And this relates to the concepts of fairness in British society.
It is vital that everyone has the opportunity to win, to prosper, to achieve.
But it is equally important that the possibility of failure and defeat exist - that nobody is guaranteed to get their own way permanently and at the expense of others.
What we are seeing from some parts of the establishment is a refusal to accept that, a refusal to accept that their wishes are not always paramount.
I struggle with terms like "establishment" or "liberal metropolitan elite" that are banded out by the Mail and by some on here.
Who are they ? I've never met any of them. If we define an "Establishment" as a group of people enjoying a monopoly of power in perpetuity, then the whole democratic exercise is a façade. Fair enough.
One could argue in 1997 after 18 years of single party rule, there was a democratic revolution which ousted one Establishment and brought in another and that is the nature of all revolutions - American, French, Russian even back to the Norman Conquest if you want - the replacement of one power bloc by another.
Those who claim they want to overthrow "the Establishment" often just want their turn at the top - it's the truth of most revolutions.
Hard to argue with your last sentence. It's a cop out phrase, directed at whoever is needed. Like Jeb Bush calling himself a political outsider, people will define Establishment to exclude themselves even if they are by most other definitions a part of it.
My, but it's frequently unpleasant on here these days. (Not aimed at anyone in particular, just my impressions having read this thread, which is admittedly on almost as inflammatory a topic as possible).
It may be my imagination - but the number of posts has dropped off a lot. I also scroll by so much now, I can catch up on a whole day's worth in about twenty minutes.
Whatever's going on - it's telling me that many people are seriously unhappy that their democratic will be undermined/result threatened by those who can't accept their world view has been rejected.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
Please ignore the following comment : After bashing my head a few times I have calmed down enough to think that not only do the Americans first try everything wrong, for example by (apparently) electing Trump, so do we by (apparently) choosing Brexit.
Is it just me? Or can anyone else starting to smell genuine panic from Leavers that this going to go wrong and be taken away from them? Every economic prediction is jumped on and denounced as rubbish and doom glooming from the elite who want us to remain. Each day the jumping gets harder as the panic sets in that this will, after all, be an economic disaster.
The Daily Mail are busy attacking IFS this morning for saying wages have stagnated.
This would be true EU or not.
The Leavers mantra seems to be to rubbish any news that has the temerity to suggest that we are not entering a post-Brexit land of milk and honey, hurl abuse at the messenger and when all else fails find something else to blame it on.
My, but it's frequently unpleasant on here these days. (Not aimed at anyone in particular, just my impressions having read this thread, which is admittedly on almost as inflammatory a topic as possible).
It may be my imagination - but the number of posts has dropped off a lot. I also scroll by so much now, I can catch up on a whole day's worth in about twenty minutes.
Whatever's going on - it's telling me that many people are seriously unhappy that their democratic will being undermined/result threatened by those who can't accept their world view has been rejected.
Might your alleged use of the famous widget, and the fact you claim to have many of us on ignore, explain that?
As for your second paragraph; what world view has been rejected (and how?), and what's the world view that's replaced it?
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
When you have fallen off a cliff the only way is up. Imagine if Spain wasn't growing strongly now! They'd be gone. Remind me what the absolute numbers are for Spanish unemployment, especially youth unemployment. The Euro has been an unmitigated disaster that continues to cripple the EU. Unless they get their superstate soon it won't end well economically. If they do get it it won't end well politically or culturally.
That is like saying that if the UK economy was not growing now we would be off the edge of the cliff .You are selectively cherry picking facts that suit your meme and ignoring those that do not .
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
What would his two choices be in a second referendum, the government deal vs WTO? I doubt that Major would put such a question to the people.
That is what he is suggesting I think.
The guardian report says: "Major said he accepted the UK would not remain a full member of the EU but hoped the Brexit deal would enable the country to stay as close as possible to the other 27 members and the single market"
Why would it be silly? As I see it, the problem with the Greek bailout deal referendum is that the alternative was not clearly spelled out/people thought they could have their cake and eat it....
That won't be the case with Brexit Ref. 2 as article 50 has a clear deadline.
Is it just me? Or can anyone else starting to smell genuine panic from Leavers that this going to go wrong and be taken away from them? Every economic prediction is jumped on and denounced as rubbish and doom glooming from the elite who want us to remain. Each day the jumping gets harder as the panic sets in that this will, after all, be an economic disaster.
The Daily Mail are busy attacking IFS this morning for saying wages have stagnated.
This would be true EU or not.
The Leavers mantra seems to be to rubbish any news that has the temerity to suggest that we are not entering a post-Brexit land of milk and honey, hurl abuse at the messenger and when all else fails find something else to blame it on.
True of some, as it would have if the positions were reversed. It would be unfair to put any post referendum fatigue or animosity on the shoulders of any one side, but it is the case that some people would like to counter the democratic will, which infuriates some, but opposite to that there are some people who get infuriated at any question or raising of an issue that does not fit their vision of Brexit or interpretation fo events, and equate it to treason. So plenty are to blame.
Moving off Europe and Brexit for a moment, the most interesting political development for me this week has been Hammond's commitment to review the pensions "triple lock" but only after 2020 (once the old folk have done their duty and voted the Conservatives back into Government).
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Hammond knows triple lock is unsustainable as more people become pensioners (even with rises in pension age) and with inflation (perhaps) going to 3.5% next year, it will make an even greater hit on the public finances.
Pensioner benefits already cost nearly £100 billion and if you include the rising cost of adult social care (which isn't being funded by Councils) and there's a big and growing problem which as with all big problems, few want to face and no one wants to do anything about.
Hammond may hope that by kicking the can down the road, he can forget about this but he knows that if the pensioner vote starts to fray from the Conservatives, the party is in big trouble (and McDonnell's commitment to retaining the triple lock is opportunism rather than practical economics or even politics).
On topic- it does feel as though Brexit is breaking down traditional party divides, perhaps in the way that the likes of Peter Hitchens have long argued for.
The second referendum idea has been tainted a bit by the notion that it is a device to keep Britain in the EU. But if the two options were:
1) Whatever compromise deal TM comes out with 2) Total Leave, WTO rules, completely out of single market, complete control over immigration, no contribution to EU budget etc...
Then presumably that would be an acceptable second referendum to Brexiteers?
I think it's hard to argue that this would be subverting the original referendum result since both options mean leaving the EU.
Exactly. All a second referendum (accept deal/reject deal) does is give the electorate the opportunity to veto any TM deal and choose hard Brexit.
It would not say go back and renegotiate because it would be too late by whenever the referendum would be held.
I am not 100% sure that is what the likes of Major, Clegg, etc had in mind.
The guardian article suggests that is what Major has in mind since it says he accepts we will leave EU. He then hopes that May will negotiate a deal which preserves lots of single market... and presumably then makes compromises on freedom of movement/budgetary contributions etc.
The tricky thing is if TM is keen to negotiate a deal very close to hard Brexit... then there is essentially no choice.
Theresa may is keen to keep her job. She is a prisoner of the Tory right. Thus, to keep her job she will negotiate a deal that will cause significant hardship to many millions of UK citizens.
She's in a tough spot... but I think she has just as much pressure coming from those who want to stay in the single market... who are probably a majority of her MPs or certainly enough to bring her down.
One option could be to negotiate a deal and then allow the true believer Brexiteers to argue against it... in a referendum offering a choice of her deal or a hard Brexit/WTO etc.
Of course if she's learnt anything from Dave it should surely be to be careful before you promise a referendum as you may not get the result you expect!
Is it just me? Or can anyone else starting to smell genuine panic from Leavers that this going to go wrong and be taken away from them? Every economic prediction is jumped on and denounced as rubbish and doom glooming from the elite who want us to remain. Each day the jumping gets harder as the panic sets in that this will, after all, be an economic disaster.
The Daily Mail are busy attacking IFS this morning for saying wages have stagnated.
This would be true EU or not.
The Leavers mantra seems to be to rubbish any news that has the temerity to suggest that we are not entering a post-Brexit land of milk and honey, hurl abuse at the messenger and when all else fails find something else to blame it on.
And the Remainers only have doom and despondency and doing Britain down to cling to in these Dark Times before we actually depart the EU.
I have said before - after we Leave, life will be nowhere near as bad as the Remainers fear and nowhere near as perfect as the Leavers hope.
But at least we can still kick the buggers out if they prove a disappointment.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
Plenty I expect, but the ones who crash and burn do make for rather more interesting newspaper stories, so we have a skewed perception.
Moving off Europe and Brexit for a moment, the most interesting political development for me this week has been Hammond's commitment to review the pensions "triple lock" but only after 2020 (once the old folk have done their duty and voted the Conservatives back into Government).
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Hammond knows triple lock is unsustainable as more people become pensioners (even with rises in pension age) and with inflation (perhaps) going to 3.5% next year, it will make an even greater hit on the public finances.
Pensioner benefits already cost nearly £100 billion and if you include the rising cost of adult social care (which isn't being funded by Councils) and there's a big and growing problem which as with all big problems, few want to face and no one wants to do anything about.
Hammond may hope that by kicking the can down the road, he can forget about this but he knows that if the pensioner vote starts to fray from the Conservatives, the party is in big trouble (and McDonnell's commitment to retaining the triple lock is opportunism rather than practical economics or even politics).
If McD commits Labour to it then Tories will have to keep it.
As someone in their early 50s I more angry about my retirement age being moved every few years. I think I am now on for 68, but it seems we will be told in the spring that it will be moved yet again to 69. I fully expect it to be 70 in actual fact by the time I get near.
On topic- it does feel as though Brexit is breaking down traditional party divides, perhaps in the way that the likes of Peter Hitchens have long argued for.
The second referendum idea has been tainted a bit by the notion that it is a device to keep Britain in the EU. But if the two options were:
1) Whatever compromise deal TM comes out with 2) Total Leave, WTO rules, completely out of single market, complete control over immigration, no contribution to EU budget etc...
Then presumably that would be an acceptable second referendum to Brexiteers?
I think it's hard to argue that this would be subverting the original referendum result since both options mean leaving the EU.
Exactly. All a second referendum (accept deal/reject deal) does is give the electorate the opportunity to veto any TM deal and choose hard Brexit.
It would not say go back and renegotiate because it would be too late by whenever the referendum would be held.
I am not 100% sure that is what the likes of Major, Clegg, etc had in mind.
The guardian article suggests that is what Major has in mind since it says he accepts we will leave EU. He then hopes that May will negotiate a deal which preserves lots of single market... and presumably then makes compromises on freedom of movement/budgetary contributions etc.
The tricky thing is if TM is keen to negotiate a deal very close to hard Brexit... then there is essentially no choice.
Presumably he wants the 48% to have a say over/block a too hard deal. But no referendum could deliver that.
If it is a hard deal then a referendum would only be able to ask:
1) negotiated hard deal; or 2) no deal = WTO = hard Brexit
Yes- but it's important to note that he isn't seeking to rerun the first referendum as so many posters here seem to think.
If there's no real difference between options 1 and 2 then obviously a referendum is a waste of time.
Mr. Price, things are a little quieter, and a little testier.
Given the times and the fact we've had two very large political events this year and are in the aftermath, that may not be surprising.
It's not surprising, but it's a pity. Collectively we usually carry ourselves with reasonably good grace through the machinations of party politics and the agony or ecstasy of elections. Brexit seems to be on a different level. Which it is, I suppose.
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
Spain has done magnificently from EU membership generally. When I think of the drive into Barcelona and Madrid back when I first visited them and compare it to now the change is total. I can remember the shanty towns on the edge of Madrid back in the early 1980s. It's a similar story in Portugal.
Did you see that the Cortes has backed a Podemos proposal to increase the minimum wage from Euros 650 to Euros 800 a month? PP voted against, Ciudadanos abstained. It probably will not happen as it has to get through the Senate, which PP controls, but it does indicate how difficult PP are going to find being a minority government.
Mr. Price, things are a little quieter, and a little testier.
Given the times and the fact we've had two very large political events this year and are in the aftermath, that may not be surprising.
It's not surprising, but it's a pity. Collectively we usually carry ourselves with reasonably good grace through the machinations of party politics and the agony or ecstasy of elections. Brexit seems to be on a different level. Which it is, I suppose.
The British public realised this too and came out in their droves to vote for their choice.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
Moving off Europe and Brexit for a moment, the most interesting political development for me this week has been Hammond's commitment to review the pensions "triple lock" but only after 2020 (once the old folk have done their duty and voted the Conservatives back into Government).
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Hammond knows triple lock is unsustainable as more people become pensioners (even with rises in pension age) and with inflation (perhaps) going to 3.5% next year, it will make an even greater hit on the public finances.
Pensioner benefits already cost nearly £100 billion and if you include the rising cost of adult social care (which isn't being funded by Councils) and there's a big and growing problem which as with all big problems, few want to face and no one wants to do anything about.
Hammond may hope that by kicking the can down the road, he can forget about this but he knows that if the pensioner vote starts to fray from the Conservatives, the party is in big trouble (and McDonnell's commitment to retaining the triple lock is opportunism rather than practical economics or even politics).
Agreed. I also thought Osborne's pensioner savings bonds were perhaps more egregious. Deliberately borrowing money above the market rate as a giveaway to pensioners whilst going on about the impact of the debt and deficit was pretty rich...
"The document stamped "secret" was called, in keeping with films and books of that era, "The Omega Project". Civil servants noted that "for the majority it would represent the abolition of the NHS". But in spite of what was described as the nearest thing to a Cabinet riot in the history of the Thatcher administration, the prime minister secretly pressed ahead with the plans - before later backing down." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38101020
Who cares what Thatcher wanted? I am incapable of being inspired or scared by reports of Thatcher. And half the population assumed it anyway.
It's part of the historical record and is of interest for that fact alone. It also may make one wonder about any modern politician's claim that the NHS is safe in their hands.
Is it just me? Or can anyone else starting to smell genuine panic from Leavers that this going to go wrong and be taken away from them? Every economic prediction is jumped on and denounced as rubbish and doom glooming from the elite who want us to remain. Each day the jumping gets harder as the panic sets in that this will, after all, be an economic disaster.
The Daily Mail are busy attacking IFS this morning for saying wages have stagnated.
This would be true EU or not.
I'm expecting the Mail to denounce the 16m or so who voted to Remain as traitors. I'd say to all the Leavers here that they should do so too. Or I would, if they weren't all spineless - not one of them has pointed out that Thomas Mair didn't get a fair trial.
I didn't follow the trial in the slightest - what was unfair about it, if I may ask?
On the subject of how the campaigning has changed. I would say that it is now "stay out' vs "rejoin". If the EUphiles want a second referendum on membership then that is what should be put to the people once we have left.
Really though, it would be easier if the 5% of EUphiles left for Belgium, since they love the artificial EU so much they can go and live in a artificial country.
You've gone full-on mental this morning. Accusing those with different views of being traitors, advocating expatriation of those with different views and demonstrating an inability to read simple English sentences.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I suspect Trump wont be interested in that anymore. Turkey to the US was all about NATO and latterly dealing with Northern Iraq. Trump seems to be planning to pull NATO down and god alone knows what he plans in Iraq with ISIS. Battlefield nukes probably.
Mr. Price, things are a little quieter, and a little testier.
Given the times and the fact we've had two very large political events this year and are in the aftermath, that may not be surprising.
It's not surprising, but it's a pity. Collectively we usually carry ourselves with reasonably good grace through the machinations of party politics and the agony or ecstasy of elections. Brexit seems to be on a different level. Which it is, I suppose.
Perhaps we can all agree on one thing.
AV is the greatest voting system in the world
Anyone who is partaking in Black Friday is a traitor to Britain, and deserves to be exiled to France.
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Interestingly the 2.5% provision has only kicked in twice, as far as I can see (the upratings in 2013 & 2015). It's combining the other two provisions that really makes it long-term unsustainable.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I don't see how the claim "We send £350m per week to the EU" could be regarded as anything other than a lie, given that we don't actually send £350m per week to the EU. As you well know, this figure includes the rebate, which never leaves our shores and is spent by us on other things.
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
Spain has done magnificently from EU membership generally. When I think of the drive into Barcelona and Madrid back when I first visited them and compare it to now the change is total. I can remember the shanty towns on the edge of Madrid back in the early 1980s. It's a similar story in Portugal.
Did you see that the Cortes has backed a Podemos proposal to increase the minimum wage from Euros 650 to Euros 800 a month? PP voted against, Ciudadanos abstained. It probably will not happen as it has to get through the Senate, which PP controls, but it does indicate how difficult PP are going to find being a minority government.
I did, and you're right. It will be a challenging period. One of the fascinating things is how minority parties - having seen what happened to the LibDems in the UK and the FDP in Germany - are flexing their muscles.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
That amount of money is destructive. A lot of people will probably move out and it will change the social feel of the villlahe and it's local economy forever.
It would have been much better to gift €50,000 each as that'd unlock the ability for each to start meaningfully pursuing their life's ambitions without giving everything to them all on a plate.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
Well my guess is that as individuals they'll be better off but he'll have destroyed the village. It may be per @SouthamObserver it's just accelerating the inevitable but I doubt it was his intention
Will Le Pen win? This is my current list of indicators to look for. I reckon a Le Pen win is equivalent to a Le Pen score of 45%+ in R1. I plan to make the investment decision before the end of the year, when her price will probably still be low, but the Dutch election in March is included for reference.
Summary
1) FREXIT big in the French media
2) SUPPORT FROM LEADING FIGURES OUTSIDE THE FN, explicit or otherwise, inside or outside France; not necessarily many, but some; statements against Le Pen outside France by those who might conceivably support her, such as Nigel Farage, don't matter so much
3) PERCEIVED FEASIBILITY: "financial, business and diplomatic circles have come to terms with the possibility of a Le Pen presidency"
4) ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED MOMENTUM: TALK OF A SURGE OF "POPULISM" AND POSSIBLE END OF EU:
* (4 Dec) Hofer win in Austria and talk of Oexit; * (4 Dec) "No" in Italian referendum and talk of Italexit; * (15 Mar) Wilders win (on some definition) in Netherlands, talk of Nexit;
* reporting of "the nth country to fall to right-wing populism", "populism’s seemingly unstoppable rise across the western world"; cf. propaganda for gay marriage in 2001-15; but don't be too focused on British "watch the excitable fuzzy-wuzzies" stories
5) HER KIND OF NEWS STORY: terrorism, Arabs, migrants - stories communicating with big emotional impact that policy has failed for a long time and something must be done
6) POLLS: predicted R1 40% in at least one serious poll
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
That amount of money is destructive. A lot of people will probably move out and it will change the social feel of the villlahe and it's local economy forever.
It would have been much better to gift €50,000 each as that'd unlock the ability for each to start meaningfully pursuing their life's ambitions without giving everything to them all on a plate.
He also coupled it with significant investment in the village itself so it's not just a windfall for the residents. Even if a few squander it I suspect the majority will want to be true to the legacy he wanted to create.
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
No, he doesn't. He quotes a few random people - most of who are complete nobodies - to construct an evidence-free argument that the "establishment" (whatever that is) is putting democracy in peril. It's the same article that he has been writing for the last 10 years. And, of course, as usual he forgets to mention that Hillary Clinton got over 2 million more votes than Trump and that Trump won a majority of votes among the richest sections of US society.
Liverpool isn't exactly fertile ground for Tories, it was for the SDP Lib Dems. Interesting that most of the losses (30 vs 29) actually happened BEFORE the Coalition.
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
Spain has done magnificently from EU membership generally. When I think of the drive into Barcelona and Madrid back when I first visited them and compare it to now the change is total. I can remember the shanty towns on the edge of Madrid back in the early 1980s. It's a similar story in Portugal.
Did you see that the Cortes has backed a Podemos proposal to increase the minimum wage from Euros 650 to Euros 800 a month? PP voted against, Ciudadanos abstained. It probably will not happen as it has to get through the Senate, which PP controls, but it does indicate how difficult PP are going to find being a minority government.
Your point about driving across Spain is very true and I see the same as you do.
However for accuracy and balance I've always wanted the "Financed by the EU" signs which have been planted every 100 yards down the motorways to be replaced by "Financed by the taxpayers of Hampshire"
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
Well my guess is that as individuals they'll be better off but he'll have destroyed the village. It may be per @SouthamObserver it's just accelerating the inevitable but I doubt it was his intention
My guess is that most of the money will be given to children and grandchildren. But vultures will descend, there is no doubting that.
The Europe also seems to have decided stopping contagion is preferable to mutual accommodation, their usual approach, and may seems to see anything but hardish Brexit as too difficult to achieve.
Doesn't it depend on who you listen to? The Swedes have said they are perfectly amenable to a close accommodation with the UK, as have the Germans. Macron said similar when I met him earlier this year.
I think we have a tendency to take comments by EU functionaries and minor continental politicians and take them as if they were Holy writ, when they are just personal opinions. It'd be a little like a French newspaper quoting Nick Clegg ("former Deputy PM Nick Clegg") and giving the impression he spoke for all Brits.
Yes, the constant posting of inanities from EU functionaries is what has begun to grate the most. If the political leaders of the main contributor nations decide that the UK can have equivalence to single market status for all trade as long as we pay up €6bn per year (which we can take out of DfID's budget) then that is what will happen.
Max if you were 10/10 happy with Brexit before, given recent developments, the AS, IFS, deficit target change, etc are you still at a 10?
I'm curious as to why you'd expect any of this to change anyone's opinion on Brexit. Can you tell us anything that has happened that's actually based on fundamentals, rather than the subjective opinions of the same Remain supporting organisations and individuals that utterly compromised themselves during the campaign?
As far as fundamentals are concerned, tax revenues are above expectations, inflation is lower than expectations, industrial production afaik is up - no matter what Project Fear (tm) says, the economy just won't be told.
Does anyone know how long a statewide recount will take ?
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
What kind of recount is it? Full hand/manual recount?
F*ck knows, all I know is Jill Stein deserves a fiery, horrible death.
Why? The digital age can be dangerous. I object, for example, to paying for on line hacks of bank accounts. And of course the finance houses will not tell us details.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I don't see how the claim "We send £350m per week to the EU" could be regarded as anything other than a lie, given that we don't actually send £350m per week to the EU. As you well know, this figure includes the rebate, which never leaves our shores and is spent by us on other things.
But it doesn't include other items, such as remittances from the aid budget directly into EU commission coffers.
Does anyone know how long a statewide recount will take ?
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
What kind of recount is it? Full hand/manual recount?
F*ck knows, all I know is Jill Stein deserves a fiery, horrible death.
Am I seeing some remorse from her for helping Trump become POTUS?
More likely she's trying to spook the claim that his side fixed the election.
(There's probably a joke here about how it was people who don't change their underwear much who won it for Brexit, and nutter King Canute "stop climate change" types who won it for Trump.)
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
Well my guess is that as individuals they'll be better off but he'll have destroyed the village. It may be per @SouthamObserver it's just accelerating the inevitable but I doubt it was his intention
My guess is that most of the money will be given to children and grandchildren. But vultures will descend, there is no doubting that.
Probably but w/o known the demographics impossible to know. But it will accelerate the tendency to leave rather than regard it by govong individuals options
'Brexiters definitely not worried about losing second referendum
BREXITERS’ passionate opposition to a second referendum is definitely not because of fear they would lose, they have confirmed. Brexit voters agree that no referendum on the terms of leaving the EU is necessary because they would win and the last one was in no way a fluke.
Donna Sheridan of Burnley said: “We won, that’s it, job done, no second chances, not that I’m at all concerned about another vote because I’m not. I know the British people and I know that, like me, they’re not going to change their minds because of little things like the pound collapsing. If anything I think all this falling wages business will only strengthen resolve and return an even more overwhelming result than the previous overwhelming result, which was overwhelming. Which is why we shouldn’t have a vote because we’d absolutely win, so stop talking about it and if anyone does it’s treason.”
Political commentator Joseph Turner said: “Well if they’re that sure then we might as well. Like a victory lap.”
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
This is a very thought provoking article. Thanks for posting.
I would take issue though with the fact that he doesn't mention that we actually live in UK in a parliamentary democracy, rather than one driven by plebiscites. Now he may argue that is a bad thing and he certainly ends by saying he wants more democracy, but the reality is that is what we have in this country and referendums are relatively new.
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
Spain has the second highest unemployment rate in Europe. It used to be even worse.
Moving off Europe and Brexit for a moment, the most interesting political development for me this week has been Hammond's commitment to review the pensions "triple lock" but only after 2020 (once the old folk have done their duty and voted the Conservatives back into Government).
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Hammond knows triple lock is unsustainable as more people become pensioners (even with rises in pension age) and with inflation (perhaps) going to 3.5% next year, it will make an even greater hit on the public finances.
Pensioner benefits already cost nearly £100 billion and if you include the rising cost of adult social care (which isn't being funded by Councils) and there's a big and growing problem which as with all big problems, few want to face and no one wants to do anything about.
Hammond may hope that by kicking the can down the road, he can forget about this but he knows that if the pensioner vote starts to fray from the Conservatives, the party is in big trouble (and McDonnell's commitment to retaining the triple lock is opportunism rather than practical economics or even politics).
Assuming that some form of inflation rating is retained, and that it is the 2.5% minimum that will be abandoned, isn't a period when inflation is running at c. 3% exactly the right time, politically to make the change; I.e. When it makes no immediate difference
If my mother-in-law, 89 and living only on the state pension (which she does not spend all of, bless her), was suddenly handed £2 million I genuinely think the shock and then the worry of it might kill her. She would almost definitely give it all away to her children and grandchildren. You get to a certain age, I think, and you are so used to your established level of spending and way of living that additional money really does make no difference - even if it should.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
Well how many do, Charles?
Don't worry, the headmasters of Eton and Winchester can still keep even millionaire knuckledraggers out.
Good for Antonino Fernandez. Nice to hear of someone who really hasn't forgotten where he came from.
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
He's certainly bequeathed them all a life less ordinary. I suppose the question is whether that is fair on those who won't enjoy it, even if the overall utility is positive?
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
Well my guess is that as individuals they'll be better off but he'll have destroyed the village. It may be per @SouthamObserver it's just accelerating the inevitable but I doubt it was his intention
My guess is that most of the money will be given to children and grandchildren. But vultures will descend, there is no doubting that.
Probably but w/o known the demographics impossible to know. But it will accelerate the tendency to leave rather than regard it by govong individuals options
I would be very, very surprised if the demographics were not overwhelmingly tipped towards the elderly. They usually are in those kinds of villages in that part of Spain.
Does anyone know how long a statewide recount will take ?
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
What kind of recount is it? Full hand/manual recount?
F*ck knows, all I know is Jill Stein deserves a fiery, horrible death.
Why? The digital age can be dangerous. I object, for example, to paying for on line hacks of bank accounts. And of course the finance houses will not tell us details.
The closest state, michigan was entirely pencil and optical scanner tech.
I'm curious as to why you'd expect any of this to change anyone's opinion on Brexit. Can you tell us anything that has happened that's actually based on fundamentals, rather than the subjective opinions of the same Remain supporting organisations and individuals that utterly compromised themselves during the campaign?
There was previously a fundamental misunderstanding of the British constitution and a frivolous insouciance about how such a breaking change would be pushed through. Now the reality is dawning and nobody in their right mind can expect there to be anything 'clean' about Brexit.
Months have already passed since people like rcs were demanding a head of terms to be agreed immediately to give confidence to business. That didn't happen and won't happen, yet still those that side of the fence refuse to concede the obvious: they were wrong.
Will Le Pen win? This is my current list of indicators to look for. I reckon a Le Pen win is equivalent to a Le Pen score of 45%+ in R1. I plan to make the investment decision before the end of the year, when her price will probably still be low, but the Dutch election in March is included for reference.
Summary
1) FREXIT big in the French media
2) SUPPORT FROM LEADING FIGURES OUTSIDE THE FN, explicit or otherwise, inside or outside France; not necessarily many, but some; statements against Le Pen outside France by those who might conceivably support her, such as Nigel Farage, don't matter so much
3) PERCEIVED FEASIBILITY: "financial, business and diplomatic circles have come to terms with the possibility of a Le Pen presidency"
4) ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED MOMENTUM: TALK OF A SURGE OF "POPULISM" AND POSSIBLE END OF EU:
* (4 Dec) Hofer win in Austria and talk of Oexit; * (4 Dec) "No" in Italian referendum and talk of Italexit; * (15 Mar) Wilders win (on some definition) in Netherlands, talk of Nexit;
* reporting of "the nth country to fall to right-wing populism", "populism’s seemingly unstoppable rise across the western world"; cf. propaganda for gay marriage in 2001-15; but don't be too focused on British "watch the excitable fuzzy-wuzzies" stories
5) HER KIND OF NEWS STORY: terrorism, Arabs, migrants - stories communicating with big emotional impact that policy has failed for a long time and something must be done
6) POLLS: predicted R1 40% in at least one serious poll
Micro-summary EU BREAKUP, THE ARABS, POLLS
Worth remembering that the FPO policy is not to leave the EU or even the Euro, it is to split the Eurozone into a Northern (Hard) Euro and a Southern (Soft) Euro.
I also think you massively over-estimate the FN's chances. MLP has made no progress in the polls in the last three years in France, unlike every other populist leader. Her party has also repeatedly underperformed its poll scores - unlike every other populist group. And in the second round of each of the French elections in the last two years it has actually lost share.
I'm curious as to why you'd expect any of this to change anyone's opinion on Brexit. Can you tell us anything that has happened that's actually based on fundamentals, rather than the subjective opinions of the same Remain supporting organisations and individuals that utterly compromised themselves during the campaign?
There was previously a fundamental misunderstanding of the British constitution and a frivolous insouciance about how such a breaking change would be pushed through. Now the reality is dawning and the nobody in their right mind can expect there to be anything 'clean' about Brexit.
Months have already passed since people like rcs were demanding a head of terms to be agreed immediately to give confidence to business. That didn't happen and won't happen, yet still those that side of the fence refuse to concede the obvious: they were wrong.
Clearly then the EU is a prison. Integration is a ratchet. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
No, he doesn't. He quotes a few random people - most of who are complete nobodies - to construct an evidence-free argument that the "establishment" (whatever that is) is putting democracy in peril. It's the same article that he has been writing for the last 10 years. And, of course, as usual he forgets to mention that Hillary Clinton got over 2 million more votes than Trump and that Trump won a majority of votes among the richest sections of US society.
Look in the mirror and see yourself. And then quibble about angels on pinheads - that's been your go-to position on here for years.
"It’s a dangerous and distracting myth. For it isn’t ordinary people, whether Brexiteers or Trumpites, who threaten to dismantle important liberal ideals; it’s their critics, the very members of the political class who are raging against what they view as the raging masses, who risk doing this.
Yes, huge numbers of ordinary people are expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo. As the British PM Theresa May said in a speech this week, Brexit and Trump show that people are peeved at the “emergence of a new global elite” and they want “change”. But this people’s protest, this polite registering of dissent, isn’t blind rage, and it isn’t throttling decent politics. That is being done by the response to Brexit and Trump, by the new elites’ demosphobia.
It’s this response that is likely to seriously damage political life. The truly disturbing thing about 2016 is not the rage of the masses against the establishment, but the rage of the elites against democracy.
In the 20 years I’ve been writing about politics, I cannot remember a time when disgust for democracy has been as explicit as it is now. It’s everywhere..."
The Germans have done fantastically from the Euro! At the expense of the rest of the EU. They're an export driven economy free riding on the blended exchange rate of all the EZ countries. The pain of this is felt in eg Spain and Italy who simply have the wrong exchange rate . This would be fine if the people of Spain and Italy were OK with the hollowing out of their industrial base and utterly dreadful unemployment stats and if the Germans were happy to accept that they must fund the garlic zone's deficit. The fundamental dilemma of the Euro remains unsorted.
Spanish GDP is growing very strongly and has been for 2 years now . Unemployment is steadily falling too . Italy is a different matter .
The number of people in work in Spain is up about 40% since the beginning of the Eurozone; I can't think of any developed country which has seen the same degree of growth.
Spain has the second highest unemployment rate in Europe. It used to be even worse.
There's a fascinating discrepancy between the employment rate changes in Spain, and the unemployment rate. A lot more people, as a percentage of the working age population, is employed in Spain than was the case in 1999, while the unemployment rate has also soared. The US, by contrast, has seen its unemployment and employment rates fall.
Does anyone know how long a statewide recount will take ?
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
What kind of recount is it? Full hand/manual recount?
F*ck knows, all I know is Jill Stein deserves a fiery, horrible death.
Why? The digital age can be dangerous. I object, for example, to paying for on line hacks of bank accounts. And of course the finance houses will not tell us details.
The closest state, michigan was entirely pencil and optical scanner tech.
I didn't know that. Maybe you're right. Was it close? I recall with horror hanging chads and all that
"Of course we would win Indyref2. We will definitely win it. When it happens. Which is not now. No need for it now. But we would win, if it was now. But it isn't. So..."
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
This is a very thought provoking article. Thanks for posting.
I would take issue though with the fact that he doesn't mention that we actually live in UK in a parliamentary democracy, rather than one driven by plebiscites. Now he may argue that is a bad thing and he certainly ends by saying he wants more democracy, but the reality is that is what we have in this country and referendums are relatively new.
In my previous life, I invited Brendan to host several thought-leadership/provocative sessions. This was over a decade ago, but he never failed to expose double standards and hypocrisy. He often said things at my events that made my corporate head wince - and shamed me a bit too for being a bit elitist in my desire to 'show I knew better'.
I've enormous respect for him even when I disagree. Nick Cohen by comparison has totally destroyed himself in my eyes re Brexit.
Does anyone know how long a statewide recount will take ?
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
What kind of recount is it? Full hand/manual recount?
F*ck knows, all I know is Jill Stein deserves a fiery, horrible death.
Why? The digital age can be dangerous. I object, for example, to paying for on line hacks of bank accounts. And of course the finance houses will not tell us details.
The closest state, michigan was entirely pencil and optical scanner tech.
The use of 'optical scanner tech' might be able to be exploited over hand counting, depending on exactly what that 'tech' is and how it's implemented.
If there are physical ballot papers it should be easier to detect problems after the event by hand counting.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I don't see how the claim "We send £350m per week to the EU" could be regarded as anything other than a lie, given that we don't actually send £350m per week to the EU. As you well know, this figure includes the rebate, which never leaves our shores and is spent by us on other things.
But it doesn't include other items, such as remittances from the aid budget directly into EU commission coffers.
Reading the original story of the Corona bloke's legacy in the local paper, it could just be that things have subsequently become a little bit exaggerated. According to that, the bloke died without any immediate family so left his fortune to members of his wider family in the province of Leon in Spain (where that village is) as well as in Mexico. Because he had 12 brothers and sisters and he died aged 98 there were a lot of beneficiaries.
If my mother-in-law, 89 and living only on the state pension (which she does not spend all of, bless her), was suddenly handed £2 million I genuinely think the shock and then the worry of it might kill her. She would almost definitely give it all away to her children and grandchildren. You get to a certain age, I think, and you are so used to your established level of spending and way of living that additional money really does make no difference - even if it should.
I remember feeling grateful - if sad, on receiving a modest bequest from my grandmother - I wished she'd spent it on herself.....
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
No, he doesn't. He quotes a few random people - most of who are complete nobodies - to construct an evidence-free argument that the "establishment" (whatever that is) is putting democracy in peril. It's the same article that he has been writing for the last 10 years. And, of course, as usual he forgets to mention that Hillary Clinton got over 2 million more votes than Trump and that Trump won a majority of votes among the richest sections of US society.
Look in the mirror and see yourself. And then quibble about angels on pinheads - that's been your go-to position on here for years.
"It’s a dangerous and distracting myth. For it isn’t ordinary people, whether Brexiteers or Trumpites, who threaten to dismantle important liberal ideals; it’s their critics, the very members of the political class who are raging against what they view as the raging masses, who risk doing this.
Yes, huge numbers of ordinary people are expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo. As the British PM Theresa May said in a speech this week, Brexit and Trump show that people are peeved at the “emergence of a new global elite” and they want “change”. But this people’s protest, this polite registering of dissent, isn’t blind rage, and it isn’t throttling decent politics. That is being done by the response to Brexit and Trump, by the new elites’ demosphobia.
It’s this response that is likely to seriously damage political life. The truly disturbing thing about 2016 is not the rage of the masses against the establishment, but the rage of the elites against democracy.
In the 20 years I’ve been writing about politics, I cannot remember a time when disgust for democracy has been as explicit as it is now. It’s everywhere..."
@ScottyNational: SNP Black Friday deals:Unimited time offers - 90% off A&E targets Huge reductions in literacy & numeracy £15bn py off post indy spending
Telegraph The founder of Corona has left £2 million to every single resident of the impoverished Spanish village he grew up in https://t.co/ZlgoZGhT2o
Don't think that's a good thing.
Get that within a decade the village will have ceased to exist in anywhere near its current form.
"Record inflation hits Spanish village"
Quantitative easing Windfall cash only good enough for bankers eh, @Charles ?
It's not good for anyone, even banker
Edit : I see @Cyclefree agrees which is usually a good indication that I'm right. But this story ends up as tragedy. How many lottery jackpot winners make a good go of it?
Well how many do, Charles?
Don't worry, the headmasters of Eton and Winchester can still keep even millionaire knuckledraggers out.
Good for Antonino Fernandez. Nice to hear of someone who really hasn't forgotten where he came from.
Quite - urgh, all those oiks who can't cope with being given Loadsamoney - it could make them sad or ruin the cultural poverty they live in. Let's just give it to the Really Wealthy who know how to spend it on another yacht and Krug instead.
The study also found that these vote tabulators can be easily reprogrammed in seconds, using a laptop and the tabulator’s connection port, and that no trace of the action can be detected.
(Bangs his head against the wall)
FFS. I can't believe intelligent people actually bought such systems.
Note: I'm not saying there was any fraud; just that the system's really borken. And this matters: democracy relies on people believing the vote was fair. Such systems make it too easy to believe it is unfair, even if it isn't.
I'm curious as to why you'd expect any of this to change anyone's opinion on Brexit. Can you tell us anything that has happened that's actually based on fundamentals, rather than the subjective opinions of the same Remain supporting organisations and individuals that utterly compromised themselves during the campaign?
There was previously a fundamental misunderstanding of the British constitution and a frivolous insouciance about how such a breaking change would be pushed through. Now the reality is dawning and the nobody in their right mind can expect there to be anything 'clean' about Brexit.
Months have already passed since people like rcs were demanding a head of terms to be agreed immediately to give confidence to business. That didn't happen and won't happen, yet still those that side of the fence refuse to concede the obvious: they were wrong.
Clearly then the EU is a prison. Integration is a ratchet. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Taking a decision that the EU doesn't work for us, or even just that it doesn't feel right, is a perfectly valid position to take. The problem is when those people don't accept the consequences of their decision - that it will result in a disconnected, more inward looking country with fewer prospects, jobs and welfare, at least in the short and medium terms. I think that's why there is still remarkably little consensus about what on its face is a fait accompli.
It is of course entirely correct for a political party to campaign at the next General Election for a referendum to return us to the EU. At the last General Election the winning Party campaigned on a platform of holding a referendum on our EU membership and implementing the result. What would not be appropriate would be to seek to circumvent the latter by doing the former without the intervening General Election.....
The government should sell its remaining shares in Royal Bank of Scotland at a loss to free up capital and people to work on Brexit, an adviser to George Osborne, the former chancellor, has said.
Selling taxpayers’ entire remaining holding in RBS would raise about £20 billion, half the amount that those shares were bought for at the height of the financial crisis.
That is the sensible course of action for the government to take as it prepares for the financial impact and amount of work involved in Brexit, according to Richard Davies, who advised Mr Osborne on economics from last year until his boss was sacked in July.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I don't see how the claim "We send £350m per week to the EU" could be regarded as anything other than a lie, given that we don't actually send £350m per week to the EU. As you well know, this figure includes the rebate, which never leaves our shores and is spent by us on other things.
As has been explained many times, the full £350m does leave every week, but every week we receive £80m. The £350m claim is true in the most basic sense, but it takes no account of context.
Jon Howarth #BREAKING: #Turkey President Erdogan threatens to open borders to migrants after EU Parliament vote. More to come...
I can foresee turkey becoming more and.more a problem. Dictator in charge, opposition "powers" led by an exiled Islamic extremist. 100,000s been purges from their jobs. It is the classic recipe for disaster.
And they are just about to join the EU!
LOL. One of the more egregious of the exaggerations of the campaign, in fairness.
I found the Turkey claim probably the most offensive part of our campaign, because - unlike with the 350m - it was a lie. There was, and is, absolutely no chance that Turkey will join the EU given: (a) the Turks don't want to; (b) the Turkish government would have to change beyond all recognition; and (c) EU countries would have to unanimously agree - and that includes Cyprus and Greece which would rather leave the EU than see the Turkey join.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
I don't see how the claim "We send £350m per week to the EU" could be regarded as anything other than a lie, given that we don't actually send £350m per week to the EU. As you well know, this figure includes the rebate, which never leaves our shores and is spent by us on other things.
As has been explained many times, the full £350m does leave every week, but every week we receive £80m. The £350m claim is true in the most basic sense, but it takes no account of context.
Mr. Jessop, it's more borken, as you say, than a condom made of sandpaper.
Mr Dancer - do you have any plans for audio book versions? I've several of yours but haven't read them as I get worded out during the day. I listen to loads of audio books/radio plays in the evening.
Will Le Pen win? This is my current list of indicators to look for. I reckon a Le Pen win is equivalent to a Le Pen score of 45%+ in R1. I plan to make the investment decision before the end of the year, when her price will probably still be low, but the Dutch election in March is included for reference.
Summary
Snipped
Worth remembering that the FPO policy is not to leave the EU or even the Euro, it is to split the Eurozone into a Northern (Hard) Euro and a Southern (Soft) Euro.
I also think you massively over-estimate the FN's chances. MLP has made no progress in the polls in the last three years in France, unlike every other populist leader. Her party has also repeatedly underperformed its poll scores - unlike every other populist group. And in the second round of each of the French elections in the last two years it has actually lost share.
The joy of being able to bet and lay on Betfair is that she doesn't actually need to win for Mr Camel's proposed investment to pay off.
If one or two of the indicators that he listed occurs, then her price will inevitably fall, especially in the current climate of political shocks such as the Brexit vote and Trump.
I would say that at the moment she is overpriced, as people concentrate on the current primary between Juppe and Fillon.
"Of course we would win Indyref2. We will definitely win it. When it happens. Which is not now. No need for it now. But we would win, if it was now. But it isn't. So..."
What exactly is your position on Indy Ref 2? I know TRuthy is about as consistent as a blancmange on roller skates, but surely a fine, upstanding chap like you will be sticking to your guns.
A wee quiz: who wrote this on 25/06/16?
'4. Next PM. It's May for me, anyone but Boris.
5. Corbyn should go too. A total tool. About as effective as a leader and potential PM as a fart in a hurricane.
6. Lastly and this will shock many but Scotland should now opt for independence. There I said it. The will of the Scottish people on the EU, a matter of the most crucial significance for the future, was clear. Hopefully it will be an amicable uncoupling. I would vote for YES in SINDY2, if still around.
SINDY2 should take place within 18 months and a YES vote take effect on the date of BREXIT two years after Article 50 is enabled or before 2020 whichever is sooner.'
The study also found that these vote tabulators can be easily reprogrammed in seconds, using a laptop and the tabulator’s connection port, and that no trace of the action can be detected.
(Bangs his head against the wall)
FFS. I can't believe intelligent people actually bought such systems.
Note: I'm not saying there was any fraud; just that the system's really borken. And this matters: democracy relies on people believing the vote was fair. Such systems make it too easy to believe it is unfair, even if it isn't.
I wonder if there may be a word for what I'd call something like "techno-ism" (like alcoholism---overdoing a good thing.).
If my mother-in-law, 89 and living only on the state pension (which she does not spend all of, bless her), was suddenly handed £2 million I genuinely think the shock and then the worry of it might kill her. She would almost definitely give it all away to her children and grandchildren. You get to a certain age, I think, and you are so used to your established level of spending and way of living that additional money really does make no difference - even if it should.
I remember feeling grateful - if sad, on receiving a modest bequest from my grandmother - I wished she'd spent it on herself.....
My mother-in-law actually saves money from her pension each week. She probably spends only £40 or so. She owns the cottage she has lived in since the early 1950s, has her heating oil paid for by the winter fuel allowance, gets a free TV licence and has her travel pass for the once a week bus, so beyond that her only outgoings are really electricity and food. She doesn't need anything else and at her age has no wish to travel or buy anything new. It's company she would love more of. She comes to ours every weekend, but during the week - apart from her Wednesday visit to town on the bus - she is pretty much alone. There's no way she'd move though.
Comments
Whatever's going on - it's telling me that many people are seriously unhappy that their democratic will be undermined/result threatened by those who can't accept their world view has been rejected.
After bashing my head a few times I have calmed down enough to think that not only do the Americans first try everything wrong, for example by (apparently) electing Trump, so do we by (apparently) choosing Brexit.
As for your second paragraph; what world view has been rejected (and how?), and what's the world view that's replaced it?
That is like saying that if the UK economy was not growing now we would be off the edge of the cliff .You are selectively cherry picking facts that suit your meme and ignoring those that do not .
As I see it, the problem with the Greek bailout deal referendum is that the alternative was not clearly spelled out/people thought they could have their cake and eat it....
That won't be the case with Brexit Ref. 2 as article 50 has a clear deadline.
The "triple lock" was one of the worst things the Coalition did in my view - it drove a coach and horses through notions of "we're all in this together" and effectively provided a large segment of the population an above-inflation (and significantly above both inflation and wages) annual pay increase which at a time of increasing deficit and debt was unsustainable, unaffordable but politically expedient as a guarantee for keeping one of the two Coaltion parties in Government.
Hammond knows triple lock is unsustainable as more people become pensioners (even with rises in pension age) and with inflation (perhaps) going to 3.5% next year, it will make an even greater hit on the public finances.
Pensioner benefits already cost nearly £100 billion and if you include the rising cost of adult social care (which isn't being funded by Councils) and there's a big and growing problem which as with all big problems, few want to face and no one wants to do anything about.
Hammond may hope that by kicking the can down the road, he can forget about this but he knows that if the pensioner vote starts to fray from the Conservatives, the party is in big trouble (and McDonnell's commitment to retaining the triple lock is opportunism rather than practical economics or even politics).
One option could be to negotiate a deal and then allow the true believer Brexiteers to argue against it... in a referendum offering a choice of her deal or a hard Brexit/WTO etc.
Of course if she's learnt anything from Dave it should surely be to be careful before you promise a referendum as you may not get the result you expect!
Given the times and the fact we've had two very large political events this year and are in the aftermath, that may not be surprising.
I have said before - after we Leave, life will be nowhere near as bad as the Remainers fear and nowhere near as perfect as the Leavers hope.
But at least we can still kick the buggers out if they prove a disappointment.
As someone in their early 50s I more angry about my retirement age being moved every few years. I think I am now on for 68, but it seems we will be told in the spring that it will be moved yet again to 69. I fully expect it to be 70 in actual fact by the time I get near.
If there's no real difference between options 1 and 2 then obviously a referendum is a waste of time.
Did you see that the Cortes has backed a Podemos proposal to increase the minimum wage from Euros 650 to Euros 800 a month? PP voted against, Ciudadanos abstained. It probably will not happen as it has to get through the Senate, which PP controls, but it does indicate how difficult PP are going to find being a minority government.
[I usually do find myself agreeing with your good self and the estimable @Cyclefree, but I'm with @Pulpstar on this one.]
If we either end up not leaving or get a departure in name only, things will get worse.
That being said, the EU made the rod for their own back by acceding to US demands that Turkey be put on the theoretical membership track.
Deliberately borrowing money above the market rate as a giveaway to pensioners whilst going on about the impact of the debt and deficit was pretty rich...
Con 41 (-1)
Lab 28 (nc)
Lib Dem 9 (+1)
UKIP 12 (+1)
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/24/voting-intention-conservatives-41-labour-28/
It also may make one wonder about any modern politician's claim that the NHS is safe in their hands.
Stein seems to have raised the money in Wisconsin...
I assume/hope since all the votes are in a clerk's office somewhere it can't take all that long ?
See numerous LM tweets for more not-very-deep thoughts on the issue.
AV is the greatest voting system in the world
Anyone who is partaking in Black Friday is a traitor to Britain, and deserves to be exiled to France.
http://brendanoneill.co.uk/post/153344728529/in-defence-of-the-crowd
"The “lower orders of the people” do not have a “ripened wisdom”, said one opponent of Chartism. And this means they’re “more exposed than any other class” to be “converted to the vicious ends of faction”. Such ugly snobbery is rehashed in the foul idea today that Brexiteers and Trumpites, being “low information”, were easily hoodwinked by “misinformation”.
The idea that ordinary people lack expertise and are too ruled by emotion was also said of the Suffragettes. As one historian says, women back then were seen to “lack the expertise” necessary for “informed political activity”. They were low-information..."
It would have been much better to gift €50,000 each as that'd unlock the ability for each to start meaningfully pursuing their life's ambitions without giving everything to them all on a plate.
Excepting those who buy a book at just 60% it's standard price. That's just common sense.
Summary
1) FREXIT big in the French media
2) SUPPORT FROM LEADING FIGURES OUTSIDE THE FN,
explicit or otherwise, inside or outside France; not necessarily many, but some; statements against Le Pen outside France by those who might conceivably support her, such as Nigel Farage, don't matter so much
3) PERCEIVED FEASIBILITY:
"financial, business and diplomatic circles have come to terms with the possibility of a Le Pen presidency"
4) ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED MOMENTUM:
TALK OF A SURGE OF "POPULISM" AND POSSIBLE END OF EU:
* (4 Dec) Hofer win in Austria and talk of Oexit;
* (4 Dec) "No" in Italian referendum and talk of Italexit;
* (15 Mar) Wilders win (on some definition) in Netherlands, talk of Nexit;
* reporting of "the nth country to fall to right-wing populism", "populism’s seemingly unstoppable rise across the western world"; cf. propaganda for gay marriage in 2001-15; but don't be too focused on British "watch the excitable fuzzy-wuzzies" stories
5) HER KIND OF NEWS STORY:
terrorism, Arabs, migrants - stories communicating with big emotional impact that policy has failed for a long time and something must be done
6) POLLS:
predicted R1 40% in at least one serious poll
Micro-summary
EU BREAKUP, THE ARABS, POLLS
http://ncase.me/polygons/
However for accuracy and balance I've always wanted the "Financed by the EU" signs which have been planted every 100 yards down the motorways to be replaced by "Financed by the taxpayers of Hampshire"
That's far more concerning than an old multi millionaire bequeathing his fortune to his home village.
As far as fundamentals are concerned, tax revenues are above expectations, inflation is lower than expectations, industrial production afaik is up - no matter what Project Fear (tm) says, the economy just won't be told.
The digital age can be dangerous.
I object, for example, to paying for on line hacks of bank accounts.
And of course the finance houses will not tell us details.
(There's probably a joke here about how it was people who don't change their underwear much who won it for Brexit, and nutter King Canute "stop climate change" types who won it for Trump.)
'Brexiters definitely not worried about losing second referendum
BREXITERS’ passionate opposition to a second referendum is definitely not because of fear they would lose, they have confirmed. Brexit voters agree that no referendum on the terms of leaving the EU is necessary because they would win and the last one was in no way a fluke.
Donna Sheridan of Burnley said: “We won, that’s it, job done, no second chances, not that I’m at all concerned about another vote because I’m not. I know the British people and I know that, like me, they’re not going to change their minds because of little things like the pound collapsing. If anything I think all this falling wages business will only strengthen resolve and return an even more overwhelming result than the previous overwhelming result, which was overwhelming. Which is why we shouldn’t have a vote because we’d absolutely win, so stop talking about it and if anyone does it’s treason.”
Political commentator Joseph Turner said: “Well if they’re that sure then we might as well. Like a victory lap.”
http://tinyurl.com/jyznfbg
Spookily resonant.
I would take issue though with the fact that he doesn't mention that we actually live in UK in a parliamentary democracy, rather than one driven by plebiscites. Now he may argue that is a bad thing and he certainly ends by saying he wants more democracy, but the reality is that is what we have in this country and referendums are relatively new.
Don't worry, the headmasters of Eton and Winchester can still keep even millionaire knuckledraggers out.
Good for Antonino Fernandez. Nice to hear of someone who really hasn't forgotten where he came from.
Months have already passed since people like rcs were demanding a head of terms to be agreed immediately to give confidence to business. That didn't happen and won't happen, yet still those that side of the fence refuse to concede the obvious: they were wrong.
I also think you massively over-estimate the FN's chances. MLP has made no progress in the polls in the last three years in France, unlike every other populist leader. Her party has also repeatedly underperformed its poll scores - unlike every other populist group. And in the second round of each of the French elections in the last two years it has actually lost share.
"It’s a dangerous and distracting myth. For it isn’t ordinary people, whether Brexiteers or Trumpites, who threaten to dismantle important liberal ideals; it’s their critics, the very members of the political class who are raging against what they view as the raging masses, who risk doing this.
Yes, huge numbers of ordinary people are expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo. As the British PM Theresa May said in a speech this week, Brexit and Trump show that people are peeved at the “emergence of a new global elite” and they want “change”. But this people’s protest, this polite registering of dissent, isn’t blind rage, and it isn’t throttling decent politics. That is being done by the response to Brexit and Trump, by the new elites’ demosphobia.
It’s this response that is likely to seriously damage political life. The truly disturbing thing about 2016 is not the rage of the masses against the establishment, but the rage of the elites against democracy.
In the 20 years I’ve been writing about politics, I cannot remember a time when disgust for democracy has been as explicit as it is now. It’s everywhere..."
"Of course we would win Indyref2. We will definitely win it. When it happens. Which is not now. No need for it now. But we would win, if it was now. But it isn't. So..."
I've enormous respect for him even when I disagree. Nick Cohen by comparison has totally destroyed himself in my eyes re Brexit.
If there are physical ballot papers it should be easier to detect problems after the event by hand counting.
Edit: from 2007:
http://www.michiganelectionreformalliance.org/Fealk.Statement.Tabulators.6-29.pdf
90% off A&E targets
Huge reductions in literacy & numeracy
£15bn py off post indy spending
FFS.
The study also found that these vote tabulators can be easily reprogrammed in seconds, using a laptop and the tabulator’s connection port, and that no trace of the action can be detected.
(Bangs his head against the wall)
FFS. I can't believe intelligent people actually bought such systems.
Note: I'm not saying there was any fraud; just that the system's really borken. And this matters: democracy relies on people believing the vote was fair. Such systems make it too easy to believe it is unfair, even if it isn't.
Selling taxpayers’ entire remaining holding in RBS would raise about £20 billion, half the amount that those shares were bought for at the height of the financial crisis.
That is the sensible course of action for the government to take as it prepares for the financial impact and amount of work involved in Brexit, according to Richard Davies, who advised Mr Osborne on economics from last year until his boss was sacked in July.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/sell-rbs-at-a-loss-to-ease-brexit-pain-wjjr8h379
Just a thought.
If one or two of the indicators that he listed occurs, then her price will inevitably fall, especially in the current climate of political shocks such as the Brexit vote and Trump.
I would say that at the moment she is overpriced, as people concentrate on the current primary between Juppe and Fillon.
A wee quiz: who wrote this on 25/06/16?
'4. Next PM. It's May for me, anyone but Boris.
5. Corbyn should go too. A total tool. About as effective as a leader and potential PM as a fart in a hurricane.
6. Lastly and this will shock many but Scotland should now opt for independence. There I said it. The will of the Scottish people on the EU, a matter of the most crucial significance for the future, was clear. Hopefully it will be an amicable uncoupling. I would vote for YES in SINDY2, if still around.
SINDY2 should take place within 18 months and a YES vote take effect on the date of BREXIT two years after Article 50 is enabled or before 2020 whichever is sooner.'
And who replied:
'Nice to see you ****.
I agree on all 3 points.'