Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
I don't have a problem with Skiiing. I have a problem with hundreds of people ignoring local coronavirus restrictions rather than bear some personal inconvenience.
And crying about anti-elitism as a defence seems a very odd choice.
That's fair enough. I agree. Anti-elitism isn't a defence for flouting the rules.
But it is the subject of skiing that seems to get people's blood boiling (Rockall). That amuses me and I just speculate on why.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
I've read the article. She's a dual citizen in a country that does not recognise dual citizenship. As far as Iran is concerned she's Iranian.
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
I was told, quite specifically, when I turned 16 (IIRC) and got a dual nationality setup that
- In the UK, my other nationality doesn't really exist. I can't call on consular services from that country etc. - In the other country, the same - It was an offence to enter the UK under the other countries passport. - It was an offence to enter the other country using my UK passport - Consular access in a 3rd country would be dependent on which passport I used to enter that country.
The official told me that this was because dual nationality is a bit of a legal lashup - that legally, you aren't a dual citizen in either country. You are a citizen of that country. The other bit of paper has no meaning.
My wife is a dual citizen and had the exact same thing.
She was born and bred in South Africa but has UK citizenship from her Scottish father. When she turned 21 she chose to emigrate to the UK. In order to do so she had to sort out her UK passport at the British consulate but also needed her SA passport to get out of the country. They wouldn't let her travel on her British passport. On arrival she used her British passport and was amused to be told "welcome home" when she arrived in the country for the first time ever.
Since then she's only travelled on her British passport and has let her SA one lapse. She has no intention of ever using it again unless she goes to SA.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Completely, completely irresponsible, as you can still spread the disease.
The vaccines are not known to stop transmission.
There are younger front line staff who are not getting the vaccine. They are risking their lives.
And there are elderly skiers bragging about getting the vaccine early so they can behave irresponsibly.
I don’t understand why the “fisherfolk” are upset. Although Britain clearly compromised a lot from a maximalist approach, the deal agreed is surely much better than remaining inside the CFA.
They were promised so much more.
That will be the difficulty for the government. As far as I can tell, the government achieved its own aims ie a deal which said how much it respected Britain's sovereignty - hence all the warm words from Ursula on this.
But it is the gap between what it promised its voters - or what they thought it promised them - and what it actually delivers which will determine how successful it is. Or is perceived to be.
And that will not be assessed now but in the weeks and months ahead.
Thee will be three levels of assessment:
(1) Does it avoid chaos or anticipated difficulties? (2) Does it impose extra bureaucracy and costs on exporters and who bears those costs? (3) Does it bring benefits for people which the government could not previously have done because the EU prevented it and do those benefits accrue to those who voted for Brexit?
(1) Probably - by comparison with No Deal. (2) Yes - Michael Gove was proudly proclaiming this today. A mixture of exporters and consumers will bear the costs. (3) Who knows. We already had here yesterday people claiming that making it easier for non-EU spouses of British citizens to live here was an advantage of Brexit when in fact the EU did not prevent this at all. I expect more such claims. What other advantages there will be and who benefits remains to be seen.
(3) was a real issue the EU did prevent by displacement.
When we were giving unlimited free movement to 6% of the world's population, no questions asked . . . combined with repeated commitments to try to contain net migration . . . then the only way to contain net migration was to considerably overtighten the screws on the other 93% world's population.
One argument Priti Patel made during the referendum was that it would be easier to loosen immigration controls on the rest of the world if they are tightened with the EU, to keep balance. She has done that since taking office, keeping to her promises made during the referendum.
The EU did not prevent this. It was Britain's decision to limit non-EU migration and Britain's alone. It was Britain's decision to make a promise to limit migration. This is a typical example of Brexiteers trying to blame the EU for something which was entirely in the control of the British government. There was no EU law or requirement which stopped Mrs Sandpit from living in the U.K. with Mr Sandpit. To coin a phrase, the British government had complete control over the domestic laws which prevented this. The government chose not to exercise that control. The excuses they gave them and their supporters are giving now do not change this fact.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
No shared cable cars or transport?
I must have dreamed the super spreader events at ski resorts and then from people coming home then........
Chair lifts and drag lifts in the fresh air. The super spreader events were caused by crowded apres-ski bars with people drinking and shouting and singing. It is not the skiing that is contagious. It is crowded noisy bars. Avoid them like the plague. Actually there're all closed.
Who is this thread writer and what have they done with OGH?
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
Says the notorious Remainer and Covid-tourist.....
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
Says the notorious Remainer and Covid-tourist.....
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
Says the notorious Remainer and Covid-tourist.....
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
Says the notorious Remainer and Covid-tourist.....
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
What happens in the UK is that a political party gets a big majority in the House of Commons and then effectively rules by decree until the next election.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Name one thing I said that was wrong please?
If the MPs want to hold Boris to account they can. If the MPs want to topple Boris they can. If the MPs want to scrutinise legislation they can. If the MPs want to vote down legislation they haven't scrutinised they can. If the MPs want to deny executive power grabs they can.
It is MPs who choose they want Boris to remain PM. It is MPs who voted through the Covid Act that gives vast executive power to the executive. It is MPs who are willing to vote it seems for a deal with hours of debate.
Boris isn't degrading democracy if MPs aren't doing their jobs - the MPs are. And the British people elects the MPs and can replace them accordingly. Just as the MPs could topple Boris if they wished to do so.
The voters don't just get a say on Boris or Corbyn or Starmer they get a say on their MP. If their MP isn't doing a good enough job they can vote on that. If they're happy with the job their MP is doing then they can vote on that.
Who is this thread writer and what have they done with OGH?
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
Any changes to food prices after Brexit are likely to be "very modest indeed" under the deal struck between the UK and the EU, the chairman of Tesco has said.
John Allan told the BBC that it would "hardly be felt in terms of the prices that consumers are paying".
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
I've read the article. She's a dual citizen in a country that does not recognise dual citizenship. As far as Iran is concerned she's Iranian.
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
I was told, quite specifically, when I turned 16 (IIRC) and got a dual nationality setup that
- In the UK, my other nationality doesn't really exist. I can't call on consular services from that country etc. - In the other country, the same - It was an offence to enter the UK under the other countries passport. - It was an offence to enter the other country using my UK passport - Consular access in a 3rd country would be dependent on which passport I used to enter that country.
The official told me that this was because dual nationality is a bit of a legal lashup - that legally, you aren't a dual citizen in either country. You are a citizen of that country. The other bit of paper has no meaning.
My wife is a dual citizen and had the exact same thing.
She was born and bred in South Africa but has UK citizenship from her Scottish father. When she turned 21 she chose to emigrate to the UK. In order to do so she had to sort out her UK passport at the British consulate but also needed her SA passport to get out of the country. They wouldn't let her travel on her British passport. On arrival she used her British passport and was amused to be told "welcome home" when she arrived in the country for the first time ever.
Since then she's only travelled on her British passport and has let her SA one lapse. She has no intention of ever using it again unless she goes to SA.
I'd be careful about keeping a second nationality - there are lots of tax issues.
Some of my American relatives had fun travelling to France after WWII. Before NATO agreements were setup, the French took an especial delight in arresting people born in France (but not having claimed or renounced citizenship) on the grounds they hadn't done their national service.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I ask this question out of curiosity not controversy but how will the SNP react if Orkney and Shetland carry out their threat to claim independence from Scotland if Scotland leaves the RUK
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I think the indignation is not only limited to skiers.
You would have thought people would have have realised by now that she isn't the most .... reliable..... reporter around
I find her highly reliable. If you are ever in doubt about which position to adopt on an issue she gives clear guidance. (better insert 😉 just in case).
Who is this thread writer and what have they done with OGH?
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
Remember to clean up when you've finished.
Bitterness ill becomes you. Oh wait, actually it becomes you perfectly.
Who is this thread writer and what have they done with OGH?
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
Remember to clean up when you've finished.
Bitterness ill becomes you. Oh wait, actually it becomes you perfectly.
That seems a really bad example of how it started ... How it's going.
He's making the same point in both Tweets.
Is he? Doesn't the second tweet suggest that 'atheists' are eradicating "Christmas" from everything. Whereas in the first tweet he's suggesting that's something that's being imagined?
Second tweet is like... "ok you were right, but i had nothing to do with it..."
Um no. What he is pointing out is that no one says those things ( replacing Christmas with holiday) and hence the idea that Christmas is being erased is complete garbage. And he is absolutely right. Even he says Merry Christmas in his tweets.
Good morning Richard. Only three days to go until your emancipation from slavery. You must be very excited.
(Edit: are slaves allowed to have emotions?)
We were already free the day we left the EU on 31st January. This is just about trade deals and as such doesn't hold the excitement.
And yes I was absolutely delighted and celebrated, both when we beat you sad sacks in the referendum and when we formally left the EU.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I think the indignation is not only limited to skiers.
Correct. Whilst their arrogant self entitlement annoys it does no more so than those who thought going to Iberia in the summer was a good idea.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
What happens in the UK is that a political party gets a big majority in the House of Commons and then effectively rules by decree until the next election.
Then why did Thatcher fall?
Why did Blair?
Why did Major get challenged?
Why did May having signed up the DUP fall?
Parliamentary democracy doesn't die between elections it continues each and every day that MPs choose to act, or choose not to do so. We don't have just one MP, Boris, we have 650 elected and how those 650 act is up to them individually and they can justify it however they want to themselves and to their electorate.
If Boris does anything it is because a majority of the 650 let him do it.
I ask this question out of curiosity not controversy but how will the SNP react if Orkney and Shetland carry out their threat to claim independence from Scotland if Scotland leaves the RUK
On topic, yes, the PM and government have done well.
Off topic, the government, and the Foreign Office in particular, have just overturned centuries of precedent, all because Boris Johnson screwed up, I take back all those nice things I said in 2020 about Dominic Raab.
Poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been well and truly fucked over by Boris Johnson once more.
Can't read the whole article but the UK government has been clear for years that it cannot protect dual nationals in their other nationality country. If you want British protection in your other country you have to renounce that country nationality.
The article is not very clear but seems to imply that no British citizen is entitled to help not just those who are dual citizens. If so, what in earth is the value in a British passport?
I've read the article. She's a dual citizen in a country that does not recognise dual citizenship. As far as Iran is concerned she's Iranian.
Dual citizenship can be an advantage - but the big disadvantage is no help from Britain in the country of your other citizenship - and that is something the UK government has been very clear on for years.
I was told, quite specifically, when I turned 16 (IIRC) and got a dual nationality setup that
- In the UK, my other nationality doesn't really exist. I can't call on consular services from that country etc. - In the other country, the same - It was an offence to enter the UK under the other countries passport. - It was an offence to enter the other country using my UK passport - Consular access in a 3rd country would be dependent on which passport I used to enter that country.
The official told me that this was because dual nationality is a bit of a legal lashup - that legally, you aren't a dual citizen in either country. You are a citizen of that country. The other bit of paper has no meaning.
It even says so in your/our passport, that dual citizens cannot receive consular protection in their other country. Why am I not surprised that the Times journalist doesn't know this.
The tweet is simply wrong. More twitter bollocks.
One for the legal types - As part of the above, I was told that the other country wouldn't, while I was on their soil, acknowledge (in a legal sense) my UK citizenship *as existing in any way*. All the way to my UK passport not being a valid document.
The official that spoke to me told me that this was the legal way round problems of allegiance/law......
Is that actually true, or was the Home Office chap in question inventing things?
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
Who is this thread writer and what have they done with OGH?
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
Remember to clean up when you've finished.
Bitterness ill becomes you. Oh wait, actually it becomes you perfectly.
OK. But still remember to clean up when you've finished.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I think the indignation is not only limited to skiers.
Stupid and selfish behaviour is quite common. Perhaps a quarter of the population, including a fair number of Leavers enjoying exercise free winter sun.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
What happens in the UK is that a political party gets a big majority in the House of Commons and then effectively rules by decree until the next election.
Then why did Thatcher fall?
Why did Blair?
Why did Major get challenged?
Why did May having signed up the DUP fall?
Parliamentary democracy doesn't die between elections it continues each and every day that MPs choose to act, or choose not to do so. We don't have just one MP, Boris, we have 650 elected and how those 650 act is up to them individually and they can justify it however they want to themselves and to their electorate.
If Boris does anything it is because a majority of the 650 let him do it.
Inter-party factionalism, mostly, and in at least one of those cases there wasn't a big majority anyway. Normally the executive tells Parliament "frog" and it jumps.
Having said that, I have sometimes wondered what would happen if Parliament showed some spine, like the US Congress. The result, under the May and Johnson minority governments, was certainly unedifying. So I don't know what the answer is.
I ask this question out of curiosity not controversy but how will the SNP react if Orkney and Shetland carry out their threat to claim independence from Scotland if Scotland leaves the RUK
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
They do. As do all nations. So it's a matter of degree. Is our exceptionalism more strongly felt than theirs? Is it a rather exceptional brand of exceptionalism? I think it is. This is why they don't feel EU membership dampens their national identity and prospects whereas we do. We feel boxed in and disrespected. We feel we have enormous potential that EU membership is preventing us from unleashing. We feel SPECIAL. More so than others. A good reference for Brexit imo is the L'Oreal hair advert. Why are we Leaving? Because we're worth it.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
Not quite true, the EU has already signed up for the interim implementation. If the UK parliament says no, the deal is off.
Edit: I may have misinterpreted your sarcasm there. Hah.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Labour seems to be wisely staying out of Erasmus, I personally view it as a shame but it's not a policy on which politics can be moved.
It's time for Labour to articulate a vision of the country outside the EU. I think that starts with properly funding our public services for the work they have done during the pandemic and ensuring things like law and order and the armed forces have the resources they need.
The Tories are silent on it, Labour needs to get to work.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
They do. As do all nations. So it's a matter of degree. Is our exceptionalism more strongly felt than theirs? Is it a rather exceptional brand of exceptionalism? I think it is. This is why they don't feel EU membership dampens their national identity and prospects whereas we do. We feel boxed in and disrespected. We feel we have enormous potential that EU membership is preventing us from unleashing. We feel SPECIAL. More so than others. A good reference for Brexit imo is the L'Oreal hair advert. Why are we Leaving? Because we're worth it.
It may be partly that, but arriving late to the party is an important factor. The EU is shaped by France and Germany far more than the UK. The bit we did shape, the single market, was not widely understood or loved enough for us to value it.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
The problem is the restrictions likely to be in place in the target country. I want to be able to visit bars and restaurants fairly freely, visit museums, attractions and historic sites, use public transport (which is running on reduced services and schedules in many places). Until that happens ai have relatively little appetite to travel.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
Actually it does show the European Parliament is irrelevant if all 27 countries agree a course of action
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
What happens in the UK is that a political party gets a big majority in the House of Commons and then effectively rules by decree until the next election.
Then why did Thatcher fall?
Why did Blair?
Why did Major get challenged?
Why did May having signed up the DUP fall?
Parliamentary democracy doesn't die between elections it continues each and every day that MPs choose to act, or choose not to do so. We don't have just one MP, Boris, we have 650 elected and how those 650 act is up to them individually and they can justify it however they want to themselves and to their electorate.
If Boris does anything it is because a majority of the 650 let him do it.
Inter-party factionalism, mostly, and in at least one of those cases there wasn't a big majority anyway. Normally the executive tells Parliament "frog" and it jumps.
Having said that, I have sometimes wondered what would happen if Parliament showed some spine, like the US Congress. The result, under the May and Johnson minority governments, was certainly unedifying. So I don't know what the answer is.
Parliament normally jumps. Until it doesn't. As Thatcher found out.
Which was my point. If Boris is too Presidential or whatever then it is only because Parliament let's him. As it at that time let Blair and Thatcher, until it didn't. There is nothing new here.
An MP being able to choose to scrutinise the PM, or to be able to choose not to do so, is a story as old as Parliamentary Democracy itself effectively.
@Cyclefree mistakenly seemed to think I was suggesting in 2024 everyone gets the chance to vote on Boris. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2024 everyone gets the chance to vote on their local MP - and your local MP knows that. That is Parliamentary Democracy.
"Mr Locker said he was not aware of any allowance in the trade deal for UK firms to trade fish quotas with EU countries, which is a crucial part of how the industry manages it catch.
He said many fishing firms would go out of business by the end of the transition in 2026, telling the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “We are really, really going to struggle this year.”
The dumb fucks in the government grandstanding about fishing didn't have a clue how the industry works. They have won back the sold stolen quotas and now the fishing folk can keep them. Sorry, what do you mean they want to trade them? They are BRITISH. We won!
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
Actually it does show the European Parliament is irrelevant if all 27 countries agree a course of action
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
They do. As do all nations. So it's a matter of degree. Is our exceptionalism more strongly felt than theirs? Is it a rather exceptional brand of exceptionalism? I think it is. This is why they don't feel EU membership dampens their national identity and prospects whereas we do. We feel boxed in and disrespected. We feel we have enormous potential that EU membership is preventing us from unleashing. We feel SPECIAL. More so than others. A good reference for Brexit imo is the L'Oreal hair advert. Why are we Leaving? Because we're worth it.
Other EU countries also cherished dreams of exceptionalism for centuries; it just so happens that the horrors of the 20th century brought them down to earth in a way that, despite our retreat from empire, never turned out in the same way for Britain. We're always going to be that aged Odysseus, wistful for one more adventure...
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
I agree with all of this. But the exceptionalism you reference in your 1st para also has a strong hold amongst working class leavers. Yes, there was a response to being left out of the globalized knowledge economy, but there was plenty of "We stood alone in 1940, we can do it again. Bring it on!" to add to that.
It's good to see the penny dropping for some pro-Europeans that the optics of their current argument is probably one of the worst yet. As someone who would some day perhaps like us to be back in the EU, this sort of stuff turns me right off, even though I could have potentially benefitted from Erasmus only a few years ago.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
Nobody knows that. You don't seem well enough informed to make decisions about things like skiing trips.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
Actually it does show the European Parliament is irrelevant if all 27 countries agree a course of action
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
EU's 27 member states unanimously approve post Brexit deal
It means the agreement can come into operation on New Year's Day ahead of European Parliament approval in February
And so the page finally turns on Brexit
And the EU Parliament is once again given all the respect it has earned.
The EU Parliament has proven to be remarkably flexible too, considering until so recently we were told none of this approval process could possibly happen until some distant point in 2021.....
I think one of the positive things now that Brexit is done and dusted (almost) is that our politicians no longer have the excuse of hiding behind the EU for saying why they can't do things.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Apply Bayes.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
They do. As do all nations. So it's a matter of degree. Is our exceptionalism more strongly felt than theirs? Is it a rather exceptional brand of exceptionalism? I think it is. This is why they don't feel EU membership dampens their national identity and prospects whereas we do. We feel boxed in and disrespected. We feel we have enormous potential that EU membership is preventing us from unleashing. We feel SPECIAL. More so than others. A good reference for Brexit imo is the L'Oreal hair advert. Why are we Leaving? Because we're worth it.
Exceptionalism? Or just difference? Certainly our legal system is different, apart from possibly Scotland. Maybe we just have different viewpoints on economic issues, political freedom, individualism v corporatism, preference for the Anglophone world, etc. It doesn't make us better, just different.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Apply Bayes.
I'd want it demonstrated that the vaccine prevents transmission before sending vaccinated people around the world spreading it amongst those who aren't lucky enough to already have it. Quite amazing that you can't see that.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
Lol.
Boris couldn’t give a toss about the “swathe of people”, and doesn’t have the ability to deliver for them even if he did. They are “useful idiots” for the ongoing Boris project.
And the “little c*** from Luxembourg” reference is risible. You have clearly read too much Daily Mail.
"With the voters"
That's why at every stage Boris has done what he can to avoid the people's representatives - MPs in Parliament - from having any say or scrutiny.
If the voters are unhappy with that they get a say no later than 2024.
Another example of you not understanding how Parliamentary democracy works.
I do.
Voters vote for MPs.
MPs vote for the Government.
The Government requires MPs votes to change the law.
The MPs can vote down the Government any time it chooses if its unhappy with how the Government is exercising its powers.
At an election if the voters are unhappy with the Government - or unhappy with the MPs who make up and scrutinise the Government - they can vote for new ones.
Democracy in action.
LOL are you telling an expert in the law they don't know what they're talking about, ROFL
It's not just the law @Philip_Thompson does not understand. It's what Parliamentary democracy means. Democracy is not simply having an election every 5 years - with no scrutiny or accountability in the intervening period - though it is a view increasingly pushed by populists. If it were the case, governing by decree with no Parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever, would - so long as there was a vote at the end of it - be a democracy according to such people.
But it isn't and it is not how Parliamentary democracy here has been understood. I'm afraid that those who say - in response to any criticism of the government or breach by it of the law - oh well it doesn't matter because the voters get to vote in 2024 - are not really in their bones democrats and are in fact allowing and approving the degradation of our democracy.
Democracy means different things to different people. To be fair to PT his interpretation is remarkably clear and consistent, but it is also dangerous and ineffective without checks and balances, and frequently at odds with the constraints of the real world. Its a form of democracy, but as you say, not what most of us have understood or grown up with.
What happens in the UK is that a political party gets a big majority in the House of Commons and then effectively rules by decree until the next election.
Then why did Thatcher fall?
Why did Blair?
Why did Major get challenged?
Why did May having signed up the DUP fall?
Parliamentary democracy doesn't die between elections it continues each and every day that MPs choose to act, or choose not to do so. We don't have just one MP, Boris, we have 650 elected and how those 650 act is up to them individually and they can justify it however they want to themselves and to their electorate.
If Boris does anything it is because a majority of the 650 let him do it.
Inter-party factionalism, mostly, and in at least one of those cases there wasn't a big majority anyway. Normally the executive tells Parliament "frog" and it jumps.
Having said that, I have sometimes wondered what would happen if Parliament showed some spine, like the US Congress. The result, under the May and Johnson minority governments, was certainly unedifying. So I don't know what the answer is.
We get the political culture we deserve - if a government loses a vote in the House of Commons... "Shaky government, PM about to fall" etc etc.
One *could* imagine a world where the Executive rocks up at the Commons, gets voted against and says "Well, I guess we we will have to make a change". But we are a long way from here.
Mind you, training the press out of that mentality would be interesting....
When the Cameron Direct thing happened, I talked to a journalist about it. For those who don't remember, this was a series of events where Cameron (as leader of the opposition) would go to a factory or hospital, and meet a bunch of the staff, on camera, in a question and answer format. Interestingly, there was no attempt to control the questions or the attendance.
The BBC refused to show them. Partly because it was held to give an unfair advantage against Gordon Brown - who couldn't do the format. But the reasons given by my journalist friend were interesting. Apparently, having looked at the example tapes
- Bad television - Not enough aggressive questions - people, are on average polite. So instead of shouting and anger, they tend to ask a question that is pertinent to them. - Giving up control of the program
Apparently the only way that it would be acceptable would be if
- Sufficient numbers of anti-conservative activists could be added to the audience group - Sufficiently aggressive questions scripted - to be controlled by the producers.
Essentially, unless it was a yay-boo bunfight they controlled, it wasn't acceptable.
What was interesting was the lack of any understanding that she was talking about putting a thumb in the scale - enlarging on, and promoting politics as a showing match.
I think one of the positive things now that Brexit is done and dusted (almost) is that our politicians no longer have the excuse of hiding behind the EU for saying why they can't do things.
The interesting thing for me now is the electoral coalitions of the parties.
Labour and the Tories basically have 40% each, which at least recently is quite rare. I wonder post-Brexit whether we see a fracturing, or less people voting now Brexit is done? Or will people brought into politics by Brexit continue to vote and/or will it entice more people in?
These are all questions I cannot answer but I do find it interesting.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
Brexit was fathered by nostalgic Tories who saw Britain as a global power unfairly shackled to a “sclerotic” Franco-German hegemon. This was - to their way of thinking - a break on natural British competitiveness *and* unseemly for a country of Britain’s exceptionalism.
This mindset - grossly out of date by 2016, if it was ever true - always had a latent hold on suburban and provincial Tory thinking, hence even places like Surrey voting 48% Leave.
But that alone was insufficient to win Brexit.
The other part of the story is 25 years of a globalised economic order (willingly embraced by both Tories and Labour) which has seen clear benefits to London, and the abandonment of much of the rest of the country.
Large scale emigration - effectively part of the same story - from about 2000 - created the “casus bellum” for the man on the Boston omnibus.
In this analysis, interestingly, Boris is not a true Brexiter, just an opportunist who knows his audience.
Boris is a guy who has delivered on listening to a voice of a swathe of people in this country, a swathe who had grown accustomed to that voice being ignored. Those people didn't have many expectations of Brexit making their life a whole lot better. But continually seeing the UK belittled by little c**ts from Luxembourg made their blood boil. We are better than that, they believe.
And they will be thankful to Boris for listening to them - and delivering. He is the first in a very long time to have done so. He has respected where the power lies in this country: with the voters.
See here for the exact thing I'm saying but in Leaver language.
I think one of the positive things now that Brexit is done and dusted (almost) is that our politicians no longer have the excuse of hiding behind the EU for saying why they can't do things.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I think the indignation is not only limited to skiers.
Stupid and selfish behaviour is quite common. Perhaps a quarter of the population, including a fair number of Leavers enjoying exercise free winter sun.
Of course, you are right that irresponsible behaviour is not confined to the skiers, though the latter have been very conspicuous in their bad behaviour.
Given your earlier comments on the Daily Markle, I was a bit disappointed to find you linking to it for "evidence". 😀The video has faces blocked out, but it does look like a young person's party -- and what are we always told about age and Remain/Leave?
For the avoidance of doubt, anyone flouting regulations (Leaver or Remainer) should be fined heavily.
We know the addresses of the skiers in Verbier from their hotel bookings. They can be followed up & fined & told to quarantine in the UK. Henceforth, they are confined to their mansions in the LibDem strongholds in Twickenham & Barnes for a few weeks.
And as a man of science, I note that you haven't commented on Wera and her support for the 5G conspiracy whack-jobs?
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Nope - busy getting ready to go out for a walk on the beach in the glorious sunshine here
Any changes to food prices after Brexit are likely to be "very modest indeed" under the deal struck between the UK and the EU, the chairman of Tesco has said.
John Allan told the BBC that it would "hardly be felt in terms of the prices that consumers are paying".
Yet again those with BDS have overplayed their hand with their predictions of food shortages and food price rises.
I commented on this yesterday. Its a smart play from Tesco considering the perilous state of the cost price negotiations with blue chip manufacturers. This way they get to blame the likes of Coke and Unilever for the price increases which will be "completely unjustified" and when their products start to disappear from Tesco shelves as the manufacturer has put them on stop it won't be Tesco's fault.
Price rises are absolutely coming - not as steep as they would have been through the imposition of tariffs. Shortages were going to be made worse by no deal but the inevitable queues at the border really won't help on fresh food which was always the issue.
It's good to see the penny dropping for some pro-Europeans that the optics of their current argument is probably one of the worst yet. As someone who would some day perhaps like us to be back in the EU, this sort of stuff turns me right off, even as someone who could have potentially benefitted from Erasmus only a few years ago.
It is only twitter and social media that would lead anyone to believe that lots of remainers are discussing erasmus, they never were. Plenty of university academics, maybe people who have used the scheme are discussing it.
Social media then gives the impression that remainers as a whole, are obsessed with it.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
The smilie was the giveaway - shame you missed it in your eagerness to be rude. It's just as well you choose not to indulge in any unfounded assumptions about our MPs in your very measured comment. Oh..wait...
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
Oh, and Erasmus isn't a gap year! I spent a year studying physics in German, and it was one of the most academically challenging years of my life. The exams I took during my Erasmus year counted towards my final degree.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
The European Parliament can look at it as much as it wants but not even the Brussels media correspondents are suggesting anything other than this will pass their Parliament
You do not like Brexit , you do not want Brexit, and that is your long held position but on the 1st January 2021 the UK will be outside of the EU and an independent state
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
Whilst I actually agree that we should give Parliament time for proper assessment and debate and also that they should have the final - informed - say, I cannot help but remember that arch Europhile Ken Clarke boasted that he passed the Maastricht Treaty without even having bothered to read it.
Comments
https://twitter.com/michaeljmarra/status/1343219131630432257?s=20
And just for @TSE ‘s diversion:
https://twitter.com/leonardbenardo1/status/1343209549310922752
But it is the subject of skiing that seems to get people's blood boiling (Rockall). That amuses me and I just speculate on why.
She was born and bred in South Africa but has UK citizenship from her Scottish father. When she turned 21 she chose to emigrate to the UK. In order to do so she had to sort out her UK passport at the British consulate but also needed her SA passport to get out of the country. They wouldn't let her travel on her British passport. On arrival she used her British passport and was amused to be told "welcome home" when she arrived in the country for the first time ever.
Since then she's only travelled on her British passport and has let her SA one lapse. She has no intention of ever using it again unless she goes to SA.
The vaccines are not known to stop transmission.
There are younger front line staff who are not getting the vaccine. They are risking their lives.
And there are elderly skiers bragging about getting the vaccine early so they can behave irresponsibly.
The super spreader events were caused by crowded apres-ski bars with people drinking and shouting and singing. It is not the skiing that is contagious. It is crowded noisy bars. Avoid them like the plague. Actually there're all closed.
Has Rishi got any plans for the recovery beyond hoping the public go out and just spend money?
Maybe I'm unique but I've cut out a lot of stuff during COVID and a lot of it I am not intending to take it up again
Seriously, it's a pleasure to occasionally read something positive, and it speaks to Boris' character as a man and as Prime Minister. Occasionally hit-and-miss on mundane details, his genius lies in making the big calls and cutting Gordian knots.
While others tried to bind him in inextricable legalese, he exerted himself Samson-like to bring the whole temple down upon them and win a landslide.
While others were debating whether Dom Cummings driving to Durham was worse than Hitler's invasion of Poland, Boris was ordering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines that are the only real way out of the pandemic.
While some either wanted him to extend the trade talks (likely indefinitely) and others wanted him to blow them up entirely, Boris landed a solid agreement and got Brexit done exactly as he promised, despite the pandemic, despite nearly dying, despite everything.
And that's just his first 18 months in office. No doubt he will continue to be underestimated for the remainder of his tenure.
I was so tempted to report the pub but it would possibly have cost the person who told me their job
If the MPs want to hold Boris to account they can.
If the MPs want to topple Boris they can.
If the MPs want to scrutinise legislation they can.
If the MPs want to vote down legislation they haven't scrutinised they can.
If the MPs want to deny executive power grabs they can.
It is MPs who choose they want Boris to remain PM.
It is MPs who voted through the Covid Act that gives vast executive power to the executive.
It is MPs who are willing to vote it seems for a deal with hours of debate.
Boris isn't degrading democracy if MPs aren't doing their jobs - the MPs are. And the British people elects the MPs and can replace them accordingly. Just as the MPs could topple Boris if they wished to do so.
The voters don't just get a say on Boris or Corbyn or Starmer they get a say on their MP. If their MP isn't doing a good enough job they can vote on that. If they're happy with the job their MP is doing then they can vote on that.
EU's 27 member states unanimously approve post Brexit deal
It means the agreement can come into operation on New Year's Day ahead of European Parliament approval in February
And so the page finally turns on Brexit
Some of my American relatives had fun travelling to France after WWII. Before NATO agreements were setup, the French took an especial delight in arresting people born in France (but not having claimed or renounced citizenship) on the grounds they hadn't done their national service.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
And yes I was absolutely delighted and celebrated, both when we beat you sad sacks in the referendum and when we formally left the EU.
Why did Blair?
Why did Major get challenged?
Why did May having signed up the DUP fall?
Parliamentary democracy doesn't die between elections it continues each and every day that MPs choose to act, or choose not to do so. We don't have just one MP, Boris, we have 650 elected and how those 650 act is up to them individually and they can justify it however they want to themselves and to their electorate.
If Boris does anything it is because a majority of the 650 let him do it.
The official that spoke to me told me that this was the legal way round problems of allegiance/law......
Is that actually true, or was the Home Office chap in question inventing things?
Seems like clutching at straws to me
Take this December party in Leicester:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9078755/Moment-police-raid-party-flat-Leicester-packed-60-people-hosts-fined-10-000.html
Having said that, I have sometimes wondered what would happen if Parliament showed some spine, like the US Congress. The result, under the May and Johnson minority governments, was certainly unedifying. So I don't know what the answer is.
Edit: I may have misinterpreted your sarcasm there. Hah.
Guernsey, yesterday, also voted to ask the UK to consent on its behalf.
I guess that just leaves the LibDems (who he? - ed.) and
#NoDealNicola
I wonder what the members of the EU will think about the SNP voting against the deal and for no deal?
Not terribly Communautaire....
I'm sure that skiers aren't all arrogant twits, but as a cohort they seem to try their best to give the impression that they are.
It's time for Labour to articulate a vision of the country outside the EU. I think that starts with properly funding our public services for the work they have done during the pandemic and ensuring things like law and order and the armed forces have the resources they need.
The Tories are silent on it, Labour needs to get to work.
Which was my point. If Boris is too Presidential or whatever then it is only because Parliament let's him. As it at that time let Blair and Thatcher, until it didn't. There is nothing new here.
An MP being able to choose to scrutinise the PM, or to be able to choose not to do so, is a story as old as Parliamentary Democracy itself effectively.
@Cyclefree mistakenly seemed to think I was suggesting in 2024 everyone gets the chance to vote on Boris. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2024 everyone gets the chance to vote on their local MP - and your local MP knows that. That is Parliamentary Democracy.
He said many fishing firms would go out of business by the end of the transition in 2026, telling the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “We are really, really going to struggle this year.”
The dumb fucks in the government grandstanding about fishing didn't have a clue how the industry works. They have won back the
soldstolen quotas and now the fishing folk can keep them. Sorry, what do you mean they want to trade them? They are BRITISH. We won!Bloody remoaning fishermen.
People with absolubtely no shame
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
Apply Bayes.
One *could* imagine a world where the Executive rocks up at the Commons, gets voted against and says "Well, I guess we we will have to make a change". But we are a long way from here.
Mind you, training the press out of that mentality would be interesting....
When the Cameron Direct thing happened, I talked to a journalist about it. For those who don't remember, this was a series of events where Cameron (as leader of the opposition) would go to a factory or hospital, and meet a bunch of the staff, on camera, in a question and answer format. Interestingly, there was no attempt to control the questions or the attendance.
The BBC refused to show them. Partly because it was held to give an unfair advantage against Gordon Brown - who couldn't do the format. But the reasons given by my journalist friend were interesting. Apparently, having looked at the example tapes
- Bad television
- Not enough aggressive questions - people, are on average polite. So instead of shouting and anger, they tend to ask a question that is pertinent to them.
- Giving up control of the program
Apparently the only way that it would be acceptable would be if
- Sufficient numbers of anti-conservative activists could be added to the audience group
- Sufficiently aggressive questions scripted - to be controlled by the producers.
Essentially, unless it was a yay-boo bunfight they controlled, it wasn't acceptable.
What was interesting was the lack of any understanding that she was talking about putting a thumb in the scale - enlarging on, and promoting politics as a showing match.
Labour and the Tories basically have 40% each, which at least recently is quite rare. I wonder post-Brexit whether we see a fracturing, or less people voting now Brexit is done? Or will people brought into politics by Brexit continue to vote and/or will it entice more people in?
These are all questions I cannot answer but I do find it interesting.
Given your earlier comments on the Daily Markle, I was a bit disappointed to find you linking to it for "evidence". 😀The video has faces blocked out, but it does look like a young person's party -- and what are we always told about age and Remain/Leave?
For the avoidance of doubt, anyone flouting regulations (Leaver or Remainer) should be fined heavily.
We know the addresses of the skiers in Verbier from their hotel bookings. They can be followed up & fined & told to quarantine in the UK. Henceforth, they are confined to their mansions in the LibDem strongholds in Twickenham & Barnes for a few weeks.
And as a man of science, I note that you haven't commented on Wera and her support for the 5G conspiracy whack-jobs?
Have a nice day all.
Price rises are absolutely coming - not as steep as they would have been through the imposition of tariffs. Shortages were going to be made worse by no deal but the inevitable queues at the border really won't help on fresh food which was always the issue.
Social media then gives the impression that remainers as a whole, are obsessed with it.
Oh, and Erasmus isn't a gap year! I spent a year studying physics in German, and it was one of the most academically challenging years of my life. The exams I took during my Erasmus year counted towards my final degree.
You do not like Brexit , you do not want Brexit, and that is your long held position but on the 1st January 2021 the UK will be outside of the EU and an independent state