I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
The only projection going on here is PBers claiming they know what Labour voters were thinking during the election, despite the fact they didn't actually speak to (m)any of them.
I wouldn't presume to claim to know what Labour voters generally think. But, I think we can make an educated guess about the motives of people who switched from Conservative to Labour in places like Kensington, Canterbury, and Battersea.
Yep - and Warwick & Leamington. But I suspect it was the tone of the Tory language on Brexit and the whole confrontational approach the party seemed to adopt that, more than anything else, helped to drive a lot of Remain voters away. Citizens of nowhere, saboteurs, enemies of the people, accusing Brussels of trying to influence the election etc; the mood music was appalling. And in a two party system if you don't like option one your alternatives are very limited. Labour's problem, though, is that it applies the other way round, too. And I am absolutely certain that affluent, leafy, middle class, previously Tory-voting Warwick & Leamington has not suddenly embraced red-blooded socialism, or anything close to it.
I lived in Warwick and Leamington in 2001 as a student and campaigned for the Tories and Labour won it by 5000 votes. I also stood for council in 2003 in Brunswick in an election where the Tories won most councillors (thanks to Warwick and the villages) but not a majority. It has now long been a marginal and once the villages went in the pre 2010 boundary changes it now leans Labour, hence Labour won the seat despite failing to win nationally. Indeed Leamington is full of students and has a high ethnic minority population and has not even got 1 Tory councillor now, it is only Warwick where the Tories do have councillors which gives the Tories a chance of ever retaking the seat again
The Tory majority two years ago was over 6,000.
The Tories won an overall majority nationally two years ago, the Tories will only ever win Warwick and Leamington again if they win an overall majority again and that would only be because of Warwick, if it was just Leamington it would be a Labour safe seat and the LDs may even give the Tories a run for second given their strength in Manor, Milverton and Crown wards
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Cold feet are one thing. Can you imagine the political will to revoke A50? It would be a massive political crisis and I don't know if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
In that scenario they will throw the think back to the voters in a second referendum and hope they get them off the hook
I'm inclined to agree. But look how EU_Ref1 tore the country apart. EU_Ref2 would be unimaginably awful.
I am pole axed by the suggestion that a refusal to pretend to think what he doesn't, is a flaw in a politician. Corbyn's very obvious integrity is pretty much the only good thing about him.
It's also not true.
He pretends to support Trident renewal when it suits him.
Despite the narrative that he is political genius now I wonder whether a lot of people voted Labour in spite of Corbyn rather than because of him? Simply because they either wanted change (of any kind) or wanted to prevent a landslide Tory win.
I was a Labour member for years and Corbyn has never been pro-EU he just didn't have the guts to say so during the referendum campaign. I'm not buying your honest man of principle I'm afraid.
I do feel strongly about the EU and when we look back on this period of history the big mistake the party made will not be choosing a left winger per se but choosing one of only the handful of MPs that was happy to see us Brexit.
Well, I know him quite well and have discussed the EU with him in detail. I'm sceptical that you know him better? His stock in trade, which is often awkward, is that he's almost impossible to persuade to pretend he thinks something he doesn't (the best you can get is "I think X but the party thinks otherwise", as on Trident), and his "7.5 out of 10" is exactly what he thinks about the EU. There are lots of us, including me, who would be more like 9.5 out 10, but I don't think he's ever given any reason to think that he agreed with us, nor that he secretly thinks 0 out of 10.
In the end he sees it as a partnership which would be easier to continue as members but will need to continue either way; membership isn't an article of faith with him as it is for, say, Tony Blair or Ken Clarke. That's close to how most people feel, and those who love or hate membership per se are minorities.
We will have to agree to disagree, I have a very different take on where the Corbyn / Momentum project is headed. I might possibly give you the benefit of the doubt about Corbyn himself as I am not sure to what extent he is the leader or the puppet.
It is those behind him and in the shadows we need to worry about. I have observed the far left and fellow travellers in action for most of my life right back to the way Andrew Macintosh was ousted from the GLC leadership.
Completely agree. Seamus Milne, Jon Lansman, Andrew Murray, John McDonnell etc are all from the very far, Marxist left - and proud of it, of course. Whenever Corbyn appoints an adviser it is from that strand of thought that he comes (and it is always a he).
Despite the narrative that he is political genius now I wonder whether a lot of people voted Labour in spite of Corbyn rather than because of him? Simply because they either wanted change (of any kind) or wanted to prevent a landslide Tory win.
I am pole axed by the suggestion that a refusal to pretend to think what he doesn't, is a flaw in a politician. Corbyn's very obvious integrity is pretty much the only good thing about him.
I was impressed by Corbyn's willingness to act like a normal politician leading up to the election, to trim his positions to match the public mood. I was also impressed by Labour's highly focus-grouped manifesto, which was almost social democratic. It's clear now that Corbyn is happy to discard those manifesto promises like yesterday's newspapers. now they have served their purpose to deliver an election result. That was then, this is now.
I would say Corbyn is a particularly dishonest politician.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
I am pole axed by the suggestion that a refusal to pretend to think what he doesn't, is a flaw in a politician. Corbyn's very obvious integrity is pretty much the only good thing about him.
I was impressed by Corbyn's willingness to act like a normal politician leading up to the election, to trim his positions to match the public mood. I was also impressed by Labour's highly focus-grouped manifesto, which was almost social democratic. It's clear now that Corbyn is happy to discard those manifesto promises like yesterday's newspapers. now they have served their purpose to deliver an election result. That was then, this is now.
I would say Corbyn is a particularly dishonest politician.
Indeed imagine if Corbyn had somehow found himself in Downing Street. The only promises that would be kept would be spend, spend, spend. The idea of it being fully-costed would be forgotten rapidly.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
The only projection going on here is PBers claiming they know what Labour voters were thinking during the election, despite the fact they didn't actually speak to (m)any of them.
I wouldn't presume to claim to know what Labour voters generally think. But, I think we can make an educated guess about the motives of people who switched from Conservative to Labour in places like Kensington, Canterbury, and Battersea.
Yep - and Warwick & Leamington. But I suspect it was the tone of the Tory language on Brexit and the whole confrontational approach the party seemed to adopt that, more than anything else, helped to drive a lot of Remain voters away. Citizens of nowhere, saboteurs, enemies of the people, accusing Brussels of trying to influence the election etc; the mood music was appalling. And in a two party system if you don't like option one your alternatives are very limited. Labour's problem, though, is that it applies the other way round, too. And I am absolutely certain that affluent, leafy, middle class, previously Tory-voting Warwick & Leamington has not suddenly embraced red-blooded socialism, or anything close to it.
I again
The Tory majority two years ago was over 6,000.
The Tories won an overall majority nationally two years ago, the Tories will only ever win Warwick and Leamington again if they win an overall majority again and that would only be because of Warwick, if it was just Leamington it would be a Labour safe seat and the LDs may even give the Tories a run for second given their strength in Manor, Milverton and Crown wards
But the constituency is Warwick & Leamington, not just Leamington, so I am not sure what your point is. If you take bits out of seats and make them seats on their own then obviously results will be different. But the fact is that Warwick & Leamington was leaning Tory prior to 2017, with a Conservative majority that increased from just over 3,000 in 2010 to over 6,000 in 2017. It is also a fact that in 2016, Warwick District one was one of the few parts of the West Midlands outside the big cities that voted Remain.
I live in Milverton and voted for the LibDems in the council election.
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Phil Collins the Tony Blair adviser? That's a bit strong.
I was a reluctant "soft" remainer. I have real internal conflict as I support quite a few of the leave arguments and view the EU as a rotten institution that must reform or eventually die. I am now finding my remain side boosted by the fear of Corbyn and McDonell. Am I alone or wil this be a new factor in the ferment?
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way. Following the referendum however, he would certainly have felt that the result had to be respected. This is entirely consistent with his diffidently held views. Again, he would have accepted a 'let's make the most of it' attitude. He would have been encouraged in this by the definite preference amongst his WWC supporters for Brexit. Should they change their minds, however, I suspect Corbyn would too and not just out of political expedience (although that would naturally enough be a factor.) He would simply want to respect their wishes just as he currently respects those of the majority of voters at the referendum.
That leaves the problem of the Labour Remainers, of which I am one. I should say that our attitude tends to be that you have to respect the referendum result and do what you can to make Brexit work, so there is no direct conflict with Corbyn there, nor would there be if he changes his mind. So there is no need for this to become a big deal for Labour.
Of course there are some of us who think that it is only a question of time before it becomes apparent not just to the WWC but even unto the dogs in the street that Brexit was the biggest clusterfuck since Lord North lost the Colonies, and so in due course I would expect Corbyn and most others with a pulse to do what they can to get us out of the shit, but that's just a personal opinion.
And if it's wrong, and Brexit is a storming success, we all win, so that's great. In fact I would even be prepared in these circumstances to break with all know PB precedent and admit publicly here that I was wrong.
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Why would you say "ace" instead of aces, though, Nick?
Have you ever said "no more vote to count", as the vote-counting concluded?
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Hasn't he voted against every EU treaty that has been brought before Parliament since he entered Parliament in 1983?
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way. Following the referendum however, he would certainly have felt that the result had to be respected. This is entirely consistent with his diffidently held views. Again, he would have accepted a 'let's make the most of it' attitude. He would have been encouraged in this by the definite preference amongst his WWC supporters for Brexit. Should they change their minds, however, I suspect Corbyn would too and not just out of political expedience (although that would naturally enough be a factor.) He would simply want to respect their wishes just as he currently respects those of the majority of voters at the referendum.
That leaves the problem of the Labour Remainers, of which I am one. I should say that our attitude tends to be that you have to respect the referendum result and do what you can to make Brexit work, so there is no direct conflict with Corbyn there, nor would there be if he changes his mind. So there is no need for this to become a big deal for Labour.
Of course there are some of us who think that it is only a question of time before it becomes apparent not just to the WWC but even unto the dogs in the street that Brexit was the biggest clusterfuck since Lord North lost the Colonies, and so in due course I would expect Corbyn and most others with a pulse to do what they can to get us out of the shit, but that's just a personal opinion.
And if it's wrong, and Brexit is a storming success, we all win, so that's great. In fact I would even be prepared in these circumstances to break with all know PB precedent and admit publicly here that I was wrong.
+2
I really don't think he is a "diffident remainer". He might persuade himself that a pan-european socialist transformation is possible but he and McDonell are primarily determined to try Socialism in one country if we let them. The EU would stop the Corbyn programme stone dead.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
I think the Tory right is going to understand the full meaning of a Pyrrhic victory when Brexit ushers in a Corbyn government unfettered by the constraints of the EU.
I'm a Remainer and I'm not being quiet. I still don't think it will happen.
I was a Labour member for years and Corbyn has never been pro-EU he just didn't have the guts to say so during the referendum campaign. I'm not buying your honest man of principle I'm afraid.
I do feel strongly about the EU and when we look back on this period of history the big mistake the party made will not be choosing a left winger per se but choosing one of only the handful of MPs that was happy to see us Brexit.
Well, I know him quite well and have discussed the EU with him in detail. I'm sceptical that you know him better? His stock in trade, which is often awkward, is that he's almost impossible to persuade to pretend he thinks something he doesn't (the best you can get is "I think X but the party thinks otherwise", as on Trident), and his "7.5 out of 10" is exactly what he thinks about the EU. There are lots of us, including me, who would be more like 9.5 out 10, but I don't think he's ever given any reason to think that he agreed with us, nor that he secretly thinks 0 out of 10.
In the end he sees it as a partnership which would be easier to continue as members but will need to continue either way; membership isn't an article of faith with him as it is for, say, Tony Blair or Ken Clarke. That's close to how most people feel, and those who love or hate membership per se are minorities.
I am pole axed by the suggestion that a refusal to pretend to think what he doesn't, is a flaw in a politician. Corbyn's very obvious integrity is pretty much the only good thing about him.
And why the moment when he argued for multilateral rather than unilateral disarmament during the election was so cringe making, since it was obvious he was just playing the game and didn't believe a word of it.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
The media are all over the fact that the Council used a cheaper cladding saving circa £300,000 but if this cladding was legal under building regulations it is the Council's responsibility to save costs wherever possible and this must have happened across the country by councils controlled by labour and lib dem's alike.
If the cladding is of the same fire safety standard the cost is irrelevant.
The BBC website says:
Residents had also been told their new cladding would be made of zinc. Despite their differences, both types of cladding have the same official fire rating.
It's the suitability of the fire rating for a high-rise that matters, and whether or not the actual installed panels met the standard. Cost is not the issue, safety is; expensive and unsafe is just as bad as cheap and unsafe.
This is verging on "fake news".
There is also growing doubt about the way in which the government is testing the cladding samples sent in by councils (all of which are said to have failed), which is focusing on the interior material of the cladding and may not be fully reflecting real life conditions.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Cold feet are one thing. Can you imagine the political will to revoke A50? It would be a massive political crisis and I don't know if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
I think the risk lies in MPs being unwilling to endorse a *specific* Brexit deal. And if the government cannot get its Brexit Bill through parliament, then I think a 2019 General Election becomes inevitable.
It is the fear of that election which will make the Tory Europhiles hold their noses and vote for the deal.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
I would love to be wrong about this and have no recession, but it has all the same vibes as previous downturns. I have been a business owner since 1996 and I have been through both ups and downs many times.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
For the technical definition of "a recession" you are correct, but the definition does not recognise the recession until it has been happening for 6 months, so the downturn would need to start in early 2018 and continue for 6 months so that, officially, it can be recognised in late 2018.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Hasn't he voted against every EU treaty that has been brought before Parliament since he entered Parliament in 1983?
You are probably right, Gin. I don't pretend to be a Corbynologist, but I see that NickP, who knows the guy better than most of us, appears to approve of my characterisation, so maybe I'm not a million miles out.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
The only projection going on here is PBers claiming they know what Labour voters were thinking during the election, despite the fact they didn't actually speak to (m)any of them.
I wouldn't presume to claim to know what Labour voters generally think. But, I think we can make an educated guess about the motives of people who switched from Conservative to Labour in places like Kensington, Canterbury, and Battersea.
Yep - and Warwick & Leamington. But I suspect it was the tone of the Tory language on Brexit and the am absolutely certain that affluent, leafy, middle class, previously Tory-voting Warwick & Leamington has not suddenly embraced red-blooded socialism, or anything close to it.
I again
The Tory majority two years ago was over 6,000.
The Tories won an overall majority nationally two years ago, the Tories will only ever win
But the constituency is Warwick & Leamington, not just Leamington, so I am not sure what your point is. If you take bits out of seats and make them seats on their own then obviously results will be different. But the fact is that Warwick & Leamington was leaning Tory prior to 2017, with a Conservative majority that increased from just over 3,000 in 2010 to over 6,000 in 2017. It is also a fact that in 2016, Warwick District one was one of the few parts of the West Midlands outside the big cities that voted Remain.
I live in Milverton and voted for the LibDems in the council election.
2010 saw a very low Labour score and a high LD score which helped the Tories squeeze through the middle and they had a 7% lead nationally compared to 2% in 2017 hence if Labour and the Tories are evenly matched in the national popular vote Warwick and Leamington should go Labour. Yes Warwick did vote Remain but then so did a number of seats which stayed Tory on June 8th, social change, especially in Leamington, has shifted the seat away from the Tories and they can now win most seats without winning Warwick and Leamington as we saw this year
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
Also worth remembering that the growth figures in particular are subject to repeated adjustments for many months afterwards, so it is possible to find out about an actual downturn (or absence thereof) a long time after it has started.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
Also worth remembering that the growth figures in particular are subject to repeated adjustments for many months afterwards, so it is possible to find out about an actual downturn (or absence thereof) a long time after it has started.
Agreed though there is no immediate indication that the Country is not growing at present
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
The only projection going on here is PBers claiming they know what Labour voters were thinking during the election, despite the fact they didn't actually speak to (m)any of them.
I wouldn't presume to claim to know what Labour voters generally think. But, I think we can make an educated guess about the motives of people who switched from Conservative to Labour in places like Kensington, Canterbury, and Battersea.
Yep - and Warwick & Leamington. But I suspect it was the tone of the Tory language on Brexit and the am absolutely certain that affluent, leafy, middle class, previously Tory-voting Warwick & Leamington has not suddenly embraced red-blooded socialism, or anything close to it.
I again
The Tory majority two years ago was over 6,000.
The Tories won an overall majority nationally two years ago, the Tories will only ever win
But Remain.
I live in Milverton and voted for the LibDems in the council election.
2010 saw a very low Labour score and a high LD score which helped the Tories squeeze through the middle and they had a 7% lead nationally compared to 2% in 2017 hence if Labour and the Tories are evenly matched in the national popular vote Warwick and Leamington should go Labour. Yes Warwick did vote Remain but then so did a number of seats which stayed Tory on June 8th, social change, especially in Leamington, has shifted the seat away from the Tories and they can now win most seats without winning Warwick and Leamington as we saw this year
That makes absolutely no sense at all. The Tories almost doubled their majority in 2015. I live here and have not observed any dramatic social changes in the last two years. Demographically the seat is much as it was.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The recession is on its way and it is nothing to do with me being pro-Remain. I can see how our customers (all businesses, we only do B2B) are cutting back already and are talking about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
Also worth remembering that the growth figures in particular are subject to repeated adjustments for many months afterwards, so it is possible to find out about an actual downturn (or absence thereof) a long time after it has started.
Agreed though there is no immediate indication that the Country is not growing at present
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
It's a very good book. The scene about business cards is brilliant.
The media are all over the fact that the Council used a cheaper cladding saving circa £300,000 but if this cladding was legal under building regulations it is the Council's responsibility to save costs wherever possible
Do you really think that a council's job is to do everything as cheaply as possible as long as it doesn't break the law no matter how stupid the resulting decisions are?
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My Brexit.
I think you're right and I said here previously that some Remainers were hoping for recession so they could blame Brexit.
However I see no reason at all that we'll enter recession in the next 12 months. We will sooner or later, its what happens, but not yet. Our economy is built on debt which is unsustainable, a Labour govt guarantees recession.
The about drops in their business.
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
Certainly businesses will see it first, as all the published indicators are lag ones with a time delay of several months at least.
2 x quarters of negative growth is needed for a recession. They are not predicted for this year so late 2018 would be the earliest in my opinion if a recession happens at all
Also worth remembering that the growth figures in particular are subject to repeated adjustments for many months afterwards, so it is possible to find out about an actual downturn (or absence thereof) a long time after it has started.
Agreed though there is no immediate indication that the Country is not growing at present
So far, this financial year for us is looking better than the last one and that was good. However, most of our business is non-UK.
Hasn't he voted against every EU treaty that has been brought before Parliament since he entered Parliament in 1983?
Yep. Also voted to leave the EC in the 75 referendum.
There was some suspicion he even voted leave this time around too. He was notably reticent in denying it, and only finally claimed to have voted remain after Owen Smith repeatedly badgered him about it (and he again avoided answering as much as possible).
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
It's a Sting song, not ABBA, so not really. (& the fields of wheat reference was clearly not obvious enough.)
As for ABBA, very clever musicians who make it look simple, and are thus looked down on. And I'd like to see their critics try writing lyrics in Swedish...
There is also growing doubt about the way in which the government is testing the cladding samples sent in by councils (all of which are said to have failed), which is focusing on the interior material of the cladding and may not be fully reflecting real life conditions.
I don't understand what they are doing with those tests. I can't believe that there are 115 or more different types of cladding, so you'd have thought they'd simply issue a list of the specific types which are considered safe or not (or, better still, safe in conjunction with specific types of insulation).
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
It's a very good book. The scene about business cards is brilliant.
I think it would be more highly regarded if he had left out or toned down the very unpleasant sexual violence. I get why he put it in but I found it very distasteful and you can skip those chapters without losing anything. He is a better writer than he knows, I think.
It is as though in Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy had put in an explicit description of what Judge Holden actually did to all those children who disappeared whenever he came to town.
The media are all over the fact that the Council used a cheaper cladding saving circa £300,000 but if this cladding was legal under building regulations it is the Council's responsibility to save costs wherever possible
Do you really think that a council's job is to do everything as cheaply as possible as long as it doesn't break the law no matter how stupid the resulting decisions are?
What was stupid about deciding to use the cheapest materials that met the required standards? Using unnecessarily expensive materials that were in fact no better would have simply reduced the amount of work it was possible to do.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
The only projection going on here is PBers claiming they know what Labour voters were thinking during the election, despite the fact they didn't actually speak to (m)any of them.
I wouldn't presume to claim to know what Labour voters generally think. But, I think we can make an educated guess about the motives of people who switched from Conservative to Labour in places like Kensington, Canterbury, and Battersea.
Yep - and Warwick & Leamington. But I suspect it was the tone of the Tory language on Brexit and the am absolutely certain that affluent, leafy, middle class, previously Tory-voting Warwick & Leamington has not suddenly embraced red-blooded socialism, or anything close to it.
I again
The Tory majority two years ago was over 6,000.
The Tories won an overall majority nationally two years ago, the Tories will only ever win
But Remain.
I live in Milverton and voted for the LibDems in the council election.
2010 saw a very low Labour score and a high LD score which helped the Tories squeeze through the middle and they had a 7% lead nationally compared to 2% in 2017 hence if Labour and the Tories are evenly matched in the national popular vote Warwick and Leamington should go Labour. Yes Warwick did vote Remain but then so did a number of seats which stayed Tory on June 8th, social change, especially in Leamington, has shifted the seat away from the Tories and they can now win most seats without winning Warwick and Leamington as we saw this year
That makes absolutely no sense at all. The Tories almost doubled their majority in 2015. I live here and have not observed any dramatic social changes in the last two years. Demographically the seat is much as it was.
The Tories won by over 7% nationally in 2015, 2% in 2017 so as I said when the Tories and Labour are close in the national popular vote Warwick and Leamington should go Labour now
The savings rate is so depressing. It's just yet another reminder that we've been kidding ourselves about how rich and productive we are since the 1950s, with North Sea oil helping to paint over the cracks for 30 years.
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Cold feet are one thing. Can you imagine the political will to revoke A50? It would be a massive political crisis and I don't know if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
I think the risk lies in MPs being unwilling to endorse a *specific* Brexit deal. And if the government cannot get its Brexit Bill through parliament, then I think a 2019 General Election becomes inevitable.
It is the fear of that election which will make the Tory Europhiles hold their noses and vote for the deal.
That only really works on Europhiles who are not planning on retiring at that election, and who have fairly marginal seats (I know the retirees miss out on some wages but that's in the nature of retirement and I doubt it's crucial to MPs in their 60s).
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
I don't think Blair a liar, in the sense of deliberate untruths. His problem is more that he doesn't know the nature of truth so is/was willing to believe anything, and to believe it with evangelical fervour.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
There is plenty of evidence from other sources of his Christianity, which long pre-dates his election as Prime Minister.
I'm not a Christian myself, and am somewhat equivocal in my views as to whether religious devotion is a good thing in a political leader, but that Blair was (and probably still is) a committed Christian is about as indisputable as these things ever can be.
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
It's a very good book. The scene about business cards is brilliant.
I think it would be more highly regarded if he had left out or toned down the very unpleasant sexual violence. I get why he put it in but I found it very distasteful and you can skip those chapters without losing anything. He is a better writer than he knows, I think.
It is as though in Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy had put in an explicit description of what Judge Holden actually did to all those children who disappeared whenever he came to town.
The particularly odd thing about Corbyn the Leaver is that his reasons diverge so much from the bulk of the 52%.
His objection to the EU has broadly been the dislike of an economically liberal single market (particularly capital markets), and of close defence and security cooperation giving rise to a more muscular role in international conflicts. Both of there are moderately popular aspects of what the EU does - not universally popular of course, but not key drivers of the Leave vote. Meanwhile, he's broadly in favour of those aspects of the EU that are particularly unpopular such as subsidies to agriculture and developing areas, and free movement of people.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
I was thinking more about things he did rather than professed, Peter. Diane Abbott would no doubt profess to be opposed to racism but several of her actual utterances are at odds.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
Perhaps it was more than a few people. If so, feck knows where we are.
I think that's right or perhaps they just thought he was less Brexity than Theresa. But now they know different I'm hoping for fireworks. A pity as I was just starting to warm to him.
Corbyn has a Bennite detestation for the EU project. I'm amazed you hadn't grasped that.
The stupidity of Remainers, re Corbyn, is quite something to behold.
Absolutely correct! Corbyn, supported by the Tory eurosceptic Right, is intent on giving us a mega-hard, cliff-edge Brexit - no deal with the EU and dumped straight into WTO terms. Of course, this is likely to result in a significant economic hit, but Corbyn's genius has ensured that the Tories will shoulder all the blame. Jezza just has to count the days now until May's exhausted and discredited government is booted out and he marches into Downing Street.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
I suppose it depends what one means by "genuine Christian". If you mean it in terms of adhering to the idea of Christ as saviour, then he pretty clearly is a Christian. If you mean living or trying to live your life according to a particular set of standards laid down by major denominations of Christianity, it's more arguable (and I'll do a Father Jack and point out that "that would be an ecumenical matter").
A similar argument arises with Islamic (and other) extremists. They clearly are Muslims in the narrow sense. But when people say "they are not Muslims" it's not an absurd point - they plainly mean it in the broader sense of living broadly within principles the majority of Muslim clerics and adherents would recognise.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
Perhaps it was more than a few people. If so, feck knows where we are.
I think that's right or perhaps they just thought he was less Brexity than Theresa. But now they know different I'm hoping for fireworks. A pity as I was just starting to warm to him.
Corbyn has a Bennite detestation for the EU project. I'm amazed you hadn't grasped that.
The stupidity of Remainers, re Corbyn, is quite something to behold.
I don't see it as much different from those (particularly in Labour) who think he has "compromised" on other issues such as Trident, or even the Monarchy. As PM he could cause an enormous amount of damage without technically departing from manifesto "commitments". We already know how he could severely undermine Trident renewal, and imagine the trouble he could cause simply by refusing the Monarchy money beyond the minimum payable. The thought of the Queen dying when Corbyn is PM is a worrying thought for the mischief that could be caused.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
I was thinking more about things he did rather than professed, Peter. Diane Abbott would no doubt profess to be opposed to racism but several of her actual utterances are at odds.
How do you dissociate his actions from his beliefs? If you want a more 'political' example you could take his Balkans initiative from his early days as PM, but I think I have given sufficient evidence of 'principle' already. If you want more, you will have to DYOR, as my good friend Peter from Putney would say.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
There is plenty of evidence from other sources of his Christianity, which long pre-dates his election as Prime Minister.
I'm not a Christian myself, and am somewhat equivocal in my views as to whether religious devotion is a good thing in a political leader, but that Blair was (and probably still is) a committed Christian is about as indisputable as these things ever can be.
The test, though, is whether he adhered to his belief when it might have paid him not to. There is no evidence of that, and if George W Bush had been a zen buddhist, I'm pretty certain that Blair would have had an epiphany of the Four Noble Truths by 2002 at the latest.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Cold feet are one thing. Can you imagine the political will to revoke A50? It would be a massive political crisis and I don't know if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
I think the risk lies in MPs being unwilling to endorse a *specific* Brexit deal. And if the government cannot get its Brexit Bill through parliament, then I think a 2019 General Election becomes inevitable.
It is the fear of that election which will make the Tory Europhiles hold their noses and vote for the deal.
That only really works on Europhiles who are not planning on retiring at that election, and who have fairly marginal seats (I know the retirees miss out on some wages but that's in the nature of retirement and I doubt it's crucial to MPs in their 60s).
Who would be retiring, other than Clarke?
If we have an election because the Tories fail to deliver Brexit, I think most Tory seats will be marginal!
There is also growing doubt about the way in which the government is testing the cladding samples sent in by councils (all of which are said to have failed), which is focusing on the interior material of the cladding and may not be fully reflecting real life conditions.
Who has this growing doubt? And if the the BRE aren't qualified to test cladding who is?
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
Perhaps it was more than a few people. If so, feck knows where we are.
I think that's right or perhaps they just thought he was less Brexity than Theresa. But now they know different I'm hoping for fireworks. A pity as I was just starting to warm to him.
Corbyn has a Bennite detestation for the EU project. I'm amazed you hadn't grasped that.
The stupidity of Remainers, re Corbyn, is quite something to behold.
Absolutely correct! Corbyn, supported by the Tory eurosceptic Right, is intent on giving us a mega-hard, cliff-edge Brexit - no deal with the EU and dumped straight into WTO terms. Of course, this is likely to result in a significant economic hit, but Corbyn's genius has ensured that the Tories will shoulder all the blame. Jezza just has to count the days now until May's exhausted and discredited government is booted out and he marches into Downing Street.
Yes, this is the point. The Mail and other desperate Tories can get all worked up about the splits in Labour, but they don't actually matter. We're not going to have an election until the Tories have ground themselves into the dirt over Brexit. Once they've done the deed and paid the price for it, the row between Corbyn and Umunna will be moot.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Cold feet are one thing. Can you imagine the political will to revoke A50? It would be a massive political crisis and I don't know if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
I think the risk lies in MPs being unwilling to endorse a *specific* Brexit deal. And if the government cannot get its Brexit Bill through parliament, then I think a 2019 General Election becomes inevitable.
It is the fear of that election which will make the Tory Europhiles hold their noses and vote for the deal.
That only really works on Europhiles who are not planning on retiring at that election, and who have fairly marginal seats (I know the retirees miss out on some wages but that's in the nature of retirement and I doubt it's crucial to MPs in their 60s).
Who would be retiring, other than Clarke?
If we have an election because the Tories fail to deliver Brexit, I think most Tory seats will be marginal!
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I try not to be sectarian about musical tastes (can't understand the people who DESPISE someone for preferring a particular type of music) but I'm in the TSE camp of thinking that Abba's music has never been surpassed, and is richly varied too. I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
It's a very good book. The scene about business cards is brilliant.
I think it would be more highly regarded if he had left out or toned down the very unpleasant sexual violence. I get why he put it in but I found it very distasteful and you can skip those chapters without losing anything. He is a better writer than he knows, I think.
It is as though in Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy had put in an explicit description of what Judge Holden actually did to all those children who disappeared whenever he came to town.
What McCarthy does best, or one of the things he does best, is evoking horror by implication only, in words which on the face of it you could read aloud to an audience of primary school children. The people under the trapdoor chapter of The Road is a masterpiece.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Peter - I think you are right. In this respect I am reminded by Corbyn of what someone said about Blair - it's not that he was unprincipled, it was just that almost all his views were lightly held. And thus easily abandoned. If one thinks back to Blair, can anyone think of anything on which he ever took - and held to - a strongly principled position? One struggles. Likewise nothing Corbyn has said points to his having much of a view on Brexit.
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
In the autobiography of a self-serving creep like Blair you'll find a pack of lies. The idea that that money grubbing freak is a genuine Chrstian is an insult to Christ.
There is plenty of evidence from other sources of his Christianity, which long pre-dates his election as Prime Minister.
I'm not a Christian myself, and am somewhat equivocal in my views as to whether religious devotion is a good thing in a political leader, but that Blair was (and probably still is) a committed Christian is about as indisputable as these things ever can be.
The test, though, is whether he adhered to his belief when it might have paid him not to. There is no evidence of that, and if George W Bush had been a zen buddhist, I'm pretty certain that Blair would have had an epiphany of the Four Noble Truths by 2002 at the latest.
Well, Kosovo would again be a good example, but we're starting to get into angels/pins/dancing territory here, and I have other things to do.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
I was thinking more about things he did rather than professed, Peter. Diane Abbott would no doubt profess to be opposed to racism but several of her actual utterances are at odds.
How do you dissociate his actions from his beliefs? If you want a more 'political' example you could take his Balkans initiative from his early days as PM, but I think I have given sufficient evidence of 'principle' already. If you want more, you will have to DYOR, as my good friend Peter from Putney would say.
Did you check out the link?
Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with 'Mother Earth'. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced 'inner-feelings and visions'. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of 'rebirth' were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.
Pyramids, Mother Earth, phantom animals, screaming, rebirth. We are lucky they were not also "sky-clad". How does that outbreak of New Age woo-woo reconcile with the tenets of Christianity?
On religion Blair may perhaps have a form of elective Alzheimer's. For the duration of the above ceremony, he genuinely forgot he was a Christian, and was a happy heretic. Once it was over he became a Christian again, it never happened, and if asked he would have passed a lie detector test. Whatever all that was about, it's still not an example of a firmly-held principle. I have indeed DYOR and I find him, to be without discernible principle.
I don't see it as much different from those (particularly in Labour) who think he has "compromised" on other issues such as Trident, or even the Monarchy.
Adherents of the Church of Corbynology don't care, it he says up is down, black is white, true is false, they can accommodate that within their thinking.
What McCarthy does best, or one of the things he does best, is evoking horror by implication only, in words which on the face of it you could read aloud to an audience of primary school children. The people under the trapdoor chapter of The Road is a masterpiece.
He is a good writer, but more punctuation wouldn't go amiss.
Any Abba song would do, surely? I find them indistinguishable. The clunky English is entertaining though. "No more ace to play"; "feeling blue" (has anyone ever said that, ever?); "there's not I think a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see".
I even like the lyrics (the cheek of making the English version of Fernando for the US market being about Mexican insurgents against the US is amusing, especially as the Swedish original is quite different), and I think I've actually said all three of those phrases (yes I liked Dallas too!).
Like Patrick Bateman's love of Huey Lewis and the News and Phil Collins. Chillingly psychopathic.
Along with Whitney Houston, those were actually very funny and apposite choices given that the book is a rumination on mediocrity.
It's a very good book. The scene about business cards is brilliant.
I think it would be more highly regarded if he had left out or toned down the very unpleasant sexual violence. I get why he put it in but I found it very distasteful and you can skip those chapters without losing anything. He is a better writer than he knows, I think.
It is as though in Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy had put in an explicit description of what Judge Holden actually did to all those children who disappeared whenever he came to town.
What McCarthy does best, or one of the things he does best, is evoking horror by implication only, in words which on the face of it you could read aloud to an audience of primary school children. The people under the trapdoor chapter of The Road is a masterpiece.
Agreed. The "jump cut" towards the end of Cities of the Plain is extraordinary too. I keep re-reading the same few of his works. Border Trilogy, The Road, Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men. I think it is all about how things disappear from the world, and how fast; and the echoes of themselves that they leave behind. There is a discussion in The Crossing of whether, if all horses disappeared from the world, the idea of a horse could somehow persist.
My reading is that Corbyn is a diffident Remainer. He has a natural suspicion of the EU, maybe even a dislike, but he doesn't regard it as all that important and as long as we were in the EU he was probably ok with it in a 'let's just make the best of it' kind of way.
Try reading Blair's autobiograhy, A Journey. You will find evidence of many strongly principled positions there, not least his Christianity.
I was thinking more about things he did rather than professed, Peter. Diane Abbott would no doubt profess to be opposed to racism but several of her actual utterances are at odds.
How do you dissociate his actions from his beliefs? If you want a more 'political' example you could take his Balkans initiative from his early days as PM, but I think I have given sufficient evidence of 'principle' already. If you want more, you will have to DYOR, as my good friend Peter from Putney would say.
Did you check out the link?
Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told thupon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.
Pyramids, Mother Earth, phantom animals, screaming, rebirth. We are lucky they were not also "sky-clad". How does that outbreak of New Age woo-woo reconcile with the tenets of Christianity?
On religion Blair may perhaps have a form of elective Alzheimer's. For the duration of the above ceremony, he genuinely forgot he was a Christian, and was a happy heretic. Once it was over he became a Christian again, it never happened, and if asked he would have passed a lie detector test. Whatever all that was about, it's still not an example of a firmly-held principle. I have indeed DYOR and I find him, to be without discernible principle.
No, but you were talking of 'principle', and I answered on that.
Have a feeling the Remainer bubble was burst for good yesterday.
Corbyn has been anti EU all along, he managed to kid a few gullible lefties but then that's not hard.
Fooling a few gullible lefties is one thing... But what about all those daft remain Tories who voted for him in seats like Canterbury?
Bet they're feeling pretty darn stupid now!
The irony is that I have a feeling if Theresa had got her landslide she'd probably have gone for a softer Brexit because it would have protected her from the Peter Bone's of the Tory Party,
The hung parliament has actually made a hard Brexit much more probable.
I agree, the funniest thing for me is the silence of the usually bombastic Remainers on here. They'd managed to convince themselves it wasn't going to happen despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Incidentally I live near Canterbury and still find it hard to believe
The biggest threat to Brexit is, and has always been, a major recession between now and the end of the Article 50 process.
If the funny bit is that any recession will likely be the consequence of our economy being unbalanced (blame Mr Osborne), rather than Brexit. (Although, of course, there is no doubt that if a "cliff edge Brexit" looks probable, then investment levels will fall.)
My personal view is that if - 12 months from now - the economy is contracting, unemployment is rising, and people are suffering from negative equity, then there might be a very many MPs that get cold feet about Brexit.
Coldknow if the political class as a whole could cope with it.
I think the risk lies in MPs being unwilling to endorse a *specific* Brexit deal. And if the government cannot get its Brexit Bill through parliament, then I think a 2019 General Election becomes inevitable.
It is the fear of that election which will make the Tory Europhiles hold their noses and vote for the deal.
That only really works on Europhiles who are not planning on retiring at that election, and who have fairly marginal seats (I know the retirees miss out on some wages but that's in the nature of retirement and I doubt it's crucial to MPs in their 60s).
Who would be retiring, other than Clarke?
If we have an election because the Tories fail to deliver Brexit, I think most Tory seats will be marginal!
Soubry is 60 now
A spring chicken!
OK, that's 2. You need 5 more to make Government bills fail.
I think a few of the less well-informed people just made the assumption. Others simply projected that Tory = Brexit therefore Corbyn must = Remain.
Perhaps it was more than a few people. If so, feck knows where we are.
I think that's right or perhaps they just thought he was less Brexity than Theresa. But now they know different I'm hoping for fireworks. A pity as I was just starting to warm to him.
Corbyn has a Bennite detestation for the EU project. I'm amazed you hadn't grasped that.
The stupidity of Remainers, re Corbyn, is quite something to behold.
Absolutely correct! Corbyn, supported by the Tory eurosceptic Right, is intent on giving us a mega-hard, cliff-edge Brexit - no deal with the EU and dumped straight into WTO terms. Of course, this is likely to result in a significant economic hit, but Corbyn's genius has ensured that the Tories will shoulder all the blame. Jezza just has to count the days now until May's exhausted and discredited government is booted out and he marches into Downing Street.
Yes, this is the point. The Mail and other desperate Tories can get all worked up about the splits in Labour, but they don't actually matter. We're not going to have an election until the Tories have ground themselves into the dirt over Brexit. Once they've done the deed and paid the price for it, the row between Corbyn and Umunna will be moot.
has Chukka chucked any last vestiges of hope away from remainers now for staying in the SM and CU . Effectively parliament has vetoed that option now through yesterday's rejection of his amendment. Hard Brexit is now surely nailed on . poor old Gina Miller what a shame
Some of the Right on here are just weird today, for several reasons. Some PBers are obsessed with Trump visiting France for Bastille Day. I didn't like Trump's state visit here, but even I wasn't mentioning it with the frequency some on this site are in regard to the Bastille Day visit. If you really, really don't like Leftie thoughts on Trump you don't have to read them But if anyone believes that it's only people on the Left who don't like Trump and think badly of his character you really ought to check out what Pew research found about how Trump is seen globally. The results were released a couple of days ago.
As for Merkel, anyone who knows a bit about her has known her views on gay marriage - she's never made a secret of it, so I wasn't surprised to see how she voted, but I simply don't agree with her. I never thought TMay was some sort of terrible homophobe (though I know a few who think she is judging by her voting record previously). There are many things to be critical of May on, but it's not on her recent voting record on LGBT rights - Lynne Feathersone has spoken of the importance of TMay's backing in regard to gay marriage becoming a reality. In this regard she is better than Hammond, although I think he would be better suited to deal with Brexit than her.
If we have an election because the Tories fail to deliver Brexit, I think most Tory seats will be marginal!
Possibly Anna Soubry, who is 60, or Bob Neill who is 65. Of others, Claire Perry for example has an ultra-safe seat.
It's quite hard to know how it would play out if there was an election on this basis. Presumably the PM would go into it on the basis that their re-election would be a mandate to have a further Parliamentary vote. That would be annoying for voters, but whether it would be bad enough necessarily to mean an election kicking is uncertain. The Opposition would need a position on it too - would they be substantively renegotiating the deal? Would there be years more chaos while another group of politicians went to and fro to Europe? An advantage of voting with the PM in such circumstances would be that it actually would bring the whole sorry matter to a close.
Yes, this is the point. The Mail and other desperate Tories can get all worked up about the splits in Labour, but they don't actually matter. We're not going to have an election until the Tories have ground themselves into the dirt over Brexit. Once they've done the deed and paid the price for it, the row between Corbyn and Umunna will be moot.
has Chukka chucked any last vestiges of hope away from remainers now for staying in the SM and CU . Effectively parliament has vetoed that option now through yesterday's rejection of his amendment. Hard Brexit is now surely nailed on . poor old Gina Miller what a shame
I don't think much of this argument either. Yesterday's vote will have zero effect on anything. What the general election told us is that voters don't want a Tory Brexit, they want a people's Brexit. Remember only 52% of us voted for Brexit. Given there are different opinions on what kind of Brexit people want, that means that a lot less than 52% of us voted for any particular form of Brexit. And 48% of us voted to stay in. The logical effect of this is that the weakest form of Brexit available will be the one that satisfies the greatest number of voters.
So it doesn't matter that much what Davis wants or Corbyn wants, public opinion is really the driving force. (And Brexiters need to take great care not to alienate the public, since it'll be very hard for the government to do any deal at all if the narrative continues in the direction it's been heading. It's heavily ironic that now we've chosen to leave there are no end of stories about the benefits of EU membership and the problems caused by leaving.) Because it's a minority government, public opinion will drive May's negotiating team, and it'll be the EU in the end that dictates what kind of Brexit we get: it'll be as soft as they allow us. It's hard to see how we don't end up with something like a Norway-type deal.
Comments
He pretends to support Trident renewal when it suits him.
I would say Corbyn is a particularly dishonest politician.
"Please just stop. This isn't normal," tweeted fellow Republican Senator Ben Sasse."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40452779
The recession has started. The only question is whether it takes 6 or 12 months before it begins to bite hard.
I live in Milverton and voted for the LibDems in the council election.
Phil Collins the Tony Blair adviser? That's a bit strong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula-one/40455584
Have you ever said "no more vote to count", as the vote-counting concluded?
This is perhaps the oddest thing about him. It suggests that whatever his priorities are, the economic wellbeing of the UK is not among them. If it were, he would have a view one way or the other.
One has to conclude that his intended use of power will not be directed towards anything the rest of us would recognise as legitimate economic goals, and that he would be untroubled by any resulting economic collapse.
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/primopiano/cronaca/migranti_sbarcati_situazione_insostenibile-2531234.html
6,000 " refugees " per day.
Insupportable.
Do you really think that a council's job is to do everything as cheaply as possible as long as it doesn't break the law no matter how stupid the resulting decisions are?
There was some suspicion he even voted leave this time around too. He was notably reticent in denying it, and only finally claimed to have voted remain after Owen Smith repeatedly badgered him about it (and he again avoided answering as much as possible).
(& the fields of wheat reference was clearly not obvious enough.)
As for ABBA, very clever musicians who make it look simple, and are thus looked down on. And I'd like to see their critics try writing lyrics in Swedish...
It is as though in Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy had put in an explicit description of what Judge Holden actually did to all those children who disappeared whenever he came to town.
http://www.lyrics.com/lyrics/feel blue
Getting weird flashbacks, I am sure we had this conversation a couple of years ago.
That's how language evolves, eh?
I'm not a Christian myself, and am somewhat equivocal in my views as to whether religious devotion is a good thing in a political leader, but that Blair was (and probably still is) a committed Christian is about as indisputable as these things ever can be.
His objection to the EU has broadly been the dislike of an economically liberal single market (particularly capital markets), and of close defence and security cooperation giving rise to a more muscular role in international conflicts. Both of there are moderately popular aspects of what the EU does - not universally popular of course, but not key drivers of the Leave vote. Meanwhile, he's broadly in favour of those aspects of the EU that are particularly unpopular such as subsidies to agriculture and developing areas, and free movement of people.
Blair strikes me as religiose rather than religious. It is difficult to reconcile his mud rebirthing ceremony in Mexico with any important tenet of Christianity, for example.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/mar/31/politicalcolumnists.comment
A similar argument arises with Islamic (and other) extremists. They clearly are Muslims in the narrow sense. But when people say "they are not Muslims" it's not an absurd point - they plainly mean it in the broader sense of living broadly within principles the majority of Muslim clerics and adherents would recognise.
Knowing me Knowing You (another phrase which has entered the language), is a great example of this:
No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye…
…This time we're through, this time we're through
This time we're through, we're really through
https://twitter.com/krishashok/status/880653553941045251
If we have an election because the Tories fail to deliver Brexit, I think most Tory seats will be marginal!
Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with 'Mother Earth'. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced 'inner-feelings and visions'. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of 'rebirth' were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.
Pyramids, Mother Earth, phantom animals, screaming, rebirth. We are lucky they were not also "sky-clad". How does that outbreak of New Age woo-woo reconcile with the tenets of Christianity?
On religion Blair may perhaps have a form of elective Alzheimer's. For the duration of the above ceremony, he genuinely forgot he was a Christian, and was a happy heretic. Once it was over he became a Christian again, it never happened, and if asked he would have passed a lie detector test. Whatever all that was about, it's still not an example of a firmly-held principle. I have indeed DYOR and I find him, to be without discernible principle.
NEW THREAD
OK, that's 2. You need 5 more to make Government bills fail.
As for Merkel, anyone who knows a bit about her has known her views on gay marriage - she's never made a secret of it, so I wasn't surprised to see how she voted, but I simply don't agree with her. I never thought TMay was some sort of terrible homophobe (though I know a few who think she is judging by her voting record previously). There are many things to be critical of May on, but it's not on her recent voting record on LGBT rights - Lynne Feathersone has spoken of the importance of TMay's backing in regard to gay marriage becoming a reality. In this regard she is better than Hammond, although I think he would be better suited to deal with Brexit than her.
It's quite hard to know how it would play out if there was an election on this basis. Presumably the PM would go into it on the basis that their re-election would be a mandate to have a further Parliamentary vote. That would be annoying for voters, but whether it would be bad enough necessarily to mean an election kicking is uncertain. The Opposition would need a position on it too - would they be substantively renegotiating the deal? Would there be years more chaos while another group of politicians went to and fro to Europe? An advantage of voting with the PM in such circumstances would be that it actually would bring the whole sorry matter to a close.
So it doesn't matter that much what Davis wants or Corbyn wants, public opinion is really the driving force. (And Brexiters need to take great care not to alienate the public, since it'll be very hard for the government to do any deal at all if the narrative continues in the direction it's been heading. It's heavily ironic that now we've chosen to leave there are no end of stories about the benefits of EU membership and the problems caused by leaving.) Because it's a minority government, public opinion will drive May's negotiating team, and it'll be the EU in the end that dictates what kind of Brexit we get: it'll be as soft as they allow us. It's hard to see how we don't end up with something like a Norway-type deal.