the reality that is based on the parliamentary arithmetic. The ballot paper only states Leave/remain in the EU. What will parliament do. My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
I accept that is what may happen but it's wrong. If Leave win it will almost certainly be on a tide of anti-immigration feeling. That must then be honoured and Leave must then be free to plough its own furough and opt for stopping immigration and losing the single market in the process. If Leave don't get what they want then we will have 20 more years of the Mail, Express, UKIP etc espousing stab-in-the-back theories.
Ending FOM immediately is a secondary priority to economic security. What they will have at their disposal is a more flexible EEA agreement via articles 112 & 113. This will allow some control, and therefore time to figure out how we use EFTA Togo beyond the EEA to greater European free trade.
The first priority should be to end irregular migration, so much of which is mixed up with the modern slavery epidemic, which can be seen on most of East London's trading estates on any given day.
Could we maybe add some context to this by showing how far in front of the Scottish No campaign Remain are at the moment? I've only really followed the campaign through this site, but from what I've read it must be quite a considerable margin. The UK government didn't get involved in Scotland until late in the process, whereas they've called in the big guns right from the start here. Better Together had Alistair Darling- not exactly the most charismatic man on the planet- whereas Remain has Obama and Cameron. The Scottish Yes campaign was led by the SNP, which could use Scottish government resources and had a solid ground game of its own, whereas Vote Leave is a collection of clowns (Boris, Lawson) and divisive figures (Gove, Farage). Furthermore, the SNP had just won a majority at Holyrood, whereas UKIP failed at the general election and is apparently circling the drain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
On the contrary, Scottish No was 10-15 points ahead of Remain at a similar stage:
Hence the total panic now from Remain who expected their SIndy strategy to work for the EUref.
Did it though? No had a larger lead at the start of the campaign in Scotland than the end
Polling on the AV referendum (peace be upon it) moved the other way. 2 months out polling was neck and neck, but a decisive victory for the status quo on the day.
Different elections have different dynamics. Brexit is not a re-run of the Sindyref, so parallels are very limited.
The Times reports Cameron believes his leadership is under threat even if Remain wins if it wins by less than 53% to 47%. If Remain wins by more than 10% he will force Eurosceptics to agree the UK stays in the EU for a generation. He also thinks Boris is unstoppable before 2019
Why on Earth should Eurosceptics concede the issue with only a five point swing needed? Especially when that result was only achieved with a huge spend by the taxpayer for Remain?
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
The problem with your scenario is that Lab + SNP would not be enough. You probably need Lab + SNP + LD + possibly Plaid. The Tories would be rubbing their hands with glee if Lab tried to govern with that coalition.
Also you need to consider the impact of boundary changes (if they go ahead)
Labour could expect support from SDLP- Plaid -Green - perhaps Lady H. I believe the boundary changes to be very much in doubt - even before we become aware of the outcome of ongoing police enquiries.
When will Lefties on PB realise that Labour has absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning in 2020 as long as Corbyn and his current front bench are in place...the Brits might be auld sentimental softies but they are not bloody fools
When will you realise that almost no Leftie that posts on here believes that Corbyn will win in 2020? Not even those that support his leadership think that.
Depends what you mean by 'win'. Gaining sufficient seats to prevent the Tories being able to form a Minority Government is very possible.
"It is perfectly obvious to everyone that it cannot win a general election with Corbyn at the helm. It cannot."
That does not contradict my point at all. Getting to 323 is very unlikely under Corbyn - but reaching 250 - 260 is very possible with the Tories below 310. That would not be a 'win' but it might be enough to turf the Tories out!
The problem with your scenario is that Lab + SNP would not be enough. You probably need Lab + SNP + LD + possibly Plaid. The Tories would be rubbing their hands with glee if Lab tried to govern with that coalition.
Also you need to consider the impact of boundary changes (if they go ahead)
Labour could expect support from SDLP- Plaid -Green - perhaps Lady H. I believe the boundary changes to be very much in doubt - even before we become aware of the outcome of ongoing police enquiries.
Which in some ways is problematic, as boundary changes really should have happened by now.
I think Leave are very wrong (particularly Leave.EU and Nigel) to surrender the economic ground to the Remain blob. They should, as I've always said, attack the economic drawbacks and risks of staying in, of which there are many. Undermining the credibility of the doom mongers is right, but this 'sovereignty' malarkey, whilst absolutely right, is voter poison imo. Rather a shame, and will be to Leave's detriment I think, but maybe not show in the polling.
Leave are only 4pts behind on the economy - they aren't ceding any ground to my eyes.
The Leave argument should be as follows: "Anyone can rig an economic study with certain assumptions to say what they want it to say. But look around the world, and we see countries from Norway to New Zealand, Canada to Switzerland that are much richer than us and aren't part of the EU or any equivalent. Outside the EU we can sign our own trade agreements and make our own regulation to be rich like them."
The Leave leadership's 'EU membership = Supporting the Nazis' assertion appears to be headlining on every major news outlet. It's very shrill but also quite dark. It also marks a radical shift in Leave's tactics. Hitherto the EU was portrayed as a kind of benign mishap - an inefficient bureaucracy with its heart in the right place but prone to bungling; we'd had enough of it but wished it no ill. (This was very much how Farage used to frame things.) Now Leave are portraying the EU as the very embodiment of evil. The eurosceptic Tories who now control Leave are showing a troubling degree of tone-deafness. Perhaps Farage can step in and calm things down.
And these are the people who will be negotiating post-Brexit. It does not inspire a huge amount of confidence. Having likened Merkel to a Nazi PM Boris will then be seeking to extract the best possible deal from her.
Comments
I cannot remember Paxo ever bringing our any nugget out of anybody.
The all-time great commentary combo was Hunt, with his icy-detachment and vast technical background as a former Champion, together with Murray Walker's schoolboy "Look! A flying dinosaur!!" breathless enthusiasm.
As I pointed the other day, most of these organisations missed the credit crunch of 2008.
That's how Leave should have criticised them instead of speaking of conspiracies.
Only intuition, but I suspect that Boris' thoughts on the EU and Hitler will ring true for a swathe of WWC older Labour voters.
"That Boris - he's the only one telling it how it is!"
Not good news for Labour. Not good news for Remain.
It is not for the party which finished a distant second – or any of those which came after that - to dictate terms or to try and turn this session into one of obstruction for obstruction’s sake. The electorate would look very dimly indeed on any attempt to turn this into a “blocking parliament” – people want efficient government unencumbered by political gamesmanship or needless politicking.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14493683.__39_My_vision_for_the_first_100_days_of_my_new_government__39_/
Does not apply in Westminster, obvs.....
"I live overseas so only see the news coverage from the newspapers and it is somewhat limited. I am a little surprised by the actions of the Remain camp particularly in respect to DC wheeling out Global leaders and officials to tell the British public that they should stay in the EU. Now, I am no politician, but I have a conspiracy theory that Cameron is secretly in favour of Brexit:
Why do I think this, because he has:
- Invited Barack Obama over to say we should stay in. I cannot think of anything worse that would make the British public do the opposite.
- IMF statement on Friday about falling house prices in the event of Brexit. This is better for MOST people in Britain with the exception of the minority BTL lobby (who would want to Remain anyway for a bigger pool to rent out to). The polls indicate that demographically young people would like to remain in Europe whereas older people would like to leave. I cannot think of a single better strategy of getting young people to vote Brexit other than telling them they might actually stand a chance of owning their own home.
- Spent £9mln on a really poor Remain strategy leaflet
As I said, I am not a politician and do not understand these nuances, but it strikes me that DC might actually be in favour of Brexit but cannot let his public persona acknowledge this. Instead he gets his unanchored buddy BoJo to do it for him!
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/209690-anyone-else-think-cameron-is-secretly-pro-brexit/#entry1102938989"
I would also add the following.
Having the referendum just after individual registration comes in.
Allowing commonwealth voters to vote but not eu cu.itizens.
Having it before repealing tbe law disbsrring expats gone more than 15 years to vote
You know their wages are spent in the UK. Any VAT on their purchases are paid to the HMRC. It is not just about direct taxes and NIC.
The reason they are here is because Brits will not do those jobs. So either we import potatoes and other vegetable and fruits or pay much more for Brits to work [ if they at all do ] at the cost of much higher farm produce price.
I know because LEAVERs do not like Johnny Foreigner they will say they will buy imported produce.
These things are complicated, so much so that clear answers are impossible to find.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remain were ten to fifteen points ahead of the Scottish No campaign at this stage. Leave might as well throw in the towel now and save their backers' money.
But for over-educated Boris Johnson, steeped in classical history and a biographer of Winston “Boris” Churchill, it is both frivolous and deeply offensive. It puts the former mayor of London in the same league as rampaging Donald Trump, another intellectual conman from the metropolitan elite, currently busy trying to mislead poor people for career advantage.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/15/boris-johnson-eu-hitler-bad-taste-bad-judgment
Note that when the government actually does have the power to filter people, with non-EU migration, it manages to turn it into a big net loss, not least because except in exceptional cases where employment is set up in advance with a very patient employer willing to jump through hoops, they try to avoid letting in people who are actually going to try to get a job.
The most recent polls published at that date were:
57.5 Remain / 42.5 Leave - Survation (2.2 swing to Leave by 18.09.14)
61.1 Remain / 38.9 Leave - Yougov (5.8 swing to Leave)
58.4 Remain / 41.6 Leave - TNS (3.1 swing to Leave)
57.4 Remain / 42.6 Leave - Ipsos (2.1 swing to Leave)
53.9 Remain / 46.1 Leave - Panelbase (1.4 swing to Remain)
57.0 Remain / 43.0 Leave - ICM (1.7 swing to Leave)
55.3 Remain / 44.7 Leave - Actual Result
Five of the six pollsters were understating Leave.
Mr. Eagles, highly debatable. It had been deliberately re-taken according to Justinian's expansionist policy.
Mr. Chelyabinsk, welcome to the site.
Guardian on Clinton's problems in Appalachian region:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/13/donald-trump-bill-clinton-appalachia-democrats-voters
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/scottish-independence-referendum
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2016/05/13/the-results-are-in-on-corbyns-first-few-months-no-matter-how-you-spin-it-theyre-terrible/
Unless of course you secretly believe they will make a total hash of it.
I disagree with John Rentoul that the Conservative Party will hate Cameron for ever.
He has followed the master Blair to success, and for that they will always respect him, because the conservative party is, and always will be the only center right party able to govern anywhere in the UK under FPTP.
* the number of people in GB in 2014[1]: 62,756,300
* the number of people seriously injured in RTAs in GB in 2014[2]: 22,807
* Probability of GB person being seriously injured in RTAs approx = 22,807/62,756,300
= 0.0004 approx (i.e. about 4 in 10,000)
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2014
My guess is that they will do minimum necessary to fulfill the terms on the ballot paper, leave via EEA/EFTA. This negates economic risk, removes the Tory fear of economic shock and reinforces the Eurozone by not disrupting trade.
However he has changed the discourse , so that an anti austerity Labour Politician will be able to get hearing from the British people.
Rather than the sterile discussion of treating the UK economy in comparison to a middle class housewife and her personal shopping habits.
Undoubtedly if we vote leave there will be turbulence , however as with 99.9 % of flights you come through it and land safely.
However the bigger long term arguments of Immigration , Sovereignty , democracy are won by the leave side.
Anecdotally my father a strong leave is wavering because of the economic and workers rights arguments.
My wife a strong remain is now having doubts about immigration and its effect on public services and wage rates.
It is not only splitting the Conservative Party but families as well.
You are right that it might be possible to stop a Tory majority, but where on earth are the 20 or 30 Labour wins this would require going to come from?
New IndyRef poll for Scottish Daily Mail from Survation has NO lead back to what it was before the first debate (August 29th, 2014)
ICM has it as a decisive win for Salmond – but will his performance swing votes? (August 25th, 2014)
Unless independence campaigners can convince the oldies in the next 3 weeks then YES, surely, is doomed (August 24th, 2014)
Even though the last 3 polls have edged a touch to an IndyRef YES the betting is still strongly on NO (August 19th, 2014)
Yes hits an all time high with YouGov (August 18th, 2014)
Indyref polling round up – Could the NHS be what wins it for Yes? (August 17th, 2014)- "To me, the most interesting bit of the polling are these findings, the NHS could turn the tide in favour of Yes... the NHS argument generates a 9% swing in favour of Yes."
A post Brexit vote recession could cost the Tories the next election (May 15th, 2016)
Boris’s flexible approach to the truth appears to be catching up with him (May 14th, 2016)
How LEAVE responds to authority interventions that it doesn’t like (May 13th, 2016)
Vote LEAVE is naive if it thinks it can black-ball Farage for the entire campaign (May 13th, 2016)
A BREXIT indicator? UKIP’s National Equivalent Vote share down by nearly half in 3 years (May 9th, 2016)
It’s the economy, stupid (May 1st, 2016) - "If Leave wants to win they need to show that Brexit is the better option for the economy" Thanks, though technically I'm new to posting rather than new to the site- hence my awareness of the above.
I have conversations with about 100 people. About half were for IN, some of them passionately. One joined the stall and two more signed up to help next weekend. About 20% were undecided, but leaning IN. Head over Heart as one put it. One lady had been converted to IN by Theresa May's "warts an'all" speech. About 20% were OUT. And about 10% were anti and abusive - so OUT or NV.
Also you need to consider the impact of boundary changes (if they go ahead)
The first priority should be to end irregular migration, so much of which is mixed up with the modern slavery epidemic, which can be seen on most of East London's trading estates on any given day.
Different elections have different dynamics. Brexit is not a re-run of the Sindyref, so parallels are very limited.