Mr. B, Gibbon wrote a few centuries ago, and he was a revisionist. I don't oppose secular things, I do oppose politically motivated rebranding of things that are fine as they are.
Mr. Z, that was mentioned on QI once, only it was indicated Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor, was the chap behind it.
Lady Nugee is a posho, and in recent times only poshos have won majorities.
I think the next Labour leadership contest will be between Thornberry, Burgon, and Abbott.
That's very unlikely. There will be one Corbynista candidate and it is very likely to be a woman. McCluskey's comments probably reflect the current thinking in and around the leader's office. However, the key will be who Jon Lansman goes for. He controls the Momentum database and therefore has a lot more clout than Champagne Len.
Labour use the finest voting system in the known universe, AV, to elect their leaders, so they can put up as many Corbynite candidates as they wish.
It would be an issue if they used FPTP like UKIP do, where their winning candidate could win with 15% of the vote.
I find it strange that the Kippers campaign against FPTP for Westminster elections, and yet use FPTP for their own internal elections.
A bit like the Tories, who use AV in all but name to elect their leaders, but opposed AV in the 2011 referendum.
How many times have we had this conversation? The Tory leadership election is nothing like AV. Not even close.
There's rounds of voting, where the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, until we have a final two, and the winner is the one that gets above 50% of the vote.
That's AV isn't it?
But every Tory MP gets to vote again in the next round (after the elimination).
Surely under AV there is only one ballot with voters putting preferences (usually 1 and 2 choice).
Lady Nugee is a posho, and in recent times only poshos have won majorities.
I think the next Labour leadership contest will be between Thornberry, Burgon, and Abbott.
That's very unlikely. There will be one Corbynista candidate and it is very likely to be a woman. McCluskey's comments probably reflect the current thinking in and around the leader's office. However, the key will be who Jon Lansman goes for. He controls the Momentum database and therefore has a lot more clout than Champagne Len.
Labour use the finest voting system in the known universe, AV, to elect their leaders, so they can put up as many Corbynite candidates as they wish.
It would be an issue if they used FPTP like UKIP do, where their winning candidate could win with 15% of the vote.
I find it strange that the Kippers campaign against FPTP for Westminster elections, and yet use FPTP for their own internal elections.
A bit like the Tories, who use AV in all but name to elect their leaders, but opposed AV in the 2011 referendum.
How many times have we had this conversation? The Tory leadership election is nothing like AV. Not even close.
There's rounds of voting, where the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, until we have a final two, and the winner is the one that gets above 50% of the vote.
That's AV isn't it?
AV has simultaneous rounds of voting, where there’s no way of knowing the order of eliminations until the end. You vote on one occasion using preferential numbers.
The Tory leadership election is a series of completely separate votes, the last round having a completely separate electorate(!) and votes cast by a cross next to your single preferred candidate.
No similarity at all between them, completely different, not even close.
Edit: Fwiw Findlay has just announced he won't be standing.
What a poor state SLAB has become. I have literally never heard of a single candidate in this list, except vague feeling Findlay rings a bell. And I'm a bit of a political anorak.
I assume the James Kelly is different to the one who formerly posted on here!
More the lack of a clear push to do it. You get local Momentum people saying "we need to deselect centrists and I have a little list", and the rest of the movement looks embarrassed and changes the subject. The assessment by the leadership is that most Labour MPs are primarily loyalists who will crew the ship quite happily so long as it's getting somewhere. Messing around with trying to deselect them is actively against the interest of that strategy. Hardcore centre-right people who actively conspire even in good times are thin on the ground and can be shrugged off.
Where Momentum is keen and gaining ground is in ensuring that the rules allow a post-Corbyn contest to include a semi-Corbynite candidate. The general view among members is that it would be unwise as well as unfair to try to prevent that, so the argument is gradually being won.
Thanks.
A "semi-Corbynite"? This is a new concept.
(EDIT: Buggered up the blockquotes trying to cut the length, sorry)
An Attlee after Lansbury I guess. I kind of think the potential has been wasted already. He spent too long being bogged down with these 'centrist' MPs over the last couple of years, and not being clear enough on what could provide a long-term basis for the Labour Left once Corbyn himself isn't leading. Circumstances have made it too much about defending Corbyn the man against smears and 'centrist' manoeuvres rather than reforming the party and drawing up a coherent programme.
This froth about deselections is annoying. If local party members want deselections then there should be - if the MP doesn't have the confidence of the local Labour Party they can run quite happily without the local Labour Party's stamp if they want to, while the local party puts forward who it wants. If the local party don't want to deselect their MP, then that MP wouldn't be deselected. It's a complete non-issue, blown out of proportion by 'moderate' journalists defending their 'moderate' friends who they think deserve a job for life, no matter how useless they are.
And I wouldn't say the argument is being won. The 'moderates' are just hunkering down. They showed themselves willing to trash the party to try and get Corbyn out in 2016 - changing rules on the hoof, extorting members for more cash and stripping them of votes, trying to bully Corbyn out and smearing hundreds of people who were expelled for silly things like re-tweeting the Greens years ago, as if they were the same as the handful of anti-Semites who got rightfully kicked out. If the 2017 results had been a bit more ambiguous we'd be having another leadership election right now. The second Labour runs into any slight difficulty they'll have the knives out again.
I can see it getting nasty, but I can't see any viable left-wing project coming out of the PLP.
Some Tory MPs have a poor grasp of history as Morris Dancer. Bismarck was a success.
Perhaps they had the ship in mind.
I don't think so, he is depicted in 19th century Pickelhaube rather than sailor suit.
Bismarck was a genius. Germany only went off the rails when Wilhelm II became kaiser. Until then Germany was our friend.
I think friend is overstating it a bit. There was enormous mutual respect and considerable admiration in the UK of Germany's education system and developing technology but there was also some concern about the huge increase in Germany's power after they had knocked the French for 6 in 1870.
If only Emperor Frederick hadn't died after only 99 days on the throne...
The calendar the West uses is the Christian calendar. It's ridiculous to try and airbrush God/Jesus out of it for some namby-pamby 'Common Era' rebrand. You might as well remain Thursday because it's named after Thor.
It was not uncommon for Non-conformist churches to not use the pagan day names. First day services etc.
As an aside, perhaps the largest naval battle in history was in the First Punic War (Ecnomus). More than a quarter of a million men, and perhaps more than a third of a million, took part.
It's odd to think that the land battles of the Second Punic War were the largest in Europe until the 20th century.
Edit: Fwiw Findlay has just announced he won't be standing.
What a poor state SLAB has become. I have literally never heard of a single candidate in this list, except vague feeling Findlay rings a bell. And I'm a bit of a political anorak.
Everyone is unknown until they become known.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld claiming there are known unknowns.
More the lack of a clear push to do it. You get local Momentum people saying "we need to deselect centrists and I have a little list", and the rest of the movement looks embarrassed and changes the subject. The assessment by the leadership is that most Labour MPs are primarily loyalists who will crew the ship quite happily so long as it's getting somewhere. Messing around with trying to deselect them is actively against the interest of that strategy. Hardcore centre-right people who actively conspire even in good times are thin on the ground and can be shrugged off.
Where Momentum is keen and gaining ground is in ensuring that the rules allow a post-Corbyn contest to include a semi-Corbynite candidate. The general view among members is that it would be unwise as well as unfair to try to prevent that, so the argument is gradually being won.
Thanks.
A "semi-Corbynite"? This is a new concept.
I can see it getting nasty, but I can't see any viable left-wing project coming out of the PLP.
Because opposition isn't seen as a viable left-wing project any more?
Lady Nugee is a posho, and in recent times only poshos have won majorities.
I think the next Labour leadership contest will be between Thornberry, Burgon, and Abbott.
That's very unlikely. There will be one Corbynista candidate and it is very likely to be a woman. McCluskey's comments probably reflect the current thinking in and around the leader's office. However, the key will be who Jon Lansman goes for. He controls the Momentum database and therefore has a lot more clout than Champagne Len.
Labour use the finest voting system in the known universe, AV, to elect their leaders, so they can put up as many Corbynite candidates as they wish.
It would be an issue if they used FPTP like UKIP do, where their winning candidate could win with 15% of the vote.
I find it strange that the Kippers campaign against FPTP for Westminster elections, and yet use FPTP for their own internal elections.
A bit like the Tories, who use AV in all but name to elect their leaders, but opposed AV in the 2011 referendum.
How many times have we had this conversation? The Tory leadership election is nothing like AV. Not even close.
There's rounds of voting, where the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, until we have a final two, and the winner is the one that gets above 50% of the vote.
That's AV isn't it?
How many times have we been through this? NO is the answer!
See? This is what a public school "education" does to a "good Muslim boy"!
As an aside, perhaps the largest naval battle in history was in the First Punic War (Ecnomus). More than a quarter of a million men, and perhaps more than a third of a million, took part.
It's odd to think that the land battles of the Second Punic War were the largest in Europe until the 20th century.
Mr Dancer, perhaps you may find this interesting/controversial?
Dr. Prasannan, ha, I was giving that a brief look but I do actually have work to do so I'll probably save a proper look for later (I did see it some years ago). Red Cliffs was a very interesting battle, really did alter the course of Chinese history.
Edit: Fwiw Findlay has just announced he won't be standing.
What a poor state SLAB has become. I have literally never heard of a single candidate in this list, except vague feeling Findlay rings a bell. And I'm a bit of a political anorak.
Everyone is unknown until they become known.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld claiming there are known unknowns.
Known unknowns are thing you know you do not know.
As an aside, perhaps the largest naval battle in history was in the First Punic War (Ecnomus). More than a quarter of a million men, and perhaps more than a third of a million, took part.
It's odd to think that the land battles of the Second Punic War were the largest in Europe until the 20th century.
Lady Nugee is a posho, and in recent times only poshos have won majorities.
I think the next Labour leadership contest will be between Thornberry, Burgon, and Abbott.
That's very unlikely. There will be one Corbynista candidate and it is very likely to be a woman. McCluskey's comments probably reflect the current thinking in and around the leader's office. However, the key will be who Jon Lansman goes for. He controls the Momentum database and therefore has a lot more clout than Champagne Len.
Labour use the finest voting system in the known universe, AV, to elect their leaders, so they can put up as many Corbynite candidates as they wish.
It would be an issue if they used FPTP like UKIP do, where their winning candidate could win with 15% of the vote.
I find it strange that the Kippers campaign against FPTP for Westminster elections, and yet use FPTP for their own internal elections.
A bit like the Tories, who use AV in all but name to elect their leaders, but opposed AV in the 2011 referendum.
How many times have we had this conversation? The Tory leadership election is nothing like AV. Not even close.
There's rounds of voting, where the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, until we have a final two, and the winner is the one that gets above 50% of the vote.
That's AV isn't it?
AV has simultaneous rounds of voting, where there’s no way of knowing the order of eliminations until the end. You vote on one occasion using preferential numbers.
The Tory leadership election is a series of completely separate votes, the last round having a completely separate electorate(!) and votes cast by a cross next to your single preferred candidate.
No similarity at all between them, completely different, not even close.
Eid Mubarak!
Cheers, Friday will be the second and last time this year I have to pretend to be a good Muslim boy.
Given how heavily scripted the Maybot's statements are, some Brexitology is needed to decode the shift from "as we leave the European Union..." to "as we prepare to leave the European Union...".
The calendar the West uses is the Christian calendar. It's ridiculous to try and airbrush God/Jesus out of it for some namby-pamby 'Common Era' rebrand. You might as well remain Thursday because it's named after Thor.
Like it or not, we are a rather secular society these days, Mr.D.
"Year of our Lord" has a rather archaic ring - and anyway, 'Common Era' has had a decent two or three centuries history behind it, so it's hardly revisionist.
My objection to BC and AD is that it offends my sense of neatness to have one term in English and one in Latin.
Mr. Eagles, always some doubt over numbers in warfare, especially ancient, though.
I think it was William of Malmesbury who put the numbers who joined the First Crusade in 1096 at 6 million, although he hurriedly added 'but some returned home before they reached the Holy Land'.
More good news for the British car industry. The biggest luxury and sports car markets are the US, Japan, China and the GCC, and British-built cars are leading the way in these markets. AM, JLR, McLaren, Rolls, Bentley all made in the UK.
Mr. Alistair, sounds about right. That said, Roman armies were massive, likewise Carthaginian ones. Sometimes I think modern historians revise estimates downward a bit too far. There'll always be an element of guesswork, though.
And the editor of the Standard now seems to think that trying to undermine British trade deals abroad is somehow funny.
May's trip to Japan is about damage-limiting Brexit. Which is OK. The damage needs to be limited.
The Standard cartoon is very unfunny.
Osborne’s losing the plot, he really is.
Great news today for Aston Martin, and I’m sure there’s other CEOs on the plane with the PM who also have deals to announce during the trip.
Bentley have also announced yesterday a replacement for their popular-with-footballers Continental GT to be built in Crewe and with a long waiting list, McLaren recently hired a second shift at their Woking factory and will deliver over 5,000 cars this year, Nissan, Honda and BMW have also committed to their existing plants in the UK too - good news all round for the British car industry.
Great news today for Aston Martin, and I’m sure there’s other CEOs on the plane with the PM who also have deals to announce during the trip.
Bentley have also announced yesterday a replacement for their popular-with-footballers Continental GT to be built in Crewe and with a long waiting list, McLaren recently hired a second shift at their Woking factory and will deliver over 5,000 cars this year, Nissan, Honda and BMW have also committed to their existing plants in the UK too - good news all round for the British car industry.
I took it as a reference to nuclear war as well, which given the context was to say the least tasteless. Come to think of it there might be trouble if somebody at the Japanese embassy sees it and takes umbrage.
The odd phenomenon in Brexit is that of the sore winners.
This whole thread is great
@EmporersNewC: Almost every time a problem was raised during the referendum “We” could fix it. They were all "trivial" problems with "simple" solutions.
@EmporersNewC: The problem being, the vast majority of those people who said “We” were actually volunteering someone else.
@EmporersNewC: “Someone else” is going to trade with the world. “Someone else” if going to rebuild the fishing industry.
@EmporersNewC: Well guess what? These problems are facing the country, and not those simple solutions are all on you Leavers.
@EmporersNewC: There is no point looking at the people who didn’t vote for it and asking why they aren’t helping.
@EmporersNewC: So, if you don’t want Brexit to fail, stop venting your outrage on twitter about people moaning, because that “Someone else” is now you.
More good news for the British car industry. The biggest luxury and sports car markets are the US, Japan, China and the GCC, and British-built cars are leading the way in these markets. AM, JLR, McLaren, Rolls, Bentley all made in the UK.
So who cares about hundreds of thousands of cars built ? We will only make just thousands.
And the editor of the Standard now seems to think that trying to undermine British trade deals abroad is somehow funny.
May's trip to Japan is about damage-limiting Brexit. Which is OK. The damage needs to be limited.
The Standard cartoon is very unfunny.
I thought it was a quite a hoot myself, but you're right - that cartoon has the potential to turn Brexit into a full-blown national catastrophe and Britain into a pariah state. Perhaps the government should intervene and round up and pulp every issue of today's Evening Standard and suppress its image on the internet. They need to go full Orwellian wormhole here. If the Japanese catch a glimpse of Mr Adams's effort then we, as a nation, are toast!
Great news today for Aston Martin, and I’m sure there’s other CEOs on the plane with the PM who also have deals to announce during the trip.
Bentley have also announced yesterday a replacement for their popular-with-footballers Continental GT to be built in Crewe and with a long waiting list, McLaren recently hired a second shift at their Woking factory and will deliver over 5,000 cars this year, Nissan, Honda and BMW have also committed to their existing plants in the UK too - good news all round for the British car industry.
All while we are a part of the EU.
Amazing !!!
One of he more remarkably sterile aspects of this debate - which is saying quite something - is how economic news is used. Because we are still in the EU, any extra money can be used as a sign that the EU brings prosperity. However, as we are leaving, it can also be used as a sign that it will have no impact.
Can we just for the moment accept we don't know what's going to happen next and stop this whataboutery? Admittedly I think the signs are overall quite ominous, I shall be quite happy if I am proven wrong and there are several ways that could happen. Why is it such an article of faith for others?
I think Matt's finest ever political cartoon was in 2003, just before the defenestration of IDS. It was a queue of old blokes in suits. The caption was, 'Take ticket and await turn to be Tory leader.'
But even they didn't hit quite the depths Scottish Labour are plumbing right now. It's starting to look like the Australian Liberals on speed.
Edit - or perhaps the village without a Lord in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, albeit rather less organised.
I took it as a reference to nuclear war as well, which given the context was to say the least tasteless. Come to think of it there might be trouble if somebody at the Japanese embassy sees it and takes umbrage.
Adams manages to be even less funny than Steve Bell, which is some achievement.
And the editor of the Standard now seems to think that trying to undermine British trade deals abroad is somehow funny.
No loser like a sore loser.
The odd phenomenon in Brexit is that of the sore winners.
Very true .It is strange that the winners are so grumpy in their success.No one of any importance now seems to stand up and shout from the roof tops their life long ambition has been achieved and how good it all is for the country.
For specific reasons, a UK-only replication will never be as good as the EU trade arrangements that we were originally a part of. But if we are leaving the club we have to make the best of it and that involves staying as close to the system as we can.
Edit: Fwiw Findlay has just announced he won't be standing.
What a poor state SLAB has become. I have literally never heard of a single candidate in this list, except vague feeling Findlay rings a bell. And I'm a bit of a political anorak.
Everyone is unknown until they become known.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld claiming there are known unknowns.
Known unknowns are thing you know you do not know.
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Donald Rumsfeld was exculpating himself for a situation that other people had predicted in broad outline, which he had previously ridiculed. His "unknown unknowns" were actually "suggested possibilities".
I took it as a reference to nuclear war as well, which given the context was to say the least tasteless. Come to think of it there might be trouble if somebody at the Japanese embassy sees it and takes umbrage.
Dave and Sarkozy got on very well, Dave will always be very grateful to Sarkozy, when Dave's father was about to die, Sarkozy made sure Cameron got to see his father before the end.
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Donald Rumsfeld was exculpating himself for a situation that other people had predicted in broad outline, which he had previously ridiculed. His "unknown unknowns" were actually "suggested possibilities".
If one of the 9 candidates gets the leadership that's a known unknown. If someone off the list gets it, or the contest never happens because the sun goes nova tomorrow, that is an unknown unknown. Seems a straightforward and useful distinction to me.
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangements, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Donald Rumsfeld was exculpating himself for a situation that other people had predicted in broad outline, which he had previously ridiculed. His "unknown unknowns" were actually "suggested possibilities".
Perhaps in the case of both Iraq and Brexit it's the "unknown knowns" that are the real problem. The things that we know but intentionally refuse to acknowledge.
Edit: Fwiw Findlay has just announced he won't be standing.
What a poor state SLAB has become. I have literally never heard of a single candidate in this list, except vague feeling Findlay rings a bell. And I'm a bit of a political anorak.
Everyone is unknown until they become known.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld claiming there are known unknowns.
Known unknowns are thing you know you do not know.
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Yes, what he said was quite straightforward when it comes to contingency planning, but the way he said it was rather amusing.
The unknown unknowns are the things that might happen, but which you hadn’t anticipated or planned for but need to react to. The military plan for lots of different scenarios but sometimes sh!t happens in a war zone.
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangement, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Copy and pasting is good, once you accept leaving the EU, while bad, is also now inevitable.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements that cover a big area are more useful than ones that cover a small area for local content rules. You only get preferential treatment on items with substantially local content. So in a PTA with Australia say, the goods would have to be manufactured in the UK with components that are either British or Australian to qualify. With an EU-Australia PTA the components could be sourced from anywhere in the EU and the goods would qualify for preferential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
@sarahrainsford: Peskov confirms Trump's lawyer Cohen emailed asking 4 help with Trump Tower project. He saw msg but didn't respond as 'that's not our area'
I took it as a reference to nuclear war as well, which given the context was to say the least tasteless. Come to think of it there might be trouble if somebody at the Japanese embassy sees it and takes umbrage.
Dave and Sarkozy got on very well, Dave will always be very grateful to Sarkozy, when Dave's father was about to die, Sarkozy made sure Cameron got to see his father before the end.
False memory is a terrible thing, I have a crystal clear recollection of seeing the Spectator Sarkozy box incident on TV or youtube, but no trace of it now. However, it was at a conference and no audience member has ever denied it. The smear by Brown was a separate claim about a Cameron interview 3 days earlier.
Known unknowns are "random variables" such as tomorrows rainfall in London. You know that there will be an amount of rain tomorrow (zero is allowed) and you can model the probabilities, but the actual value is unknown.
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Donald Rumsfeld was exculpating himself for a situation that other people had predicted in broad outline, which he had previously ridiculed. His "unknown unknowns" were actually "suggested possibilities".
Perhaps in the case of both Iraq and Brexit it's the "unknown knowns" that are the real problem. The things that we know but intentionally refuse to acknowledge.
I think that's being too definite. Both Iraq and Brexit were unlikely ever to turn out well for specific reasons that could be and were predicted beforehand by informed and independent minded people. In both cases the arguments for the action were oversold by people who failed to take precautions to de-risk their projects and made failure all the more likely. Having said all that, no-one actually KNOWS how things will turn out. My view is that informed guesses are better than uninformed wishful thinking.
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangement, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Copy and pasting is good, once you accept leaving the EU, while bad, is also now inevitable.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements that cover a big area are more useful than ones that cover a small area for local content rules. You only get preferential treatment on items with substantially local content. So in a PTA with Australia say, the goods would have to be manufactured in the UK with components that are either British or Australian to qualify. With an EU-Australia PTA the components could be sourced from anywhere in the EU and the goods would qualify for preferential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
A third country might say:
a) fine - we'll keep everything as was with the EU as long as you maintain everything exactly as it was and you continue to mirror the EU; or
b) no - we want better terms than we get with the EU.
I don't see how we are better off under either scenario.
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangement, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Copy and pasting is good, once you accept leaving the EU, while bad, is also now inevitable.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements that cover a big area are more useful than ones that cover a small area for local content rules. You only get preferential treatment on items with substantially local content. So in a PTA with Australia say, the goods would have to be manufactured in the UK with components that are either British or Australian to qualify. With an EU-Australia PTA the components could be sourced from anywhere in the EU and the goods would qualify for preferential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
A third country might say:
a) fine - we'll keep everything as was with the EU as long as you maintain everything exactly as it was and you continue to mirror the EU; or
b) no - we want better terms than we get with the EU.
I don't see how we are better off under either scenario.
We agree. Brexit will lead to a much worse arrangement with the EU, which is by far our most important partner, and somewhat worse arrangements with everyone else. We are where we are and have to limit the damage. We can only do that if we face up to the fact that there is damage to be limited.
Hard for me to take these stories seriously... by now we should have been on the second or third round of everyone but Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott being deselected...
That said - maybe this time really will be different!
I seem to recall someone on PB (Nick P?) saying on the ground the momentum crowd don't have the numbers at the local and regional meetings. They don't turn up in enough numbers. They may be shouty but not sufficient. Of course that might gradually change, or indeed, not be the case in some seats e.g. Liverpool
More the lack of a clear push to do it. You get local Momentum people saying "we need to deselect centrists and I have a little list", and the rest of the movement looks embarrassed and changes the subject. The assessment by the leadership is that most Labour MPs are primarily loyalists who will crew the ship quite happily so long as it's getting somewhere. Messing around with trying to deselect them is actively against the interest of that strategy. Hardcore centre-right people who actively conspire even in good times are thin on the ground and can be shrugged off.
Where Momentum is keen and gaining ground is in ensuring that the rules allow a post-Corbyn contest to include a semi-Corbynite candidate. The general view among members is that it would be unwise as well as unfair to try to prevent that, so the argument is gradually being won.
Thanks.
A "semi-Corbynite"? This is a new concept.
There is only one Jeremy! That does make picking his successor tricky. A lot of his supporters are attracted to him personally - as Nick himself makes clear. It is not certain they will all coalesce around someone else with similar views, but with a different way of expressing them.
Quite so. I was a Corbynite from early days, but I wouldn't dream of voting for an Arthur Scargill type.
I do have a left-wing friend who is quite annoyed by this - he isn't especially keen on Jeremy, and frets that we on the left are focusing too much on his wonderfulness and not enough on workers' rights, etc. Jeremy himself is a bit in this camp - he is mildly embarrassed and baffled by the adulation, and would prefer that people were in love with socialism.
We agree. Brexit will lead to a much worse arrangement with the EU, which is by far our most important partner, and somewhat worse arrangements with everyone else. We are where we are and have to limit the damage. We can only do that if we face up to the fact that there is damage to be limited.
While this kind of damage limitation makes sense in the short term, in the long term it risks fuelling the same cycle of dysfunctional politics that got us here in the first place, possibly with even more self-destructive results. Therefore a 'mediocre' Brexit, whilst it might seem like making the best of a bad job, would actually be very dangerous and should be avoided.
Somehow we need events to intervene in a way that makes it impossible for any of the leading Brexiteer protagonists to continue to pretend that there are any sunlit uplands in the terra incognita outside the EU.
I am a huge fan of Obama (and I think that is Bush Senior and Clinton there with him as well) but I do wonder whether having various senior politicians turning up on the front line with all the incumbent security concerns is really 'helping out'.
I am a huge fan of Obama (and I think that is Bush Senior and Clinton there with him as well) but I do wonder whether having various senior politicians turning up on the front line with all the incumbent security concerns is really 'helping out'.
It's a classic damned if you do damned if you don't. As for stiletto-gate, well funnily I am in two minds. On the one hand it is hugely inappropriate and also rubbing peoples' noses in the fact that those affected are in no position to wear stilettos; on the other, there is a smidge of stiff upper lip, carry on as normal about it. Would people prefer to see FLOTUS in galoshes and a duffle coat?
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangement, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Copy and pasting is good, once you accept leaving the EU, while bad, is also now inevitable.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements that cover a big area are more useful than ones that cover a small area for local content rules. You only get preferential treatment on items with substantially local content. So in a PTA with Australia say, the goods would have to be manufactured in the UK with components that are either British or Australian to qualify. With an EU-Australia PTA the components could be sourced from anywhere in the EU and the goods would qualify for preferential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
A third country might say:
a) fine - we'll keep everything as was with the EU as long as you maintain everything exactly as it was and you continue to mirror the EU; or
b) no - we want better terms than we get with the EU.
I don't see how we are better off under either scenario.
Trade deals that focus more on services and less on wine and soft cheese?
We agree. Brexit will lead to a much worse arrangement with the EU, which is by far our most important partner, and somewhat worse arrangements with everyone else. We are where we are and have to limit the damage. We can only do that if we face up to the fact that there is damage to be limited.
While this kind of damage limitation makes sense in the short term, in the long term it risks fuelling the same cycle of dysfunctional politics that got us here in the first place, possibly with even more self-destructive results. Therefore a 'mediocre' Brexit, whilst it might seem like making the best of a bad job, would actually be very dangerous and should be avoided.
Somehow we need events to intervene in a way that makes it impossible for any of the leading Brexiteer protagonists to continue to pretend that there are any sunlit uplands in the terra incognita outside the EU.
On that we disagree. I don't see us going back into the EU in any timeframe. Therefore mediocre is better than failure. I voted Remain, but I don't want failure. One of several things that concerns me is that Leavers aren't worried about failure to the extent of owning the project and taking steps and making the necessary compromises to avoid it.
I am a huge fan of Obama (and I think that is Bush Senior and Clinton there with him as well) but I do wonder whether having various senior politicians turning up on the front line with all the incumbent security concerns is really 'helping out'.
I agree with you, but that tweet is specifically in response to the sudden and not at all co-ordinated flood of peeps on Twitter trying to rewrite history which suddenly pushes the Obama presidency back into 2005
So is this copying and pasting going to be like regulatory equivalence? Identical at commencement, but as or if the EU changes terms and conditions and arrangement, we have likewise to change along with them to maintain the deal?
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
Copy and pasting is good, once you accept leaving the EU, while bad, is also now inevitable.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements ential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
A third country might say:
a) fine - we'll keep everything as was with the EU as long as you maintain everything exactly as it was and you continue to mirror the EU; or
b) no - we want better terms than we get with the EU.
I don't see how we are better off under either scenario.
Trade deals that focus more on services and less on wine and soft cheese?
You mean like financial services? We are following MiFID II, MiFIR to the letter. More than that, we are goldplating it as only the UK knows how to goldplate EU regulations.
And you think we're going to create our own rules and regs with third countries who have in any case to follow the EU regs but fancy adding a whole new regulatory layer by adding a second set (third if they trade US)?
I am a huge fan of Obama (and I think that is Bush Senior and Clinton there with him as well) but I do wonder whether having various senior politicians turning up on the front line with all the incumbent security concerns is really 'helping out'.
It's a classic damned if you do damned if you don't. As for stiletto-gate, well funnily I am in two minds. On the one hand it is hugely inappropriate and also rubbing peoples' noses in the fact that those affected are in no position to wear stilettos; on the other, there is a smidge of stiff upper lip, carry on as normal about it. Would people prefer to see FLOTUS in galoshes and a duffle coat?
Some might prefer to see him in concrete galoshes, of course... (For the avoidance I doubt in the minds of the US secret service, I would advocate no such thing.)
I am a huge fan of Obama (and I think that is Bush Senior and Clinton there with him as well) but I do wonder whether having various senior politicians turning up on the front line with all the incumbent security concerns is really 'helping out'.
It's a classic damned if you do damned if you don't. As for stiletto-gate, well funnily I am in two minds. On the one hand it is hugely inappropriate and also rubbing peoples' noses in the fact that those affected are in no position to wear stilettos; on the other, there is a smidge of stiff upper lip, carry on as normal about it. Would people prefer to see FLOTUS in galoshes and a duffle coat?
I agree the media can set the agenda.It seemed appropriate to me George W Bush attended the 9_11 site and spoke to the emergency workers , he was new to the job and people could see he was in shock by the enormity of it .However by the time of Katrina after Irag he was seen as uncaring as he flew over the devastation.
Comments
Mr. B, Gibbon wrote a few centuries ago, and he was a revisionist. I don't oppose secular things, I do oppose politically motivated rebranding of things that are fine as they are.
Mr. Z, that was mentioned on QI once, only it was indicated Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor, was the chap behind it.
Surely under AV there is only one ballot with voters putting preferences (usually 1 and 2 choice).
The Tory leadership election is a series of completely separate votes, the last round having a completely separate electorate(!) and votes cast by a cross next to your single preferred candidate.
No similarity at all between them, completely different, not even close.
Eid Mubarak!
An Attlee after Lansbury I guess. I kind of think the potential has been wasted already. He spent too long being bogged down with these 'centrist' MPs over the last couple of years, and not being clear enough on what could provide a long-term basis for the Labour Left once Corbyn himself isn't leading. Circumstances have made it too much about defending Corbyn the man against smears and 'centrist' manoeuvres rather than reforming the party and drawing up a coherent programme.
This froth about deselections is annoying. If local party members want deselections then there should be - if the MP doesn't have the confidence of the local Labour Party they can run quite happily without the local Labour Party's stamp if they want to, while the local party puts forward who it wants. If the local party don't want to deselect their MP, then that MP wouldn't be deselected. It's a complete non-issue, blown out of proportion by 'moderate' journalists defending their 'moderate' friends who they think deserve a job for life, no matter how useless they are.
And I wouldn't say the argument is being won. The 'moderates' are just hunkering down. They showed themselves willing to trash the party to try and get Corbyn out in 2016 - changing rules on the hoof, extorting members for more cash and stripping them of votes, trying to bully Corbyn out and smearing hundreds of people who were expelled for silly things like re-tweeting the Greens years ago, as if they were the same as the handful of anti-Semites who got rightfully kicked out. If the 2017 results had been a bit more ambiguous we'd be having another leadership election right now. The second Labour runs into any slight difficulty they'll have the knives out again.
I can see it getting nasty, but I can't see any viable left-wing project coming out of the PLP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_III,_German_Emperor
It's odd to think that the land battles of the Second Punic War were the largest in Europe until the 20th century.
Everyone is unknown until they become known.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld claiming there are known unknowns.
Dr. Prasannan, that's an interesting bit of history/current events of which I was unaware.
See? This is what a public school "education" does to a "good Muslim boy"!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_naval_battle_in_history
Then we would have Anno Domini and Anti Christ...
That said, it was a very popular thing.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/scotland/2017/08/kezia-dugdales-scottish-labour-successor-will-embrace-corbynism
Chinese accounts put their own troops as 10,000 Chinese and 20,000 Hired Mercenaries vs an estimated Abbasid army of between 100,000 to 200,000 men
Abbasid records don't give a size for their records but estimate the Chinese army at approx 100,000 men.
The Standard cartoon is very unfunny.
Great news today for Aston Martin, and I’m sure there’s other CEOs on the plane with the PM who also have deals to announce during the trip.
Bentley have also announced yesterday a replacement for their popular-with-footballers Continental GT to be built in Crewe and with a long waiting list, McLaren recently hired a second shift at their Woking factory and will deliver over 5,000 cars this year, Nissan, Honda and BMW have also committed to their existing plants in the UK too - good news all round for the British car industry.
Never heard the expression in a cricket context, and can't think what it would mean.
It's starting to look more than a bit petty.
Amazing !!!
@EmporersNewC: Almost every time a problem was raised during the referendum “We” could fix it. They were all "trivial" problems with "simple" solutions.
@EmporersNewC: The problem being, the vast majority of those people who said “We” were actually volunteering someone else.
@EmporersNewC: “Someone else” is going to trade with the world. “Someone else” if going to rebuild the fishing industry.
@EmporersNewC: Well guess what? These problems are facing the country, and not those simple solutions are all on you Leavers.
@EmporersNewC: There is no point looking at the people who didn’t vote for it and asking why they aren’t helping.
@EmporersNewC: So, if you don’t want Brexit to fail, stop venting your outrage on twitter about people moaning, because that “Someone else” is now you.
Can we just for the moment accept we don't know what's going to happen next and stop this whataboutery? Admittedly I think the signs are overall quite ominous, I shall be quite happy if I am proven wrong and there are several ways that could happen. Why is it such an article of faith for others?
https://twitter.com/samuelmarclowe/status/902834277527773184
But even they didn't hit quite the depths Scottish Labour are plumbing right now. It's starting to look like the Australian Liberals on speed.
Edit - or perhaps the village without a Lord in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, albeit rather less organised.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257757/Dwarfgate-5ft-5in-Sarkozys-fury-6ft-Cameron-5ft-11in-Osborne-mock-size.html
The way in which Rumsfelt said this in the ress conference was totally baffling, but when you unpick what he was *trying* to say, it was not so ridiculous.
Dave and Sarkozy got on very well, Dave will always be very grateful to Sarkozy, when Dave's father was about to die, Sarkozy made sure Cameron got to see his father before the end.
ie ceding control to, er, someone else on our trade deals?
https://mobile.twitter.com/fionamac2017/status/902669030946942978
The unknown unknowns are the things that might happen, but which you hadn’t anticipated or planned for but need to react to. The military plan for lots of different scenarios but sometimes sh!t happens in a war zone.
If I can do some copy and pasting myself, here are four reasons why sticking to the EU third party agreements would be a good idea and one reason why going it alone might be good. The first three reasons are the important ones:
1. The EU third party trading system has been built up over more than thirty years. We will lose that and spend several decades in a partial recovery of what we had previously.
2. Trade agreements that cover a big area are more useful than ones that cover a small area for local content rules. You only get preferential treatment on items with substantially local content. So in a PTA with Australia say, the goods would have to be manufactured in the UK with components that are either British or Australian to qualify. With an EU-Australia PTA the components could be sourced from anywhere in the EU and the goods would qualify for preferential treatment. There is much less "trade diversion" where companies are trading to meet tariff rules rather than trading efficiently. Bilateral arrangements are almost invariably inferior to multilateral ones.
3. As a bigger entity that is rule making rather than rule taking, the EU can and does negotiate trade agreements that are more comprehensive than country to country PTAs. These agreements are broader, deeper and more enforceable. They cover more trade and are more valuable.
4. As a bigger entity the EU has more leverage for a deal that is favourable to its interests, and ultimately ours.
5, As a smaller entity the UK can be more flexible about signing deals. The flexibility applies to us, but not necessarily to the third party that we negotiate with. We won't get a better deal, but the deal might be more easily reached.
@sarahrainsford: Peskov confirms Trump's lawyer Cohen emailed asking 4 help with Trump Tower project. He saw msg but didn't respond as 'that's not our area'
Jess made the same remarks as Sarah Champion, who was forced to resign from the shadow cabinet a couple of weeks ago.
At least he would have something in common with Corbyn!
a) fine - we'll keep everything as was with the EU as long as you maintain everything exactly as it was and you continue to mirror the EU; or
b) no - we want better terms than we get with the EU.
I don't see how we are better off under either scenario.
Sovereignty In Name Only.
I do have a left-wing friend who is quite annoyed by this - he isn't especially keen on Jeremy, and frets that we on the left are focusing too much on his wonderfulness and not enough on workers' rights, etc. Jeremy himself is a bit in this camp - he is mildly embarrassed and baffled by the adulation, and would prefer that people were in love with socialism.
Somehow we need events to intervene in a way that makes it impossible for any of the leading Brexiteer protagonists to continue to pretend that there are any sunlit uplands in the terra incognita outside the EU.
.. and as for the spelling of apologise.
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/tennis/judy-murray-s-plans-for-world-class-tennis-centre-approved-1-4546501
https://twitter.com/ReignOfApril/status/902558220098703360
And you think we're going to create our own rules and regs with third countries who have in any case to follow the EU regs but fancy adding a whole new regulatory layer by adding a second set (third if they trade US)?
(For the avoidance I doubt in the minds of the US secret service, I would advocate no such thing.)