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    RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    edited August 2018

    Last night’s Channel 4 News didn’t exactly go to plan. First they wrongly introduced Hillary supporting, Democrat voting, Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz as an ‘adviser to Donald Trump’, before he demolished their holier than thou attitude towards the state of U.S. politics.

    “Where is the moral backbone of Great Britain to have as the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation state of the Jewish people.

    Don’t lecture us about our political system as long as you have Jeremy Corbyn who may potentially become the next Prime Minister of England. Shame on Great Britain for allowing that to come to pass.”

    https://order-order.com/2018/08/23/corbyn-virulent-anti-semite/

    The casual conflation of England , Great Britain and the U.K. will also have made some Scot Nat heads explode. An added bonus :smile:
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,947
    TOPPING said:

    Raab surprisingly unfluent, halting all over the place.

    Hold on!! Medicines - we're happy to accept EU rules.

    Sovereignty!!

    What about the reciprocal arrangements, though??

    Interesting, have to say Rees Mogg smashed Vince all over the park on the radio this morning.
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,218

    Last night’s Channel 4 News didn’t exactly go to plan. First they wrongly introduced Hillary supporting, Democrat voting, Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz as an ‘adviser to Donald Trump’, before he demolished their holier than thou attitude towards the state of U.S. politics.

    “Where is the moral backbone of Great Britain to have as the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation state of the Jewish people.

    Don’t lecture us about our political system as long as you have Jeremy Corbyn who may potentially become the next Prime Minister of England. Shame on Great Britain for allowing that to come to pass.”

    https://order-order.com/2018/08/23/corbyn-virulent-anti-semite/

    Generous of ole' Dershy to have included a sermon on 'Great Britain' (sic) politics in his frothing denunciation of anyone in the UK having an opinion on US politics.
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,130

    Last night’s Channel 4 News didn’t exactly go to plan. First they wrongly introduced Hillary supporting, Democrat voting, Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz as an ‘adviser to Donald Trump’, before he demolished their holier than thou attitude towards the state of U.S. politics.

    “Where is the moral backbone of Great Britain to have as the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation state of the Jewish people.

    Don’t lecture us about our political system as long as you have Jeremy Corbyn who may potentially become the next Prime Minister of England. Shame on Great Britain for allowing that to come to pass.”

    https://order-order.com/2018/08/23/corbyn-virulent-anti-semite/

    "the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation state of the Jewish people" says Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz.

    Who are these American Emeritus Professors to tell us what's what, eh?
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,947
    Scott_P said:
    Passporting as in financial passporting ?

    That's been deader than a dead thing in deadsville for ages I thought ?!
  • Options
    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,783
    edited August 2018
    John_M said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    Again you are making a remainer argument which is fair enough. The 40 billion you refer to are our legal commitments over many years and are not going over in one payment. I want a deal but also we cannot just roll over to Barnier.

    It will be interesting to watch public opimion on this and remember the 17.4 million who voted to leave were by no means all conservatives as you would like us to believe

    Barnier en a rien à foutre what British public opinion thinks. It's irrelevant to him.
    Not if there is no deal. The consequences for his ambitions will be fatal
    Precisely. If he can’t get a deal together soon, he’s likely to be sidelined as the heads of government take over, which would go down as a huge failure on Barnier’s part.
    AIUI he has the complete support of the heads of government. Remember remember the critical dynamic: the UK accounts for 6-10% of each EU member's exports. The EU accounts for nearly half of ours.

    Once that has sunk in, the whole "they need us more than we need them" thing begins to be seen in context.
    So it doesn’t matter how much their own economies will be affected, as long as the UK is seen to suffer more? A million European job losses are okay as long as the U.K. gets 2 million?

    I think if the negotiations aren’t sorted by the October heads of government meeting, those heads of government will start to take a much more active role in ensuring that a deal gets done.
    I don't think it's vindictive, just that a 5-10% hit on exports, say, means different things to them and to us. Arguably, to them it is noise. To us it is far more substantial.
    If you refer to my new favourite chart "Box 7", then you will see the estimates, which may or may not mean that France is unwilling to give up 0.4%-odd of GDP over the long term, but that there is nevertheless a relatively large disparity.
    Box 7 is about financial services preparation. Report looks worth reading though, so I shall do that.
    My takeaway was that this wide-ranging and technical report treats Brexit in a sidebar of less than one page (out of ~60), which might surprise some of our more febrile posters.
    It's mentioned in the text on 14 out of 64 pages.....the IMF thinks the EU and Euro area have bigger fish to fry. The word 'debt' appears on 33 pages.....
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    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376
    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.
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    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
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    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,015
    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    2 Para Mortar Platoon manning the deli counter in Waitrose.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376
    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    2 Para Mortar Platoon manning the deli counter in Waitrose.
    LOL grab them by the falafel balls and their artichoke hearts will follow...
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,218
    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    Every man & woman for themselves then.
  • Options
    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,015

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    What could he say? Everyone but the congenitally gammon now realises it's either going to be a humiliation or a disaster or both.
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    AnazinaAnazina Posts: 3,487
    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

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    DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    Williamson's rocket-launching tractors would come in handy.
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,218
    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,102
    Raab now says we'd try to do deals with regions within countries in the event of No Deal... What will they do? Bribe the Mayor of Calais to let all our goods through without checks?
  • Options
    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376

    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
    Because he is not an idiot and quite evidently doesn't believe a word he is saying. He knows it is all a farce and a crock of shit. You would have to be a superhuman imbecile to actually say all that stuff believing it so.
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    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    He is talking nonsense again
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376
    edited August 2018
    Interesting, and something that people sometimes forget, when he asked for questions from the European press, it was someone from the Irish Times who put his hand up.
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    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Scott_P said:
    It's hardly rocket science. Risk management 101 - do I avoid, manage/mitigate or accept?
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    AnazinaAnazina Posts: 3,487
    Dura_Ace said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    stodge said:



    Understandably, he is going to make it difficult for us "pour ne pas encourager les autres" to borrow a useful French expression.

    You can't use l'interdiction after a préposition. It's incorrect and doesn't really make sense. What Voltaire wrote in Candide was:

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.

    Words to live by.
    Was rather hoping to see your take on Gavin Williamson and his bold, imaginative and innovative thinking:
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7079320/gavin-williamson-tractor-budget/
    Come back Spreadsheet Phil, all is forgiven. Phil was as tight as arseholes with money but was at least sane.

    The Fireplace Salesman is, on the other hand, very typical of a particularly repellent stripe of tory who likes playing toy soldiers but never felt the need to pick up a rifle themselves. He is also as thick as shit and catastrophically lacking in self awareness which doesn't help.
    Gavin "The Big G" Williamson is the inspirational figure to take Britain forward in one huge stride. You read it here first – Get On Gav: The People's Choice.
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,102

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    No doubt directly affiliated with a newly created Thought Police.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited August 2018

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
  • Options
    Anazina said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    stodge said:



    Understandably, he is going to make it difficult for us "pour ne pas encourager les autres" to borrow a useful French expression.

    You can't use l'interdiction after a préposition. It's incorrect and doesn't really make sense. What Voltaire wrote in Candide was:

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.

    Words to live by.
    Was rather hoping to see your take on Gavin Williamson and his bold, imaginative and innovative thinking:
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7079320/gavin-williamson-tractor-budget/
    Come back Spreadsheet Phil, all is forgiven. Phil was as tight as arseholes with money but was at least sane.

    The Fireplace Salesman is, on the other hand, very typical of a particularly repellent stripe of tory who likes playing toy soldiers but never felt the need to pick up a rifle themselves. He is also as thick as shit and catastrophically lacking in self awareness which doesn't help.
    Gavin "The Big G" Williamson is the inspirational figure to take Britain forward in one huge stride. You read it here first – Get On Gav: The People's Choice.
    Excuse me - he has nothing to do with me - I am grown up and Williamson has been promoted way above his ability
  • Options
    ralphmalphralphmalph Posts: 2,201

    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
    He is between a rock and hard place. Too happy and pro-EU people would criticise, too gloomy leavers would criticise. I think he got it about right and he made the best statement that the a Government Minister has made so far when he said "They may be short term disruption, but I fully believe this is in the best interests of the UK in the long term."

    The Government has to believe that what it is doing is the right thing.
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,656
    Mika Brzezinski hosting a great show on Morning Joe this morning. I wish we had an equivalent show in the UK.

    There is a sense that this can't really be happening. Trump is coming out with so much outrageous stuff on an hour-by-hour basis that they can't keep up.

    I'll be back in Blighty tomorrow, to the calm, sensible politics of Brexit.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376

    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
    He is between a rock and hard place. Too happy and pro-EU people would criticise, too gloomy leavers would criticise. I think he got it about right and he made the best statement that the a Government Minister has made so far when he said "They may be short term disruption, but I fully believe this is in the best interests of the UK in the long term."

    The Government has to believe that what it is doing is the right thing.
    'cept he evidently doesn't believe it himself.
  • Options
    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    I think it's a fantastic idea. I'm sure people will flock to a Facebook rival to escape all their friends and family.
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    DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    edited August 2018

    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
    He is between a rock and hard place. Too happy and pro-EU people would criticise, too gloomy leavers would criticise. I think he got it about right and he made the best statement that the a Government Minister has made so far when he said "They may be short term disruption, but I fully believe this is in the best interests of the UK in the long term."

    The Government has to believe that what it is doing is the right thing.
    In a more rational world than 21st Century politics, that -- The Government has to believe that what it is doing is the right thing -- would surely be the other way round.
  • Options

    TOPPING said:

    John_M said:

    TOPPING said:

    THANK GOD!!

    We will not be deploying the army to maintain food supplies after Brexit.

    That is a relief.

    80,000 squaddies wouldn't be enough anyway. I've stricken Raab from my longlist of future Tory leaders, he looks as shifty as fuck.
    He did not inspire me in that speech. His chance of leader must have evaporated
    He is sweating like a ******.
    He is remarkably unaware of how he is coming over. He has no personality and is a big disappointment
    He is between a rock and hard place. Too happy and pro-EU people would criticise, too gloomy leavers would criticise. I think he got it about right and he made the best statement that the a Government Minister has made so far when he said "They may be short term disruption, but I fully believe this is in the best interests of the UK in the long term."

    The Government has to believe that what it is doing is the right thing.
    I do not disagree with that but he has no personality and came over as lacking confidence and even nervous
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,845
    John_M said:

    That Raab speech in full:

    'In the event of a no-deal Brexit, simply seek shelter beneath your dining table, assume the foetal position and wait to die.'

    :D
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    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,996
    F1: I'd be pissed if I had spread bets on Force India...
    https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/1032561679492677633
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,218

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    No doubt directly affiliated with a newly created Thought Police.
    I'm at the stage where appending anything with the word 'thought' would be welcome.
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    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,317
    Scott_P said:
    Cripes! How many British ex-pats still bank in the UK? We could be heading for a run on the banks if this gets out.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    It would be an excellent experiment in the power of network effects.

    Though, I suspect, it would result in a public inquiry into the colossal waste of public money, but let's not prejudge at this stage.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,348
    Ishmael_Z said:

    My jaw remains on the floor after learning how the SNP has shat on the life chances of young, poor Scots for the sake of headlines about tuition fees. Labour, or someone, should be on the attack over this.

    Not like it's a new thing, either: 2013 story:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10226794/Scottish-universities-operating-two-tier-clearing-system-favouring-English.html

    The problem is actually much more general. The squeezing out of those from poor backgrounds by those who got a better education is only 1 aspect of the problem.

    The State can only afford to fund a certain number of places at University if it is paying the fees. It also uses its bulk buyer power to negotiate highly favourable rates from the Universities which mean they need to look elsewhere for additional funds. This means that once the grants have been exhausted the Universities hoover up those who come with much more generous fee cheques attached.

    This puts Scottish kids at a serious disadvantage. They have almost no opportunities to get places through clearing so if they don't get enough to meet their conditional offer they probably won't go at all. This particularly affects those in poorly performing schools who tend to be from poorer backgrounds.

    The solution to this is obvious. Scottish children should be given the option of paying fees on the same basis as English students if they do not qualify for an assisted place where their fees are paid for them.

    The SNP won't do this because it undermines their boast about fees and Salmond's promise carved out in stone but it is very detrimental to the interests of Scottish children. The Tories should be shouting to the skies about this. The irony is that if these Scottish children do want a place through clearing they really have to look south of the border and pay fees already but it is much more expensive and difficult for them to do this at short notice.
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    stodgestodge Posts: 12,877
    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".
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    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376
    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,883
    As Owen Jones says Right wing blogger admits austerity is failing

    Guido Fawkes

    Verified account

    @GuidoFawkes
    Follow Follow @GuidoFawkes
    More
    People advocating fiscal loosening in a post-austerity environment are ignoring that the total public debt is now £17.5 billion more than it was a year ago.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1032571578712776705

    Are we witnessing a John Moore moment?
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    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,783
    Scott_P said:
    How does this work? Last week I accessed on line my UK bank account from Singapore. Yesterday in Bali. Bills from Singapore to my UK credit card showed up faster than ones from the EU based companies - and have the same 'foreign currency' percentage added to them. Now of course its quite possible UK banks might fancy BREXIT as an opportunity to 'price gouge' - but why do bills from the other side of the planet debit faster than ones from the EU?
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    Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820

    Scott_P said:
    Cripes! How many British ex-pats still bank in the UK? We could be heading for a run on the banks if this gets out.
    Why on earth would British ex-pats lose access to UK banks? The UK and its banks can let anyone they like hold and run accounts.

    In fact this is part of a wider point: in the event of literally no deal (as opposed to no free trade deal, with which it is often confused), it would in many ways be easier the UK to adjust than for the EU to do so. We can quickly pass broad-brush acts of parliament or statutory instruments to deal with at least some potential problems (for example, it would be extremely easy for us to put in place recognition of EU medicine approvals), whereas the more rules-based and necessarily slow bureaucracy of the EU would find it harder.
  • Options

    Mika Brzezinski hosting a great show on Morning Joe this morning. I wish we had an equivalent show in the UK.

    There is a sense that this can't really be happening. Trump is coming out with so much outrageous stuff on an hour-by-hour basis that they can't keep up.

    I'll be back in Blighty tomorrow, to the calm, sensible politics of Brexit.

    I caught up with Rachel Maddow's show from last night. Fascinating stuff and no UK TV show goes anywhere near the detail she does.

    The most interesting bit of information for me was that Cohen was paid $50,000 for 'Tech Services' from the Trump campaign. What company was paid we don't know, but the infamous 'Steele dossier' claims that Cohen went to Prague to meet with Russians in 2016....

    You have the feeling the only person who knows where this is ending is Robert Muller.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,947

    As Owen Jones says Right wing blogger admits austerity is failing

    Guido Fawkes

    Verified account

    @GuidoFawkes
    Follow Follow @GuidoFawkes
    More
    People advocating fiscal loosening in a post-austerity environment are ignoring that the total public debt is now £17.5 billion more than it was a year ago.

    I think taking into account GDP increase and inflation the public debt is smaller than it was a year ago though ?
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited August 2018

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    It would be an excellent experiment in the power of network effects.

    Though, I suspect, it would result in a public inquiry into the colossal waste of public money, but let's not prejudge at this stage.
    But there are already lots of alternatives when it comes to social media. In many parts of the world, Facebook isn't even that big, other equivalents are used.

    The reason Facebook is so mega successful as a company it not that you can post a picture or whatever, it is all the back-end stuff including a hell of a lot of Machine Learning, leading to extremely targeted ads.

    And besides, good luck JezzaBook managing to hire any decent talent without having to pay a small fortune. The likes of Facebook pay £150k+ a year min for their's, with the real brains on mega bucks.

    BBC tech department is a piss poor these days for similar reasons.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376

    Scott_P said:
    Cripes! How many British ex-pats still bank in the UK? We could be heading for a run on the banks if this gets out.
    Why on earth would British ex-pats lose access to UK banks? The UK and its banks can let anyone they like hold and run accounts.

    In fact this is part of a wider point: in the event of literally no deal (as opposed to no free trade deal, with which it is often confused), it would in many ways be easier the UK to adjust than for the EU to do so. We can quickly pass broad-brush acts of parliament or statutory instruments to deal with at least some potential problems (for example, it would be extremely easy for us to put in place recognition of EU medicine approvals), whereas the more rules-based and necessarily slow bureaucracy of the EU would find it harder.
    With the huge increase in AML, FATF, etc legislation I can't believe it is all that easy for someone who is not resident to open a bank account in the UK? (No idea ofc, just that everything has got a whole lot more complicated.)
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,845
    edited August 2018

    Scott_P said:
    How does this work? Last week I accessed on line my UK bank account from Singapore. Yesterday in Bali. Bills from Singapore to my UK credit card showed up faster than ones from the EU based companies - and have the same 'foreign currency' percentage added to them. Now of course its quite possible UK banks might fancy BREXIT as an opportunity to 'price gouge' - but why do bills from the other side of the planet debit faster than ones from the EU?
    You get around Carlotta? :open_mouth:
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,348
    Sandpit said:

    Do I understand that Richard Leonard isn't exactly propelling Scot Lab to dizzy new heights of success?

    Could anyone here pick him out of an identity parade of Scottish Labour politicians?
    Think so. But I'm a bit of a nerd that way. He really is invisible up here.
  • Options
    stodgestodge Posts: 12,877
    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    That's what Raab says. Option B is where Boris, JRM and the ERG sit and they haven't conceded the argument yet.

    What if May and Raab come back with an agreement the ERG doesn't like ? Said agreement might get through the Commons with Labour and SNP backing but what does that do for Conservative Party unity ? Fetch more popcorn (or will that run out as well if there's no deal?)
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,947
    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
  • Options
    Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    TOPPING said:

    Scott_P said:
    Cripes! How many British ex-pats still bank in the UK? We could be heading for a run on the banks if this gets out.
    Why on earth would British ex-pats lose access to UK banks? The UK and its banks can let anyone they like hold and run accounts.

    In fact this is part of a wider point: in the event of literally no deal (as opposed to no free trade deal, with which it is often confused), it would in many ways be easier the UK to adjust than for the EU to do so. We can quickly pass broad-brush acts of parliament or statutory instruments to deal with at least some potential problems (for example, it would be extremely easy for us to put in place recognition of EU medicine approvals), whereas the more rules-based and necessarily slow bureaucracy of the EU would find it harder.
    With the huge increase in AML, FATF, etc legislation I can't believe it is all that easy for someone who is not resident to open a bank account in the UK? (No idea ofc, just that everything has got a whole lot more complicated.)
    It's already very hard for an expat to open a new UK bank account (I have a friend who had exactly this problem). But I don't see any problem with accessing existing bank accounts.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,376
    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    The EU can point to document EC/1973/UKF/18574/B/19 and say "it's all in there, look for yourself". We, meanwhile, seem to be ordering in fag packets in bulk.
  • Options
    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,102
    stodge said:

    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    That's what Raab says. Option B is where Boris, JRM and the ERG sit and they haven't conceded the argument yet.

    What if May and Raab come back with an agreement the ERG doesn't like ? Said agreement might get through the Commons with Labour and SNP backing but what does that do for Conservative Party unity ? Fetch more popcorn (or will that run out as well if there's no deal?)
    Boris doesn’t advocate No Deal.
  • Options
    glwglw Posts: 9,549

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    In order to compete with the likes of Facebook it would need to compete for talent. I can't see that happening.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,313

    F1: I'd be pissed if I had spread bets on Force India...
    https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/1032561679492677633

    Maybe your luck has finally turned?
  • Options
    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Pulpstar said:

    As Owen Jones says Right wing blogger admits austerity is failing

    Guido Fawkes

    Verified account

    @GuidoFawkes
    Follow Follow @GuidoFawkes
    More
    People advocating fiscal loosening in a post-austerity environment are ignoring that the total public debt is now £17.5 billion more than it was a year ago.

    I think taking into account GDP increase and inflation the public debt is smaller than it was a year ago though ?
    That's correct. Let's punt the debt repayment to our great-grandchildren and party like its 1999 2007.
  • Options
    Brexit is so funny.

    I suspect Leavers know what will happen in the event of no deal.

    It won’t be pleasant for them.

    I’d also hate to be the woman who kept on banging on that no deal was better than a bad deal.
  • Options
    AnazinaAnazina Posts: 3,487

    Anazina said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    stodge said:



    Understandably, he is going to make it difficult for us "pour ne pas encourager les autres" to borrow a useful French expression.

    You can't use l'interdiction after a préposition. It's incorrect and doesn't really make sense. What Voltaire wrote in Candide was:

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.

    Words to live by.
    Was rather hoping to see your take on Gavin Williamson and his bold, imaginative and innovative thinking:
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7079320/gavin-williamson-tractor-budget/
    Come back Spreadsheet Phil, all is forgiven. Phil was as tight as arseholes with money but was at least sane.

    The Fireplace Salesman is, on the other hand, very typical of a particularly repellent stripe of tory who likes playing toy soldiers but never felt the need to pick up a rifle themselves. He is also as thick as shit and catastrophically lacking in self awareness which doesn't help.
    Gavin "The Big G" Williamson is the inspirational figure to take Britain forward in one huge stride. You read it here first – Get On Gav: The People's Choice.
    Excuse me - he has nothing to do with me - I am grown up and Williamson has been promoted way above his ability
    Apologies, I was not referencing you.

    I shall refer to him as the G-Dogg from now on.
  • Options
    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,783

    TOPPING said:

    Scott_P said:
    Cripes! How many British ex-pats still bank in the UK? We could be heading for a run on the banks if this gets out.
    Why on earth would British ex-pats lose access to UK banks? The UK and its banks can let anyone they like hold and run accounts.

    In fact this is part of a wider point: in the event of literally no deal (as opposed to no free trade deal, with which it is often confused), it would in many ways be easier the UK to adjust than for the EU to do so. We can quickly pass broad-brush acts of parliament or statutory instruments to deal with at least some potential problems (for example, it would be extremely easy for us to put in place recognition of EU medicine approvals), whereas the more rules-based and necessarily slow bureaucracy of the EU would find it harder.
    With the huge increase in AML, FATF, etc legislation I can't believe it is all that easy for someone who is not resident to open a bank account in the UK? (No idea ofc, just that everything has got a whole lot more complicated.)
    It's already very hard for an expat to open a new UK bank account (I have a friend who had exactly this problem). But I don't see any problem with accessing existing bank accounts.
    Would this also be a problem for the 3.8million EU citizens resident in the UK (not just the 900,000 Brits in the EU)?
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,656

    Mika Brzezinski hosting a great show on Morning Joe this morning. I wish we had an equivalent show in the UK.

    There is a sense that this can't really be happening. Trump is coming out with so much outrageous stuff on an hour-by-hour basis that they can't keep up.

    I'll be back in Blighty tomorrow, to the calm, sensible politics of Brexit.

    I caught up with Rachel Maddow's show from last night. Fascinating stuff and no UK TV show goes anywhere near the detail she does.

    The most interesting bit of information for me was that Cohen was paid $50,000 for 'Tech Services' from the Trump campaign. What company was paid we don't know, but the infamous 'Steele dossier' claims that Cohen went to Prague to meet with Russians in 2016....

    You have the feeling the only person who knows where this is ending is Robert Muller.
    I saw some of Maddow too. We definitely need that sort of programme in the UK.

    I'm not just saying that as MSNBC is left wing - an equivalent on the right would be useful too.
  • Options
    edbedb Posts: 65


    And besides, good luck JezzaBook managing to hire any decent talent without having to pay a small fortune. The likes of Facebook pay £150k+ a year min for their's, with the real brains on mega bucks.

    Nothing a "maximum wage" policy can't sort out.
  • Options
    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,947
    edited August 2018
    John_M said:

    Pulpstar said:

    As Owen Jones says Right wing blogger admits austerity is failing

    Guido Fawkes

    Verified account

    @GuidoFawkes
    Follow Follow @GuidoFawkes
    More
    People advocating fiscal loosening in a post-austerity environment are ignoring that the total public debt is now £17.5 billion more than it was a year ago.

    I think taking into account GDP increase and inflation the public debt is smaller than it was a year ago though ?
    That's correct. Let's punt the debt repayment to our great-grandchildren and party like its 1999 2007.
    Well so long as we keep growing we don't actually need to !net! repay the debt...

    Of course a recession will inevitably hit at some point so probably best to try and get stuck into a bit rather than having nominal increases.
  • Options
    Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820

    Would this also be a problem for the 3.8million EU citizens resident in the UK (not just the 900,000 Brits in the EU)?

    Presumably it's symmetrical.
  • Options
    AnazinaAnazina Posts: 3,487
    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    Indeed Raab is ruling out No Deal as an option which, for all his sweating and trembling, must be some sort of good news.
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited August 2018

    twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1032582704984981504

    It will blow his mind if he really new how things worked...everyone of those selfies he takes, straight into the deep learning sausage machine, etc etc etc
  • Options
    Anazina said:

    Anazina said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    stodge said:



    Understandably, he is going to make it difficult for us "pour ne pas encourager les autres" to borrow a useful French expression.

    You can't use l'interdiction after a préposition. It's incorrect and doesn't really make sense. What Voltaire wrote in Candide was:

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.

    Words to live by.
    Was rather hoping to see your take on Gavin Williamson and his bold, imaginative and innovative thinking:
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7079320/gavin-williamson-tractor-budget/
    Come back Spreadsheet Phil, all is forgiven. Phil was as tight as arseholes with money but was at least sane.

    The Fireplace Salesman is, on the other hand, very typical of a particularly repellent stripe of tory who likes playing toy soldiers but never felt the need to pick up a rifle themselves. He is also as thick as shit and catastrophically lacking in self awareness which doesn't help.
    Gavin "The Big G" Williamson is the inspirational figure to take Britain forward in one huge stride. You read it here first – Get On Gav: The People's Choice.
    Excuse me - he has nothing to do with me - I am grown up and Williamson has been promoted way above his ability
    Apologies, I was not referencing you.

    I shall refer to him as the G-Dogg from now on.
    +1
  • Options
    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Pulpstar said:

    John_M said:

    Pulpstar said:

    As Owen Jones says Right wing blogger admits austerity is failing

    Guido Fawkes

    Verified account

    @GuidoFawkes
    Follow Follow @GuidoFawkes
    More
    People advocating fiscal loosening in a post-austerity environment are ignoring that the total public debt is now £17.5 billion more than it was a year ago.

    I think taking into account GDP increase and inflation the public debt is smaller than it was a year ago though ?
    That's correct. Let's punt the debt repayment to our great-grandchildren and party like its 1999 2007.
    Well so long as we keep growing we don't actually need to !net! repay the debt...

    Of course a recession will inevitably hit at some point so probably best to try and get stuck into a bit rather than having nominal increases.
    The Ministry of Paying Off Johnny Foreigner is already the fourth largest spending department in Whitehall. I think we should prioritise that (once we reach the sunlit uplands ofc).
  • Options
    StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    It would be an excellent experiment in the power of network effects.

    Though, I suspect, it would result in a public inquiry into the colossal waste of public money, but let's not prejudge at this stage.
    But there are already lots of alternatives when it comes to social media. In many parts of the world, Facebook isn't even that big, other equivalents are used.

    The reason Facebook is so mega successful as a company it not that you can post a picture or whatever, it is all the back-end stuff including a hell of a lot of Machine Learning, leading to extremely targeted ads.

    And besides, good luck JezzaBook managing to hire any decent talent without having to pay a small fortune. The likes of Facebook pay £150k+ a year min for their's, with the real brains on mega bucks.

    BBC tech department is a piss poor these days for similar reasons.
    Facebook is infamously bad technically. The idea that their success has anything to do with hiring super-brainy software guys is totally wrong
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,925
    Text of Raab’s speech published.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/secretary-of-state-dominic-raabs-speech-on-no-deal-planning

    Documents under discussion to be published imminently.
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,656
    Anazina said:

    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    Indeed Raab is ruling out No Deal as an option which, for all his sweating and trembling, must be some sort of good news.
    This implies that there is no such thing as a Bad Deal.

    Hmmmm...
  • Options
    JohnOJohnO Posts: 4,215

    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
    Fraid the era of surcharging naughty, useless and incompetent councillors are LONG gone. Er, thank heavens!
  • Options
    JohnO said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
    Fraid the era of surcharging naughty, useless and incompetent councillors are LONG gone. Er, thank heavens!
    Ooh in that case I might become a councillor now.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,925
    edited August 2018
    The only person in the U.K. not yet using an adblocker?
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,085
    stodge said:

    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    That's what Raab says. Option B is where Boris, JRM and the ERG sit and they haven't conceded the argument yet.

    What if May and Raab come back with an agreement the ERG doesn't like ? Said agreement might get through the Commons with Labour and SNP backing but what does that do for Conservative Party unity ? Fetch more popcorn (or will that run out as well if there's no deal?)
    May would still likely survive as the majority of Tory MPs would back the Deal, indeed a few Labour Leavers may oppose it
  • Options
    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503

    JohnO said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
    Fraid the era of surcharging naughty, useless and incompetent councillors are LONG gone. Er, thank heavens!
    Ooh in that case I might become a councillor now.
    Finally going to take the plunge and join the Lib Dems? Good on you.
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,845
    JohnO said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
    Fraid the era of surcharging naughty, useless and incompetent councillors are LONG gone. Er, thank heavens!
    Has "yer man" Dom done good today JohnO? :D
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    glw said:

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    In order to compete with the likes of Facebook it would need to compete for talent. I can't see that happening.
    There has already been at least two attempts in UK. Bebo, and Friends Reunited (indeed the latter predated Facebook).
  • Options
    Sandpit said:

    The only person in the U.K. not yet using an adblocker?
    LOL.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,348
    I've been earning a crust this morning (which will be stored in my post Brexit emergency food parcel of course) so I didn't see Raab but he seemed very unconvincing on R4 this morning. He clearly was not on top of his brief and kept sidestepping rather obvious questions to put things "in context" as he put it.

    It doesn't sound as if his speech was much better. What he surely should have said is that in the event of no deal there are a large range of things we can do ourselves. Importing medicine is a simple example of this. There are other things we cannot do ourselves but we can mitigate the effects. There are other things that rely upon action by the EU and these will be a matter of negotiation with or without an overarching deal.

    He is of course in a difficult position because David Davis really should have done this preparatory work 18 months ago. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail as the old cliche goes. But he really needs to get a grip if his ambitions are not going to take a serious dunt.
  • Options
    Anazina said:

    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    Indeed Raab is ruling out No Deal as an option which, for all his sweating and trembling, must be some sort of good news.
    Maybe I am a bit unfair to Raab this morning. Anyone would have a problem with something as megga as this is if they did not believe it.

    A reporter has suggested this is all a process to make JRM and the ERG more isolated and helps the Parliamentary arithmetic to get a deal through

    If this is so it is no more than high stakes politics and even I would be sweating at presenting it
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited August 2018

    glw said:

    Yer granda's been trying to get down with the kids again. Almost vying with Tory social media strategy in its fuckwittery.

    https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1032555210152062976

    A site where any criticism of the Great Leader results in an immediate ban.
    In order to compete with the likes of Facebook it would need to compete for talent. I can't see that happening.
    There has already been at least two attempts in UK. Bebo, and Friends Reunited (indeed the latter predated Facebook).
    Here's 8 alternatives,

    https://fossbytes.com/best-facebook-alternatives/

    For some reason they aren't very big...

    And obviously that doesn't include the Russian and Chinese alternatives.
  • Options
    Anazina said:

    TOPPING said:

    stodge said:

    Rather like the EU I've had other fish to fry in the past couple of hours so I've completely missed Raab's offering which I had expected to be a Corporal Jones parody.

    We are moving down to the crunch point primarily within the Conservative Party which is something like:

    Option A "let's do a deal, It won't be perfect but life will go on without any problems and we'll sort it out during the 20 month transition period. Theresa can stay on while this all get sorted and Sajid can take over in time to trounce Corbyn in 2022"

    Option B "no deal. We'll keep the £40 billion and have a nice round of pro-business tax cuts. There may be a little disruption but WTO won't kill us and soon we'll have fantastic FTAs with anyone and everyone and Global Britain will be on its way. We'll dump the useless Theresa and Boris will lead us on a tide of economic optimism to a landslide in 2022".

    Nope - he effectively said that Option B cannot be allowed to happen.
    Indeed Raab is ruling out No Deal as an option which, for all his sweating and trembling, must be some sort of good news.
    Surely there will be some deals done between the Uk and the EU even if the main deal fails.

    Call it Minimal deal plus WTO.
  • Options
    John_M said:

    JohnO said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Anazina said:

    Passporting back on.

    Good news for the City and for London generally.

    Gov't is lurching about like a drunken sailor, one moment its WTO the next passporting. Barnier must be very bemused.
    We surcharge councillors that screw up badly, we should do the same to the Leavers like Boris, Gove, Davis, Fox, and Raab.
    Fraid the era of surcharging naughty, useless and incompetent councillors are LONG gone. Er, thank heavens!
    Ooh in that case I might become a councillor now.
    Finally going to take the plunge and join the Lib Dems? Good on you.
    I’m far too liberal and right wing for the Lib Dems.
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    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,085

    Yay! We got another Newcastle upon Tyne last year (Or a Birmingham every 5 years)!

    Where did they build it?

    twitter.com/ONS/status/1032547461041143808

    Re freedom of movement being a stumbling block in Brexit negotiations -- since it is clear that no-one in government has any serious intention of reducing immigration, there is ample scope for lashings of Euro-fudge. Sorry about the broken record.
    Figures out today show EU to UK migration has fallen to the lowest levels since records began in 1998.

    Plus of course free movement will be replaced by a job offer or study place requirement on arrival under Chequers

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45281796
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    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,845
    DavidL said:

    I've been earning a crust this morning (which will be stored in my post Brexit emergency food parcel of course) so I didn't see Raab but he seemed very unconvincing on R4 this morning. He clearly was not on top of his brief and kept sidestepping rather obvious questions to put things "in context" as he put it.

    It doesn't sound as if his speech was much better. What he surely should have said is that in the event of no deal there are a large range of things we can do ourselves. Importing medicine is a simple example of this. There are other things we cannot do ourselves but we can mitigate the effects. There are other things that rely upon action by the EU and these will be a matter of negotiation with or without an overarching deal.

    He is of course in a difficult position because David Davis really should have done this preparatory work 18 months ago. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail as the old cliche goes. But he really needs to get a grip if his ambitions are not going to take a serious dunt.


    Don't say that you'll upset JohnO. :(
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    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,783
    Sandpit said:

    The only person in the U.K. not yet using an adblocker?
    Many moons ago someone, late of this parish, upbraided OGH for his site hosting ads for Russian Internet Brides, which he thought was entirely inappropriate......after someone pointed out it was based on his own browsing history he was never heard from again....
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    Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    I have an off the wall question that I've been unable to get an answer to. Car commercials shown here in the US for European makes such as Mercedes, Land Rover, BMW, Jaguar, Volvo etc always start the small print by saying "European Model Shown", even though the car is clearly navigating the streets of (typically) New York City or San Francisco.

    Why?
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    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,085

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    Again you are making a remainer argument which is fair enough. The 40 billion you refer to are our legal commitments over many years and are not going over in one payment. I want a deal but also we cannot just roll over to Barnier.

    It will be interesting to watch public opimion on this and remember the 17.4 million who voted to leave were by no means all conservatives as you would like us to believe

    Barnier en a rien à foutre what British public opinion thinks. It's irrelevant to him.
    Not if there is no deal. The consequences for his ambitions will be fatal
    Precisely. If he can’t get a deal together soon, he’s likely to be sidelined as the heads of government take over, which would go down as a huge failure on Barnier’s part.
    AIUI he has the complete support of the heads of government. Remember remember the critical dynamic: the UK accounts for 6-10% of each EU member's exports. The EU accounts for nearly half of ours.

    Once that has sunk in, the whole "they need us more than we need them" thing begins to be seen in context.
    So it doesn’t matter how much their own economies will be affected, as long as the UK is seen to suffer more? A million European job losses are okay as long as the U.K. gets 2 million?

    I think if the negotiations aren’t sorted by the October heads of government meeting, those heads of government will start to take a much more active role in ensuring that a deal gets done.
    I don't think it's vindictive, just that a 5-10% hit on exports, say, means different things to them and to us. Arguably, to them it is noise. To us it is far more substantial.
    I think that Barnier, Junker and the EU institutions are absolutely being vindictive, and that Barnier naïvely expected us to have just rolled over by now.

    The heads of government won’t take that attitude, they’ll want to see the usual massive dose of EU fudge applied to make sure trade continues smoothly when we leave, and they’ll want it soon to avoid uncertainty for things like holiday bookings and farm sales, not to mention manufacturing supply chains.
    The heads of government are the ones telling Barnier to take a hard line. Why do you think we've been begging Macron to call off the dogs?
    Certainly not the Italian and Austrian PMs
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,883
    Sandpit said:

    The only person in the U.K. not yet using an adblocker?
    Who was it on here that was complaining about porn site pop ups LOL
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