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IN (FEINT) PRAISE OF URSULA VON DER LEYEN – politicalbetting.com

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  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    Fascinating
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    I've been avoiding even looking at Toby Young's Lockdown Sceptics site due to being so annoyed by the misinformation he spews, but as he's hit a new low, some of the people I do follow have been incensed by his latest crap:

    https://twitter.com/RichardJaEvans/status/1361610860788150274

    That's right - Toby's now doing the "I'm only asking the question" crap while implying that the covid vaccine kills.
    (And repeating the lie that they weren't tested on the old and vulnerable)

    For clarity, he's showing a graph of covid infections surging up.
    Then, about twenty days afterwards, covid deaths surging up.
    Then, a few days AFTER that, vaccination doses increasing.
    (You can see the blue line (infections), orange line (deaths) and THEN green line (vaccinations)

    My word. What a surprise. Covid deaths rising about twenty days after infection rising. Anyone would think that the link was here, and that there was a lag of about twenty days between infection and death.




    Meanwhile, apparently there are "concerns" that vaccinations are having an effect backwards in time, causing side effects that somehow ripple through the space-time continuum and kill people a few days earlier.

    I mean, it would be laughable if it wasn't so stupid and dangerous - pandering to antivaxxers right now as we're trying to emerge from a pandemic. Yes, I get that antivaxxers must be a big chunk of Young's Lockdown Sceptic audience, but I didn't realise his morals were so far gone.

    There are Lockdown Skeptics who have avoided denialism and outright mendacity but I'm afraid they are comfortably outnumbered by those who have not.
    Funny. isn;t it,. how Toby Young is pilloried for asking a question, when certain figures in the BAME community receive no direct criticism whatever for far more serious anti-vaccination propaganda in their communities.

    Is it Toby's finest hour? absolutely not. But surely, lets have some balance.
    You talk as if Toby has had a finest hour.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    DavidL said:

    Spain. Oof. That's horrendous.

    Did we not grow in Q4? No one else seems to have done so. We certainly won't in Q1, may even be Spain like.
    For the year as a whole, the UK would rank next to Spain.

    Different trajectories though.
    We are going to fall down another whole flight of stairs in Q1 but will hopefully recover quite fast thereafter. I expect us to be +ve over the year but probably not by enough to make good last year.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    Perhaps a case of "looking for friends in all the wrong places".
    Starmer still has a net positive rating in London and the North and with Labour voters and Remainers on that chart.

    His worst ratings though come with Leavers, Tories, Pensioners and people living in the Midlands.
    So, only behind with the folk he needs to win over.....
    As he still has a positive rating in the North he could win back a number of Red Wall seats there to be fair to him
    Mandelson is unfortunately popular neither in the North or South. Judging by the reaction, I fear that bringing him back could be a second mis-step by Starmer of the last few months after appearing to fully endorse the Brexit deal. To urban liberals, he represents unaccountable capitalist rather than either social democratic or socialist power, and to Red Wallers general metropolitan privilege, machiavellianism, snobbery and the dominance of a middle class sneering at Old Labour. He may have a couple of useful tips in among the dated ones to though , ofcourse.

    He's got plenty of time to go yet, and had a great year last year, but Starmer needs to considerably up his game. Increasing negative Brexit stories once lockdown is over should help him a bit in that work.
    To be fair to Starmer the latest poll has a 2% Tory lead ie back to 2017 and hung parliament territory

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1361407903069073408?s=20
    You are scrupulously fair.

    If it wasn't for your hawkish military interventionism, I might break the habit of a lifetime and vote Conservative were you my candidate.

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    Kirstie Williams attempted to adjust school holidays in Wales last Summer to take account of lockdown easing. The teaching unions were apoplectic with rage and she backed down.

    I am not a union basher, but even I thought that was outrageous.
    Oh, I'm sure the unions would be apoplectic with rage. They usually are when there's any suggestion that they might look to the interests of the children they teach.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    My goodness, you actually got something right for once. Well done!

    When's Donald Trump's inauguration, by the way? I want to make sure I don't miss it.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    kinabalu said:

    I've been avoiding even looking at Toby Young's Lockdown Sceptics site due to being so annoyed by the misinformation he spews, but as he's hit a new low, some of the people I do follow have been incensed by his latest crap:

    https://twitter.com/RichardJaEvans/status/1361610860788150274

    That's right - Toby's now doing the "I'm only asking the question" crap while implying that the covid vaccine kills.
    (And repeating the lie that they weren't tested on the old and vulnerable)

    For clarity, he's showing a graph of covid infections surging up.
    Then, about twenty days afterwards, covid deaths surging up.
    Then, a few days AFTER that, vaccination doses increasing.
    (You can see the blue line (infections), orange line (deaths) and THEN green line (vaccinations)

    My word. What a surprise. Covid deaths rising about twenty days after infection rising. Anyone would think that the link was here, and that there was a lag of about twenty days between infection and death.




    Meanwhile, apparently there are "concerns" that vaccinations are having an effect backwards in time, causing side effects that somehow ripple through the space-time continuum and kill people a few days earlier.

    I mean, it would be laughable if it wasn't so stupid and dangerous - pandering to antivaxxers right now as we're trying to emerge from a pandemic. Yes, I get that antivaxxers must be a big chunk of Young's Lockdown Sceptic audience, but I didn't realise his morals were so far gone.

    There are Lockdown Skeptics who have avoided denialism and outright mendacity but I'm afraid they are comfortably outnumbered by those who have not.
    Funny. isn;t it,. how Toby Young is pilloried for asking a question, when certain figures in the BAME community receive no direct criticism whatever for far more serious anti-vaccination propaganda in their communities.

    Is it Toby's finest hour? absolutely not. But surely, lets have some balance.
    Without Googling it, name such a "certain figure" in the BAME commnity.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2021

    kinabalu said:

    I've been avoiding even looking at Toby Young's Lockdown Sceptics site due to being so annoyed by the misinformation he spews, but as he's hit a new low, some of the people I do follow have been incensed by his latest crap:

    https://twitter.com/RichardJaEvans/status/1361610860788150274

    That's right - Toby's now doing the "I'm only asking the question" crap while implying that the covid vaccine kills.
    (And repeating the lie that they weren't tested on the old and vulnerable)

    For clarity, he's showing a graph of covid infections surging up.
    Then, about twenty days afterwards, covid deaths surging up.
    Then, a few days AFTER that, vaccination doses increasing.
    (You can see the blue line (infections), orange line (deaths) and THEN green line (vaccinations)

    My word. What a surprise. Covid deaths rising about twenty days after infection rising. Anyone would think that the link was here, and that there was a lag of about twenty days between infection and death.




    Meanwhile, apparently there are "concerns" that vaccinations are having an effect backwards in time, causing side effects that somehow ripple through the space-time continuum and kill people a few days earlier.

    I mean, it would be laughable if it wasn't so stupid and dangerous - pandering to antivaxxers right now as we're trying to emerge from a pandemic. Yes, I get that antivaxxers must be a big chunk of Young's Lockdown Sceptic audience, but I didn't realise his morals were so far gone.

    There are Lockdown Skeptics who have avoided denialism and outright mendacity but I'm afraid they are comfortably outnumbered by those who have not.
    Funny. isn;t it,. how Toby Young is pilloried for asking a question, when certain figures in the BAME community receive no direct criticism whatever for far more serious anti-vaccination propaganda in their communities.

    Is it Toby's finest hour? absolutely not. But surely, lets have some balance.
    Anyone, and everyone, peddling bollocks about vaccines needs to be called out.
  • As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    Is it ok for those who were indifferent at the time to still be indifferent? Take it as read that it's a no to a carpaccio of your soiled shorts also.

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    My goodness, you actually got something right for once. Well done!

    When's Donald Trump's inauguration, by the way? I want to make sure I don't miss it.
    January 20th, 2025.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853

    More in hope than expectation I've just booked ferries to and from N. Uist in June-July. There's a questionnaire asking for various details, one q being 'Which terms do you think best describe you?' One of the options is 'Digital Detox Seeker'.

    Now thinking of cancelling altogether, the thought of bumping into a digital detox seeker is just too much.

    I'd have thought the line of camper vans would be more off-putting. I remember having the whole of Balranald to ourselves 20 years ago (no visitor centre then) but I doubt that would be possible now. Corncrakes are noisy beggars though.

    I also remember spending an entire day pedalling into driving rain and a gale force northerly in an attempt to get to the Harris ferry. In mid June. Bottom gear all the way across the island. I'm sure Dura Ace would still have done 20mph but 5mph felt like quite an achievement at the time.

    I'm not quite sure when summer actually occurs.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    I've been avoiding even looking at Toby Young's Lockdown Sceptics site due to being so annoyed by the misinformation he spews, but as he's hit a new low, some of the people I do follow have been incensed by his latest crap:

    https://twitter.com/RichardJaEvans/status/1361610860788150274

    That's right - Toby's now doing the "I'm only asking the question" crap while implying that the covid vaccine kills.
    (And repeating the lie that they weren't tested on the old and vulnerable)

    For clarity, he's showing a graph of covid infections surging up.
    Then, about twenty days afterwards, covid deaths surging up.
    Then, a few days AFTER that, vaccination doses increasing.
    (You can see the blue line (infections), orange line (deaths) and THEN green line (vaccinations)

    My word. What a surprise. Covid deaths rising about twenty days after infection rising. Anyone would think that the link was here, and that there was a lag of about twenty days between infection and death.




    Meanwhile, apparently there are "concerns" that vaccinations are having an effect backwards in time, causing side effects that somehow ripple through the space-time continuum and kill people a few days earlier.

    I mean, it would be laughable if it wasn't so stupid and dangerous - pandering to antivaxxers right now as we're trying to emerge from a pandemic. Yes, I get that antivaxxers must be a big chunk of Young's Lockdown Sceptic audience, but I didn't realise his morals were so far gone.

    There are Lockdown Skeptics who have avoided denialism and outright mendacity but I'm afraid they are comfortably outnumbered by those who have not.
    I am sceptical in a general sense whether it was necessary or desirable to use the law to regulate who can enter my private home, as opposed to issuing stern advice and asking that everyone follows it - but in the face of outright denialism I choose not to talk about it, because the risks from denialism are too high.
    Yes, ditto. I'd have been fine with an 'all guidance zero law' approach to personal behaviour and household mixing.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    Is it ok for those who were indifferent at the time to still be indifferent? Take it as read that it's a no to a carpaccio of your soiled shorts also.
    The question is why has he soiled his shorts.

    If you want to gamble recklessly, you should have good bowel control.
  • As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited February 2021

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    As a means of exchange it makes no sense (other coins have better designs for that purpose).

    As a storage of wealth it equally makes no sense (heck fancy colour tulips at least looked pretty).

    So at no point once it moved beyond beer territory has it made any sense to purchase as I can't see any purpose in it beyond - it is there.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    I don't recall taking the piss out of you on that (though perhaps I'm not a usual suspect), and I don't see why one would have to be a conspiracy theorist to see some utility in it.

    There's also a positive feedback loop, where its increasing value gives it increasing credibility as a store of value.
  • Sandpit said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Sandpit said:

    New “Nigerian Strain”?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265045/UK-spots-33-cases-Covid-variant.html

    “Another coronavirus variant that could dodge vaccine-triggered immunity has been identified in the UK, scientists say.

    “The strain — called B.1.525 — has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be a huge underestimate. It shares the E484K mutation found on both the South African and Brazilian variants, which make the current crop of jabs slightly less effective.

    “The variant also carries the Q677H mutation on its crucial spike protein, prompting warnings from scientists that this could make it even more resistant to vaccines. And there are some similarities to the Kent strain, which studies show is up to 70 per cent more infectious.”

    CLOSE THE BORDER....
    This is going to be great ideological divide of the next year or two isn’t it. Close the border and even with a thorough vaccination programme, you risk becoming Melbourne. Snap lockdowns upon even a single case. The insidious impact on the nation’s psychology and economy then can’t abate, as you will forever be wondering when Timbuktu Covid will bring life suddenly crashing to a halt.

    Conversely, you let life and travel go on, noting how many British families are internationally distributed. And you do careful monitoring and sequencing of variants circulating both at home and in the wider world. And stand ready to produce and deliver 15 million tweaked mrna doses in a month if you get sufficiently concerned. All while letting life go on and accepting that some winters the numbers will be worse than others.

    I think in 2-3 years time there won't be much to be worried about. There will a solid infrastructure in place for production and distribution of quickly updated vaccines and I am sure a good treatment protocol (hopefully with a load of effective drugs) should you fall ill. Many oldies will still die, like they currently do with other respiratory illnesses, but I would hope they have it down such that we are way way below the 1% fatality rate.

    Its how to get from here to there...
    The big new UK plant claims to be able to produce enough doses for every adult in 4 months. Which means groups 1-4 in a month. I don’t know how long it will take to spool up production but if this is true, it’s not clear to me why we would ever need another lockdown or locked borders again for covid-19 once we lift things in the spring.

    Other than an extreme application of the precautionary principle of course.

    If case numbers keep falling, we are probably only a couple of months from most restrictions being lifted, apart from the international quarantine. It will happen once there’s no longer massive queues for first doses of the vaccine.

    The big danger is the schools. If they can be open for a month without a big spike, then we’re good to go. The vast majority of parents are still not vaccinated.

    The quarantine isn’t being lifted until case numbers and vaccination rates catch up elsewhere, plan on domestic holidays this year.
    Schools will be fine. We're past the point of no return for schools. They're opening and it will be ok.

    8 March when schools will reopen all vaccines from priority groups 1-4 will be "live". Plus they're only opening for three weeks then close again for a few more.

    12 April schools reopen after Easter. That means anyone who was vaccinated by 22/3 will already have their vaccines "live". That will be the majority of groups 5-9 for their first and much of 1-4 for their second.
    Why on earth are we planning to reopen schools on 8th March and then close them again for Easter? Given how far behind most/many pupils are, it seems odd to me. Maybe cut the Easter break to just a few days?
    The schools may be shut to pupils going in, but teachers are still working from home (and speaking from personal experience it is harder to teach from home than it is in school, or at least it is if you want to be an effective teacher). If you want to cut the holidays then you would have the problem of finding teachers to staff the schools.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Has this been posted? If you use the same polling methodology, 'No' has retaken the lead from 'Yes' in indyref polling in Feb.

    Weighting has been changed to take into account self-reported likelihood of voting. Which essentially means enthusiasm counts for more. Like for like, No has taken the lead.

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1361596089850290186

    Interesting. I think that it is very close at the moment and all to play for. My guess is that there might be a majority for Indyref2 but not for Yes.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    I would have expected the antibody findings for the over-80s to have risen by more than from 26% to 41%, given that they were mostly vaccinated weeks back. A change in just a fifth of those who didn’t already have antibodies seems very modest.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Thanks for the header, Philip. In 1985, I went on a young European diplomats course in Brussels to learn more about the various parts of the EEC as it transitioned, under l'Acte Unique, into the EU with a Single Market. The main topic of conversation outside the lectures was the 'democratic deficit' across the system. Plus ca change ...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Someone earlier was complaining of having nothing left to entertain them.
    A modest suggestion for an afternoon's fun (the thread contains a link to the app).
    https://twitter.com/profannieoakley/status/1357768408671027202
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited February 2021
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    What happened in the second week of January?


  • DavidL said:

    Has this been posted? If you use the same polling methodology, 'No' has retaken the lead from 'Yes' in indyref polling in Feb.

    Weighting has been changed to take into account self-reported likelihood of voting. Which essentially means enthusiasm counts for more. Like for like, No has taken the lead.

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1361596089850290186

    Interesting. I think that it is very close at the moment and all to play for. My guess is that there might be a majority for Indyref2 but not for Yes.
    I have thought that for a long time
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited February 2021

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    yeh but actively recommending punters back the dems in North Carolina, Florida and Texas is fine...
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    DavidL said:

    Has this been posted? If you use the same polling methodology, 'No' has retaken the lead from 'Yes' in indyref polling in Feb.

    Weighting has been changed to take into account self-reported likelihood of voting. Which essentially means enthusiasm counts for more. Like for like, No has taken the lead.

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1361596089850290186

    Interesting. I think that it is very close at the moment and all to play for. My guess is that there might be a majority for Indyref2 but not for Yes.
    I have thought that for a long time
    I think the logic is,

    “We are Scotland, *we* should decide if and when we vote” - hence support for a poll or the right to have a poll is higher than actual support for independence.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    The more pertinent question is probably what happened in the last two weeks of December?

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Doing it suddenly would be pretty much impossible. If the DfE announced this week that the holidays were going to be moved forward by two weeks (so that Easter was at the end rather than at the beginning) with enough time to prepare that might be workable, but don't forget that teachers may well have other plans already made for the Easter holidays, making them unavailable to teach.
    What some people seem to forget is that teacher's are still working at the moment, planning lessons, setting and marking work, and in many cases teaching live lessons. This is actually harder than doing this in school, so being asked to give up our holidays as well would not go down well.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?
    I don't see why that would result in cases starting to fall simultaneously accross four continents.
  • 'We do love pain a little bit' - Alistair Brownlee and Lucy Charles-Barclay pushing Ironman to the limit - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/triathlon/56071918

    They are obviously going to use pacing / drafting, but still....i feel like i need a lie down just thinking about somebody doing this.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    DavidL said:

    Has this been posted? If you use the same polling methodology, 'No' has retaken the lead from 'Yes' in indyref polling in Feb.

    Weighting has been changed to take into account self-reported likelihood of voting. Which essentially means enthusiasm counts for more. Like for like, No has taken the lead.

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1361596089850290186

    Interesting. I think that it is very close at the moment and all to play for. My guess is that there might be a majority for Indyref2 but not for Yes.
    An independent Scotland is more unicorns grazing sunny Uplands.

    Maybe HYUFD's hostile invasion will see unicorn cavalry casualties.

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?
    I don't see why that would result in cases starting to fall simultaneously accross four continents.
    A fair point. Cancelled Christmas didn't really happen in the Middle and Far East did it?
  • As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    yeh but actively recommending punters back the dems in North Carolina, Florida and Texas is fine...
    Depends on the odds, doesn't it?

    I recall seeing some decent value in NC and Texas; Florida less so, but at the right odds I'd have dabbled in any of them.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited February 2021


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Doing it suddenly would be pretty much impossible. If the DfE announced this week that the holidays were going to be moved forward by two weeks (so that Easter was at the end rather than at the beginning) with enough time to prepare that might be workable, but don't forget that teachers may well have other plans already made for the Easter holidays, making them unavailable to teach.
    What some people seem to forget is that teacher's are still working at the moment, planning lessons, setting and marking work, and in many cases teaching live lessons. This is actually harder than doing this in school, so being asked to give up our holidays as well would not go down well.
    Apologies for the stray apostrophe...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2021

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?
    I don't see why that would result in cases starting to fall simultaneously accross four continents.
    A fair point. Cancelled Christmas didn't really happen in the Middle and Far East did it?
    Christmas is very much a thing in a lot of the Middle East. Especially places where western tourists congregate for winter sun.

  • What's wrong with politics in a nutshell.

    https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/1361510807620706304
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,285
    edited February 2021
    Toby Young isnt an anti-vaxxer. Hes very much in favour of it as I understand it. Theres a difference between anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Sandpit said:

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    The more pertinent question is probably what happened in the last two weeks of December?
    A fair point - but the sharp downslope after that peak (save in South America where things have got wobbly these last few days) has lasted a month.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited February 2021

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    A zero coupon perpetual (quasi) bond requiring large amounts of resource to manage, open to accident, error and manipulation, and whose main utility is to speculators and criminals. Nevertheless you can make a packet if you jump on as it bubbles up and jump off before it pops.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    yeh but actively recommending punters back the dems in North Carolina, Florida and Texas is fine...
    So you're equating Bitcoin with straightforward gambling ?
    Volatile it might be, but I'd disagree with that view.

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    On the contrary, these are excellent first steps in dispelling the chilling effect of wokeism in our institutions. The preservation of liberty is what a Conservative government was born to do.

    Under the plans, universities would be legally required to actively promote free speech and the OfS would have the power to impose fines on institutions if they breach this condition.

    This would also extend to student unions, which would have to ensure that lawful free speech is secured for members and visiting speakers.

    Individuals would be able to seek compensation through the courts if they suffered loss from a breach of the free speech duties - like being expelled, dismissed or demoted - under a new legal measure.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,093

    kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    No there isn't.

    Allowing gammons to speak at university and forcing students to listen to them are two entirely different propositions.

    The NUS has had a disgraceful anti-free speech attitude for decades.
    Not sure what Unis and SUs would be worried about here.

    They are quite at home with laws promoting diversity. So what is wrong with promoting diversity of opinion.

  • For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    Are you asking NHS staff to work way more than their contracted hours?
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    MattW said:

    kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    No there isn't.

    Allowing gammons to speak at university and forcing students to listen to them are two entirely different propositions.

    The NUS has had a disgraceful anti-free speech attitude for decades.
    Not sure what Unis and SUs would be worried about here.

    They are quite at home with laws promoting diversity. So what is wrong with promoting diversity of opinion.
    That's the kind they can't stand.
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    edited February 2021
    Mr. B, bardcore is a pretty cool genre. Edited extra bit: the tapestry reminded me of it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1aVmjvYTI

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ3MMmlNE7k
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    edited February 2021
    Sandpit said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?
    I don't see why that would result in cases starting to fall simultaneously accross four continents.
    A fair point. Cancelled Christmas didn't really happen in the Middle and Far East did it?
    Christmas is very much a thing in a lot of the Middle East. Especially places where western tourists congregate for winter sun.

    TBF I didn't include Asia, which would include the UAE obvs, in the graph I posted. Now corrected but you'll see that it doesn't really effect the perception of a simultanious and sustained (save in South America) drop in cases on 4 different continents beginning on about 11-13 January.

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    And yet recent events show that what the UK does is very much on their minds.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Nigelb said:

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    yeh but actively recommending punters back the dems in North Carolina, Florida and Texas is fine...
    So you're equating Bitcoin with straightforward gambling ?
    Volatile it might be, but I'd disagree with that view.
    No I am equating Bitcoin as a hedge, and only a hedge, for those who are dubious of the efficacy of the monetary policies of the west's major governments right now.

    Among those who also consider this a potential strategy are those tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists at.....er.....JP Morgan.

    Wonder what their view of losing money betting on the dems in Florida and Texas is.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Sandpit said:

    New “Nigerian Strain”?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265045/UK-spots-33-cases-Covid-variant.html

    “Another coronavirus variant that could dodge vaccine-triggered immunity has been identified in the UK, scientists say.

    “The strain — called B.1.525 — has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be a huge underestimate. It shares the E484K mutation found on both the South African and Brazilian variants, which make the current crop of jabs slightly less effective.

    “The variant also carries the Q677H mutation on its crucial spike protein, prompting warnings from scientists that this could make it even more resistant to vaccines. And there are some similarities to the Kent strain, which studies show is up to 70 per cent more infectious.”

    The prince of mutants?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited February 2021

    Nigelb said:

    As Bitcoin passes USD50,000, I would like to take all you puppies back to when I said, with it in the mid 20s, that we are in the foothills.

    On came the scorn from the usual suspects. I got accused of being a 'wake up sheeple' conspiracy theorist.

    As I laugh my way to the bank, you lot can now eat my soiled shorts.

    "I made a fortune from investing in this pyramid scheme and you can too"

    Thanks but I'll pass.
    yeh but actively recommending punters back the dems in North Carolina, Florida and Texas is fine...
    So you're equating Bitcoin with straightforward gambling ?
    Volatile it might be, but I'd disagree with that view.
    No I am equating Bitcoin as a hedge, and only a hedge, for those who are dubious of the efficacy of the monetary policies of the west's major governments right now.

    Among those who also consider this a potential strategy are those tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists at.....er.....JP Morgan.

    Wonder what their view of losing money betting on the dems in Florida and Texas is.
    Problem is timing.

    Buy at $0.01 when to exit? $10 (1000x investment)? $1,000 (100,000x investment)? $10,000?

    In at $5,000? Exit at $50,000?

    In today at $50,000?

    I don't doubt there are zillions of BTC millionaires but there are issues also.

    Of course if you structurally are calling it as a new paradigm then yes. But as with biotech stocks - not so easy in practice.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,093

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    Computer chips imported to UK?
  • Are you asking NHS staff to work way more than their contracted hours?

    Of course they are doing so. (For that matter they very often do even in normal times). So are a lot of other people, voluntarily of course. Some are even doing so without pay, although of course I'm not suggesting that teachers shouldn't be paid more for the extra hours. We might also look to getting more retired teachers and other volunteers in to schools to help. As I said, this is a national emergency, completely unprecedented, and the situation risks serious long-term educational and mental-health damage for possibly millions of children.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited February 2021
    Another potential factor in explaining the seasonality of COVID and the differential outcome of the pandemic in countries following much the same mitigation efforts - the strength of UV-A and UV-B sunlight, or more precisely how many minutes it takes for the extant levels of UV-A and UV-B sunlight to kill the virus in fomites, aerosols and droplets.

    "Taken together, the curves of growth of Figure 4, suggest that the epidemics efficiently develops in areas where typical UV-B/A virus-inactivation exposures are longer than about 30 minutes (but see Methods for the conservativeness of our assumptions on τ0).

    "This value should be compared to the stability of SARS-CoV-2 on aerosol and surfaces. A recent study shows that SARS-CoV-2 can survive in aerosols for longer than three hours and is even more stable on metallic and polymeric surfaces, where it can stay for up to several tens of hours and is quickly inactivated by solar light [27]. These results, combined with another recent research showing that the lifetime of speech droplets with relatively large size (> few micrometers) can be tens of minutes [28], suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may spread through aerosols (either directly, through inhalation, and/or indirectly, through evaporation of contaminated surfaces).

    "Our results suggest that Solar UV-A/B might have had a role in modulating the strength and diffusion of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemics, explaining the geographical and seasonal differences that characterize this disease. They also imply, if confirmed, that the UV flux received by our Sun in open areas may represent an important disinfection factor (e.g. [27]), able to significantly reduce the diffusion of the pandemics. This could help in designing new strategies of confinement of the epidemics that may provide better protection with less social costs (see e.g. [20])."

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20121392v2.full-text
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    On the contrary, these are excellent first steps in dispelling the chilling effect of wokeism in our institutions. The preservation of liberty is what a Conservative government was born to do.

    Under the plans, universities would be legally required to actively promote free speech and the OfS would have the power to impose fines on institutions if they breach this condition.

    This would also extend to student unions, which would have to ensure that lawful free speech is secured for members and visiting speakers.

    Individuals would be able to seek compensation through the courts if they suffered loss from a breach of the free speech duties - like being expelled, dismissed or demoted - under a new legal measure.
    It's confusing the right to speak with the right to an audience. Many have got used to having the latter and are not best pleased - are in many cases downright livid - at seeing this privilege eroded.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    eek said:


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).
    So teachers, alone amongst such vocational professions should expect that their working lives should be absolutely inviolate regardless of circumstances?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    And yet recent events show that what the UK does is very much on their minds.
    Am willing to bet there are more column inches expended in the U.K. on the EU than vice versa.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    DavidL said:

    Has this been posted? If you use the same polling methodology, 'No' has retaken the lead from 'Yes' in indyref polling in Feb.

    Weighting has been changed to take into account self-reported likelihood of voting. Which essentially means enthusiasm counts for more. Like for like, No has taken the lead.

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1361596089850290186

    Interesting. I think that it is very close at the moment and all to play for. My guess is that there might be a majority for Indyref2 but not for Yes.
    I have thought that for a long time
    I think the logic is,

    “We are Scotland, *we* should decide if and when we vote” - hence support for a poll or the right to have a poll is higher than actual support for independence.
    Absolutely correct that the two are different. That was the case in polling a year or two back, and I suspect in general.

    There's however a complication when the pollster specifies a timing - but that is obvious anyway: still, it's worth bearing in mind that someone who wants it now could be a Unionist making a calculation like Wendy Alexander did - and other permutations are available.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    The EU-China deal shows what the EU is all about. I wish both parties good luck and hope that EU politicians can live with their marginal gains being made on the back of slave labour camps.

    The problem you're having is that you think today's situation will last forever and that 45% of our exports will always go to the EU. That's not going to be the case and as that number goes down to reflect something more like global GDP proportions the value of the relationship goes down for both sides. Especially for the UK. I'm not sure why you're bundling EU and EFTA nations together either, we have separate trade deals with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland that aren't dependent on the EU trade deal.

    The next decade is going to be hugely interesting, especially as the US starts to marshall its allies against China and the EU needs to decide whether having slaves make Siemens dishwashers is more important to them than an alliance with the US, UK and the rest of the democratic alliance.

    I'm glad that we're unequivocally on the side of democracy. I guess part of why the EU finds it difficult to criticise undemocratic nations is because the commission is inherently undemocratic.
  • eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    Computer chips imported to UK?
    Something we could re-shore and indeed I believe there is a general view in the US (if not U.K.) to reducing reliance on Taiwanese chips.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    Well quite. And not just the NHS. One of my colleagues has worked long hours every day since Boxing Day as part of delivering the vaccine centres. Private industry. I doubt he's going to see any extra money. I've been called in weekends for the same.

    We just want this done.
  • TOPPING said:

    eek said:


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).
    So teachers, alone amongst such vocational professions should expect that their working lives should be absolutely inviolate regardless of circumstances?
    Before I respond to this I should ask you exactly what you are proposing?
  • kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    Never did me any harm.



  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
    Doctors take an oath, so maybe we can bring that kind of commitment to education?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited February 2021

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    No yours is a pathetic meaningless answer.

    Which nations are our geopolitical threats? Where are they based?

    A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be devastating. Do you have a clue about how much of our manufacturing relies upon Chinese manufactured microchips etc?

    Absurd to say it doesn't matter.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
    Working for 2 weeks when there should be a break doesn't make any sense. Children are taught in 6-8 week blocks followed by a 1-2 week gap for a reason.

    You can't suddenly change it (well you could but ideally we should have done this in January and tried to shrink Easter to a week by extending this half term then. You cannot do this at zero notice no matter how much you may suddenly think it's a great idea.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    I totally agree.

    It would provoke uproar from the teaching unions, but should be done.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    edited February 2021
    MaxPB said:


    The EU-China deal shows what the EU is all about. I wish both parties good luck and hope that EU politicians can live with their marginal gains being made on the back of slave labour camps.
    ....

    Hmm, bit of a reinterpretation of history there. I seem to recall that one of the promised benefits of Brexit was precisely that we were supposedly going to be able to do our own deal with the slave-labour providers:

    Smaller countries, like Iceland and Switzerland, which are outside the EU and don’t have to deal with all of its bureaucratic problems, have been able to strike free trade agreements with China. If we Vote Leave and take back control, we will gain the power to strike our own trade deals, creating new business opportunities and creating more jobs. (from the Vote Leave website).

    or:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36074853

    or:

    http://www.farmbusiness.co.uk/business/marketing-matters/dairy-trade-deal-with-china.html

    or:

    https://www.reuters.com/article/china-britain/china-says-agrees-with-britain-to-discuss-top-notch-free-trade-deal-idINKCN1LA0I1
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    The EU-China deal shows what the EU is all about. I wish both parties good luck and hope that EU politicians can live with their marginal gains being made on the back of slave labour camps.

    The problem you're having is that you think today's situation will last forever and that 45% of our exports will always go to the EU. That's not going to be the case and as that number goes down to reflect something more like global GDP proportions the value of the relationship goes down for both sides. Especially for the UK. I'm not sure why you're bundling EU and EFTA nations together either, we have separate trade deals with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland that aren't dependent on the EU trade deal.

    The next decade is going to be hugely interesting, especially as the US starts to marshall its allies against China and the EU needs to decide whether having slaves make Siemens dishwashers is more important to them than an alliance with the US, UK and the rest of the democratic alliance.

    I'm glad that we're unequivocally on the side of democracy. I guess part of why the EU finds it difficult to criticise undemocratic nations is because the commission is inherently undemocratic.
    I don't think it's the commission being undemocratic, it's more that the leading country in the group (Germany) need things (markets and energy) that are only available from the less democratic block.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Sandpit said:

    New “Nigerian Strain”?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265045/UK-spots-33-cases-Covid-variant.html

    “Another coronavirus variant that could dodge vaccine-triggered immunity has been identified in the UK, scientists say.

    “The strain — called B.1.525 — has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be a huge underestimate. It shares the E484K mutation found on both the South African and Brazilian variants, which make the current crop of jabs slightly less effective.

    “The variant also carries the Q677H mutation on its crucial spike protein, prompting warnings from scientists that this could make it even more resistant to vaccines. And there are some similarities to the Kent strain, which studies show is up to 70 per cent more infectious.”

    I get the concern about variants but their presence is not inconsistent with an overall decline in cases - we've seen that in South Africa, the UK and Denmark. I've posted many times about the dramatically improving situation in South Africa. The post holiday spike in infections in the UK and the US was almost identical (despite the UK variant barely registering in the US at that time) and now cases in both countries (and indeed the continents they are on) are falling rapidly. In Denmark cases rose earlier and faster than the UK and US, even though B.1.1.7 was becoming more prevalent, but cases there are dropped even faster.


  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    Sandpit said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    What happened in the second week of January?


    A time-lagged response to all that Christmas cheer?
    I don't see why that would result in cases starting to fall simultaneously accross four continents.
    A fair point. Cancelled Christmas didn't really happen in the Middle and Far East did it?
    Christmas is very much a thing in a lot of the Middle East. Especially places where western tourists congregate for winter sun.

    My children met Santa at the WAFI Mall in 2004. My general point, I think still stands, although I am making the sweeping assumption that this Christmas was less busy than most.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    The EU-China deal shows what the EU is all about. I wish both parties good luck and hope that EU politicians can live with their marginal gains being made on the back of slave labour camps.

    The problem you're having is that you think today's situation will last forever and that 45% of our exports will always go to the EU. That's not going to be the case and as that number goes down to reflect something more like global GDP proportions the value of the relationship goes down for both sides. Especially for the UK. I'm not sure why you're bundling EU and EFTA nations together either, we have separate trade deals with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland that aren't dependent on the EU trade deal.

    The next decade is going to be hugely interesting, especially as the US starts to marshall its allies against China and the EU needs to decide whether having slaves make Siemens dishwashers is more important to them than an alliance with the US, UK and the rest of the democratic alliance.

    I'm glad that we're unequivocally on the side of democracy. I guess part of why the EU finds it difficult to criticise undemocratic nations is because the commission is inherently undemocratic.
    The problem you have is that you think 50+ (I use that figure as it is *European* trade) will evaporate overnight.

    Trading with our neighbours will remain preeminent I’ll wager until I am past retirement (I am early 40s).

    That the EU at large is “anti democratic” is utter nonsense; it is a collection of 27 democracies some of which put our own democratic arrangements to shame.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    eek said:


    For the mental health and development of the children I think it's a great idea for them to be going back personally.

    Keeping them confined at home for four months, with the long summer holiday still to come, isn't healthy and it's not good for their development.

    If it's safe for children to go back they should.

    What I find incomprehensible about this whole debate is that everyone, including the government, acts as though the dates of school holidays are set by some rigid law of physics and cannot possibly be changed even when we've had many months of school closures. There's no need for an Easter break longer than Good Friday and Easter Monday, if we've only just reopened schools, and no universal law of nature which dictates that the summer holiday can't be short this year.

    Edit: I see @rottenborough has made a similar point.
    They're not governed by the rules of physics, but something nearly as inflexible I suspect: the laws of contracts.

    I'm curious what @ydoethur or @Fysics_Teacher would make of the idea of suddenly changing term times and extending the summer term?
    Contracts can be overridden by parliament. This is a national emergency, as everyone agrees.
    Then stop expecting teachers to provide work during lockdown...
    Just as well that NHS staff don't think like that...
    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).
    So teachers, alone amongst such vocational professions should expect that their working lives should be absolutely inviolate regardless of circumstances?
    Before I respond to this I should ask you exactly what you are proposing?
    That teachers and schools, if they are able, should be flexible to make up time in school with their pupils to go some small way to address the inevitable issues that not being in school has presented for those children.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    New “Nigerian Strain”?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265045/UK-spots-33-cases-Covid-variant.html

    “Another coronavirus variant that could dodge vaccine-triggered immunity has been identified in the UK, scientists say.

    “The strain — called B.1.525 — has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be a huge underestimate. It shares the E484K mutation found on both the South African and Brazilian variants, which make the current crop of jabs slightly less effective.

    “The variant also carries the Q677H mutation on its crucial spike protein, prompting warnings from scientists that this could make it even more resistant to vaccines. And there are some similarities to the Kent strain, which studies show is up to 70 per cent more infectious.”

    The prince of mutants?
    Here's hoping it's more the Nigerian letter of mutants.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921
    DougSeal said:

    Sandpit said:

    New “Nigerian Strain”?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265045/UK-spots-33-cases-Covid-variant.html

    “Another coronavirus variant that could dodge vaccine-triggered immunity has been identified in the UK, scientists say.

    “The strain — called B.1.525 — has been spotted 33 times already but experts say this could be a huge underestimate. It shares the E484K mutation found on both the South African and Brazilian variants, which make the current crop of jabs slightly less effective.

    “The variant also carries the Q677H mutation on its crucial spike protein, prompting warnings from scientists that this could make it even more resistant to vaccines. And there are some similarities to the Kent strain, which studies show is up to 70 per cent more infectious.”

    I get the concern about variants but their presence is not inconsistent with an overall decline in cases - we've seen that in South Africa, the UK and Denmark. I've posted many times about the dramatically improving situation in South Africa. The post holiday spike in infections in the UK and the US was almost identical (despite the UK variant barely registering in the US at that time) and now cases in both countries (and indeed the continents they are on) are falling rapidly. In Denmark cases rose earlier and faster than the UK and US, even though B.1.1.7 was becoming more prevalent, but cases there are dropped even faster.


    I took a trip down the zero covid rabbit hole on twitter the other day.

    Absolutely crackers. As mad as the deniers.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    There's a plan to force students at Uni to listen to gammons -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979

    On the contrary, these are excellent first steps in dispelling the chilling effect of wokeism in our institutions. The preservation of liberty is what a Conservative government was born to do.

    Under the plans, universities would be legally required to actively promote free speech and the OfS would have the power to impose fines on institutions if they breach this condition.

    This would also extend to student unions, which would have to ensure that lawful free speech is secured for members and visiting speakers.

    Individuals would be able to seek compensation through the courts if they suffered loss from a breach of the free speech duties - like being expelled, dismissed or demoted - under a new legal measure.
    It's confusing the right to speak with the right to an audience. Many have got used to having the latter and are not best pleased - are in many cases downright livid - at seeing this privilege eroded.
    I must have missed the part of the regulations in which students will be herded into the lecture halls and held there by force. No one will will be compelled to turn up to listen, but no one will have the right to prevent another from exercising their lawful freedom of speech either. That's life in a free society, and by God it's about time action was taken to preserve it.
  • eek said:

    eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
    Working for 2 weeks when there should be a break doesn't make any sense. Children are taught in 6-8 week blocks followed by a 1-2 week gap for a reason.

    You can't suddenly change it (well you could but ideally we should have done this in January and tried to shrink Easter to a week by extending this half term then. You cannot do this at zero notice no matter how much you may suddenly think it's a great idea.
    Oh, I agree absolutely about the notice. That was my point, really: for months we should have been putting plans in place to make up for some of the lost school time once it is possible to do so, but AFAIK there has been nothing done on this and no discussion of it.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    eek said:

    eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
    Working for 2 weeks when there should be a break doesn't make any sense. Children are taught in 6-8 week blocks followed by a 1-2 week gap for a reason.

    You can't suddenly change it (well you could but ideally we should have done this in January and tried to shrink Easter to a week by extending this half term then. You cannot do this at zero notice no matter how much you may suddenly think it's a great idea.
    Indeed. You assemble kids, put a teacher in front of them and bingo. Education happens.
    It doesn't. It takes a lot of planning, logistics and preparation.
    Good job the Minister is laser focussed on what is best for children and not off wasting everyone's time trying to kick off a culture war.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    eek said:

    eek said:


    NHS staff worked because of goodwill.

    Your typical teacher lost any goodwill they were willing to give this Government at least a year ago (and often circa 2014 when Gove screwed up exams).

    Well, yes, but it's a bizarre idea that this would be a favour to the government. I might be naive, but I always thought the idea of education was that it was for the benefit of the children.
    Working for 2 weeks when there should be a break doesn't make any sense. Children are taught in 6-8 week blocks followed by a 1-2 week gap for a reason.

    You can't suddenly change it (well you could but ideally we should have done this in January and tried to shrink Easter to a week by extending this half term then. You cannot do this at zero notice no matter how much you may suddenly think it's a great idea.
    Then have them play educational-type games, or charades or do a play or music or sport or....

    I would have thought the issue is with the socialisation of children as much as their education.

    In this year no one I'm sure is going to hold them to every letter of the curriculum.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    Computer chips imported to UK?
    Something we could re-shore and indeed I believe there is a general view in the US (if not U.K.) to reducing reliance on Taiwanese chips.
    That's a naive view.
    'Re-shoring', if even possible (much of TSMC's manufacturing expertise is proprietary) would take half a decade at least.
    A Chinese invasion/annexation, were it to interrupt chip supply for any significant period (which one way or another, it would) could be absolutely devastating for the world economy.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    Dependant on how dominant China is - and how much of the existing political infrastructure it dominates, whether that be the UN or the WHO, of course an attempted invasion of Taiwan impacts us.

    Particularly if the entity on our doorstop - the EU - has a comprehensive deal with said power.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    I agree. Teachers should take 2 weeks out of their summer to make up for lost time and ensure all children leave this academic year with a full working knowledge of Karl Marx.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921

    I agree. Teachers should take 2 weeks out of their summer to make up for lost time and ensure all children leave this academic year with a full working knowledge of Karl Marx.

    Might take longer than that, mastering German etc...
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Nigelb said:

    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On topic, a good article Philip though I disagree with the premise and all of the later posts from others about the EU falling apart. I find that to be a very unlikely scenario, even with all of the internal contradictions there is just to much political capital invested by Paris, Berlin and other capital cities across Europe in the concept of the EU. There's just no way the politicians will allow it to fail and they'll use all of the undemocratic means available to keep it going. France votes down the constitution? No worries, we'll just rebrand it as something else and not allow a vote. Britain votes to leave? No worries let's just pretend that they haven't actually left and ignore any successes they have outside of the EU structures.

    There's simply no appetite for admitting that the whole political establishment of Europe has been making such poor decisions for so many years.

    What's going to happen without the UK is that you'll get France pushing its own foreign policy agenda without any other major foreign policy power to provide a counterweight and Germany will pursue it's mercantilist trade and economic policies without abandon and the EU will turn into a completely parochial organisation selling itself out to the worst regimes for an extra 0.1% worth of GDP because nothing other than more GDP matters to Germany.

    If anything the idea of having no internal competitors for foreign and economic policy within the EU will massively appeal to Paris and Berlin. They both get what they want out of the EU, France projects its power and Germany gets to remake the EU in its image and continues to hollow out Southern Europe with no dissent. For that reason the amount of political capital invested to keep the bandwagon going will continue to rise and it will result in the EU as an organisation limping on from crisis to crisis with no real reform and no real democratic legitimacy.

    Buried within this analysis is clear example of what Britain has “lost”.

    It can no longer influence Europe-wide* foreign policy, and has surrendered that position uncontested to France.

    As you say, Germany will be happy with this arrangement is long as countries are forced to buy German defence equipment every so often.

    *As opposed to EU, as I believe EU foreign policy to be largely fictional.
    As you point out there's nothing of value lost there and if anything it's leading to a diminished EU with their dodgy China deals and sucking off Putin in Moscow.

    Our interests are better served with unilateral action or joining up with the US, Canada and Australia.

    Not having the UK makes the EU much less relevant to the rest of the world, for me that's actually a big victory. No longer lending them our diplomatic weight is a definite brexit upside that I was looking forwards to.
    I am not saying there is nothing of value to be lost there.

    Far from it.

    In our very own neighbourhood we face an ongoing Russian threat, as well as ongoing issues related to state insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa.

    We also aspire (or should) to promote liberal democracy and the freest trade, especially in Europe which remains 50%+ of our trade and will likely remain close to that level for a generation yet.

    It is very much in our interests to promote and influence our view on these matters in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Med.

    It is also useful to have an voice with the pivotal European powers, France and Germany.

    We have torn that all up, and our voice is now much diminished.

    We are also less interesting to other powers because we can no longer even pretend to influence the rest of Europe.

    PS Political and defence partnerships with other Anglo nations were never actually prevented by EU membership. See, for example, the Five Powers Agreement.
    I think giving the EU enough rope is something I can live with and something that a lot of leave voters predicted would happen without our influence inside the EU.

    Outside of the EU we're already making huge strides in our own policy and we're focusing eastwards, it's already changing how nations are seeing us and how they want to partner with us. Japan, Canada and Australia have all separately asked us to join the CPTPP, Japan has invited us to join military exercises in the Pacific reviving a century old alliance and the US is making noises about the UK joining he quad to make it a pent and also eyeing up the CPTPP.

    Our global influence was never enhanced by being in the EU, it was diminished. The EU saw its influence enhanced by having us in it and now you can see without us their desperation to do grubby deals with China and Russia has already lost them a lot of friends and it's driving the Biden administration towards Brexit Britain with open arms.

    These are unwelcome truths for you, I realise that. The EU without the UK is going to have a different outlook and the UK out of the EU will capitalise on that. The process has already started and it will continue to see us diverge from the EU in our foreign policy terms and over time in terms of trade, that 45% export value that the EU currently has will fall as the nation starts facing eastwards. The UK-EU relationship will continue to go down in value for both sides and we will have a simple trading relationship with the EU. As it should always have been.
    None of this really stacks up.

    How is greater defence activity in Asia going to help us? Of course we are welcomed, we have materiel to spare. It will cost us, though. For what?

    Over 50% of our trade is with the EU and/or EFTA nations.

    Defence policy should be based on our own national interests which follow our geography and trade realities.

    We’ve said goodbye to the ability to influence our own neighbourhood!

    The EU-China deals shows starkly that we are now out of that conversation.
    Greater defence activity in Asia will help us because the world is a global interconnected place and that is where our enemies/threats are.

    The world does not end in our own neighbourhood and we have little need, desire or interest to influence our own neighbourhood. We do need to protect ourselves from threats wherever in the world they are though.
    Truly pathetic, meaningless answer.

    Someone posted on ongoing Russian hacking attempts earlier.

    Our key threat - geopolitically - is next door.

    In extremis, even an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China doesn’t really impact us one bit.
    Computer chips imported to UK?
    Something we could re-shore and indeed I believe there is a general view in the US (if not U.K.) to reducing reliance on Taiwanese chips.
    That's a naive view.
    'Re-shoring', if even possible (much of TSMC's manufacturing expertise is proprietary) would take half a decade at least.
    A Chinese invasion/annexation, were it to interrupt chip supply for any significant period (which one way or another, it would) could be absolutely devastating for the world economy.
    Don't forget that for Brexiters, the benefit will come in the long run. OK the medium term. They just about all accept that there will be a diminution in our fortunes as people adjust.

    In that context, half a decade is nothing too much.

    Of course we could go all NPV on them to show what it means for us today but I'm not sure they would be interested in such an argument.
This discussion has been closed.