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  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,755

    'The Tories have to win Witney and win big.'

    Quite right Mike. If the Tories lost here it would be catastrophic. I think that's unlikely; nevertheless there are a few reasons why the Witney voters might upset the apple cart:

    1) They take a dim view of the manner in which May humiliated their Dave and set about trashing his legacy.

    2) They react badly to May's capitulation to the hard-Brexit ultras.

    3) They regard May as a bit suburban and down-at-heel - she walks over their land, for example, rather than riding horses on it - and want to teach her a lesson for her presumptions.

    Again, I think a loss is unlikely. Having said that, until Cameron, Tories' getting humiliated in by-elections was a given. Perhaps those days will be upon us again soon.

    'The Tories have to win Witney and win big.'

    Quite right Mike. If the Tories lost here it would be catastrophic. I think that's unlikely; nevertheless there are a few reasons why the Witney voters might upset the apple cart:

    1) They take a dim view of the manner in which May humiliated their Dave and set about trashing his legacy.

    2) They react badly to May's capitulation to the hard-Brexit ultras.

    3) They regard May as a bit suburban and down-at-heel - she walks over their land, for example, rather than riding horses on it - and want to teach her a lesson for her presumptions.

    Again, I think a loss is unlikely. Having said that, until Cameron, Tories' getting humiliated in by-elections was a given. Perhaps those days will be upon us again soon.

    Perhaps a handful of millionaires feel like that, but most of the voters aren't millionaires.
  • TonyETonyE Posts: 938

    SeanT said:

    SeanT - You have the thorny issue of school funding. London schools have been better funded. I'm not sure the reasons for this are entirely clear. Some say it is due to local authorities in London being more ready to put money in. But I think the difference is rather substantial. It could at least be mentioned whenever people discuss the difference in attainment in London compared to Brexitland rather than just going on about the London Challenge and 'aspiration'.

    Oh I agree. The success of London schools is a complex phenomenon - demographics, money, migration, competition, the attraction of the city to the best teachers, etc etc etc. There should be a prize for the first academic to work it all out - and how it can be replicated.

    Actually grammar school is not a bad way of doing it, if they are flexible and put in the right place. The poorest and worst performing boroughs should get them, and they should be restricted to those areas, maybe?

    Tricky.

    OK now I have to work

    London schools were by and large appalling in the mid-1990s. Now they are clearly the best in the country. Something has happened.
    Demographic shift.
  • Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    Do you mind if I ask, do you see yourself potentially supporting a post Brexit Tory party once more?
  • Does anyone know if David Cameron (pbuh) will be campaigning in this by-election?
  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    Lincoln is Boris
    I have Boris down as Grant.
    How is Boris Grant if the Leavers are Confederates? Or do you have him switching sides?
    The Leavers won. They are the USA, the Remainers are Confederates.
    My confusion stems from TSE saying he was comparing the leavers to the Confederate States. Now if the leavers are the Union, it makes more sense.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180
    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    I think that is right and probably a low turnout to boot which will make the result 'look' even worse.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,560
    TonyE said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT - You have the thorny issue of school funding. London schools have been better funded. I'm not sure the reasons for this are entirely clear. Some say it is due to local authorities in London being more ready to put money in. But I think the difference is rather substantial. It could at least be mentioned whenever people discuss the difference in attainment in London compared to Brexitland rather than just going on about the London Challenge and 'aspiration'.

    Oh I agree. The success of London schools is a complex phenomenon - demographics, money, migration, competition, the attraction of the city to the best teachers, etc etc etc. There should be a prize for the first academic to work it all out - and how it can be replicated.

    Actually grammar school is not a bad way of doing it, if they are flexible and put in the right place. The poorest and worst performing boroughs should get them, and they should be restricted to those areas, maybe?

    Tricky.

    OK now I have to work

    London schools were by and large appalling in the mid-1990s. Now they are clearly the best in the country. Something has happened.
    Demographic shift.
    They are so good now, even Diane Abbot says she would send her child to a state school :-)
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,755

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    Do you mind if I ask, do you see yourself potentially supporting a post Brexit Tory party once more?
    Quite likely. In fact, against Corbyn, very likely.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,944
    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    Is it mid term or are we still in May's honeymoon period - she became PM in mid July?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,180

    TonyE said:

    SeanT said:

    SeanT - You have the thorny issue of school funding. London schools have been better funded. I'm not sure the reasons for this are entirely clear. Some say it is due to local authorities in London being more ready to put money in. But I think the difference is rather substantial. It could at least be mentioned whenever people discuss the difference in attainment in London compared to Brexitland rather than just going on about the London Challenge and 'aspiration'.

    Oh I agree. The success of London schools is a complex phenomenon - demographics, money, migration, competition, the attraction of the city to the best teachers, etc etc etc. There should be a prize for the first academic to work it all out - and how it can be replicated.

    Actually grammar school is not a bad way of doing it, if they are flexible and put in the right place. The poorest and worst performing boroughs should get them, and they should be restricted to those areas, maybe?

    Tricky.

    OK now I have to work

    London schools were by and large appalling in the mid-1990s. Now they are clearly the best in the country. Something has happened.
    Demographic shift.
    They are so good now, even Diane Abbot says she would send her child to a state school :-)
    Now you're just being silly :)
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928
    edited October 2016
    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    SeanT's baby analogy has one potentially accurate aspect.

    Women earn less (over their lifetime) than men because they bear children.

    Brexit UK will earn less than we would have celibate.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,001
    Perhaps we could say that one of new Labour's major achievements was convincing wealthy Londoners to send their children to state schools. It must have been a tremendous source of shame for Islingtonians to have to pay a ransom to private schools just so their kids could get a decent education. Thanks to Tony Blair they no longer need worry.
  • taffystaffys Posts: 9,753
    ''Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true. ''

    It isn't and Brexit isn't perfect. Or wonderful. But look at the Eurozone FFS. It absolutely 100% deserves to be left.

    Remainers are like abused partners. Give it one more chance. He/she knows they are wrong and have promised to change. This time they ARE sorry, they really are.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,944
    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
  • MarkSeniorMarkSenior Posts: 4,699
    FWIW , my initial forecast for Witney is something like Con 45 LD 28 Lab 12 UKIP 5 Green 5 All others 5 . The local elections last May with Con 49 Lab 20 LD 18 are nearer the starting positions than the last GE figures .
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,001
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    Do you mind if I ask, do you see yourself potentially supporting a post Brexit Tory party once more?
    Quite likely. In fact, against Corbyn, very likely.
    You think Corbyn can win?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 73,016

    SeanT said:

    tpfkar said:

    SeanT said:



    My analogy is near-perfect, as I am sure Richard Nabavi would agree.

    It also explains why Remainers are so bitter. They never wanted to have kids. They never wanted this fucking brat, and now they have to sit in a room full of soiled nappies for three years?? And never go out again and have fun?>

    Some of the nuttier ones are still hoping for a dangerous illegal abortion at the last minute, no matter the risk to the mother, or they hope to smother the baby in the crib.

    Not quite there Sean. Having a baby is an additional blessing / burden - but for the unconsolable Remainers, it's more about having something they valued forcibly taken away by others. I'm not sure you get that across in the extra responsibility of an unprepared parent - maybe the better analogy is having your child taken into care against your wishes, even though your relationship had many flaws?
    No, my analogy is flawless. The Remainers are angry because their freedom of movement has been taken away, and their identity as europolitan singletons, now they've become a boring parent, plus they can't go clubbing any more.
    And then it turns out that the real father is Nigel Farage who continues to swan around the world producing bastards.
    It's a pretty poor analogy, as most analogies tend to be.
    The divorce one is almost equally crap. but at least captures the possibility of the separating parties inflicting a significant amount of unnecessary damage on each other when arguing irrationally about the terms of the split.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928
    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    Indeed, usurper May needs to be reminded she's never been elected as PM, and she's using Cameron's majority, so stick to the manifesto, like things on grammar schools.


    In what way is May a 'usurper'?

    Cameron stood down - after promising not to.

    Osborne didn't even put his name forward - at least he gets marks for self awareness.

    Bitter posh boys......
    Significant departures from the manifesto that helped the Tories win a majority for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century.
    Indeed. She should be fulfilling the current Tory mandate, not going beyond it on some fool's errand with an ill conceived policy on grammar schools, which, IMO, will damage the case for selective education in the long term.
    At the moment I am touring school in north London, for my older daughter, who goes to secondary next September.

    The quality of schools is quite astonishing. I went to one, Wren Academy ("outstanding" according to Ofsted). Compared to my rattly old comp, it was like a small, rich university. It has its own theatre. A huge computer complex. School trips go around the world, all year. The kids were all enthusiastic, articulate, well behaved. It's Church of England - but full of all races and creeds.

    The one good thing Labour did was pump money into education, and the Coalition and the Tories continued that, and the one place it's REALLY worked is London.

    What May's government should be doing is working out how to translate the success of London schools to the rest of the UK

    Henrietta Barnett in Hampstead is probably the best non-fee paying girl's school in the country. Consider it. If you're up for paying fees then consider St Paul's and Habs for girls in Hertfordshire. I got into the boy's school for the latter but my parents couldn't afford the fees.
    I went to Henrietta Barnett. It's a great school BUT it has one huge problem. It's gone from 30% ethnic minority to 80% in ten years - and rising fast. In a couple more years the school will be entirely non-white.

    It's now basically a free private school for wealthy Asian parents - mainly Indian - willing to tutor their girls til they faint.

    Everyone knows this is a massive issue for Henrietta Barnett, but no one is willing to talk about it.

    I want my daughter to go to a school that is recognisably British: a good mix of kids, not a monocultural hothouse.
    I went to a school that was about 70% Asian, it didn't do me any harm...
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,423
    edited October 2016

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    The would-be "Abraham Lincoln" is Jean-Claude Juncker. Who is clearly no Lincoln and that is why the "Confederates" won this one. The Union victory in the US wasn't nailed on. They had to win while a stalemate would have been enough for the other side. It's possible without the real Lincoln the real Confederates would have prevailed.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    FPT;

    Pong said:



    Also, note how much better off (in net income terms after housing costs) people born in the 1970s and 1980slives.

    .
    Employer (And employee) contributions on pensions are a frog that the Gov't should look to boil to perhaps 10/10 by 2030.
    Honest question but why should an employer bear responsibility for an employees pension? Especially given the death of lifelong employment and employees can work for dozens of employers over their career? Would it not make more sense for an employer to simply pay the employee well and then let the employee choose their pension scheme?
    The employer only bears the responsibility for the ER conts whilst the employee is at that company..
    I know that and I'm asking why should they? I would be in favour of abolishing ER costs and Employers NI etc altogether which are all a drain on employment and see the money just simply as wages. Let the employee decide what to do with their money. If the government wants to encourage or mandate a percentage of wages to go to pensions they can do that without giving yet another layer for employers to deal with. Why make three people do one persons job?

    Any employer that has to make contributions and pay Employers NI etc will be taking those into account when making employment decisions.
    The Hargreaves Lansdown analysis is interesting but, by focusing solely on income net of housing costs, is overlooking two of the most significant benefits that previous generations have received from (typically) become property owners in their late 20s-early 30s. The first is the long-term capital appreciation from house prices rising faster than inflation, which underpins the significant wealth now held by the baby boomer generation - as a percentage of total wealth this group (which includes me) holds a much higher proportion of wealth than equivalent age groups have done in decades past. And the second is that on retirement the employment income disappears, but life is affordable because the mortgage has also gone and there is no rent to pay. As well as much better pension provisions, as h-l says. And of course those without pension have the opportunity of releasing some of their equity by moving somewhere cheaper.

    If generation rent remain lifetime renters these benefits won't be available to them. Some will, or course, eventually become property owners through inheritance. But this isn't available to everyone (property is in any case becoming concentrated in fewer hands) and some of the parents will use up their equity funding their old age care costs.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,334
    SeanT said:

    @SeanT - We had our first child when we were ready and had a good idea of what the downsides were before we had him - less sleep, less freedom - we also knew that he was going to be born healthy and so there were no surprises. On top of that, we knew that we had a strong support structure of relatives and friends around us, all of who had nothing but love and goodwill in their hearts. Furthermore, we had seen friends have babies and we had been brought up ourselves. In short, we were prepared, though obviously we were nervous. So I don't buy the baby analogy!

    Our business will take very little if any hit long-term hit from Brexit and in the short-term we have actually seen our profits exceed forecast in Q1 - largely because we bill in dollars and Euros, not pounds. When the time comes, we will open our office in the rEU, do our single market business from there and nothing much will change. All it will mean is that jobs we would have created in the UK, the investments we would have made and the taxes we would have paid will all be created, made and paid elsewhere in Europe. We're small and completely insignificant, but if many other businesses that do a lot of single market work follow our lead it will have an effect. That's just a simple fact of life.

    Going back to the parent thing. I have three kids. They were already facing a tough fight to build the kind of standard of living that we (you, me and plenty of others on here) have enjoyed. I think Brexit makes it even tougher. I hope to God I am wrong.

    You still don't understand my baby analogy, but let's leave it

    On the practicalities, Hammond said today that he still agreed with the more pessimistic economic forecasts for Brexit, which was and is a 4% fall in GDP - over the next fifteen years, compared to what we might have enjoyed

    That's about 0.3% a year?

    In the grand scheme of things, and set against the epic scale of British history, it's tiny.
    It's also against a much smaller population rise, so the GDP per capita growth will be about the same over the measured period. Though no one can really say for sure since it is being compared to a road not taken.
  • MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    Lincoln is Boris
    I have Boris down as Grant.
    How is Boris Grant if the Leavers are Confederates? Or do you have him switching sides?
    The Leavers won. They are the USA, the Remainers are Confederates.
    My confusion stems from TSE saying he was comparing the leavers to the Confederate States. Now if the leavers are the Union, it makes more sense.
    I'm arguing with TSE's premise. The EU are the Confederates.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 120,407
    edited October 2016
    FF43 said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    The would-be "Abraham Lincoln" is Jean-Claude Juncker. Who is clearly no Lincoln and that is why the "Confederates" won this one. The Union victory in the US wasn't nailed on. They had to win while a stalemate would have been enough for the other side. It's possible without the real Lincoln the real Confederates would have lost.
    God no. I cannot stand Juncker.

    It says a lot about the man (and indeed the EU) that on June 24th Cameron resigned and Juncker didn't.
  • SeanT said:

    @SeanT - We had our first child when we were ready and had a good idea of what the downsides were before we had him - less sleep, less freedom - we also knew that he was going to be born healthy and so there were no surprises. On top of that, we knew that we had a strong support structure of relatives and friends around us, all of who had nothing but love and goodwill in their hearts. Furthermore, we had seen friends have babies and we had been brought up ourselves. In short, we were prepared, though obviously we were nervous. So I don't buy the baby analogy!

    Our business will take very little if any hit long-term hit from Brexit and in the short-term we have actually seen our profits exceed forecast in Q1 - largely because we bill in dollars and Euros, not pounds. When the time comes, we will open our office in the rEU, do our single market business from there and nothing much will change. All it will mean is that jobs we would have created in the UK, the investments we would have made and the taxes we would have paid will all be created, made and paid elsewhere in Europe. We're small and completely insignificant, but if many other businesses that do a lot of single market work follow our lead it will have an effect. That's just a simple fact of life.

    Going back to the parent thing. I have three kids. They were already facing a tough fight to build the kind of standard of living that we (you, me and plenty of others on here) have enjoyed. I think Brexit makes it even tougher. I hope to God I am wrong.

    You still don't understand my baby analogy, but let's leave it

    On the practicalities, Hammond said today that he still agreed with the more pessimistic economic forecasts for Brexit, which was and is a 4% fall in GDP - over the next fifteen years, compared to what we might have enjoyed

    That's about 0.3% a year?

    In the grand scheme of things, and set against the epic scale of British history, it's tiny.
    It is, of course, also an absolute gain. We would have grown 30% but now we'll only grow 26%, but in doing so we won't have to follow their shitty laws or pay a bajillion quid to Brussels each year. No wonder remain lost.
  • felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,334
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    Stop breaking EUphile dreams! They need the falsehoods about the EU to survive I think. Presented with the true nature of the dysfunctional EU they might just explode.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 61,257
    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    That's my view too. And no doubt it will spun as a setback for May by opposition parties. But, in reality, it will be pretty meaningless.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,243
    UK stock markets rallied on Monday, taking the FTSE 100 to a 16-month high after the government set a date for triggering Brexit negotiations and a closely watched survey suggested businesses continued to shrug off the EU referendum result.

    Shares were boosted by a combination of more reassuring news on the economy, new certainty about the timing of the Brexit process and a drop in the pound, which flatters the earnings of those UK-listed firms reporting in dollars.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/03/uk-stocks-rally-as-brexit-fears-fade
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,039
    FPT: Lewis is completely unelectable. He has no good points whatsoever as far as I can see.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928

    FWIW , my initial forecast for Witney is something like Con 45 LD 28 Lab 12 UKIP 5 Green 5 All others 5 . The local elections last May with Con 49 Lab 20 LD 18 are nearer the starting positions than the last GE figures .

    That would be a terrific result for the LibDems.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    FWIW , my initial forecast for Witney is something like Con 45 LD 28 Lab 12 UKIP 5 Green 5 All others 5 . The local elections last May with Con 49 Lab 20 LD 18 are nearer the starting positions than the last GE figures .

    It depends on whether the LibDems can do enough - indeed very soon that should read have already done enough - to establish their candidate as the clear challenger to the Tories. That will make it easier to gather in a lot of the non-Tory vote including those worried by Corbyn. However given their national standing getting to this first base will be harder than it used to be.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,243

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    That's my view too. And no doubt it will spun as a setback for May by opposition parties. But, in reality, it will be pretty meaningless.
    Not just the opposition parties.....as the old saw in the House of Commons go...your opponents are opposite you, your enemies are behind you...
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,423
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    UK stock markets rallied on Monday, taking the FTSE 100 to a 16-month high after the government set a date for triggering Brexit negotiations and a closely watched survey suggested businesses continued to shrug off the EU referendum result.

    Shares were boosted by a combination of more reassuring news on the economy, new certainty about the timing of the Brexit process and a drop in the pound, which flatters the earnings of those UK-listed firms reporting in dollars.


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/03/uk-stocks-rally-as-brexit-fears-fade

    Principally (and overwhelmingly) it is simply the reverse side of the falling £.
  • Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    45% is what Cameron got first time. Of course the PM likely has a major personal vote that can be lost the swings in Witney under Cameron have far exceeded normal swings and that could revert to mean this time.
  • Omnium said:

    FPT: Lewis is completely unelectable. He has no good points whatsoever as far as I can see.

    So you are putting your money on him, I guess.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,075
    Mr. Royale, I imagine some journalists (Faisal Islam, perhaps) will be breathy with excitement at the declining fortune of the Government, in the same way the 0.1% rise in inflation was reported as the 'impact' of our voting to leave.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928
    My Witney prediction is:
    Con    46
    LD 21
    Lab 14
    UKIP 9
    Green 6
    Other 4
    Thinking about 'par' scores - i.e. what can be reasonably claimed as a successful night I'd say:

    Conservative: anything over 40% with a 15 point gap over second place
    Labour: holding on to second place
    UKIP: above 8%
    LibDems: above 14%
    Greens: keep deposit
  • If I lived in Witney, I'd be torn about voting Tory in this by election.

    I mean how often do you get the chance to vote for Winston McKenzie?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    45% is what Cameron got first time. Of course the PM likely has a major personal vote that can be lost the swings in Witney under Cameron have far exceeded normal swings and that could revert to mean this time.
    This 'mean' being in Blair's second election which Labour won by a landslide and when the previous MP had been Labour (having defected)??
  • SeanT said:

    @SeanT - We had our first child when we were ready and had a good idea of what the downsides were before we had him - less sleep, less freedom - we also knew that he was going to be born healthy and so there were no surprises. On top of that, we knew that we had a strong support structure of relatives and friends around us, all of who had nothing but love and goodwill in their hearts. Furthermore, we had seen friends have babies and we had been brought up ourselves. In short, we were prepared, though obviously we were nervous. So I don't buy the baby analogy!

    Our business will take very little if any hit long-term hit from Brexit and in the short-term we have actually seen our profits exceed forecast in Q1 - largely because we bill in dollars and Euros, not pounds. When the time comes, we will open our office in the rEU, do our single market business from there and nothing much will change. All it will mean is that jobs we would have created in the UK, the investments we would have made and the taxes we would have paid will all be created, made and paid elsewhere in Europe. We're small and completely insignificant, but if many other businesses that do a lot of single market work follow our lead it will have an effect. That's just a simple fact of life.

    Going back to the parent thing. I have three kids. They were already facing a tough fight to build the kind of standard of living that we (you, me and plenty of others on here) have enjoyed. I think Brexit makes it even tougher. I hope to God I am wrong.

    You still don't understand my baby analogy, but let's leave it

    On the practicalities, Hammond said today that he still agreed with the more pessimistic economic forecasts for Brexit, which was and is a 4% fall in GDP - over the next fifteen years, compared to what we might have enjoyed

    That's about 0.3% a year?

    In the grand scheme of things, and set against the epic scale of British history, it's tiny.

    I do understand the analogy. I just don't think it is a very good one. Maybe our experiences of having kids is different.

  • FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?
    Yes.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,334

    Mr. Royale, I imagine some journalists (Faisal Islam, perhaps) will be breathy with excitement at the declining fortune of the Government, in the same way the 0.1% rise in inflation was reported as the 'impact' of our voting to leave.

    I remember when that 0.1% rise in inflation was characterised as a 20% rise in inflation. A real head in hands moment.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928
    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?
    Good question. Both, to be honest, are actually pretty easy places to do business (excluding Italy). Compared to Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Argentina or Russia, the vast bulk of EU states or the US are great places to work.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited October 2016
    MaxPB said:

    It's also against a much smaller population rise, so the GDP per capita growth will be about the same over the measured period.

    No it's not. They assumed the same immigration level in the different scenarios.

    I'm not sure that I would be so dismissive of the compound-interest effects of a long period of slightly reduced growth on our national wealth as some seem to be, but that was the choice voters made.
  • chestnutchestnut Posts: 7,341
    Whinging expats grumbling about their sterling denominated public sector pensions.

    Bunch of Sean Connery's.
  • IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Couldn't care less if it was $0.64 so long as inflation remains low and the economy thrives.

    Of course at 0.64 inflation wouldn't be low, but that's the point. The number is moot it is what it ffrvts that matters.
  • FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?

    It's much easier to get things done quickly in the EU than it is in the US. I guess it depends on what kind of business you are in, though. You won't get your stuff impounded by customs when you are sending goods to an EU member state from the UK.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,928
    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Royale, I imagine some journalists (Faisal Islam, perhaps) will be breathy with excitement at the declining fortune of the Government, in the same way the 0.1% rise in inflation was reported as the 'impact' of our voting to leave.

    I remember when that 0.1% rise in inflation was characterised as a 20% rise in inflation. A real head in hands moment.
    I hate it when people say things like "inflation is running at twice the level in the UK as in Germany." 0.2% vs 0.1% is not a meaningful difference.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,423
    rcs1000 said:

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?
    Good question. Both, to be honest, are actually pretty easy places to do business (excluding Italy). Compared to Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Argentina or Russia, the vast bulk of EU states or the US are great places to work.
    Thanks.
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Euro at 1.14 spot ... 1.06 at the expensive exchanges means my g and t is 30 pc more expensive than last time I was here. Brexit is a short term disaster and likely a long term one too.
  • The ECB are bloody bell ends.

    They force the counties to bid blind on test match staging rights, then wonder why they get into financial difficulties?

    Durham have been relegated from Division One in the County Championship over financial issues, with Hampshire being reinstated.

    The North East county have also lost the right to stage Test cricket at their Riverside ground.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/37541136
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?

    It's much easier to get things done quickly in the EU than it is in the US. I guess it depends on what kind of business you are in, though. You won't get your stuff impounded by customs when you are sending goods to an EU member state from the UK.

    And despite all the talk about tariffs, it will be the non-tariff barriers that will present the biggest potential obstacle to UK business, with much less challenge coming the other way.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 61,257

    Mr. Royale, I imagine some journalists (Faisal Islam, perhaps) will be breathy with excitement at the declining fortune of the Government, in the same way the 0.1% rise in inflation was reported as the 'impact' of our voting to leave.

    May had better get used to it: she is going to be hated for the rest of her life, by many, for taking the UK out of the EU.

    I suspect this will be all the more bitter if Brexit is seen to be a success.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    Does anyone know if David Cameron (pbuh) will be campaigning in this by-election?

    And if so, who for?
  • IanB2 said:

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    45% is what Cameron got first time. Of course the PM likely has a major personal vote that can be lost the swings in Witney under Cameron have far exceeded normal swings and that could revert to mean this time.
    This 'mean' being in Blair's second election which Labour won by a landslide and when the previous MP had been Labour (having defected)??
    No under UNS from 2001 to 2015 the baseline for a new MP without a personal vote would be 50.2%

    Factor in that it's midterm and the party defending the seat is the government then if expect a bit below 50% to be par.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,782
    FF43 said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    The would-be "Abraham Lincoln" is Jean-Claude Juncker. Who is clearly no Lincoln and that is why the "Confederates" won this one. The Union victory in the US wasn't nailed on. They had to win while a stalemate would have been enough for the other side. It's possible without the real Lincoln the real Confederates would have prevailed.
    Is this today's Lincoln?


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y96iyHBhIe0


  • MaxPB said:

    It's also against a much smaller population rise, so the GDP per capita growth will be about the same over the measured period.

    No it's not. They assumed the same immigration level in the different scenarios.

    I'm not sure that I would be so dismissive of the compound-interest effects of a long period of slightly reduced growth on our national wealth as some seem to be, but that was the choice voters made.
    The news reports at the time said he'd factored in more immigration in the Remain scenario.

    Not factoring in different levels of migration would be odd to say the least and would leave me questioning the assumptions.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Couldn't care less if it was $0.64 so long as inflation remains low and the economy thrives.

    Of course at 0.64 inflation wouldn't be low, but that's the point. The number is moot it is what it ffrvts that matters.
    Nor would the economy be thriving. All you are really saying is that in itself it is just a number. But it is of course also an important indicator. Your temperature is just a number but if it is very high you are probably very ill.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,755

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    I've no reason to manage expectations. A fall of 15-20% in vote share for the governing party is nothing unusual.
  • TonyETonyE Posts: 938
    IanB2 said:

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about market....

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, the point I made about markets is still valid. To compensate for no longer being inside the largest and deepest single internal market in the world we either have to be better than those that are still there or we have to be better than those that have always been outside it. Leaving the EU doesn't make it easier for us to improve beyond we could have done, and maybe should have done, anyway. At best leaving the EU is a jolt to our previous complacency. It doesn't bring any opportunities, as such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?

    It's much easier to get things done quickly in the EU than it is in the US. I guess it depends on what kind of business you are in, though. You won't get your stuff impounded by customs when you are sending goods to an EU member state from the UK.

    And despite all the talk about tariffs, it will be the non-tariff barriers that will present the biggest potential obstacle to UK business, with much less challenge coming the other way.
    IF done correctly, there is no need for there to be NTB issues - WTO Technical Barriers to Trade agreement reinforces standardisation from this point on
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,240

    FWIW , my initial forecast for Witney is something like Con 45 LD 28 Lab 12 UKIP 5 Green 5 All others 5 .

    That seems very plausible.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,334
    TonyE said:

    IF done correctly, there is no need for there to be NTB issues - WTO Technical Barriers to Trade agreement reinforces standardisation from this point on

    Yes, I think mutual recognition of each others goods standards will be quite uncontroversial because it will come from the WTO and other international standards bodies anyway.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 73,016

    The ECB are bloody bell ends.

    They force the counties to bid blind on test match staging rights, then wonder why they get into financial difficulties?

    Durham have been relegated from Division One in the County Championship over financial issues, with Hampshire being reinstated.

    The North East county have also lost the right to stage Test cricket at their Riverside ground.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/37541136

    And give them the crap early season tests, which are guaranteed to make a large loss. And this the county that gave England Stokes.

    And I'm still seriously pissed off with the ECB refusing to let Bairstow play in Yorkshire's championship decider.

    A breakaway Northern cricket board could field a test team stronger than the England rump.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    @SeanT - We had our first child when we were ready and had a good idea of what the downsides were before we had him - less sleep, less freedom - we also knew that he was going to be born healthy and so there were no surprises. On top of that, we knew that we had a strong support structure of relatives and friends around us, all of who had nothing but love and goodwill in their hearts. Furthermore, we had seen friends have babies and we had been brought up ourselves. In short, we were prepared, though obviously we were nervous. So I don't buy the baby analogy!

    Our business will take very little if any hit long-term hit from Brexit and in the short-term we have actually seen our profits exceed forecast in Q1 - largely because we bill in dollars and Euros, not pounds. When the time comes, we will open our office in the rEU, do our single market business from there and nothing much will change. All it will mean is that jobs we would have created in the UK, the investments we would have made and the taxes we would have paid will all be created, made and paid elsewhere in Europe. We're small and completely insignificant, but if many other businesses that do a lot of single market work follow our lead it will have an effect. That's just a simple fact of life.

    Going back to the parent thing. I have three kids. They were already facing a tough fight to build the kind of standard of living that we (you, me and plenty of others on here) have enjoyed. I think Brexit makes it even tougher. I hope to God I am wrong.

    You still don't understand my baby analogy, but let's leave it

    On the practicalities, Hammond said today that he still agreed with the more pessimistic economic forecasts for Brexit, which was and is a 4% fall in GDP - over the next fifteen years, compared to what we might have enjoyed

    That's about 0.3% a year?

    In the grand scheme of things, and set against the epic scale of British history, it's tiny.

    I do understand the analogy. I just don't think it is a very good one. Maybe our experiences of having kids is different.

    QED. It's not actually about the real experience of having kids. Oh gawd.

    Yes. I. know.
  • IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Couldn't care less if it was $0.64 so long as inflation remains low and the economy thrives.

    Of course at 0.64 inflation wouldn't be low, but that's the point. The number is moot it is what it ffrvts that matters.
    Nor would the economy be thriving. All you are really saying is that in itself it is just a number. But it is of course also an important indicator. Your temperature is just a number but if it is very high you are probably very ill.
    Yes it is just a number. If we start getting symptoms then I'd agree we may be ill, but we haven't got negative symptoms currently.

    The exchange rate is more like the external temperature than your body temperature. Yes it's getting a bit colder than now than it was in June but if you put a jumper on there's no reason to assume you'll get sick. Plus now we can look forward to Christmas.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,075
    Another inflation anecdote, but from around three years ago.

    ITV News, top story is rising inflation. It's the highest it's been for 2-3 years. The newsreader confidently claims prices are rising 'like never before'.

    No, innumerate one. They're rising like they were a couple of years ago.

    On currency: I have vague memories of the pound buying $2. Somehow we survived the drop to $1.35 or so.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,944
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    I've no reason to manage expectations. A fall of 15-20% in vote share for the governing party is nothing unusual.
    Percentages need to be clarified, 20% of the total vote equals 33.3% of the current Tory vote (from 60% to 40%). One in 3 Tory voters deserting them.
  • SeanT said:

    I'm dismissive because the predictions are ludicrous. Osborne wasn't able to predict the deficit, or his tax take, six months in advance, yet these guys can predict the precise effect of a unique geopolitical rupture down to one percentage point of GDP over fifteen years away?

    REALLY??

    It's fucking bollocks. What's more, you know it's fucking bollocks. No one has a clue what Brexit Britain will look like in 2030. Not least because technology is about to change everything.

    The model was limited to trying to assess the relative impact of Brexit.

    Will it be inaccurate? Yes of course it will, even if we could run two separate universes where we compared the two outcomes.

    However, when you are assessing the pros and cons of a decision, you can either attempt to model it, or you can take the Vote Leave approach of not bothering in the hope that no-one notices how severe the risks are.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,755

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Euro at 1.14 spot ... 1.06 at the expensive exchanges means my g and t is 30 pc more expensive than last time I was here. Brexit is a short term disaster and likely a long term one too.
    You should buy English gin.
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    SeanT said:

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Euro at 1.14 spot ... 1.06 at the expensive exchanges means my g and t is 30 pc more expensive than last time I was here. Brexit is a short term disaster and likely a long term one too.
    Brexit is a "short term disaster"... because your G&T is more expensive? Really?

    lol
    Millions of people will be similarly pissed of that their hols are more expensive .... wait till fuel starts to rise in price and all the associated costs in transport.. then everything will cost more.. my g and t is a small example of what is coming down the line...
  • taffystaffys Posts: 9,753
    Brexit is a "short term disaster"... because your G&T is more expensive? Really?

    To be fair, I reckon some UK emigrants to Europe must be struggling a bit. Relying on UK based income, and can't move back because the property market in many European countries is cr8p.
  • Nigelb said:

    The ECB are bloody bell ends.

    They force the counties to bid blind on test match staging rights, then wonder why they get into financial difficulties?

    Durham have been relegated from Division One in the County Championship over financial issues, with Hampshire being reinstated.

    The North East county have also lost the right to stage Test cricket at their Riverside ground.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/37541136

    And give them the crap early season tests, which are guaranteed to make a large loss. And this the county that gave England Stokes.

    And I'm still seriously pissed off with the ECB refusing to let Bairstow play in Yorkshire's championship decider.

    A breakaway Northern cricket board could field a test team stronger than the England rump.
    I cannot understand why Andrew Strauss, former Middlesex player, banned Yorkshire's Jonny Bairstow from playing in the Yorkshire v Middlesex title decider but let Middlesex's Steve Finn play.

    It really is cruel of the ECB to give Durham an early season test, a few days after a test at Headingley.

    At least Yorkshire is still a proper county, unlike Middlesex
  • IanB2 said:

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    SeanT said:

    FPT for FF33


    "It's about markets. If your market is Europe, which is almost synonymous with the EU, you are in the market you serve if you are based in the EU and not if you are based in the Brexited UK. If you don't need to be in the market to serve it, you can be anywhere - China, USA, Mexico. The UK loses out either way."

    The problem with all these negative analyses of post-Brexit Britain, and why they are already proving to be overly pessimistic, is that they presume we are just a passive observer. A nation to which things are done. The submissive in a BDSM relationship with Europe, the world, and reality.

    They ignore the possibility - indeed likelihood - that post-Brexit Britain will DO STUFF to make the nation more attractive to investment, better for banks, extra-welcoming to smarter migrants, and so forth, to counteract the negatives of Brexit.

    The gloomier Remainers also refuse the possibility that Britain will simply benefit as a country from governing itself: we won't have anyone else to blame any more.

    Brexit will being major difficulties. But also major opportunities

    Nevertheless, such. I do however believe in making the best of the situation we are in. We didn't do that before. But it does mean recognising there is a problem.
    The US is the largest single market in the world. Please stop repeating the falsehood that it is the EU. The single market for services doesn't even really exist.
    Come on Max, the EU is the largest trading bloc in the world (as measured by number of regulations).
    I know this is a pointless discussion, but do you think the EU including the member states, has more regulations in total than the USA including both federal and States?

    It's much easier to get things done quickly in the EU than it is in the US. I guess it depends on what kind of business you are in, though. You won't get your stuff impounded by customs when you are sending goods to an EU member state from the UK.

    And despite all the talk about tariffs, it will be the non-tariff barriers that will present the biggest potential obstacle to UK business, with much less challenge coming the other way.

    Yep - the cost of doing business will go up for us: it will take longer and it will cost more just because we are not part of the single market, which is why we'll seek to stay in it. Tariffs per se won't be much of an issue.

  • The curious thing about today's drop in sterling is that it was caused by something which everyone already knew. Markets do behave in strange ways sometimes.
  • Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    justin124 said:

    I am not persuaded that Witney is so important for May. Callaghan succeeded Wilson in April 1976 , and a few months later Labour suffered disastrous by election results at Workington and Walsall North. Similarly the Tories lost Ribble Valley not long after Major became PM.Neither Callaghan nor Major were particularly undermined by those setbacks.

    A little expectations framing going on by OGH?

    Con hold with reduced majority = 'catastrophe'

    Con loss - MAY MUST RESIGN!!!

    Witney clearly has a huge personal vote for Cameron - it would be odd if the Con vote share didn't fall...
    TBH, I'd expect a very big fall in the Conservative majority. The PM's personal vote will have gone, and we're now in mid-term, so people use by-elections as a chance to kick the government. I'd expect the Conservatives' vote share to be in the region of 40-45~%.
    You really think that the Tory vote in Witney would drop 20%, so they would lose one third of Cameron's vote?
    That sounds like a terrible defeat for them even if they hold on to the seat. At 40% they could actually lose it, with 60% available for their opponents to share.
    I can't see them dropping that far, it seems like expectation management all right - on your part.
    I've no reason to manage expectations. A fall of 15-20% in vote share for the governing party is nothing unusual.
    Percentages need to be clarified, 20% of the total vote equals 33.3% of the current Tory vote (from 60% to 40%). One in 3 Tory voters deserting them.
    Not unusual in a by election especially when the departed MP was famous and had a major personal vote. A win is a win ultimately and if it's a win at the by election then in 2020 the new MP will seek to get reelected with his own personal vote.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,334
    edited October 2016

    The curious thing about today's drop in sterling is that it was caused by something which everyone already knew. Markets do behave in strange ways sometimes.

    Stronger figures from the US as well increasing the chance of an October interest rate rise.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,291

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Couldn't care less if it was $0.64 so long as inflation remains low and the economy thrives.

    Of course at 0.64 inflation wouldn't be low, but that's the point. The number is moot it is what it ffrvts that matters.
    Nor would the economy be thriving. All you are really saying is that in itself it is just a number. But it is of course also an important indicator. Your temperature is just a number but if it is very high you are probably very ill.
    Yes it is just a number. If we start getting symptoms then I'd agree we may be ill, but we haven't got negative symptoms currently.

    The exchange rate is more like the external temperature than your body temperature. Yes it's getting a bit colder than now than it was in June but if you put a jumper on there's no reason to assume you'll get sick. Plus now we can look forward to Christmas.
    There is nevertheless no scenario where £=$0.64 and we are not in deep shit.
  • Here's a question

    If Ed Balls had won the Labour leadership contest in 2010, would he have still lost his seat in 2015?
  • MaxPB said:

    The curious thing about today's drop in sterling is that it was caused by something which everyone already knew. Markets do behave in strange ways sometimes.

    Stronger figures from the US as well.
    True, but it started before those figures came out.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,075
    Mr. Nabavi, worth remembering there are people behind the numbers. The same people who bought exit polls and were confident Remain had won.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,944

    Another inflation anecdote, but from around three years ago.

    ITV News, top story is rising inflation. It's the highest it's been for 2-3 years. The newsreader confidently claims prices are rising 'like never before'.

    No, innumerate one. They're rising like they were a couple of years ago.

    On currency: I have vague memories of the pound buying $2. Somehow we survived the drop to $1.35 or so.

    That was a long time ago, it was around 1.6 for years since then.
    http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y
  • OMG. Andrea Leadsom cracks a funny joke

    @MichaelPDeacon: Andrea Leadsom: "Labour's leadership contest dragged on far too long. They should have come to me for advice"
  • TonyETonyE Posts: 938
    MaxPB said:

    TonyE said:

    IF done correctly, there is no need for there to be NTB issues - WTO Technical Barriers to Trade agreement reinforces standardisation from this point on

    Yes, I think mutual recognition of each others goods standards will be quite uncontroversial because it will come from the WTO and other international standards bodies anyway.
    Precisely - the big issue will possibly be customs regulations, which are very complex and will have to be repatriated. This might take us beyond the two years, and therefore become quite a headache if the guillotine is at issue (Art 50). This is why some are now saying that we might not utilise EEA, because we can get financial passporting and Mutual manutactured goods recognition from without it, but may retain customs union membership for a number of years.

    I don't necessarily agree that the customs regs will be so difficult to assimilate, bearing in mind that we won't alter tariff charges immediately, and Rules of Origin and other small sticking points can be negotiated. However, we will need time to get the proper Authorised Economic Operator status set up, which looks like another complex task.

    I'm still reading the arguments so I couldn't say what the likely outcome would be.
  • Mr. Nabavi, worth remembering there are people behind the numbers. The same people who bought exit polls and were confident Remain had won.

    Yes, that is a very important point. I think some of them have been equally complacent about the deal we might end up doing, which is why I think that the financial markets are underestimating the risk to the UK economy.

    (Of course it's only one risk globally and it's a zero-sum game as to where the money flows, so you can't look at the UK in isolation).
  • weejonnieweejonnie Posts: 3,820

    Libdems trying hard in Chipping Norton part of the Witney constituency, had daily leaflets/flyers & other annoyances. Including today via post a fake news paper full of propaganda & dodgy graphs looking very like a local paper.

    Where would we be without the LibDem dodgy graphs, the source of much mirth?



    Better Informed!
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,075
    Mr. Song, I suspect we have different views on what constitutes a long time ago :p
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 120,407
    edited October 2016
    Apparently we might get to choose the new UK passport design.

    Can we have a picture of John Bull peeing on the French flag?

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/home-affairs/news/79543/home-secretary-suggests-public-could-get-say-new-passport-design
  • Thinking about the positives of Brexit the one that does stand out a million miles for me is the discomfit and upset it has caused the Eurocrat class. I have spent a lot of time in its entitled vicinity and have never warmed to it, to say the least. I do also think that the vote was a quintessentially English thing. We really don't like being told what to do - or to feel we are being told - by anyone, except royalty of course. I like the idea that this part of the English character is still as strong as it ever was. That's a very real and very important link back to our past. I also like the idea of a dark blue passport.
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    Came across this moderately amusing tumbler.

    http://fashionmomentswiththeresamay.tumblr.com/

    It's got nothing on the much-missed awkwardedmiliband tumbler, obviously.
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621

    The curious thing about today's drop in sterling is that it was caused by something which everyone already knew. Markets do behave in strange ways sometimes.

    The power of denial...
  • Nigelb said:

    The ECB are bloody bell ends.

    They force the counties to bid blind on test match staging rights, then wonder why they get into financial difficulties?

    Durham have been relegated from Division One in the County Championship over financial issues, with Hampshire being reinstated.

    The North East county have also lost the right to stage Test cricket at their Riverside ground.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/37541136

    And give them the crap early season tests, which are guaranteed to make a large loss. And this the county that gave England Stokes.

    And I'm still seriously pissed off with the ECB refusing to let Bairstow play in Yorkshire's championship decider.

    A breakaway Northern cricket board could field a test team stronger than the England rump.
    I cannot understand why Andrew Strauss, former Middlesex player, banned Yorkshire's Jonny Bairstow from playing in the Yorkshire v Middlesex title decider but let Middlesex's Steve Finn play.

    It really is cruel of the ECB to give Durham an early season test, a few days after a test at Headingley.

    At least Yorkshire is still a proper county, unlike Middlesex

    But Middlesex are the county champions. Fancy losing out to somewhere that does not exist :-)

  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095

    Thinking about the positives of Brexit the one that does stand out a million miles for me is the discomfit and upset it has caused the Eurocrat class. I have spent a lot of time in its entitled vicinity and have never warmed to it, to say the least. I do also think that the vote was a quintessentially English thing. We really don't like being told what to do - or to feel we are being told - by anyone, except royalty of course. I like the idea that this part of the English character is still as strong as it ever was. That's a very real and very important link back to our past. I also like the idea of a dark blue passport.

    .
    So you think pissing off few euro bureaucrats and a blue passport is worth a big increase in the cost of living?
  • Thinking about the positives of Brexit the one that does stand out a million miles for me is the discomfit and upset it has caused the Eurocrat class. I have spent a lot of time in its entitled vicinity and have never warmed to it, to say the least. I do also think that the vote was a quintessentially English thing. We really don't like being told what to do - or to feel we are being told - by anyone, except royalty of course. I like the idea that this part of the English character is still as strong as it ever was. That's a very real and very important link back to our past. I also like the idea of a dark blue passport.

    .
    So you think pissing off few euro bureaucrats and a blue passport is worth a big increase in the cost of living?

    No - but I am trying not to be a miserable Remainer!

  • Apparently we might get to choose the new UK passport design.

    Can we have a picture of John Bell peeing on the French flag?

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/home-affairs/news/79543/home-secretary-suggests-public-could-get-say-new-passport-design

    What about Ian Bell?

  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,917
    Barnesian said:

    FF43 said:

    MTimT said:

    MTimT said:

    TGOHF said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    I guess that explains why the metropolitan wealthy with second homes abroad are so furious that the peasants voted for Brexit.
    Peasants is such an inaccurate term. I prefer the term 'thick uneducated plebs'
    TSE morphing into Mr Meeks. Someone call a doctor before it's too late.
    Well it is either that or Leavers are traitors.
    Surprisingly, I don't agree that the choice is between those two descriptions.
    If I get the time, I shall publish a thread comparing Leavers to The Confederates States, and I'm trying to work out who the British Lincoln is.

    I kinda know who shall be Ulysses S Grant is though
    The would-be "Abraham Lincoln" is Jean-Claude Juncker. Who is clearly no Lincoln and that is why the "Confederates" won this one. The Union victory in the US wasn't nailed on. They had to win while a stalemate would have been enough for the other side. It's possible without the real Lincoln the real Confederates would have prevailed.
    Is this today's Lincoln?

    Some of those videos are hilarious. This one is a precursor to Trump: The Musical.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdRn_m3bnxk
  • IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Pulpstar said:

    felix said:

    I see the £ has resumed it's slide today as Brexit continues to have it's long, slow effect. Of course as Harold Wilson used to tell us ' the £ in your pocket won't be affected'. I'd forgotten just how loved he was as one of the Tories greatest ever Prime Ministers :)

    Well my mortgage and day to day expenses are still in £ sterling, and I bought my new camera pre-brexit ;)
    Presumably you only buy full UK sourced products since Brexit.
    CPI has gone up by 0.1% and is still TOO LOW. When it reaches 2% how about we have this conversation?
    Lol - just love the way you all pretend that the nose-diving £ is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you know it just ain't true.
    It isn't great but it isn't a disaster either. It simply is what it is.
    What it is may well be $1.28 by the end of the day.
    Couldn't care less if it was $0.64 so long as inflation remains low and the economy thrives.

    Of course at 0.64 inflation wouldn't be low, but that's the point. The number is moot it is what it ffrvts that matters.
    Nor would the economy be thriving. All you are really saying is that in itself it is just a number. But it is of course also an important indicator. Your temperature is just a number but if it is very high you are probably very ill.
    Yes it is just a number. If we start getting symptoms then I'd agree we may be ill, but we haven't got negative symptoms currently.

    The exchange rate is more like the external temperature than your body temperature. Yes it's getting a bit colder than now than it was in June but if you put a jumper on there's no reason to assume you'll get sick. Plus now we can look forward to Christmas.
    There is nevertheless no scenario where £=$0.64 and we are not in deep shit.
    Long term there are plenty of scenarios where it could be that. The pound is today worth half.what it was in 1980. Once upon a time you could get five US dollars for one pound sterling.
This discussion has been closed.