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  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609
    IshmaelZ said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    I make a point of not saying things to people on the internet that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them in real life.

    I'm guessing you don't?
    So you’d happily call 10 million Leave-voting Brits ‘drooling racist fuckwits’ to their faces? That should go well
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232

    Daily Telegraph commenting that Gove is leaving the door a jar for Indyref2

    Has anyone told @HYUFD

    He isn't, the full quote was “The principle that the people of Scotland, in the right circumstances, can ask that question again is there.

    “I just don’t think that it is right, and the public don’t think it is right, to ask that question at the moment."
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-would-not-stand-in-way-of-indyref2-if-it-is-settled-will-michael-gove-3330497

    So no indyref2 now, not ruling out an indyref2 in 2050 however.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wait-40-years-for-another-scottish-independence-vote-says-boris-johnson-kwb7njq99

    In any case it is Boris who will decide not Gove and he has already ruled out an indyref2 for 40 years

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-would-not-stand-in-way-of-indyref2-if-it-is-settled-will-michael-gove-3330497
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    Why not? If it’s definitive as opposed to along the lines of “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be”, then that is a reasonable answer

    It's never definitive. That's the point.

    The leave campaigns made wild claims that they refuted the day after the vote.

    The sunlit uplands are always over the next hill...
    No, there are pluses now - from my standpoint, if not from yours.

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    Now look at the number of people who applied for EU residence status against the estimates who were here and whom even the pro-EU group says were undercounted by three million:

    https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/26/hundreds-of-thousands-of-eu-citizens-scrabbling-to-attain-post-brexit-status-before-deadline

    3 million is a huge number if you are trying to plan for schools, hospitals, housing etc especially when concentrated into certain areas. The fact that Brexit meant we now had a valid reason to accurately count the numbers in the U.K. is a plus in itself.

    If we were part of the EU, this would never have been picked up - and it would have been the poorest areas hardest hit
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,812

    Scott_xP said:

    the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted

    The disaster that's happening right now...

    You mean the immediate six quarter recession ?

    Or the City relocating to Frankfurt ?

    Or there being no strawberries in the shops ?

    Or that no trade deals would be rolled over ?
    Scott's the kind of person for whom "disaster" means ordering a bottle of wine and finding it's corked. His problems are on a par with the Telegraph going on about the plight of second home owners.
  • stodge said:

    Late evening all :)

    Just a comment on the piece in tomorrow's Guardian including the quote from Steve Baker MP.

    I suspect many would find the notion of deprivation and poverty in places like High Wycombe risible.

    It's not - there's a lot of relative poverty in the south and south-east - it's often masked by the larger areas of wealth but it is foolish to deny their existence.

    The cost of housing, for example, is one of those key measures which mark out the real problems some face in the supposedly affluent areas.

    Yes, we have that problem here in deep Surrey. Plenty of people work on moderate salaries - railway staff, shop staff, many others - and would like to live close to where they work, but because the average wealth is high, they are outbid and have to live elsewhere and have a long commute. If they lived in Nottingham they'd have much less trouble, but they have reasons - family, tradition, simply preference - for wanting to be down here.

    I used to live in High Wycombe - our neighbours were very Daily Telegraph types, always talking about riding and tennis, but the town had plenty of people who didn't look wealthy.
    Would there be any electoral benefit for Labour to propose that 'the average person should be able to buy the average house in their local area' ?

    With policies involving house building and taxation to achieve it.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,710
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
  • MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ugh, I'm going to infected with the ghastly Oxford jab aren't I?

    Booster vaccines are to be offered to 32million Britons starting early next month with up to 2,000 pharmacies set to deliver the programme, The Telegraph can disclose.

    Amid fears that the efficacy of the vaccines may begin to decline, ministers are planning to deliver an average of almost 2.5million third doses a week starting in the first week of September.

    Pharmacies will be at the forefront of the vaccine programme so that GPs and other NHS staff can focus on the growing backlog of patients waiting for other treatments.

    All adults aged 50 and over, as well as the immuno-suppressed, will be offered the booster jabs.

    The campaign could start as soon as Sept 6, which would see the rollout completed by early December if it goes to plan. It is hoped the timetable will leave at least a fortnight for the final people vaccinated to benefit from the jab's effect before Christmas....

    ...Ministers are considering giving people a different booster jab to the shot they received for their first and second dose, after early trials suggested that mixing vaccines could provoke an enhanced immune response. It could mean a significant reduction in the use of AstraZeneca jabs.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/01/vaccine-booster-shots-32m-begin-next-month/

    Thr Daily Mail has the opposite story that it will all be Pfizer. 🤷🏼‍♂️
    I think it will be a mix and 2.5m doses per weeks seems very low. We should easily be able to call up all groups 1-6 immediately and get them done at a rate of 4-5m per week given that our current roll out has ground to a halt.
    I get the impression that there is a lot of debate about whether booster vaccines actually serve any useful purpose or whether the push for them is being pushed at least in part by the pharmaceutical companies themselves.

    There is a serious danger that the Government/Scientists might use them to create a new measure of "progress" to inform the reintroduction of restrictions over the winter.
    Ultimately we've already paid for them and if anything having a booster programme is very much a safety first approach. As I said I'd be shocked if it takes beyond the end of October to complete it we already have plenty of the three major vaccines in fridges around the country.

    Booster doses result in an 8-20x boost in antibodies, that alone will give is a pretty good reduction in the R as many millions become fully immune from infection. The booster programme should be open to everyone 4 months after their second dose. We really need to play it safe and just get everyone who wants one a booster shot. Going into winter we should do whatever it takes to avoid a repeat of last year.
    Can we do them that quickly if it is just pharmacy based?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,278
    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    It’s not even one year in.

    It’s why I bring up the Ireland example. If you took what is being said about Brexit, Ireland shouldn’t be an independent country. All the arguments used against Brexit applied x1000 to Ireland.

    Yet, they wanted to break free and that was the key point. And now the nation is doing very well.

    Ah, the answer to the question "when will we see any benefit from Brexit" is, and always will be, "tomorrow, and tomorrow..."
    A tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing?

    Sounds like the Brexit zealots on both sides.
  • I think it now time to introduce a contentious topic of conversation -

    Alfred Dreyfus - traitor, maligned, or the innocent victim is a bungled intelligence operation?

    He was French, he deserved everything he got.
    I thought he was Jewish, and his persecution revealed the extent of Antisemitism in the French state, long before the Vichy period?
    Among other things. The other things include the probability that French military Intelligence was staffed by people more stupid than Gavin Williamson. Unless the whole thing was genius level mis-direction.
    I did hear once the greatest bit misdirection was MI5 allowing the world and IRA to think that they had turned the head of the Nutting Squad, Freddie Scappaticci, for over 20 years.

    It destroyed trust inside the IRA and Sinn Fein.

    The fact that Freddie Scappaticci lives and Denis Donaldson doesn't.....
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,551
    IshmaelZ said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    I make a point of not saying things to people on the internet that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them in real life.

    I'm guessing you don't?
    We'll have to take your word for it, won't we?

  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,159
    stodge said:

    Late evening all :)

    Just a comment on the piece in tomorrow's Guardian including the quote from Steve Baker MP.

    I suspect many would find the notion of deprivation and poverty in places like High Wycombe risible.

    It's not - there's a lot of relative poverty in the south and south-east - it's often masked by the larger areas of wealth but it is foolish to deny their existence.

    The cost of housing, for example, is one of those key measures which mark out the real problems some face in the supposedly affluent areas.

    Health outcomes, especially mental health, for poor people in the South are often worse than for those living in Northern cities where housing is cheaper, there is better more affordable public transport etc
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,423
    Leon said:

    Of course this is very early days and it feels painful, even regrettable at times. I believe it was the great Seant, once of this parish, who wrote that Brexit is like having a baby. I have never forgotten these prescient paragraphs of his, from October 2016:

    The analogy falls apart in a couple of very fundamental ways.

    Parents put up with all the pain and disruption of childcare because they have a fundamental emotional bond with their offspring. As discussed upthread, not even the "fathers" of Brexit have any emotional attachment. It was purely transactional. BoZo got what he wanted. Cumming thought he did until he was discarded.

    The other reason that parents put up with it is that every day, amongst the tears and mess and chaos, their child does something unbelievably cool, like smile, or move, or sleep.

    Each day that I post something Brexit related, the fans should be able to post all of the 'really cool" things that Brexit has wrought on that day.

    Have at it...
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:



    “I haven’t spoken to anyone particularly about it but I think it is lingering,” he said. “I remember the effects when I had it. The training has been different since then and the levels of fatigue you get are different and it’s a real challenge. So [I am] just continuing to try and train and prepare the best way I can. Who knows what it is today? Maybe it’s hydration but I’ve definitely not had that experience. I had something similar in Silverstone but this is way worse.”

    Hamilton also gave his wholehearted support to Sebastian Vettel who was issued with a reprimand by the FIA for not removing his rainbow-coloured T-shirt with the words “Same Love” on it, in support of the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary who are being targeted by repressive laws.

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/01/lewis-hamilton-fears-he-has-long-covid-after-hungarian-gp-exhaustion?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Poor guy.

    On the politics side, I think the attempt by sporting associations to suppress competitors' wish to express opinions is getting oppressive. I get that some people may not like some slogans and gestures, and maybe it'll affect their support and they'll hope someone else wins. But taking part in a sport shouldn't be like joining the civil service, never to express an opinion again. Vettel has a view? Fine, get over it. And I'd say the same if he had the opposite view.
    No, you wouldn’t

    If a driver had a t-shirt saying ‘imprison gays’ or ‘expel illegal immigrants’ or ‘vote BNP’ or ‘hang cop killers’ you’d denounce him, despite these opinions being perfectly legal, and, in some cases, quite common
    That's wholly different.

    Vettel's message is wholly positive, yours (quoted) are generally negative. A more appropriate comparison would be, say, a pro-Trump T-Shirt. I suspect exactly the same reprimand would have been issued, and there would be plenty condemning the reprimand.
    QED. You see them as ‘negative’ because you disagree with them. You only approve of political statements you approve. Lefties are so fricking stupid it’s BORING
    Three of your examples incite physical harm to various groups.

    Vettel’s slogan didn’t.

    There is a difference there.
    Jail is not physical harm. It’s judicial punishment - and the law in many countries, especially Islamic. Expelling illegal immigrants is, likewise, not a physical threat, just a promise of firm borders. And so forth.
    You think those two don’t involve elements of physical harm?

    Well, it’s a view.

    Maybe you should put it on a T-shirt...
    I’m pretty sure ‘expel illegal immigrants’ is simply a pithy way of expressing British law, as it stands, right now

    It’s quite telling that PB lefties nonetheless think this is a violent, threatening statement which cannot be allowed on a t-shirt, whereas all the nice fluffy lefty opinions they agree with are, by pure coincidence, totally acceptable
    Am I a leftie?

    Well, if you say so...
    You have said you are seriously considering voting Labour
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609
    HYUFD said:

    Daily Telegraph commenting that Gove is leaving the door a jar for Indyref2

    Has anyone told @HYUFD

    He isn't, the full quote was “The principle that the people of Scotland, in the right circumstances, can ask that question again is there.

    “I just don’t think that it is right, and the public don’t think it is right, to ask that question at the moment."
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-would-not-stand-in-way-of-indyref2-if-it-is-settled-will-michael-gove-3330497

    So no indyref2 now, not ruling out an indyref2 in 2050 however.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wait-40-years-for-another-scottish-independence-vote-says-boris-johnson-kwb7njq99

    In any case it is Boris who will decide not Gove and he has already ruled out an indyref2 for 40 years

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-would-not-stand-in-way-of-indyref2-if-it-is-settled-will-michael-gove-3330497
    It’s politicking. The UK government has nothing to gain by saying ‘Fuck Off Indy voters, London decides’. They have a lot to gain by appearing reasonable and democratic, but quietly refusing a vote nonetheless

    The strategy in Westminster is surely this: wait.

    Wait for Sturgeon to fall and the SNP to lose power. Job done (for a while)

    Of course they might have to wait for a long time for the latter, but the former, hmmm
  • Israel now provides vaccination status in real-time:

    Seriously ill, age <60: raw figure (per 100k)
    - Unvaccinated: 28 (0.8)
    - Partially: 2 (0.8)
    - Vaccinated: 10 (0.2)

    Seriously ill, 60+: raw (per 100k)
    - Unvaccinated: 43 (45.7)
    - Partially: 5 (22.8)
    - Vaccinated: 123 (9.4)
  • MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    I think Brexit brings out the worst in everyone...

    If it was remotely successful instead of a shitshow that should not be the case
    It’s not even one year in.

    It’s why I bring up the Ireland example. If you took what is being said about Brexit, Ireland shouldn’t be an independent country. All the arguments used against Brexit applied x1000 to Ireland.

    Yet, they wanted to break free and that was the key point. And now the nation is doing very well.
    The thing is, though, that Brexit doesn't have the sense of broad public support that I'm pretty sure Irish independence had. And whilst right now it isn't the will of the people to rejoin or even get closer, it might be the sense of the people that this is a mistake;

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu/

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union-or-leave-the-european-union-asked-after-the-referendum/

    And yes, some of those saying to the government "are you sure this is entirely wise?" are nutters, or have crossed the line between trying to apply democratic brakes and behaving in an undemocratic way. But for whatever reason, this innovation hasn't (so far) won the broad acceptance it needs to stick. And saying "2016" only works for so long- democracy is allowing the pendulum to swing if it wants to.

    [My theory? For at least some of those behind Brexit, this was meant to be their D-Day. After a lifetime in the shadow of a generation who actually saved democracy, this was their chance to make their mark. And it's all a bit meh. Hence the irritation at those who aren't saluting at the victory parades, and the anguish at the thought that any of it might be reversed.]
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,558

    kle4 said:

    Blimey, people need to take a chill pill (this is not formal medical advice).

    I'm about to chillax and watch a summer movie.

    Die Hard, after all it was released in the summer of 1988.
    Is it that time of year already?

    Merry Christmas!
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,716
    MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    Why not? If it’s definitive as opposed to along the lines of “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be”, then that is a reasonable answer

    It's never definitive. That's the point.

    The leave campaigns made wild claims that they refuted the day after the vote.

    The sunlit uplands are always over the next hill...
    No, there are pluses now - from my standpoint, if not from yours.

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    Now look at the number of people who applied for EU residence status against the estimates who were here and whom even the pro-EU group says were undercounted by three million:

    https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/26/hundreds-of-thousands-of-eu-citizens-scrabbling-to-attain-post-brexit-status-before-deadline

    3 million is a huge number if you are trying to plan for schools, hospitals, housing etc especially when concentrated into certain areas. The fact that Brexit meant we now had a valid reason to accurately count the numbers in the U.K. is a plus in itself.

    If we were part of the EU, this would never have been picked up - and it would have been the poorest areas hardest hit
    Not sure what you mean by Non-contributory system for health and Social. We all pay tax and National insurance, and our employers do as well. (I did, but I'm retired now so only pay tax).
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    edited August 2021

    stodge said:

    Late evening all :)

    Just a comment on the piece in tomorrow's Guardian including the quote from Steve Baker MP.

    I suspect many would find the notion of deprivation and poverty in places like High Wycombe risible.

    It's not - there's a lot of relative poverty in the south and south-east - it's often masked by the larger areas of wealth but it is foolish to deny their existence.

    The cost of housing, for example, is one of those key measures which mark out the real problems some face in the supposedly affluent areas.

    Yes, we have that problem here in deep Surrey. Plenty of people work on moderate salaries - railway staff, shop staff, many others - and would like to live close to where they work, but because the average wealth is high, they are outbid and have to live elsewhere and have a long commute. If they lived in Nottingham they'd have much less trouble, but they have reasons - family, tradition, simply preference - for wanting to be down here.

    I used to live in High Wycombe - our neighbours were very Daily Telegraph types, always talking about riding and tennis, but the town had plenty of people who didn't look wealthy.
    Would there be any electoral benefit for Labour to propose that 'the average person should be able to buy the average house in their local area' ?

    With policies involving house building and taxation to achieve it.
    They already can in most of the North, Scotland, Wales, NI and the Midlands, only in most of the South and London is it out of reach.

    However Londoners can move to the rural or market town South East if they cannot afford to buy in London, still using a London salary to do so by continuing to commute to work in the city, Southerners who work and live in the rural or market town South East cannot however
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,539
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers

    You share the loss.

    That's the problem.

    Brexit makes us collectively poorer, but half the Country feel the need to cheer it.
    I simply don’t agree. There has been some loss - FOM for me is the big one - but we are now genuinely sovereign. There will be new freedoms.

    Of course this is very early days and it feels painful, even regrettable at times. I believe it was the great Seant, once of this parish, who wrote that Brexit is like having a baby. I have never forgotten these prescient paragraphs of his, from October 2016:


    ‘Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.

    ‘Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?’

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby

    But, as he concludes: it gets better from there
    I’ve never forgotten those prescient paragraphs because you keep fucking quoting them.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,423
    MrEd said:

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    This is true.

    Record numbers are trying to reach our shores.

    And Brexit has made it harder to send them back.

    Genius...
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    Why not? If it’s definitive as opposed to along the lines of “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be”, then that is a reasonable answer

    It's never definitive. That's the point.

    The leave campaigns made wild claims that they refuted the day after the vote.

    The sunlit uplands are always over the next hill...
    No, there are pluses now - from my standpoint, if not from yours.

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    Now look at the number of people who applied for EU residence status against the estimates who were here and whom even the pro-EU group says were undercounted by three million:

    https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/26/hundreds-of-thousands-of-eu-citizens-scrabbling-to-attain-post-brexit-status-before-deadline

    3 million is a huge number if you are trying to plan for schools, hospitals, housing etc especially when concentrated into certain areas. The fact that Brexit meant we now had a valid reason to accurately count the numbers in the U.K. is a plus in itself.

    If we were part of the EU, this would never have been picked up - and it would have been the poorest areas hardest hit
    Not sure what you mean by Non-contributory system for health and Social. We all pay tax and National insurance, and our employers do as well. (I did, but I'm retired now so only pay tax).
    In the sense that you can rock up to a hospital or a doctor, and get treatment, or get housing from your local council.

    Try doing that in places like France and Italy.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,812

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Quite. I didn't like the fact that Labour won landslides in 1997 and 2001, but I didn't let it ruin my life.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    I make a point of not saying things to people on the internet that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them in real life.

    I'm guessing you don't?
    So you’d happily call 10 million Leave-voting Brits ‘drooling racist fuckwits’ to their faces? That should go well
    I have just specifically said that I never said that. The drooling fuckwits are the fuckwits who believed the 350m pw to the NHS claim, which is not a racist claim. Happy to give the news direct to a representative sample of them.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,558

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565
    Now for a *really* contentious issue....

    The Schleswig-Holstein Question
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    This is true.

    Record numbers are trying to reach our shores.

    And Brexit has made it harder to send them back.

    Genius...
    Maybe. Although the French were not exactly playing ball when we were in the EU .

    The fact people want to come here and not stay in France or the EU says something it itself.

    No system is perfect. This is only my view b it there are pluses for Brexit and for staying in the EU. I thought the former outweighed the latter. But not everyone has that view
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837
    IshmaelZ said:

    I think it now time to introduce a contentious topic of conversation -

    Alfred Dreyfus - traitor, maligned, or the innocent victim is a bungled intelligence operation?

    Dunno, but I bloody love Foxy's anecdote that in later life Dreyfus commented on something or other that "There's no smoke without fire." No idea if true or not.
    Not my anecdote. The Dreyfuss Affair remains very divisive in France I believe, so I am not surprised there are folk that would rather think that "There's no smoke without fire" than admit that Dreyfuss was suspected of treason because he was Jewish.

  • Now for a *really* contentious issue....

    The Schleswig-Holstein Question

    Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort, who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,423
    MrEd said:

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    This is also true, but Brexit hasn't made it easier for "the plebs"

    It's levelling down.

    It's now harder for everyone to go on holiday, eat at restaurants, get their houses built.

    Why is anyone cheering that?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers

    You share the loss.

    That's the problem.

    Brexit makes us collectively poorer, but half the Country feel the need to cheer it.
    I simply don’t agree. There has been some loss - FOM for me is the big one - but we are now genuinely sovereign. There will be new freedoms.

    Of course this is very early days and it feels painful, even regrettable at times. I believe it was the great Seant, once of this parish, who wrote that Brexit is like having a baby. I have never forgotten these prescient paragraphs of his, from October 2016:


    ‘Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.

    ‘Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?’

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby

    But, as he concludes: it gets better from there
    I’ve never forgotten those prescient paragraphs because you keep fucking quoting them.
    The words burn into the brain, don’t they? Like Tyndale’s immortal translation of the Old Testament. Like the words of God, Himself. Uncanny
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    I think Brexit brings out the worst in everyone...

    If it was remotely successful instead of a shitshow that should not be the case
    It’s not even one year in.

    It’s why I bring up the Ireland example. If you took what is being said about Brexit, Ireland shouldn’t be an independent country. All the arguments used against Brexit applied x1000 to Ireland.

    Yet, they wanted to break free and that was the key point. And now the nation is doing very well.
    The thing is, though, that Brexit doesn't have the sense of broad public support that I'm pretty sure Irish independence had. And whilst right now it isn't the will of the people to rejoin or even get closer, it might be the sense of the people that this is a mistake;

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu/

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union-or-leave-the-european-union-asked-after-the-referendum/

    And yes, some of those saying to the government "are you sure this is entirely wise?" are nutters, or have crossed the line between trying to apply democratic brakes and behaving in an undemocratic way. But for whatever reason, this innovation hasn't (so far) won the broad acceptance it needs to stick. And saying "2016" only works for so long- democracy is allowing the pendulum to swing if it wants to.

    [My theory? For at least some of those behind Brexit, this was meant to be their D-Day. After a lifetime in the shadow of a generation who actually saved democracy, this was their chance to make their mark. And it's all a bit meh. Hence the irritation at those who aren't saluting at the victory parades, and the anguish at the thought that any of it might be reversed.]
    I think that is right but I suspect a lot of that is, as a society and people, we just don’t take the long view and want our satisfaction now. Although, with Irish independence, I’d slightly disagree with the “most Irish wanted it”. Sinn Fein won the 1918 election of a round of massive intimidation, particularly in rural areas. Most Irish pre-WWI preferred the softer approach of Dillon et al
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    I make a point of not saying things to people on the internet that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them in real life.

    I'm guessing you don't?
    I disagree.

    I think the internet allowing people to get angry and have pointless arguments with people they never meet has a useful effect if it stops people from doing so in real life with detrimental consequences in their jobs, homes and friendships.

    Not that I am angry with DA - he's a very interesting PBer with lots of useful knowledge and interesting stories.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,450
    edited August 2021
    BBC News - Hollywood plans £700m film and TV studios in Hertfordshire

    The companies anticipated it would "contribute £300m annually to the local economy" and could create up to 4,500 jobs.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58029042

    Clearly not everybody thinks the UK has become some uninvestable backwater. Maybe they can make all the French language shows for French Netflix for their quota ;-)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837
    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,812
    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    I think Brexit brings out the worst in everyone...

    If it was remotely successful instead of a shitshow that should not be the case
    It’s not even one year in.

    It’s why I bring up the Ireland example. If you took what is being said about Brexit, Ireland shouldn’t be an independent country. All the arguments used against Brexit applied x1000 to Ireland.

    Yet, they wanted to break free and that was the key point. And now the nation is doing very well.
    The thing is, though, that Brexit doesn't have the sense of broad public support that I'm pretty sure Irish independence had. And whilst right now it isn't the will of the people to rejoin or even get closer, it might be the sense of the people that this is a mistake;

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu/

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union-or-leave-the-european-union-asked-after-the-referendum/

    And yes, some of those saying to the government "are you sure this is entirely wise?" are nutters, or have crossed the line between trying to apply democratic brakes and behaving in an undemocratic way. But for whatever reason, this innovation hasn't (so far) won the broad acceptance it needs to stick. And saying "2016" only works for so long- democracy is allowing the pendulum to swing if it wants to.

    [My theory? For at least some of those behind Brexit, this was meant to be their D-Day. After a lifetime in the shadow of a generation who actually saved democracy, this was their chance to make their mark. And it's all a bit meh. Hence the irritation at those who aren't saluting at the victory parades, and the anguish at the thought that any of it might be reversed.]
    I think that is right but I suspect a lot of that is, as a society and people, we just don’t take the long view and want our satisfaction now. Although, with Irish independence, I’d slightly disagree with the “most Irish wanted it”. Sinn Fein won the 1918 election of a round of massive intimidation, particularly in rural areas. Most Irish pre-WWI preferred the softer approach of Dillon et al
    Not to mention that those who were most firmly opposed to Irish independence excluded themselves from the new State.
  • eekeek Posts: 27,578
    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    Let’s take one point. You never rebutted my point 3 namely the U.K. has a non-contributory system for social payments and health, and that makes it a massive magnet.

    This is true.

    Record numbers are trying to reach our shores.

    And Brexit has made it harder to send them back.

    Genius...
    How does Brexit make it more difficult? Could you provide evidence as as far as I remember we couldn’t ship the people back to France in 2019 so nothing has changed

  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    This is also true, but Brexit hasn't made it easier for "the plebs"

    It's levelling down.

    It's now harder for everyone to go on holiday, eat at restaurants, get their houses built.

    Why is anyone cheering that?
    You’re right but a tale from when I worked in Banking.

    When everyone got paid zero bonuses in a year, it was accepted and nobody really moaned because everyone was treated the same
    .
    When it kicked off was when bonuses came back and people worked out the huge differences.

    What was happening when we were in the EU is that some people were making out like bandits and others were left behind. Now, it’s being levelled.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Sean_F said:

    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MrEd said:

    I think Brexit brings out the worst in everyone...

    If it was remotely successful instead of a shitshow that should not be the case
    It’s not even one year in.

    It’s why I bring up the Ireland example. If you took what is being said about Brexit, Ireland shouldn’t be an independent country. All the arguments used against Brexit applied x1000 to Ireland.

    Yet, they wanted to break free and that was the key point. And now the nation is doing very well.
    The thing is, though, that Brexit doesn't have the sense of broad public support that I'm pretty sure Irish independence had. And whilst right now it isn't the will of the people to rejoin or even get closer, it might be the sense of the people that this is a mistake;

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu/

    https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union-or-leave-the-european-union-asked-after-the-referendum/

    And yes, some of those saying to the government "are you sure this is entirely wise?" are nutters, or have crossed the line between trying to apply democratic brakes and behaving in an undemocratic way. But for whatever reason, this innovation hasn't (so far) won the broad acceptance it needs to stick. And saying "2016" only works for so long- democracy is allowing the pendulum to swing if it wants to.

    [My theory? For at least some of those behind Brexit, this was meant to be their D-Day. After a lifetime in the shadow of a generation who actually saved democracy, this was their chance to make their mark. And it's all a bit meh. Hence the irritation at those who aren't saluting at the victory parades, and the anguish at the thought that any of it might be reversed.]
    I think that is right but I suspect a lot of that is, as a society and people, we just don’t take the long view and want our satisfaction now. Although, with Irish independence, I’d slightly disagree with the “most Irish wanted it”. Sinn Fein won the 1918 election of a round of massive intimidation, particularly in rural areas. Most Irish pre-WWI preferred the softer approach of Dillon et al
    Not to mention that those who were most firmly opposed to Irish independence excluded themselves from the new State.
    Yes or were driven from their homes. The Irish Free State’s treatment of Protestants is a stain on the history of Ireland
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Florida is over 1000 with Covid admissions a day over the last week.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    I think it now time to introduce a contentious topic of conversation -

    Alfred Dreyfus - traitor, maligned, or the innocent victim is a bungled intelligence operation?

    Dunno, but I bloody love Foxy's anecdote that in later life Dreyfus commented on something or other that "There's no smoke without fire." No idea if true or not.
    Not my anecdote. The Dreyfuss Affair remains very divisive in France I believe, so I am not surprised there are folk that would rather think that "There's no smoke without fire" than admit that Dreyfuss was suspected of treason because he was Jewish.

    Ah sorry thought it was you. Anyway here's an Internet source for it
    https://www.historytoday.com/archive/dreyfus-affair

    And I think you are missing the point, which is they this was something which Dreyfus (one s) himself allegedly said.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,450
    edited August 2021

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution or just a civil offense i.e. level of a parking ticket, if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    geoffw said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    I make a point of not saying things to people on the internet that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them in real life.

    I'm guessing you don't?
    We'll have to take your word for it, won't we?

    You want to come round here and say that?
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,333

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    To such an extent that some retailers are just shutting up shop:

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-francisco-shoplifting-walgreens-closing-b1852470.html

    "Walgreens has closed 17 of its stores due to rampant stealing, and CVS has called the city ‘one of the epicenters of organized retail crime’"
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers

    You share the loss.

    That's the problem.

    Brexit makes us collectively poorer, but half the Country feel the need to cheer it.
    I simply don’t agree. There has been some loss - FOM for me is the big one - but we are now genuinely sovereign. There will be new freedoms.

    Of course this is very early days and it feels painful, even regrettable at times. I believe it was the great Seant, once of this parish, who wrote that Brexit is like having a baby. I have never forgotten these prescient paragraphs of his, from October 2016:


    ‘Thirdly, there will be blood. Brexit is going to be painful, like childbirth. It just is. The Leave quacks who promised a brisk and blissful delivery don’t have enough diamorphine to dull the nerves. We might need epidurals from the Treasury. We will swear a lot, and not care. It might be rather embarrassing but again, we probably won’t care, because we’ll be concentrating on the pain. Other countries will look at us and think 'I’m never going through that'. Immediately after Brexit, we will likely appear reduced, saggy, wrinkled.

    ‘Then comes the depression. It’s unavoidable. Overnight, your horizons have shrunk to a nursery room, some cheap Lidl shiraz, and the sound of a fiendishly annoying plastic toy which sings 'Froggy goes a courting he did ride uh-huh' over and over again. The house is a mess, all the time, in every way. You haven’t slept properly for several economic quarters. And so, at one point you will stare at a bowl of mushed baby food, and then you’ll soulfully ask yourself: Why did I ever do this?’

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby

    But, as he concludes: it gets better from there
    I’ve never forgotten those prescient paragraphs because you keep fucking quoting them.
    The words burn into the brain, don’t they? Like Tyndale’s immortal translation of the Old Testament. Like the words of God, Himself. Uncanny
    Sean, you really are a grade A twit.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Quite. I didn't like the fact that Labour won landslides in 1997 and 2001, but I didn't let it ruin my life.
    In my experience the most diehard Remainers are the ones for whom it was the first big election they had ever lost, they tend to be middle class centrist types who voted for Blair then Cameron, often living in London and the South East. They tend to be pro immigration, socially liberal and relatively fiscally conservative and many of them now vote LD and despise Boris.

    Leftwing Corbynites may have voted Remain but they are used to losing and more concerned about pushing socialism than the EU.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,450
    edited August 2021
    carnforth said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    To such an extent that some retailers are just shutting up shop:

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-francisco-shoplifting-walgreens-closing-b1852470.html

    "Walgreens has closed 17 of its stores due to rampant stealing, and CVS has called the city ‘one of the epicenters of organized retail crime’"
    Who could have predicted that....it has to be one of the dumbest ideas going.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,333
    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?

    I may be misremembering, but didn't the archetype of the Polish Plumber come about in the late 90s and early 2000s, when Poland wasn't in the EU? So the original Polish Plumbers came on work visas...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,021
    Is the fact we're mostly talking about Brexit and not Covid a sign that things are getting back to normal?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Quite. I didn't like the fact that Labour won landslides in 1997 and 2001, but I didn't let it ruin my life.
    In my experience the most diehard Remainers are the ones for whom it was the first big election they had ever lost, they tend to be middle class centrist types who voted for Blair then Cameron, often living in London and the South East. They tend to be pro immigration, socially liberal and relatively fiscally conservative and many of them now vote LD and despise Boris.

    Leftwing Corbynites may have voted Remain but they are used to losing and more concerned about pushing socialism than the EU.
    Interesting that you call it an election. It wasn't one.
  • Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    That's one of the societal mental blocks that nobody has worked out how to solve. Protectionism is always a vote-winner, because people see the potential for increased incomes. The increased expenses are more diffuse, so it's hard to balance one against another.

    [Let's be honest, what most of us want is our income to be protected, but our expenses to be reduced by f'rexample globalisation. We don't like to admit that, because it's as nasty and hypocritical as it sounds. But that tension hasn't gone away. Is New Britain going to go IEA and let manufacturing go to the wall because anything (even new high-tech green stuff) can be made more cheaply elsewhere and shipped here in containers? Or are we going to repatriate manufacturing, even if it's not the optimal thing for national GDP?]
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,982

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted...
    Aren’t the police/CPS already well on the way to implementing that ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609
    My biggest regret about Brexit is exactly what we see here: the melancholy, hideous division of the country. The bitterness and resentment. The wounds which will need a decade to heal. It is so deeply sad. We used to be a country that could argue with civility, and calmness

    This could all have been avoided if the europhile elite had, just once, granted us a referendum in the many years BEFORE Brexit, over Maastricht, or Lisbon, or the Constitution, but they didn’t, because they are arrogant, and hypocritical, because they are ridiculous elitists, they are effeminate whinging twats who over-rate their own intelligence and so they got what they deserved didn’t they the ugly smelly snobbish creepy Remoaner perverts HAHAHAHA YOU CANT RETIRE TO YOUR FUCKING VILLA IN THE LANGUEDOC NOW CAN YOU
  • Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,450
    edited August 2021

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565

    carnforth said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    To such an extent that some retailers are just shutting up shop:

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-francisco-shoplifting-walgreens-closing-b1852470.html

    "Walgreens has closed 17 of its stores due to rampant stealing, and CVS has called the city ‘one of the epicenters of organized retail crime’"
    Who could have predicted that....it has to be one of the dumbest ideas going.
    The anti-theft measures automated in the Amazon physical shops have even been called inhumane... since they make shop lifting rather difficult.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,359
    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,278
    edited August 2021
    OT and less contentious maybe. As a non-Christian, I am really enjoying The Chosen on YouTube.
    It is an evangelical crowd funded story of Jesus in long form. Really well-acted, and takes the time to flesh out the Apostles as rounded characters. Jesus is actually charismatic, the sort who would attract followers, but very down-to-earth. And with a good sense of humour too. Not at all holy or preachy as many have portrayed him.
    Just fast forward through the God bothering linebacker between episodes.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,982
    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,232
    edited August 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Quite. I didn't like the fact that Labour won landslides in 1997 and 2001, but I didn't let it ruin my life.
    In my experience the most diehard Remainers are the ones for whom it was the first big election they had ever lost, they tend to be middle class centrist types who voted for Blair then Cameron, often living in London and the South East. They tend to be pro immigration, socially liberal and relatively fiscally conservative and many of them now vote LD and despise Boris.

    Leftwing Corbynites may have voted Remain but they are used to losing and more concerned about pushing socialism than the EU.
    Interesting that you call it an election. It wasn't one.
    It defined the next 2 general elections and will probably still be a factor in the one to come, even if it took the 2019 general election to finally confirm the result (and most of the category of Remain diehards I am talking about voted LD then so still lost)
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.
    During the London riots, I was in Hoxton fairly frequently. The shops in that area seemed to alternate between Polish run mini markets and Vietnamese restaurants.

    I was doing some stuff in a building that looked down onto the back of the shops. It was blazing hot, and all the back doors were open. All the off duty Vietnamese waiters and spare Polish blokes were sitting out back, smoking and drinking together. The Vietnamese all had obviously watched Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels - they all had machetes. The Poles were obviously the Polish Small Shop Keepers Baseball team....

    It was interesting to see two cultures integrating....
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
    I do. And I am sure you realise that most of the staff are not coming from non-U.K., EU countries?
  • Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Leon said:

    My biggest regret about Brexit is exactly what we see here: the melancholy, hideous division of the country. The bitterness and resentment. The wounds which will need a decade to heal. It is so deeply sad. We used to be a country that could argue with civility, and calmness

    This could all have been avoided if the europhile elite had, just once, granted us a referendum in the many years BEFORE Brexit, over Maastricht, or Lisbon, or the Constitution, but they didn’t, because they are arrogant, and hypocritical, because they are ridiculous elitists, they are effeminate whinging twats who over-rate their own intelligence and so they got what they deserved didn’t they the ugly smelly snobbish creepy Remoaner perverts HAHAHAHA YOU CANT RETIRE TO YOUR FUCKING VILLA IN THE LANGUEDOC NOW CAN YOU

    Poor Roger. You can imagine now, crying over his Pastis about the stupid Brexiteers...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565
    MrEd said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
    The problem isn't lawyers. The problem is the mentality that the social contract is one way. You owe obedience to the state. And that's it.

    It comes from a mind set where people are just a bunch of pawns. If only they would line up nicely, the way *i* want.....

    Hilariously, even *feudalism* didn't work that way. There are plenty of law cases preserved of people, even serfs, suing their feudal superiors for not fulfilling their obligations....
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,558
    .
    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,565
    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted...
    Aren’t the police/CPS already well on the way to implementing that ?
    In some areas, yes.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    I think it now time to introduce a contentious topic of conversation -

    Alfred Dreyfus - traitor, maligned, or the innocent victim is a bungled intelligence operation?

    Dunno, but I bloody love Foxy's anecdote that in later life Dreyfus commented on something or other that "There's no smoke without fire." No idea if true or not.
    Not my anecdote. The Dreyfuss Affair remains very divisive in France I believe, so I am not surprised there are folk that would rather think that "There's no smoke without fire" than admit that Dreyfuss was suspected of treason because he was Jewish.

    Ah sorry thought it was you. Anyway here's an Internet source for it
    https://www.historytoday.com/archive/dreyfus-affair

    And I think you are missing the point, which is they this was something which Dreyfus (one s) himself allegedly said.
    Though the quotation in the article cited by yourself clearly refers to someone other than Dreyfus.

    "There are many anecdotes which cannot be verified. Thus it is said that when Dreyfus learned that some unknown man had been arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, and it was pointed out that no one knew what was the evidence against him, then it was Dreyfus, of all people, who said 'There's never smoke without fire'. Sometimes when longstanding anecdotes are investigated they are found to be false."
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    He is a vegan, and won't use things tested on animals.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    I believe it’s because of his Green beliefs. The vax is tested on animals = bad

    But like you I wonder how much of his persona is fantasy. I have reason to believe this site attracts the type. People posing as others, using multiple IDs etc. It is regrettable

    For instance Dura recently claimed that he is a foreign language tutor, or something like that. He is clearly gifted at languages but that seems quite a lowly job for someone with his education. Also he implies he is very wealthy, so why do a boring job in any case?

    This is not a hostile remark. He can be immensely entertaining
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,982
    .
    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
    I do. And I am sure you realise that most of the staff are not coming from non-U.K., EU countries?
    So, if you are poor, you may well still put you mum in a private nursing home.
    And you’re also apparently wrong about ‘most of the staff’:
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/internationalmigrationandthehealthcareworkforce/2019-08-15
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
    The problem isn't lawyers. The problem is the mentality that the social contract is one way. You owe obedience to the state. And that's it.

    It comes from a mind set where people are just a bunch of pawns. If only they would line up nicely, the way *i* want.....

    Hilariously, even *feudalism* didn't work that way. There are plenty of law cases preserved of people, even serfs, suing their feudal superiors for not fulfilling their obligations....
    I’d disagree with the argument lawyers aren’t the problem. I think they are, in this day and age, very much the problem.

    English society, at least, was run on the principle of “give or take”, that you would use common sense to sort out problems and / or find solutions.

    That has now switched as lawyers have captured control to insist that their way - and only their way - of looking at things and deciding what is right or wrong is the only just cause

    Many lawyers - particularly on the left - have come to see their cause as a righteous one, almost akin to a crusade. That is the problem .
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Both sides lied

    And, of course, we were wafted IN to the Common Market on a magic carpet of lies. ‘Oh there will be no loss of sovereignty’. Heath knew this was total bullshit but he didn’t care, he just wanted us in.

    The fact we joined and left in a miasma of lies, told by all, has a beautiful symmetry
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Nigelb said:

    .

    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
    I do. And I am sure you realise that most of the staff are not coming from non-U.K., EU countries?
    So, if you are poor, you may well still put you mum in a private nursing home.
    And you’re also apparently wrong about ‘most of the staff’:
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/internationalmigrationandthehealthcareworkforce/2019-08-15
    Err, have you actually looked at what that data quoted - it said EU nationals were more likely to work in the private health sector than non-EU or U.K. staff.

    Not exactly backing your case that EU staff are holding up state nursing homes...
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Leon said:

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Both sides lied

    And, of course, we were wafted IN to the Common Market on a magic carpet of lies. ‘Oh there will be no loss of sovereignty’. Heath knew this was total bullshit but he didn’t care, he just wanted us in.

    The fact we joined and left in a miasma of lies, told by all, has a beautiful symmetry
    Both did indeed. It’s politics.

    And both sides lie when it comes to a GE. We all know that
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,359
    edited August 2021

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Understand that but I don't really feel the same way. I think it was the mood of the country to leave the EU. It surprised and disappointed me to find that out. I'm ok with it now. Just wish it hadn't come in a package deal with Boris Johnson and a landslide Tory government.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609
    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
    The problem isn't lawyers. The problem is the mentality that the social contract is one way. You owe obedience to the state. And that's it.

    It comes from a mind set where people are just a bunch of pawns. If only they would line up nicely, the way *i* want.....

    Hilariously, even *feudalism* didn't work that way. There are plenty of law cases preserved of people, even serfs, suing their feudal superiors for not fulfilling their obligations....
    I’d disagree with the argument lawyers aren’t the problem. I think they are, in this day and age, very much the problem.

    English society, at least, was run on the principle of “give or take”, that you would use common sense to sort out problems and / or find solutions.

    That has now switched as lawyers have captured control to insist that their way - and only their way - of looking at things and deciding what is right or wrong is the only just cause

    Many lawyers - particularly on the left - have come to see their cause as a righteous one, almost akin to a crusade. That is the problem .

    Judges, too

    Looking back, the way that brooch-wearing lady judge behaved towards the democratically elected government, in the prorogation thingy, was quite outrageous. Almost a coup. Another Remoaner, natch
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    He is a vegan, and won't use things tested on animals.

    But quite happily would test them on Brexiteers
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,982
    edited August 2021
    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
    I do. And I am sure you realise that most of the staff are not coming from non-U.K., EU countries?
    So, if you are poor, you may well still put you mum in a private nursing home.
    And you’re also apparently wrong about ‘most of the staff’:
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/internationalmigrationandthehealthcareworkforce/2019-08-15
    Err, have you actually looked at what that data quoted - it said EU nationals were more likely to work in the private health sector than non-EU or U.K. staff.

    Not exactly backing your case that EU staff are holding up state nursing homes...
    Why do you imagine there is a clear distinction between state and private nursing homes ?
    A good deal of the clients of the private sector (which accounts for the vast majority of such homes in the UK) are council funded.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,710
    Leon said:

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Both sides lied

    And, of course, we were wafted IN to the Common Market on a magic carpet of lies. ‘Oh there will be no loss of sovereignty’. Heath knew this was total bullshit but he didn’t care, he just wanted us in.

    The fact we joined and left in a miasma of lies, told by all, has a beautiful symmetry
    The other problem with the "Leave lied" argument is that it took two further General Elections before we got a parliamentary majority to leave. The 2016 vote wasn't at all decisive.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,278
    edited August 2021
    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
    The problem isn't lawyers. The problem is the mentality that the social contract is one way. You owe obedience to the state. And that's it.

    It comes from a mind set where people are just a bunch of pawns. If only they would line up nicely, the way *i* want.....

    Hilariously, even *feudalism* didn't work that way. There are plenty of law cases preserved of people, even serfs, suing their feudal superiors for not fulfilling their obligations....
    I’d disagree with the argument lawyers aren’t the problem. I think they are, in this day and age, very much the problem.

    English society, at least, was run on the principle of “give or take”, that you would use common sense to sort out problems and / or find solutions.

    That has now switched as lawyers have captured control to insist that their way - and only their way - of looking at things and deciding what is right or wrong is the only just cause

    Many lawyers - particularly on the left - have come to see their cause as a righteous one, almost akin to a crusade. That is the problem .
    Is it not the case that, in the past, most lawyers, and almost all judges were of the right? At the very least supportive of the upholding of the interests of the Establishment? Being as how they all came from similar backgrounds? They always had control. It was just one way and narrowly focussed.
    Now they aren't.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Leon said:

    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    Well said
    I recall having a conversation with some fairly progressive lawyers on the subject of crime and punishment.

    They wanted to end all arrests and prosecutions for shop lifting. In their view these just harassed marginalised people (their clients) and did nothing they (the lawyers) wanted.

    That found my points about what would happen... worrying and unacceptable. I pointed out that they were, in effect, suggesting withdrawing legal protection from shop keepers. Who would then invent their own system of justice to protect themselves.

    I came to realise, that in their world, once they had "proved" that shoplifting prosecutions were a "human rights" issue, they owned the answer. Anyone who thought different, was immoral and wrong in a nearly religious sense.

    To them, society is a system which they are the leaders of. Their version of the social contract is that people obey the rules they provide.
    Some cities in the US currently have these laws....no prosecution if you take under $x00. All that happens is they walk in, take that amount, walk out, return an hour later, rinse and repeat.

    Some amended it to per day....so they just send in multiple people every day.
    It has happened to a certain extent here. And the inevitable happens in the US and here.

    A friend came down in the world a bit. Ended up living in a council estate in part of London. The local corner shop had some problems with the drug addicts.

    The police didn't bother very much.

    From what my friend said, the issue went away when the corner shop owner joined a "private bar" owned by a local..... chap. Not to actual go there, so much as be associated with him. Apparently the junkies now steer well clear.
    I once lived on a very rough estate and the parade of shops were regularly targeted by the scum for stealing.....then one "slipped" and ended up falling arms first into the deep fat fryer in the chinese take away....i went in there the next week and there was a very large gentleman sitting in the corner with a machete, i am sure he had nothing to do with the accident that happened the previous week.

    For a chinese take away on a rough estate, did very good food...not that i would have complained if it wasn't.
    Of course that is what happens, if the state cannot protect, people look for “alternative” means as well.

    I have to admit, I really do find lawyers - with some exceptions and they tend to be solicitors than barristers - some of the most stupid fuckwits / absolute gobshites out there. No common sense, think they are right all the time and generally stuck up their own arse.

    I exclude @DavidL from that analysis because I think he is in the rare minority
    The problem isn't lawyers. The problem is the mentality that the social contract is one way. You owe obedience to the state. And that's it.

    It comes from a mind set where people are just a bunch of pawns. If only they would line up nicely, the way *i* want.....

    Hilariously, even *feudalism* didn't work that way. There are plenty of law cases preserved of people, even serfs, suing their feudal superiors for not fulfilling their obligations....
    I’d disagree with the argument lawyers aren’t the problem. I think they are, in this day and age, very much the problem.

    English society, at least, was run on the principle of “give or take”, that you would use common sense to sort out problems and / or find solutions.

    That has now switched as lawyers have captured control to insist that their way - and only their way - of looking at things and deciding what is right or wrong is the only just cause

    Many lawyers - particularly on the left - have come to see their cause as a righteous one, almost akin to a crusade. That is the problem .

    Judges, too

    Looking back, the way that brooch-wearing lady judge behaved towards the democratically elected government, in the prorogation thingy, was quite outrageous. Almost a coup. Another Remoaner, natch
    And the Remainers cheered and said how great she was.

    It wasn’t and it would have been the same if she was a forthright Leaver ruling against the opposite side of the argument.

    Once the law becomes partisan - in any direction - it loses its legitimacy.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,359

    Leon said:

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Both sides lied

    And, of course, we were wafted IN to the Common Market on a magic carpet of lies. ‘Oh there will be no loss of sovereignty’. Heath knew this was total bullshit but he didn’t care, he just wanted us in.

    The fact we joined and left in a miasma of lies, told by all, has a beautiful symmetry
    The other problem with the "Leave lied" argument is that it took two further General Elections before we got a parliamentary majority to leave. The 2016 vote wasn't at all decisive.
    Yes, we had a 2nd Ref in a sense. GE19.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,710
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Both sides lied

    And, of course, we were wafted IN to the Common Market on a magic carpet of lies. ‘Oh there will be no loss of sovereignty’. Heath knew this was total bullshit but he didn’t care, he just wanted us in.

    The fact we joined and left in a miasma of lies, told by all, has a beautiful symmetry
    The other problem with the "Leave lied" argument is that it took two further General Elections before we got a parliamentary majority to leave. The 2016 vote wasn't at all decisive.
    Yes, we had a 2nd Ref in a sense. GE19.
    Yes, after three years of non-stop debate. If there had been a big groundswell against Brexit then it wouldn't have happened.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    MrEd said:

    Nigelb said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    There is one big caveat to that, namely when the rules and laws work in their favour.

    The EU was a big plus for upper professional classes who relied on cheap labour to do building jobs, clean their houses, waiter at their favourite restaurants and, of course, when it meant they could holiday in France or Portugal in their second homes without waiting with the plebs.

    If the rules were against their interests, they would be crying foul ad infinitum
    Did working class people never use a plumber or have building works, or buy beer from a Slovakian barmaid, nor have their mother looked after by Polish nursing home staff?
    Builders - unlikely, given the cost involved and / or they would do it themselves and / or use friends

    Beer - yes but so what? The beer companies would put up the price of beer regardless of the cost of Labour. The profit went to the beer companies not the consumer. Just look at how much beer in bars has risen?

    Nursing homes - again, if you are poor, you are not going to put your mother in a private nursing home. And a far greater proportion are from non-EU countries

    Counter point, Poorer people see far more fat to day impact when it comes to their kids at school having bigger classes and / or resources switched to non-English speaking pupils, plus bigger queues at the doctors for treatment.
    You do realise around half of nursing home residents are state funded ?
    I do. And I am sure you realise that most of the staff are not coming from non-U.K., EU countries?
    So, if you are poor, you may well still put you mum in a private nursing home.
    And you’re also apparently wrong about ‘most of the staff’:
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/internationalmigrationandthehealthcareworkforce/2019-08-15
    Err, have you actually looked at what that data quoted - it said EU nationals were more likely to work in the private health sector than non-EU or U.K. staff.

    Not exactly backing your case that EU staff are holding up state nursing homes...
    Why do you imagine there is a clear distinction between state and private nursing homes ?
    A good deal of the clients of the private sector (which accounts for the vast majority of such homes in the UK) are council funded.
    Three things;

    1. On that data, 88pc of health staff are U.K. nationals. EU staff do not hold up the system;
    2. Of the 12pc, the data states 6pc are EU and 6pc non-EU staff.
    3. On your specific point, yes councils fund non-state homes but, given the very definitions, it is more likely that poorer older people are in state homes than private ones
  • kinabalu said:

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    Is kind of the essence of it. All the detailed pros and cons debate - whilst stimulating and fun - is phony and pointless. Whatever will be will be. Nobody has a clue really. And it's all on the margins anyway. Brexit won't ruin us and it won't be any sort of rebirth either. We'll just muddle on. The main thing it's delivered is political power into the hands of Boris Johnson. There are worse things.

    No, it's the SPIRIT of Brexit that is the big downer. Or the spirit of Leave rather. It's meaner than a junkyard dog. The poorer, smaller, chippier, sentimental, insecure, grandiose side of our national character prevailed in June 2016 and remains in the box seat now.

    Please don't Leave voters take this post the wrong way. It's my honest and much thought about macro view of this topic. And it's nothing personal. I don't consider that 17m demons beat 16m angels. We're all a mix of the two.
    The 17m had every right to vote the way they chose, and of that I am cool.

    There will however be a special place in hell for those who lied and indeed lied on the side of a bus to persuade enough people who were unsure of which way to vote, to vote leave under a false manifesto.
    Understand that but I don't really feel the same way. I think it was the mood of the country to leave the EU. It surprised and disappointed me to find that out. I'm ok with it now. Just wish it hadn't come in a package deal with Boris Johnson and a landslide Tory government.
    Corbyn choosing to support or abstain on May's deal is an interesting what if.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,609
    This weather is dismal. A week of rain ahead. Pfff
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,217

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    It’s a remarkable spectacle, full blown late stage Remoanerism in action. It is definitely a mental syndrome, as we have often discussed on here. It must be a syndrome because the symptoms and behaviourisms are so similar across a wide spectrum of people of different ages

    It is an entire social class that has always had its own way, fundamentally - until this sudden, brutal reverse. They can’t cope. For the first time in their lives, they are serious Losers
    Recognising how irrational people on my previous side of the debate had become was a big factor in me changing my position.

    I think there might be something in the theory that the people at the top and the bottom of society both have a common understanding that you can't run a society by laws alone, whereas the upper professional classes have an absolute faith in process and systems and rules, so withdrawing from what they see as a rules-based system (however much the reality belies that) just doesn't compute.
    The more I think about this, I think that Remainers are simply in mourning for a world that is passing. It is they who are overcome by nostalgia.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837
    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    He is a vegan, and won't use things tested on animals.

    But quite happily would test them on Brexiteers
    Well, test them on everyone really.

    The anti-vaxxers are the control group. The 10% of adults unvaxxed are 75% of ICU cases. So it is quite useful to have a control group, albeit unrandomised.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,278
    Leon said:

    This weather is dismal. A week of rain ahead. Pfff

    Ahead? I was in Lancashire last week and got back to the NE Thursday evening.
    I've already had 6 consecutive days of rain, thank you.
  • Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    He is a vegan, and won't use things tested on animals.

    But quite happily would test them on Brexiteers
    Well, test them on everyone really.

    The anti-vaxxers are the control group. The 10% of adults unvaxxed are 75% of ICU cases. So it is quite useful to have a control group, albeit unrandomised.
    Are your Consultant colleagues still refusing to get vaccinated ?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,837

    Foxy said:

    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    We’ve all learned to avoid the topic

    Surely you can reassure them with tales of how brilliant Brexit is?

    All the great success?

    The fantastic new opportunities?

    But no, you sit in embarrassed silence...
    No, I can’t reassure them. And you know why? Because as soon as I calmly say ‘we now elect and reject those who govern us and…’ they go mad. They start jumping up and down like you. They froth and rage about Boris and Dom and ‘drooling fuckwit racist Leavers’ - on and on and on. Like enraged toddlers. It really is deeply embarrassing - for them.

    The last time it happened - quite recently - a good friend (works in TV, Cambridge graduate) ended up purple-faced and frantically screaming about ‘the Nazi Tories’. I do not exaggerate.

    At this point his wife (also a Remoaner, but saner) put a calming hand on his shoulder and he suddenly stopped, looked around, and realised the entire pub was looking at him in horror. So he shut the fuck up and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening
    Their hatred is continually refueled by the failure of the disaster they so confidently predicted and so desperately wanted to happen.
    That and that we genuinely quite despise leavers wishing them nothing but ill.
    But don't you hate everyone ?

    Was that a consequence of being kicked out of the RN or a cause ?
    There is rather an unpleasant atmosphere on here tonight, and your final paragraph is about as personally unpleasant as it gets.
    Its odd, on the rare occasions I have tried to annoy people I rarely get a response.

    But when I haven't I sometimes do.

    And I certainly bear no ill will to DA, who incidentally has mentioned his departure from the RN (the tuktuk affair) many times and also boasts of his antipathy towards much of the country (though whether he really does I don't know).
    Dura Ace is an anti vaxxer. He wants the rest of us to die because he can’t be arsed to have an injection. It’s hard to get more antipathetic than THAT
    I'd forgotten that DA is an anti-vaxxer - that's if he is and not just claiming to be.

    Does he have reasons more coherent that contrarian's gibberish ?
    He is a vegan, and won't use things tested on animals.

    But quite happily would test them on Brexiteers
    Well, test them on everyone really.

    The anti-vaxxers are the control group. The 10% of adults unvaxxed are 75% of ICU cases. So it is quite useful to have a control group, albeit unrandomised.
    Are your Consultant colleagues still refusing to get vaccinated ?
    I haven't asked them for a while.

    My fifty something unvaxxed clinic co ordinator has caught it, along with her twenty something daughters though none too bad at present. Pretty much everyone unvaxxed will get Delta IMO, and a fair few vaxxed too.
This discussion has been closed.