Breaking: State of Emergency declared in Orlando, maybe all Florida?
Horrendous news if 50 dead 50 injured.
Cynical - better get on Trump @ 4 then - A good day to make a move in the betting markets.
This ain't good - however it might have an effect on the UK referendum as well - people will look at the incident and not dissect the cause.
The shooter may be a Muslim but the victims were largely homosexuals, not exactly Trump's demographic
I suspect that simple demographic arithmetic will not be a good guide to this election. Trump is a master at reframing an issue and you may find that it's some of the least likely groups who will be the ones to switch to him.
Trump is not going to win the gay vote, he opposes gay marriage for starters
If you are targeted for murder because of your sexuality you might be more concerned to have a President who will strive to keep you safe.
Not saying that Trump necessarily is that man. But events sometimes change peoples' priorities.
There is no evidence he will keep you safe, his travel ban on Muslims would not have stopped this shooting, the shooter was a US citizen
As has been mentioned - it would have stopped his parents.
No it would not as it would not have been retrospective, short of interning every Muslim in the US, clearly against the constitution, Trump's policy would not have stopped this shooter
They mean if we went back in time and implemented it. Still, stupid idea now, stupid idea then. Proper gun control would be a better approach, but no one wants to touch that with a barge pole.
If a few of those Gay people had had guns then maybe more of them would have lived.
What a solution!!!
My friend emigrated to California a while ago, he's a very liberal guy.
Saw a man pull a gun on a theif trying to steal from an old lady.
Now a convert to gun ownership.
I'm sorry, I just think that is a petrol and fire approach.
Cum Catapultae Proscriptae Erunt Tum Soli Proscripti Catapultas Habebunt
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
And in the Scottish indyref, early estimates of postal votes (not just so-called rogue polls) had Yes ahead -- hence the vow -- until Gordon Brown intervened to save the union.
The trade deficit equals the sum of the private sector deficit (savings minus investments) plus the public sector deficit (taxes minus government spending on goods and services). This is a national accounting identity. Of itself it says nothing about causation. If @RCS100 asserts that it is due to deficient private savings then he needs to explain why the government deficit should be taken as given.
Breaking: State of Emergency declared in Orlando, maybe all Florida?
Horrendous news if 50 dead 50 injured.
Cynical - better get on Trump @ 4 then - A good day to make a move in the betting markets.
This ain't good - however it might have an effect on the UK referendum as well - people will look at the incident and not dissect the cause.
The shooter may be a Muslim but the victims were largely homosexuals, not exactly Trump's demographic
I suspect that simple demographic arithmetic will not be a good guide to this election. Trump is a master at reframing an issue and you may find that it's some of the least likely groups who will be the ones to switch to him.
Trump is not going to win the gay vote, he opposes gay marriage for starters
If you are targeted for murder because of your sexuality you might be more concerned to have a President who will strive to keep you safe.
Not saying that Trump necessarily is that man. But events sometimes change peoples' priorities.
There is no evidence he will keep you safe, his travel ban on Muslims would not have stopped this shooting, the shooter was a US citizen
As has been mentioned - it would have stopped his parents.
No it would not as it would not have been retrospective, short of interning every Muslim in the US, clearly against the constitution, Trump's policy would not have stopped this shooter
They mean if we went back in time and implemented it. Still, stupid idea now, stupid idea then. Proper gun control would be a better approach, but no one wants to touch that with a barge pole.
If a few of those Gay people had had guns then maybe more of them would have lived.
What a solution!!!
My friend emigrated to California a while ago, he's a very liberal guy.
Saw a man pull a gun on a theif trying to steal from an old lady.
Now a convert to gun ownership.
I'm sorry, I just think that is a petrol and fire approach.
Cum Catapultae Proscriptae Erunt Tum Soli Proscripti Catapultas Habebunt
Catapults for all? Is that an Ed Miliband pledge I missed?
Why would we want to f*ck ourselves in some game of brinkmanship? Post Brexit there will be no tariffs on physical goods between the EU/EEA and the UK. It's simply inconceivable, and would be disastrous for British companies and workers.
The inconceivable does sometimes happen you know. It's a risk to assume you will be able to control what happens once the referendum result is in.
This thread demonstrates beyond all doubt that the referendum campaign is a dialogue of the deaf. It's like having 60-odd MalcolmGs all shouting at once. By comparison the AV referendum stimulated a series of high quality debates.
Nick Clegg was not afraid to get stuck in and make a case (not necessarily a good one) for remaining in the EU. Haven't seen much of your new leader Michael Fallon.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
Ashcroft did a post Sindy review and it showed that older people, and C2DEs were most likely to put their vote in by post as part of their particular voting segments.
His post referendum sample had Remain winning 62-38 on the postal vote. It was 22% of the total vote.
The on the day vote was more like 52-48 but Leave never pulled back from the bad start.
Why would we want to f*ck ourselves in some game of brinkmanship? Post Brexit there will be no tariffs on physical goods between the EU/EEA and the UK. It's simply inconceivable, and would be disastrous for British companies and workers.
The inconceivable does sometimes happen you know. It's a risk to assume you will be able to control what happens once the referendum result is in.
Quite interesting. Inconceivable to a logical person opining on what should or shouldn't happen. But perfectly possible in the real world.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Why would we want to f*ck ourselves in some game of brinkmanship? Post Brexit there will be no tariffs on physical goods between the EU/EEA and the UK. It's simply inconceivable, and would be disastrous for British companies and workers.
I seem to remember that during the Port Talbot steel crisis, people were criticising the lack of tariffs imposed by the UK against dumped Chinese steel. Stating that tariffs are irrational and counterproductive is insufficient: people do irrational and counterproductive things all the time.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
The only way you could get an indication is if there is unusually heavy postal voting in places that are good for Leave, relative to places that are good for Remain.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Yep , no one will actually see a voting paper and where the cross is placed until after the polls have closed . All this talk of how the postal votes are going is simply flannel .
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
I believe a sample of them are opened and it is possible to keep a tally. There were allegations of this happening in the Scottish referendum. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment as I have only picked this up from reading articles online.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
I know it doesn't work in theory, but in practice it seems to work a lot.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
I believe a sample of them are opened and it is possible to keep a tally. There were allegations of this happening in the Scottish referendum.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Part of the verification is checking that only one paper has been returned and that the ballot paper number matches the one that was sent.
Sometimes a scrutineer might say they have seen a handful of papers as a random sample, but the number will have been pitifully small and it's no basis for any sort of assessment, making opinion polling look like science by comparison....
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Part of the verification is checking that only one paper has been returned and that the ballot paper number matches the one that was sent.
So they are all opened before counting day, or is verification done on the night?
Although i'm not sure quite how Leavers are intending to get around the possibility of just one country scuppering/delaying any deal for internal political reasons. Will some countries have to have a referendum?
It depends on the nature of the heads of agreement that will be negotiated. Some countries will require parliamentary approvals, others will require referendums.
Tinfoil hat wearers will see that the withdrawal from the EU can be prolonged ad nauseam if it suits all parties.
I'm not sures. The deadline for withdrawal will be timetabled - two years from Article 50 being activated. What isn't clear is what happens if an agreement hasn't been ratified at the 2 year point.
This is the text from the Lisbon Treaty:
The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
I think it's clear. If nothing is agreed after two years and unless all 28 EU countries agree to an extension, the UK would leave with nothing. I am pretty sure the EU would agree a minimal something at one of their all nighters but it puts the country leaving into a particularly weak negotiating position
Having said that, I believe people will realise very quickly after the vote, if not before, that a straight switch from a comprehensive system to nothing very much at all will deliver a severe economic shock. There will be a scramble to get an EEA agreement in place. Immigration would continues as now - but, hey, if David Cameron can win an election on a dishonest claim about immigration, Leave can win a referendum on the same claim. It's not as if Leave are concerned about the truthfulness of their £350 million a week and Turkey joining the EU claims, after all.
The standard of debate on here is pretty low. Cameron did not make a dishonest claim about immigration. Read the manifesto - the proposed limit was an ambition .
"We will: keep our ambition of delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands"
I think saying "maintain" rather than "keep" would have been better. The word keep implies it's a promise. Of course, they were more than happy for the press to report it as a promise.
The word keep may imply it is a promise, but the word two words after that certainly clarifies things.
When you're debating the precise meaning of words, you're losing.
Most Conservative voters in 2010 and 2015 expected the Conservatives to reduce immigration.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
I know it doesn't work in theory, but in practice it seems to work a lot.
That is what eg Kerry McCarthy seems to think :-D .
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
I believe a sample of them are opened and it is possible to keep a tally. There were allegations of this happening in the Scottish referendum. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment as I have only picked this up from reading articles online.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
And in the Scottish indyref, early estimates of postal votes (not just so-called rogue polls) had Yes ahead -- hence the vow -- until Gordon Brown intervened to save the union.
I don't remember any early estimates of postal votes that put Yes ahead, insofar as there can be accurate (or legal) early estimates of postal votes. Ruth Davidson said just after the polling stations closed that 'we have had people at every sample opening around the country over the last few weeks... and we have been incredibly encouraged by the results from that. Going into today, going by the postal votes that were cast, our side would have had a lead and I think that we have a confidence, I hope a quiet confidence, that the quiet majority of Scots have spoken today.' How much of that was hindsight infused hot air, who knows.
The assumption was always that older voters would tend to vote No, and that there would be a preponderance of older voters using postal votes.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
I'm taking it directly from official ONS sources, and over a full year: See Section 4 Fig 3, for the four quarters of 2015 (UK current account balances with EU and non-EU countries (seasonally adjusted), Quarter 1 2013 to Quarter 4 2015) . 2015 Q1 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£26bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£2bn 2015 Q2 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£27bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£8bn 2015 Q3 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£25bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£5bn 2015 Q4 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£29bn, Trade Deficit with ROW -£4bn
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
...
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Part of the verification is checking that only one paper has been returned and that the ballot paper number matches the one that was sent.
So they are all opened before counting day, or is verification done on the night?
They are verified earlier - but the process is designed to conceal how people have voted, as far as is possible.
Of course it's human nature that, if you happen to see five ballots as they are being taken out of envelopes, and four of them are for Party X, to think that Party X is doing well. And if later you find that Party X has won comfortably, you tell yourself that you had the evidence in advance.
But if we assume a 60:40 result, five papers drawn at random will have four for the winning side about on time in four, and four for the losing side about one time in twelve (which in this context is often enough to make the sample useless)
p.s. and of course, particularly in this context with the big assumed age-bias in preference, the postal vote as a whole won't be representative.
Incidentally, while looking for a How To Guide for getting electorally useful information out of postal vote checking sessions (I'm sure Mark Pack has one somewhere - perhaps in his How To Win Elections book or the Lib Dem campaigns guide), I came across this gloriously petulant dressing-down of the local press by Dawn Butler MP - she of the 37k of dodgy expenses and two homes in Stratford and Brent, last time around.
"Your readers deserve to know that I send your paper on average, two to three press releases a week, and moreover attend several community events throughout the week where a member of your staff or a photographer for your paper are usually present, yet despite this, I hardly have a mentioning at all.
I find it very insulting to be continually omitted from your paper and consider it rather unjust to the community to be completely ignored in articles of events where I was present. There are several events that I have attended recently in the community which the W&B Times has covered but where you have chosen not to mention my attendance. The most recent of these events was a visit to LEAP with Government Minister Stephen Timms MP where we celebrated the excellent services of the community based organisation. Yet despite being present, my name and picture was omitted from the article. Furthermore, you failed to mention my attendance and speech at an event at Gladstone Park with the Mayor and once again failed to include any picture of me with the group."
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
Part of the verification is checking that only one paper has been returned and that the ballot paper number matches the one that was sent.
Sometimes a scrutineer might say they have seen a handful of papers as a random sample, but the number will have been pitifully small and it's no basis for any sort of assessment, making opinion polling look like science by comparison....
It is likely that postal votes for the referendum will be turning up in Tooting by-election envelopes next Thursday.
Ah Liam Fox - a close friend of despots and war criminals around the World.
Including the Tigers?
What has the LTTE got to do with the price of fish?
War Crimes like the 1991 bombing in southern India?
I was talking about Liam Fox not the LTTE.
You said "war criminals around the World", Murali.
The LTTE was the only militant group to assassinate two world leaders:[13] former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.[5][14][15] The LTTE invented suicide belts[13] and pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks.[13]
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
I'm taking it directly from official ONS sources, and over a full year: See Section 4 Fig 3, for the four quarters of 2015 (UK current account balances with EU and non-EU countries (seasonally adjusted), Quarter 1 2013 to Quarter 4 2015) . 2015 Q1 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£26bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£2bn 2015 Q2 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£27bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£8bn 2015 Q3 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£25bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£5bn 2015 Q4 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£29bn, Trade Deficit with ROW -£4bn
I think all these discussions rather miss the point. We demand goods from abroad (imports). They come from where they are cheapest to import. It so happens that a lot of them come from the EU.
How would our import bill be dramatically lowered by us leaving the EU? What would we no longer need to import?
Nigel Farage seems to view everything the remain camp says as scaremongering. I think that's far from the case. I think they are genuinely scared.
I would suggest that most people in the Remain camp clearly aren't scaremongering. They may or may not be wrong, but they obviously believe what they say.
(As an aside, the one area where we probably could improve our trade deficit in a small way post-Brexit is by buying more food products from Africa rather than our neighbours. It would only make a difference of a percent or so to our overall trade deficit, as the cost would only be slightly less, and we already source a lot from there, but it would have an impact.)
(As an aside, the one area where we probably could improve our trade deficit in a small way post-Brexit is by buying more food products from Africa rather than our neighbours. It would only make a difference of a percent or so to our overall trade deficit, as the cost would only be slightly less, and we already source a lot from there, but it would have an impact.)
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Mr. Fenman, unfortunately, by opening with economic collapse and World War Three, people aren't taking Remain's warnings as seriously as they might.
Mr. Mark, my trebuchets will never be taken away. Those who try will incur the wrath of the enormo-haddock.
Mr.Dancer. Post-brexit, I think you'll have to find another word for trebuchet. Unfortunately, both latin (fustibalus) and greek (cheiromangana) terms will also be unacceptable at that point for the same reason. Perhaps 'double-action sling shot'? Or the Arabic manajaniq
Mr. Fenman, unfortunately, by opening with economic collapse and World War Three, people aren't taking Remain's warnings as seriously as they might.
Mr. Mark, my trebuchets will never be taken away. Those who try will incur the wrath of the enormo-haddock.
Mr.Dancer. Post-brexit, I think you'll have to find another word for trebuchet. Unfortunately, both latin (fustibalus) and greek (cheiromangana) terms will also be unacceptable at that point for the same reason. Perhaps 'double-action sling shot'? Or the Arabic manajaniq
Going by that - half the English Language, at least, will be unacceptable - at least the staff at Kew Gardens will have permanent employment re-naming all the species past and present.
Incidentally, while looking for a How To Guide for getting electorally useful information out of postal vote checking sessions (I'm sure Mark Pack has one somewhere - perhaps in his How To Win Elections book or the Lib Dem campaigns guide)...
Having been to one myself, I can confirm that if done properly it's a waste of time as far as getting any sort of feel for the outcome is concerned. Your only hope is to 'strike lucky' with openers who fumble around and end up showing a fair few of the papers - but I don't believe this happens very often.
Although i'm not sure quite how Leavers are intending to get around the possibility of just one country scuppering/delaying any deal for internal political reasons. Will some countries have to have a referendum?
It depends on the nature of the heads of agreement that will be negotiated. Some countries will require parliamentary approvals, others will require referendums.
Tinfoil hat wearers will see that the withdrawal from the EU can be prolonged ad nauseam if it suits all parties.
I'm not sures. The deadline for withdrawal will be timetabled - two years from Article 50 being activated. What isn't clear is what happens if an agreement hasn't been ratified at the 2 year point.
My guess is that they will find that we've gone off and struck better deals elsewhere.
There's a big wide world with lots of opportunity in it.
Something of a non-sequitur. Whether we've "struck deals elsewhere" is irrelevant to what happens to our trading relationship with the EU, at enforced point of exit. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
It matters enormously in terms of whether we are better off or worse off.
I wonder how long it would take us to sign the deal that the EU have been trying to strike with Canada for seven years if we were free to act unilaterally, for example?
This is where remain have a point, and it can't be hand waved away. Our top trading partners ( apologies for cherrypicking, this is from April 2016) figures are, in order, Germany, USA, Switzerland, France and China [Imports], and USA, Germany, France, the Netherlands [exports]. Canada is noise level in comparison.
And outside the EU members and Switzerland the EU has failed to secure a comprehensive trade deal with any of those countries. And the trade deal they are looking to secure with the US comes with so much extra baggage included it is very likely going to fall before it gets anywhere near agreement.
The question has to be asked, how could we actually do any worse than the EU has done?
Here's a question Richard.
I'm sure we could do all kind of trade deals here there and everywhere, but many economists have forecast that there will be a diminution in GDP in the coming years if we leave.
Do you think that in aggregate we would be able, economically, to put ourselves in a better place if we left? It is a bold assumption (and I don't think you are an economist).
I get the Freedom! debate - freedom for UK kettle manufacturers to make kettles howsoever they goddamn please. But aggregate GDP levels? Not so sure.
For coherence, unless you are Patrick Minford, then I would stick with the Freedom thing: It is a price worth paying for our sovereignty to leave the EU.
A diminution in GDP? Or in GDP per Capita?
They have very different impacts on individuals.
Agree. NIESR has a 0.8% per capita diminution in GDP many years out.
And it's an interesting discussion. Do we want to be constantly growing as an economy, keeping track with our neighbours and not-so-close neighbours, or do we want to carry on, each of us slightly less well off (in aggregate moreso) as a country.
We want a steady growth per capita not necessarily a steady growth overall. They are very different things.
The Remainers don't seem to using the EU flag in any of their literature. Quite remarkable that they are campaigning for us to stay yet are ashamed of the EU flag. Speaks volumes.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
You do know that British firms that export to the US and China have components in their products that are imported from Germany, Italy and the rest of the EU, right?
Global supply chains are incredibly complex. Let me give you an example of a project I was recently involved in. This was part of the solar battery stuff I've regaled many PBers with before: the company was British, final assembly was in France, solar panels came from a German module maker using US cells, batteries came from China, and battery management boards came from Wales. And design was in the UK. That project will have added to the UK balance of trade deficit with the EU, and added to its surplus with the rest of the world.
Why would we want to f*ck ourselves in some game of brinkmanship? Post Brexit there will be no tariffs on physical goods between the EU/EEA and the UK. It's simply inconceivable, and would be disastrous for British companies and workers.
It might or might not be in the interests of UK firms to see a contraction of trade with the EU. such is the scale of the trade imbalance. Were the UK's trade with the EU to be broadly in balance, and had the UK's manufacturing capacity not shrunk at such an extraordinary pace since 1973, then the "might not" would be much the better case. But in the actual context it's far from clear.
What is beyond dispute is that with a huge trade surplus with the UK, it is certainly not in the German's interests to "f*ck themselves in some game of brinkmanship". So as I said, Schauble's threats are utterly empty, and VW and Bosch aren't going to let him follow through on them in an EU in hock to corporate interests. That means the UK would be in a far stronger negotiating position were negotiations to open, such that concessions could be gained in return for allowing EU access to UK markets (and vice versa) but while we are bound by EU membership such negotiations are out of bounds. Which is of course how the Germans would like matters to stay.
kle4- to Brexiters- if we vote remain, we know pretty much what we are going to get. The EU will muddle along with all it's imperfections, the British economy will be relatively stable but still susceptible to global shocks as it was ever thus, London will continue to power ahead.
But with Brexit- there is a strong chance there will be an immediate run on sterling, and a flow of capital out of the UK. A one off shock would be OK- but this is likely to be accompanied by years of political and economic uncertainty which are likely to exacerbate any normal recessionary cycle. And we will be hit by the spectre of inflation- the imported inflation that we faced in the 70's, except poor productivity and recessionary factors will keep wages down.
The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit. It cannot afford to let the UK thrive outside, so we'll get the worst trading terms.
If the UK gets poorer- and the scaremongering from remain is proved to be right, who do I blame?
"The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit."
And these are the feckers you want us to stay wedded to?
Doesn't work like that. Countries will just become more protectionist to protect their own workers. They can't within the EU but they will when we're outside. It's only what we're planning to do. Keep out EU workers to protect our own
Delay in negotiating access to UK markets will hasten the death of the EU. Their call....
UK exports to EU - 6.6% of its total GDP EU exports to UK - 1.9% of its total GDP
It could be although Hillary has been pressing for stricter gun control so it may be a wash. For betting purposes, we should perhaps also wonder whether Newt's pronouncements were choreographed with Trump's.
Thinking about the lessons of last year's General Election, Leave looks in the much better position. We are also, by looking at just voting intention, running the risk of repeating last year's mistakes.
We all looked back at the polls then and said that, while the voting intention question underestimated the Conservatives' chance of a majority, the supplementary proxy questions, such as preferring David Cameron to Ed Miliband as PM, did point to a Conservative victory.
Now look at the answers given to supplementary questions - David Cameron and George Osborne generally are scoring lower than Boris et al in questions on the EU Referendum; respondents answer that Brexit will, in likelihood, lower immigration but there is more uncertainty over the economic risks from Remain, etc etc. On the basis of the GE, that should give Remain a great amount of concern.
What is also interesting is what seems like Remain's sudden increase in concern over the past week and whether it has been driven by insights into the postal vote trends. Cast your mind back to last year's GE - there was a very interesting article in Labour Uncut a few days before the election (http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/05/02/revealed-eds-night-time-dash-to-casa-brand-driven-by-postal-ballot-panic/) that suggested that Ed Miliband's homage to Russell Brand was driven by panic over initial postal vote estimates. At the time, there was uncertainty whether observers could really work out the tally (the consensus, from those who had experience as observers, was that you could) but, in hindsight, it looked prescient.
I am not posting this as a pro-Brexit point, btw - I just think that Leave looks incredible value given what the data is showing.
An excellent post.
If older voters are more likely to vote by post there could be some sizeable Leave leads building up. This could be what has spooked Remain.
But it is typically very hard to get much of an indication from a postal vote verification, as the papers are usually kept face down, whereas in the verification stage of a normal count they are verified face up, to conceal the ballot paper ID number. In a postal opening the voter's identify is known (from the accompanying documentation) and therefore the paper is typically concealed from the scrutineers, who will be lucky to get more than the occasional glimpse as the odd paper comes out of an envelope folded outwards.
Isn't the inner envelope kept sealed until counting day?
I believe a sample of them are opened and it is possible to keep a tally. There were allegations of this happening in the Scottish referendum. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment as I have only picked this up from reading articles online.
Don't forget that that was magnified by conspiraloons.
Remember that they managed to get a number of people equivalent to more than 4% of the Scottish Electorate - around 175,000 to sign petitions alleging that the election count had been rigged.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
kle4- to Brexiters- if we vote remain, we know pretty much what we are going to get. The EU will muddle along with all it's imperfections, the British economy will be relatively stable but still susceptible to global shocks as it was ever thus, London will continue to power ahead.
But with Brexit- there is a strong chance there will be an immediate run on sterling, and a flow of capital out of the UK. A one off shock would be OK- but this is likely to be accompanied by years of political and economic uncertainty which are likely to exacerbate any normal recessionary cycle. And we will be hit by the spectre of inflation- the imported inflation that we faced in the 70's, except poor productivity and recessionary factors will keep wages down.
The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit. It cannot afford to let the UK thrive outside, so we'll get the worst trading terms.
If the UK gets poorer- and the scaremongering from remain is proved to be right, who do I blame?
"The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit."
And these are the feckers you want us to stay wedded to?
Doesn't work like that. Countries will just become more protectionist to protect their own workers. They can't within the EU but they will when we're outside. It's only what we're planning to do. Keep out EU workers to protect our own
Delay in negotiating access to UK markets will hasten the death of the EU. Their call....
UK exports to EU - 6.6% of its total GDP EU exports to UK - 1.9% of its total GDP
QED
Anyone using percentages rather than raw data gets laughed at!
kle4- to Brexiters- if we vote remain, we know pretty much what we are going to get. The EU will muddle along with all it's imperfections, the British economy will be relatively stable but still susceptible to global shocks as it was ever thus, London will continue to power ahead.
But with Brexit- there is a strong chance there will be an immediate run on sterling, and a flow of capital out of the UK. A one off shock would be OK- but this is likely to be accompanied by years of political and economic uncertainty which are likely to exacerbate any normal recessionary cycle. And we will be hit by the spectre of inflation- the imported inflation that we faced in the 70's, except poor productivity and recessionary factors will keep wages down.
The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit. It cannot afford to let the UK thrive outside, so we'll get the worst trading terms.
If the UK gets poorer- and the scaremongering from remain is proved to be right, who do I blame?
"The EU will have to punish the UK for a Brexit."
And these are the feckers you want us to stay wedded to?
Doesn't work like that. Countries will just become more protectionist to protect their own workers. They can't within the EU but they will when we're outside. It's only what we're planning to do. Keep out EU workers to protect our own
Delay in negotiating access to UK markets will hasten the death of the EU. Their call....
UK exports to EU - 6.6% of its total GDP EU exports to UK - 1.9% of its total GDP
QED
That the net amount is higher for the EU? Quite right - they'll be even keener to get a deal, or more likely, keep the zero tariffs on goods within continental Europe they currently exists.
This thread demonstrates beyond all doubt that the referendum campaign is a dialogue of the deaf. It's like having 60-odd MalcolmGs all shouting at once. By comparison the AV referendum stimulated a series of high quality debates.
Probably because we were missing your condescension. Now we have all been patted on the head we will of course raise the standard of debate....
Not going to happen. Mystified you took my despair for condescension. If we can't have a rational debate on the referendum on pb, there is no hope for civilians.
Talk of terrorism misses the point. The question is whether his actions were directed by any terrorist group or whether, as so far seems more likely, he was a lone nutter with a gun whose links to wider groups were self-declared or imaginary.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Although i'm not sure quite how Leavers are intending to get around the possibility of just one country scuppering/delaying any deal for internal political reasons. Will some countries have to have a referendum?
It depends on the nature of the heads of agreement that will be negotiated. Some countries will require parliamentary approvals, others will require referendums.
Tinfoil hat wearers will see that the withdrawal from the EU can be prolonged ad nauseam if it suits all parties.
I'm not sures. The deadline for withdrawal will be timetabled - two years from Article 50 being activated. What isn't clear is what happens if an agreement hasn't been ratified at the 2 year point.
This is the text from the Lisbon Treaty:
The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
I think it's clear. If nothing is agreed after two years and unless all 28 EU countries agree to an extension, the UK would leave with nothing. I am pretty sure the EU would agree a minimal something at one of their all nighters but it puts the country leaving into a particularly weak negotiating position
Having said that, I believe people will realise very quickly after the vote, if not before, that a straight switch from a comprehensive system to nothing very much at all will deliver a severe economic shock. There will be a scramble to get an EEA agreement in place. Immigration would continues as now - but, hey, if David Cameron can win an election on a dishonest claim about immigration, Leave can win a referendum on the same claim. It's not as if Leave are concerned about the truthfulness of their £350 million a week and Turkey joining the EU claims, after all.
The standard of debate on here is pretty low. Cameron did not make a dishonest claim about immigration. Read the manifesto - the proposed limit was an ambition .
I was being polite to Leave, which is possibly the most dishonest political campaign I have been subjected to. More so than the Yes Scotland campaign in 2014, which itself was a dodgy affair.
To be clear I am talking about the campaigns themselves, not the choices, which are reasonable ones.
The Remain campaign is far more dishonest than the Leave campaign (though that is rather like grading the quality of dogsh!t)
(As an aside, the one area where we probably could improve our trade deficit in a small way post-Brexit is by buying more food products from Africa rather than our neighbours. It would only make a difference of a percent or so to our overall trade deficit, as the cost would only be slightly less, and we already source a lot from there, but it would have an impact.)
??????
Not sure I get that. Because it's cheaper?
That's right. While EU tariffs are generally surprisingly low (see World Bank data here: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.TAX.MRCH.WM.AR.ZS), they are typically high on foodstuffs. (There are exceptions where the EU has specific deals with countries.)
The result of this is that we import products from the EU rather than from cheaper places in Africa. It would clearly be in both our interests (lower cost to consumers, lower trade deficit) if we were to buy more agricultural products from Africa, and fewer from the EU.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Although i'm not sure quite how Leavers are intending to get around the possibility of just one country scuppering/delaying any deal for internal political reasons. Will some countries have to have a referendum?
It depends on the nature of the heads of agreement that will be negotiated. Some countries will require parliamentary approvals, others will require referendums.
Tinfoil hat wearers will see that the withdrawal from the EU can be prolonged ad nauseam if it suits all parties.
I'm not sures. The deadline for withdrawal will be timetabled - two years from Article 50 being activated. What isn't clear is what happens if an agreement hasn't been ratified at the 2 year point.
This is the text from the Lisbon Treaty:
The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
I think it's clear. If nothing is agreed after two years and unless all 28 EU countries agree to an extension, the UK would leave with nothing. I am pretty sure the EU would agree a minimal something at one of their all nighters but it puts the country leaving into a particularly weak negotiating position
Having said that, I believe people will realise very quickly after the vote, if not before, that a straight switch from a comprehensive system to nothing very much at all will deliver a severe economic shock. There will be a scramble to get an EEA agreement in place. Immigration would continues as now - but, hey, if David Cameron can win an election on a dishonest claim about immigration, Leave can win a referendum on the same claim. It's not as if Leave are concerned about the truthfulness of their £350 million a week and Turkey joining the EU claims, after all.
The standard of debate on here is pretty low. Cameron did not make a dishonest claim about immigration. Read the manifesto - the proposed limit was an ambition .
I was being polite to Leave, which is possibly the most dishonest political campaign I have been subjected to. More so than the Yes Scotland campaign in 2014, which itself was a dodgy affair.
To be clear I am talking about the campaigns themselves, not the choices, which are reasonable ones.
The Remain campaign is far more dishonest than the Leave campaign (though that is rather like grading the quality of dogsh!t)
Where is the specific dishonesty in the Remain campaign? The charge against the remain campaign is that they are magnifying risks and talking up supposedly worst case scenarios. But that is not dishonesty per se.
It might or might not be in the interests of UK firms to see a contraction of trade with the EU. such is the scale of the trade imbalance. Were the UK's trade with the EU to be broadly in balance, and had the UK's manufacturing capacity not shrunk at such an extraordinary pace since 1973, then the "might not" would be much the better case. But in the actual context it's far from clear.
What is beyond dispute is that with a huge trade surplus with the UK, it is certainly not in the German's interests to "f*ck themselves in some game of brinkmanship". So as I said, Schauble's threats are utterly empty, and VW and Bosch aren't going to let him follow through on them in an EU in hock to corporate interests. That means the UK would be in a far stronger negotiating position were negotiations to open, such that concessions could be gained in return for allowing EU access to UK markets (and vice versa) but while we are bound by EU membership such negotiations are out of bounds. Which is of course how the Germans would like matters to stay.
You are really beginning to scare me.
Trade is not - by and large - the consequence of government policy, but the sum of millions of decisions by individual firms and consumers.
There are many firms in the UK and in Europe that are part of integrated supply chains. Cars "made in Germany" may have British gearboxes, Chinese LCD screens, and French windscreen wipers. It beggars belief that you think that the British gearbox company would somehow benefit from a trade war.
I am a free trader. I would remove all tariffs on all goods and services. I would hope we could persuade our partners to do the same. But the idea that the UK government can improve the performance of British businesses by inhibiting their trade is genuinely terrifying.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
But, over the slightly longer term, our trade with non-EU countries balances.
Just as a matter of interest, which products that we currently import from the EU do you think we would not longer need to import post-Brexit?
Well quite. We would import the same things, they would just be a bit more expensive.
Or, shock horror, we could actually make them in the UK! If it is cheaper to make them here than import them then firms will set up.
Yes we can reopen the coal mines , build new Steel Mills and restart ship building .
Whether you support this or not, or whether it is feasible or not, surely even you can see that such a policy wouldn't go down badly with the main swing voters of this election - working class Labour voters.
Breaking: State of Emergency declared in Orlando, maybe all Florida?
Horrendous news if 50 dead 50 injured.
Cynical - better get on Trump @ 4 then - A good day to make a move in the betting markets.
This ain't good - however it might have an effect on the UK referendum as well - people will look at the incident and not dissect the cause.
The shooter may be a Muslim but the victims were largely homosexuals, not exactly Trump's demographic
I suspect that simple demographic arithmetic will not be a good guide to this election. Trump is a master at reframing an issue and you may find that it's some of the least likely groups who will be the ones to switch to him.
Trump is not going to win the gay vote, he opposes gay marriage for starters
If you are targeted for murder because of your sexuality you might be more concerned to have a President who will strive to keep you safe.
Not saying that Trump necessarily is that man. But events sometimes change peoples' priorities.
There is no evidence he will keep you safe, his travel ban on Muslims would not have stopped this shooting, the shooter was a US citizen
As has been mentioned - it would have stopped his parents.
No it would not as it would not have been retrospective, short of interning every Muslim in the US, clearly against the constitution, Trump's policy would not have stopped this shooter
They mean if we went back in time and implemented it. Still, stupid idea now, stupid idea then. Proper gun control would be a better approach, but no one wants to touch that with a barge pole.
If a few of those Gay people had had guns then maybe more of them would have lived.
That's right. The nightclub probably had a no guns rule, which prevents self-defence. Shootings tend to occur in "no gun safe zones" like colleges and cinemas because in those areas only the villains are armed. Gun 'control' is a large part of the problem, not the solution.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
But, over the slightly longer term, our trade with non-EU countries balances.
Just as a matter of interest, which products that we currently import from the EU do you think we would not longer need to import post-Brexit?
Well quite. We would import the same things, they would just be a bit more expensive.
Or, shock horror, we could actually make them in the UK! If it is cheaper to make them here than import them then firms will set up.
Yes we can reopen the coal mines , build new Steel Mills and restart ship building .
Whether you support this or not, or whether it is feasible or not, surely even you can see that such a policy wouldn't go down badly with the main swing voters of this election - working class Labour voters.
Is there any evidence that those are the main swing voters?
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
But, over the slightly longer term, our trade with non-EU countries balances.
Just as a matter of interest, which products that we currently import from the EU do you think we would not longer need to import post-Brexit?
Which do you think we would?
For our overall trade deficit to be smaller, our import bill would need to be lower. We could achieve that by paying less for imports (which we would be able to with food). Or by buying less in general.
Less in general would mean pushing our savings rate up. (Or, conversely, by reducing the consumption share of GDP.)
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
We seem to trade more successfully with those nations with whom we do not share a Single Market than with those with whom we do. Our trade with non-EU nations is broadly in balance, whereas with EU nations, we have a massive deficit. It's therefore unclear to me what the benefits of the Single Market are to this country, or what there is to fear if we don't form part of it after leaving the EU.
Leave the EU, and reduce the Trade Deficit.
Our trade deficit is the consequence of having one of the lowest savings rates in the world, not our membership of the EU.
In 2015 we had an annual £100bn trade deficit with the EU, a surplus of about £10bn with the rest of the world, and you're saying that a significant reduction in the UK's volume of trade with the EU would not reduce the UK's trade deficit?
Besides that, the existence of that £100bn trade deficit means that German firms will be petrified, because the opportunities lost to export to the UK will be far more than the opportunities gained by German firms as UK exports to Germany are scaled back.
So Schauble's threats are utterly empty. But nonetheless it might be in the UK's interests to insist that he follows through on them.
Breaking: State of Emergency declared in Orlando, maybe all Florida?
Horrendous news if 50 dead 50 injured.
Cynical - better get on Trump @ 4 then - A good day to make a move in the betting markets.
This ain't good - however it might have an effect on the UK referendum as well - people will look at the incident and not dissect the cause.
The shooter may be a Muslim but the victims were largely homosexuals, not exactly Trump's demographic
I suspect that simple demographic arithmetic will not be a good guide to this election. Trump is a master at reframing an issue and you may find that it's some of the least likely groups who will be the ones to switch to him.
Trump is not going to win the gay vote, he opposes gay marriage for starters
If you are targeted for murder because of your sexuality you might be more concerned to have a President who will strive to keep you safe.
Not saying that Trump necessarily is that man. But events sometimes change peoples' priorities.
There is no evidence he will keep you safe, his travel ban on Muslims would not have stopped this shooting, the shooter was a US citizen
As has been mentioned - it would have stopped his parents.
No it would not as it would not have been retrospective, short of interning every Muslim in the US, clearly against the constitution, Trump's policy would not have stopped this shooter
They mean if we went back in time and implemented it. Still, stupid idea now, stupid idea then. Proper gun control would be a better approach, but no one wants to touch that with a barge pole.
If a few of those Gay people had had guns then maybe more of them would have lived.
That's right. The nightclub probably had a no guns rule, which prevents self-defence. Shootings tend to occur in "no gun safe zones" like colleges and cinemas because in those areas only the villains are armed. Gun 'control' is a large part of the problem, not the solution.
I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. If you're serious then no, there will always be gun-free (for law abiding citizens) areas like cinemas and colleges and shopping malls. The key is to make the whole nation gun-free.
Snowballs chance in hell of it happening in the USA, but sane people need to keep making the argument which is the only way it ever will be possible.
Breaking: State of Emergency declared in Orlando, maybe all Florida?
Horrendous news if 50 dead 50 injured.
Cynical - better get on Trump @ 4 then - A good day to make a move in the betting markets.
This ain't good - however it might have an effect on the UK referendum as well - people will look at the incident and not dissect the cause.
The shooter may be a Muslim but the victims were largely homosexuals, not exactly Trump's demographic
I suspect that simple demographic arithmetic will not be a good guide to this election. Trump is a master at reframing an issue and you may find that it's some of the least likely groups who will be the ones to switch to him.
Trump is not going to win the gay vote, he opposes gay marriage for starters
If you are targeted for murder because of your sexuality you might be more concerned to have a President who will strive to keep you safe.
Not saying that Trump necessarily is that man. But events sometimes change peoples' priorities.
There is no evidence he will keep you safe, his travel ban on Muslims would not have stopped this shooting, the shooter was a US citizen
As has been mentioned - it would have stopped his parents.
No it would not as it would not have been retrospective, short of interning every Muslim in the US, clearly against the constitution, Trump's policy would not have stopped this shooter
They mean if we went back in time and implemented it. Still, stupid idea now, stupid idea then. Proper gun control would be a better approach, but no one wants to touch that with a barge pole.
If a few of those Gay people had had guns then maybe more of them would have lived.
That's right. The nightclub probably had a no guns rule, which prevents self-defence. Shootings tend to occur in "no gun safe zones" like colleges and cinemas because in those areas only the villains are armed. Gun 'control' is a large part of the problem, not the solution.
Not this stupid argument again? We heard people trying to argue this at Bataclan. An attacker in a nightclub where everyone had guns wouldn't need to kill 50 people themselves. They would just need to fire a few shots and "self defence" would do the rest.
Comments
Blair, Campbell, Gerry Adams, Jeremy Corbyn, Dave, George, TSE, Mike Smithson..
(only kidding, TSE and Mike!)
Tim Fallon
Michael Farron
His post referendum sample had Remain winning 62-38 on the postal vote. It was 22% of the total vote.
The on the day vote was more like 52-48 but Leave never pulled back from the bad start.
Amazing that Robert would take such a risk.
RIP all the victims in Orlando.
Sometimes a scrutineer might say they have seen a handful of papers as a random sample, but the number will have been pitifully small and it's no basis for any sort of assessment, making opinion polling look like science by comparison....
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/12/newt_gingrich_the_elites_in_this_country_are_intentionally_dishonest_about_islamic_terrorism.html
Most Conservative voters in 2010 and 2015 expected the Conservatives to reduce immigration.
http://newsnet.scot/archive/labour-candidate-investigated-over-postal-votes-count/
Mr. Mark, my trebuchets will never be taken away. Those who try will incur the wrath of the enormo-haddock.
The assumption was always that older voters would tend to vote No, and that there would be a preponderance of older voters using postal votes.
See Section 4 Fig 3, for the four quarters of 2015 (UK current account balances with EU and non-EU countries (seasonally adjusted), Quarter 1 2013 to Quarter 4 2015) .
2015 Q1 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£26bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£2bn
2015 Q2 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£27bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£8bn
2015 Q3 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£25bn, Trade Surplus with ROW +£5bn
2015 Q4 UK Trade Deficit with EU -£29bn, Trade Deficit with ROW -£4bn
http://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/balanceofpayments/octtodecandannual2015
The process is set out in detail here:
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__search/search/click.cgi?rank=5&collection=electoral-commission&url=http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0014/74300/Postal-vote-opening-flowchart-FINAL.doc&index_url=http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0014/74300/Postal-vote-opening-flowchart-FINAL.doc&auth=JeNvB8490yAqPmdjYToy6A&query=postal+vote+openings&profile=_default_preview
Of course it's human nature that, if you happen to see five ballots as they are being taken out of envelopes, and four of them are for Party X, to think that Party X is doing well. And if later you find that Party X has won comfortably, you tell yourself that you had the evidence in advance.
But if we assume a 60:40 result, five papers drawn at random will have four for the winning side about on time in four, and four for the losing side about one time in twelve (which in this context is often enough to make the sample useless)
p.s. and of course, particularly in this context with the big assumed age-bias in preference, the postal vote as a whole won't be representative.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/08/labour-mp-attac.html
This is about a tenth of it:
"Your readers deserve to know that I send your paper on average, two to three press releases a week, and moreover attend several community events throughout the week where a member of your staff or a photographer for your paper are usually present, yet despite this, I hardly have a mentioning at all.
I find it very insulting to be continually omitted from your paper and consider it rather unjust to the community to be completely ignored in articles of events where I was present. There are several events that I have attended recently in the community which the W&B Times has covered but where you have chosen not to mention my attendance. The most recent of these events was a visit to LEAP with Government Minister Stephen Timms MP where we celebrated the excellent services of the community based organisation. Yet despite being present, my name and picture was omitted from the article. Furthermore, you failed to mention my attendance and speech at an event at Gladstone Park with the Mayor and once again failed to include any picture of me with the group."
The LTTE was the only militant group to assassinate two world leaders:[13] former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.[5][14][15] The LTTE invented suicide belts[13] and pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelam#War_crimes
How would our import bill be dramatically lowered by us leaving the EU? What would we no longer need to import?
Shades of Mrs Beeton.
"You can talk about police provocation, or other fans causing trouble, but it only seems to happen where the English go."
Maybe Cameron's seat.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-would-do-okay-outside-the-european-union-david-cameron-says-a6727031.html
Not sure I get that. Because it's cheaper?
Can anyone make a positive case for the EU?
Could be a game-changer?
What is beyond dispute is that with a huge trade surplus with the UK, it is certainly not in the German's interests to "f*ck themselves in some game of brinkmanship". So as I said, Schauble's threats are utterly empty, and VW and Bosch aren't going to let him follow through on them in an EU in hock to corporate interests. That means the UK would be in a far stronger negotiating position were negotiations to open, such that concessions could be gained in return for allowing EU access to UK markets (and vice versa) but while we are bound by EU membership such negotiations are out of bounds. Which is of course how the Germans would like matters to stay.
Just 'links to terrorist groups'...
EU exports to UK - 1.9% of its total GDP
QED
Remember that they managed to get a number of people equivalent to more than 4% of the Scottish Electorate - around 175,000 to sign petitions alleging that the election count had been rigged.
https://www.change.org/p/nicola-sturgeon-we-the-undersigned-demand-a-revote-of-the-scottish-referendum-counted-by-impartial-international-parties
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/independent-enquiry-for-scottish-referendum-vote-count
The result of this is that we import products from the EU rather than from cheaper places in Africa. It would clearly be in both our interests (lower cost to consumers, lower trade deficit) if we were to buy more agricultural products from Africa, and fewer from the EU.
Trade is not - by and large - the consequence of government policy, but the sum of millions of decisions by individual firms and consumers.
There are many firms in the UK and in Europe that are part of integrated supply chains. Cars "made in Germany" may have British gearboxes, Chinese LCD screens, and French windscreen wipers. It beggars belief that you think that the British gearbox company would somehow benefit from a trade war.
I am a free trader. I would remove all tariffs on all goods and services. I would hope we could persuade our partners to do the same. But the idea that the UK government can improve the performance of British businesses by inhibiting their trade is genuinely terrifying.
Shootings tend to occur in "no gun safe zones" like colleges and cinemas because in those areas only the villains are armed.
Gun 'control' is a large part of the problem, not the solution.
Nope.
So I guess Trump is going to stoke up even more the national security threat of the Democrats in the White House...
Less in general would mean pushing our savings rate up. (Or, conversely, by reducing the consumption share of GDP.)
They are at liberty to refuse to sell us their stuff, and they are at liberty to refuse to buy our stuff.
But if they sell more to us than we sell to them, that would hurt the EU more than the UK.
So how long would it take us to source other supply lines for what we do need to buy?
Snowballs chance in hell of it happening in the USA, but sane people need to keep making the argument which is the only way it ever will be possible.