Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Options

It looks as though Johnson will fail to get a US trade deal – politicalbetting.com

1234568»

Comments

  • Options
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    It is not yet clear what species this is, although it does not appear human.

    It has not yet learned to walk, but can already spin its head 360 degrees and vomit ectoplasm.
    You, and your fellow Remoaners, are the unwilling father from Up The Junction, by Squeeze, and the final stanza foretells your fate


    This morning at four fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker
    She looked just like her mother
    If there could be another

    And now she's two years older
    Her mother's with a soldier
    She left me when my drinking
    Became a proper stinging
    The devil came and took me
    From bar to street to bookie
    No more nights by the telly
    No more nights nappies smelly

    Alone here in the kitchen
    I feel there's something missing
    I'd beg for some forgiveness
    But begging's not my business
    And she won't write a letter
    Although I always tell her
    And so it's my assumption
    I'm really up the junction
    Don’t traduce that immortal song with your Brexitry.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,586
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

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

    You have to admire the chutzpah of arguing that something will have huge and unpredictable effects, including bad ones, as an argument for doing it. A lesser mortal would have taken the opposite view. If only we had someone with this leonine level of genius and perpicacity gracing this forum currently!
    Yes, he is a grave loss to the site

    However the overall analogy explains all this. Brexit is like having a baby. Your first baby. Everyone who willingly becomes a parent knows (unless they are exceptionally dim or crazy) that this will mean fundamental life changes, and not all of them will be good. Some, indeed, will be pretty bloody bad. Everyone has seen the harrassed young mum with a screaming brat

    Nevertheless, instinctively, most people want to take the risk and have the baby

    To continue the analogy, I wonder where we are now. Perhaps AUKUS is that precious moment when, after six months of constant whining, mewling and nappy changing, the baby looks up, and smiles at you. And you think Wow, this really is what I wanted

    That means there's still lots of bad stuff to come. The terrible twos!
    Your manlove for the late reprobate and his analogies is a little disturbing.
  • Options
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,979
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

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

    You have to admire the chutzpah of arguing that something will have huge and unpredictable effects, including bad ones, as an argument for doing it. A lesser mortal would have taken the opposite view. If only we had someone with this leonine level of genius and perpicacity gracing this forum currently!
    Yes, he is a grave loss to the site

    However the overall analogy explains all this. Brexit is like having a baby. Your first baby. Everyone who willingly becomes a parent knows (unless they are exceptionally dim or crazy) that this will mean fundamental life changes, and not all of them will be good. Some, indeed, will be pretty bloody bad. Everyone has seen the harrassed young mum with a screaming brat

    Nevertheless, instinctively, most people want to take the risk and have the baby

    To continue the analogy, I wonder where we are now. Perhaps AUKUS is that precious moment when, after six months of constant whining, mewling and nappy changing, the baby looks up, and smiles at you. And you think Wow, this really is what I wanted

    That means there's still lots of bad stuff to come. The terrible twos!
    Your manlove for the late reprobate and his analogies is a little disturbing.
    Self love has that habit with some people.
  • Options
    gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    I’m not surprised. Since the last election result what has changed to make the result of next one any different?

    Labour have a problem they are not addressing in life long Labour voters who voted Brexit, who now vote Tory, the Party of Brexit Delivery - whilst Starmer and Labour are the arch traitors who did their best to stop Brexit and over turn democracy. To keep us in the EU, they even wanted us in EU vaccine procurement after Brexit!

    Opposition is about being busy getting voters back, not complacency. So why should polls change from this if Labour don’t address this glass ceiling.

    Labour have nothing to say to Lexit.

    “what’s your message to your lost Lexit voters, Mr Starmer?” Bang! His head goes straight into the ground like an Ostrich.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,298
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Joining the EU could POSSIBLY, in a Speccie sub-literature crowd-pleasing but dull article kind of way, be considered like having a baby. From the known to the vaguely unknown at least to you. But not leaving it. That is returning to the status quo ante and hence it would be like giving up your baby for adoption.

    Really thank goodness that Sean bloke is out of circulation. Nothing but trouble.
  • Options
    moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,244
    Sandpit said:

    moonshine said:

    https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1440651945539096577?s=21

    Seb Payne on why there won’t be an early election

    To misquote James Carville - it’s the boundary changes, stupid.
    An early election would be the most depressing thing ever, as it would give a platform for tedious people to bore on about brexit.
  • Options
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    It is not yet clear what species this is, although it does not appear human.

    It has not yet learned to walk, but can already spin its head 360 degrees and vomit ectoplasm.
    You, and your fellow Remoaners, are the unwilling father from Up The Junction, by Squeeze, and the final stanza foretells your fate


    This morning at four fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker
    She looked just like her mother
    If there could be another

    And now she's two years older
    Her mother's with a soldier
    She left me when my drinking
    Became a proper stinging
    The devil came and took me
    From bar to street to bookie
    No more nights by the telly
    No more nights nappies smelly

    Alone here in the kitchen
    I feel there's something missing
    I'd beg for some forgiveness
    But begging's not my business
    And she won't write a letter
    Although I always tell her
    And so it's my assumption
    I'm really up the junction
    Never liked that song much - some of the rhyming is terrible.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

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



    You have to admire the chutzpah of arguing that something will have huge and unpredictable effects, including bad ones, as an argument for doing it. A lesser mortal would have taken the opposite view. If only we had someone with this leonine level of genius and perpicacity gracing this forum currently!
    Yes, he is a grave loss to the site


    However the overall analogy explains all this. Brexit is like having a baby. Your first baby. Everyone who willingly becomes a parent knows (unless they are exceptionally dim or crazy) that this will mean fundamental life changes, and not all of them will be good. Some, indeed, will be pretty bloody bad. Everyone has seen the harrassed young mum with a screaming brat

    Nevertheless, instinctively, most people want to take the risk and have the baby


    To continue the analogy, I wonder where we are now. Perhaps AUKUS is that precious moment when, after six months of constant whining, mewling and nappy changing, the baby looks up, and smiles at you. And you think Wow, this really is what I wanted

    That means there's still lots of bad stuff to come. The terrible twos!
    With all due respect to SeanT (PBUH) it is a terrible ananogy. Most of the life changes that come with having a child are eminently predictable and quite manageable. And it is a delightful experience right from the start. The closer analogy I think is a divorce, perhaps from someone you found difficult to live with but start to miss once you have split up. And for Remainers, of course, it is more like a bereavement.
    I am speaking as someone blessed with plenty of experience of having children, limited experience of bereavement and no experience of divorce, so judge my analogies accordingly.
    If having a child was, for you, a "delightful experience right from the start" then I suggest you are very lucky, and quite unusual

    I don't know any parent who would say it was ALL DELIGHTFUL. For me, being a parent brought hitherto unequalled moments of joy, and satisfaction, but also never-seen-before spasms of guilt, and also a constant supply of worry, like oxygen in a Covid ward - which still continues

    And then there's the expense and the boredom. I still haven't recovered from the SECOND time I had to watch the Smurf movie. Jesus

    And yet the most wonderful sound I have ever heard is the sound of my children laughing


    All of this was unanticipated. I suspected some of it, but nothing like the scale and intensity
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,377

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    Usually polls trail events by a week or 2, I find.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
  • Options
    gealbhan said:

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    I’m not surprised. Since the last election result what has changed to make the result of next one any different?

    Labour have a problem they are not addressing in life long Labour voters who voted Brexit, who now vote Tory, the Party of Brexit Delivery - whilst Starmer and Labour are the arch traitors who did their best to stop Brexit and over turn democracy. To keep us in the EU, they even wanted us in EU vaccine procurement after Brexit!

    Opposition is about being busy getting voters back, not complacency. So why should polls change from this if Labour don’t address this glass ceiling.

    Labour have nothing to say to Lexit.

    “what’s your message to your lost Lexit voters, Mr Starmer?” Bang! His head goes straight into the ground like an Ostrich.
    Great post, SKS is a very poor opposition leader, despite the many positive headers he receives on this site.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,525
    MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    Motorway demos seems to be a general thing now. Must say in my experience that stretch of the M8 traffic is at a crawl more often than not anyway.

    https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1440626622344810508?s=20

    Highways England got an injunction against them, so they’ve moved to Scotland.
    Are applying for, not 'have already'.
    Seems that I was wrong; they already have it.

    Good.
  • Options

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    It is not yet clear what species this is, although it does not appear human.

    It has not yet learned to walk, but can already spin its head 360 degrees and vomit ectoplasm.
    You, and your fellow Remoaners, are the unwilling father from Up The Junction, by Squeeze, and the final stanza foretells your fate


    This morning at four fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker
    She looked just like her mother
    If there could be another

    And now she's two years older
    Her mother's with a soldier
    She left me when my drinking
    Became a proper stinging
    The devil came and took me
    From bar to street to bookie
    No more nights by the telly
    No more nights nappies smelly

    Alone here in the kitchen
    I feel there's something missing
    I'd beg for some forgiveness
    But begging's not my business
    And she won't write a letter
    Although I always tell her
    And so it's my assumption
    I'm really up the junction
    Don’t traduce that immortal song with your Brexitry.
    Besides, you could just as easily parse it as a warning to Brexiters. Having gone to the trouble of having a relationship with Europe, it's a bad idea to break it off on the off chance of having more fun elsewhere. You might end up alone and addled and too proud to edge back to a more sensible relationship.

    See, finding analogies is fun!
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,995
    Sandpit said:

    moonshine said:

    https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1440651945539096577?s=21

    Seb Payne on why there won’t be an early election

    To misquote James Carville - it’s the boundary changes, stupid.
    Plus most polls now show either a narrow Tory majority or hung parliament, so even if Boris is re elected some Tory MPs would lose their seats.

    He will only call an early general election in 2023 rather than 2024 if most polls show a comfortable Tory majority again
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,896
    edited September 2021
    gealbhan said:

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    I’m not surprised. Since the last election result what has changed to make the result of next one any different?

    Labour have a problem they are not addressing in life long Labour voters who voted Brexit, who now vote Tory, the Party of Brexit Delivery - whilst Starmer and Labour are the arch traitors who did their best to stop Brexit and over turn democracy. To keep us in the EU, they even wanted us in EU vaccine procurement after Brexit!

    Opposition is about being busy getting voters back, not complacency. So why should polls change from this if Labour don’t address this glass ceiling.

    Labour have nothing to say to Lexit.

    “what’s your message to your lost Lexit voters, Mr Starmer?” Bang! His head goes straight into the ground like an Ostrich.
    To add to that, the levelling up is going to happen. If fact, there’s evidence that it is already, with a record number of vacancies and upward pressure on wages.

    Now, remainers in London will continue say it’s not really levelling up, but, for many people who voted Tory for the first time in 2019, their life might well be better in 2024 than it was two years ago.

    Labour needs a way to win them back, but at the moment they’re rowing upstream.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,298
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

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



    You have to admire the chutzpah of arguing that something will have huge and unpredictable effects, including bad ones, as an argument for doing it. A lesser mortal would have taken the opposite view. If only we had someone with this leonine level of genius and perpicacity gracing this forum currently!
    Yes, he is a grave loss to the site


    However the overall analogy explains all this. Brexit is like having a baby. Your first baby. Everyone who willingly becomes a parent knows (unless they are exceptionally dim or crazy) that this will mean fundamental life changes, and not all of them will be good. Some, indeed, will be pretty bloody bad. Everyone has seen the harrassed young mum with a screaming brat

    Nevertheless, instinctively, most people want to take the risk and have the baby


    To continue the analogy, I wonder where we are now. Perhaps AUKUS is that precious moment when, after six months of constant whining, mewling and nappy changing, the baby looks up, and smiles at you. And you think Wow, this really is what I wanted

    That means there's still lots of bad stuff to come. The terrible twos!
    With all due respect to SeanT (PBUH) it is a terrible ananogy. Most of the life changes that come with having a child are eminently predictable and quite manageable. And it is a delightful experience right from the start. The closer analogy I think is a divorce, perhaps from someone you found difficult to live with but start to miss once you have split up. And for Remainers, of course, it is more like a bereavement.
    I am speaking as someone blessed with plenty of experience of having children, limited experience of bereavement and no experience of divorce, so judge my analogies accordingly.
    If having a child was, for you, a "delightful experience right from the start" then I suggest you are very lucky, and quite unusual

    I don't know any parent who would say it was ALL DELIGHTFUL. For me, being a parent brought hitherto unequalled moments of joy, and satisfaction, but also never-seen-before spasms of guilt, and also a constant supply of worry, like oxygen in a Covid ward - which still continues

    And then there's the expense and the boredom. I still haven't recovered from the SECOND time I had to watch the Smurf movie. Jesus

    And yet the most wonderful sound I have ever heard is the sound of my children laughing


    All of this was unanticipated. I suspected some of it, but nothing like the scale and intensity
    Indeed. And we have just handed the baby back. According to Sean's cr*p analogy.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,847
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    True.

    Though I wonder if during Victorian times - when 6 or 8 or 10 kids was normal, and you’d expect to lose at least a few to cholera - parents felt quite the same way.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,987
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.

    Note: this is not a post about Brexit. It might be a post about people pushing analogies a teeny bit too far.
  • Options
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
  • Options
    pingping Posts: 3,731
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.

    Note: this is not a post about Brexit. It might be a post about people pushing analogies a teeny bit too far.
    Psychologists are fked up
  • Options
    gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    I actually understood that to have been not true, it was fiction in history of ten and a half chapters.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,896
    ping said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.

    Note: this is not a post about Brexit. It might be a post about people pushing analogies a teeny bit too far.
    Psychologists are fked up
    They’re screwed up when it comes to humans too - see the Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment, that immediately spring to mind.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,115
    Sandpit said:

    gealbhan said:

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    I’m not surprised. Since the last election result what has changed to make the result of next one any different?

    Labour have a problem they are not addressing in life long Labour voters who voted Brexit, who now vote Tory, the Party of Brexit Delivery - whilst Starmer and Labour are the arch traitors who did their best to stop Brexit and over turn democracy. To keep us in the EU, they even wanted us in EU vaccine procurement after Brexit!

    Opposition is about being busy getting voters back, not complacency. So why should polls change from this if Labour don’t address this glass ceiling.

    Labour have nothing to say to Lexit.

    “what’s your message to your lost Lexit voters, Mr Starmer?” Bang! His head goes straight into the ground like an Ostrich.
    To add to that, the levelling up is going to happen. If fact, there’s evidence that it is already, with a record number of vacancies and upward pressure on wages.

    Now, remainers in London will continue say it’s not really levelling up, but, for many people who voted Tory for the first time in 2019, their life might well be better in 2024 than it was two years ago.

    Labour needs a way to win them back, but at the moment they’re rowing upstream.
    Are their oars even touching the water?
  • Options
    gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    Sandpit said:

    gealbhan said:

    Survation.
    @Survation
    ·
    10m
    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    1060, online, UK adults aged 18+, 20-21 Sept 21. Changes w/ 10-14 Sep 21

    I am very surprised how the conservatives are marginally increasing their lead notwithstanding Boris success with Biden on climate change and AUKUS, as the news agenda is dominated by the energy and cost of living crisis

    It was interesting that Kwasi Kwarteng, who I think is doing quite well, said at the business select committee this morning that there is a budget in October and to wait for that as Rishi will reveal all then

    Seems the precursor to schemes that hopefully will help the low aid and impoverished pensioners
    I’m not surprised. Since the last election result what has changed to make the result of next one any different?

    Labour have a problem they are not addressing in life long Labour voters who voted Brexit, who now vote Tory, the Party of Brexit Delivery - whilst Starmer and Labour are the arch traitors who did their best to stop Brexit and over turn democracy. To keep us in the EU, they even wanted us in EU vaccine procurement after Brexit!

    Opposition is about being busy getting voters back, not complacency. So why should polls change from this if Labour don’t address this glass ceiling.

    Labour have nothing to say to Lexit.

    “what’s your message to your lost Lexit voters, Mr Starmer?” Bang! His head goes straight into the ground like an Ostrich.
    To add to that, the levelling up is going to happen. If fact, there’s evidence that it is already, with a record number of vacancies and upward pressure on wages.

    Now, remainers in London will continue say it’s not really levelling up, but, for many people who voted Tory for the first time in 2019, their life might well be better in 2024 than it was two years ago.

    Labour needs a way to win them back, but at the moment they’re rowing upstream.
    At the moment they are not even rowing, just drifting.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    True.

    Though I wonder if during Victorian times - when 6 or 8 or 10 kids was normal, and you’d expect to lose at least a few to cholera - parents felt quite the same way.
    Yes, I am sure it was different back then, with huge families

    But if you only have one or two kids, then the genetic and emotional urges to save the child are much fiercer
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,285
    edited September 2021
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    BBC News - NFT-based fantasy football card firm raises $680m
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58572389

    Unbelievable, did these people miss Football Index....

    That can’t possibly end well!
    Its the worst of both world, its NFTs without the scarcity that in very limited circumstances does have same value i.e
    A digital artitst creating a piece where you are the only owner to that.

    Same as football index was share trading, but they just created more totally at will and "dividends" created out of thin air.
    Presumably the plan is to create an artificial scarcity related to the trading platform, so they’ll only mint a few hundred of some players, but thousands of others - just like the old Panini sticker packs we had as kids?

    Of course, for all the money we spent on them, they were pretty much worthless at the end of the season. Great business for the maker of the sticker books though, and for the football clubs and league who got a big image-rights payment.
    If it was a virtual version of the sticker / loot box model, where you pay a few £s to get your pack of 10....which is what FIFA Ultimate Team is (well and the you can actually play those in FIFA), but it isn't...

    https://sorare.com/cards/lionel-andres-messi-cuccittini-2021-super_rare-1

    Want a 1 of 10 "new" Messi card....bids are at 75k euro...who ever ends up holding the bag is going to screwed.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.

    Note: this is not a post about Brexit. It might be a post about people pushing analogies a teeny bit too far.
    Not a happy subject but the mother of one of my kids once told me that she would die to save our daughter, but not just because of her selfless love for the girl, but also because "I could not bear the grief, guilt and anguish of surviving alone without her, I'd probably end up killing myself anyway"
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,803
    It’s amazing how little has been mentioned of the UK leaving the EU Internal Energy Market and the impact that has had on gas
    prices .

    Prices are rising across Europe but the UK is now paying more for gas than its neighbours . Do we log this as yet another Brexit benefit !
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,987
    gealbhan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    I actually understood that to have been not true, it was fiction in history of ten and a half chapters.
    Really?

    Well, I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm glad no actual harm was done to monkeys. But on the other, I'm gutted that I've lost one of my two good dinner party stories.
  • Options
    Mr. Walker, I have a vague memory of reading that mortality centuries past and its impact depended a lot on age. Babies died a lot and people were emotionally prepared for that. When Prince... Alfonso, I think, the elder brother of the man who became Edward II (and hence heir at the time), the son of Edward I, died at around 10-12 I think there was great shock and sadness.

    And, of course, there's Pearl.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_(poem)
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,115

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    The old issue - Who moderates the Moderators?
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    glw said:

    Even worse for the last couple of decades some people seem to have gotten the bizarre and twisted idea that rising house prices are a very good sign of "prosperity" while rising wages are a disastrous sign of "inflation".

    As a result we've managed to get "high prosperity" and "low inflation" that simply means people are completely costed out of society.

    The idea that house prices rising is a good thing is to me the single most perplexingly studid thing about this country. Newspapers litterally celebrate house prices rocketing, but they lament even tiny increases in the cost of goods and services. It's bonkers.
    Makes total sense once you realise that most newspapers are there to promote right wing talking points to an audience of angry, incontinent oldies who happen to own property.
    Your politics of envy are showing.

    And how are your mum and dad these days?
    Mum died some time ago.

    Dad, despite being born in in the red wall in 1935 and having left school at 14, is a keen Remainer. He thinks (from the comfortable position of NZ) that Brexit is a load of crap.
    My objection is the way you use unacceptable language to a group of people who are no doubt are not only parents, but greatly loved grandparents, and who live their increasing frail life entirely for their family and would recoil in horror is they thought your views were common currency to their age group

    By all means argue your point, which has some merit, but please stop referring to the elderly and pensioners in this nasty way and make your arguments on the merit of that argument

    I do not want to sound out of order but I just do not see why pensioners should receive such abuse

    One day you will be old and may well suffer incontinence that you refer to, and though fortunately I do not suffer it, it is the most unpleasant thing for a anyone and is vey personal and embarrassing to them and upsets their dignity
    TBF I read 'incontinent' as being very free with their sentiments and views (e.g. at the golf club) rather than in the other sense.
    That's most of PB.
    Since he subsequently complained about oldies 'smelling of wee' I think his original meaning was sadly only too clear.
  • Options
    nico679 said:

    It’s amazing how little has been mentioned of the UK leaving the EU Internal Energy Market and the impact that has had on gas
    prices .

    Prices are rising across Europe but the UK is now paying more for gas than its neighbours . Do we log this as yet another Brexit benefit !

    No, because its not true.

    Other nations using gas are also paying high and comparable rates. Some nations aren't using gas so obviously their leccy is cheaper but that's not due to gas prices.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,896

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    BBC News - NFT-based fantasy football card firm raises $680m
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58572389

    Unbelievable, did these people miss Football Index....

    That can’t possibly end well!
    Its the worst of both world, its NFTs without the scarcity that in very limited circumstances does have same value i.e
    A digital artitst creating a piece where you are the only owner to that.

    Same as football index was share trading, but they just created more totally at will and "dividends" created out of thin air.
    Presumably the plan is to create an artificial scarcity related to the trading platform, so they’ll only mint a few hundred of some players, but thousands of others - just like the old Panini sticker packs we had as kids?

    Of course, for all the money we spent on them, they were pretty much worthless at the end of the season. Great business for the maker of the sticker books though, and for the football clubs and league who got a big image-rights payment.
    If it was a virtual version of the sticker / loot box model, where you pay a few £s to get your pack of 10....which is what FIFA Ultimate Team is (well and the you can actually play those in FIFA), but it isn't...

    https://sorare.com/cards/lionel-andres-messi-cuccittini-2021-super_rare-1

    Want a 1 of 10 "new" Messi card....bids are at 75k euro...who ever ends up holding the bag is going to screwed.
    Yes, it’s the trading platform where the real money is found, and they can take the scarcity to the nth degree.

    Presumably the investors think they can milk the gullible fans for huge investments, for a couple of seasons at least, before a regulator somewhere shuts it down.
  • Options
    carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,203
    nico679 said:

    It’s amazing how little has been mentioned of the UK leaving the EU Internal Energy Market and the impact that has had on gas
    prices .

    Prices are rising across Europe but the UK is now paying more for gas than its neighbours . Do we log this as yet another Brexit benefit !

    From noted Brexit-boosters (checks notes) CNN:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/22/business/europe-energy-gas-renewables-climate-cmd-intl/index.html

    No mention of brexit. Maybe your FBPE theory isn't true?

  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148
    rcs1000 said:

    gealbhan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    I actually understood that to have been not true, it was fiction in history of ten and a half chapters.
    Really?

    Well, I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm glad no actual harm was done to monkeys. But on the other, I'm gutted that I've lost one of my two good dinner party stories.
    Replace it with this one (which I learned only yesterday)


    "Fearful memories haunt mouse descendants"


    "Mouse pups — and even the offspring's offspring — can inherit a fearful association of a certain smell with pain, even if they have not experienced the pain themselves, and without the need for genetic mutations. "


    YOU CAN INHERIT, FROM YOUR PARENTS, EVEN GRANDPARENTS, A SHUDDERING FEAR OF SOMETHING STRANGE THAT HAPPENED TO THEM, NOT YOU

    Extraordinary. The ramifications are endless, and creepy as hell. Good for someone trying to write spooky stories, tho


    https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.14272

  • Options
    Scotland cases definitely on downward trajectory:

    Scotland Daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) Report · Wednesday 22nd September.

    3,598 new cases (people positive) reported, giving a total of 542,411.

    31 new deaths reported, giving a total of 8,427.


    https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1440666200984330247?s=20

    Last week 4,917 cases and 30 deaths.
  • Options
    Comedy Dave's verdict on Aukus is in:

    I would guess that the Biden Administration may be regretting including the UK in #AUKUS.

    🇬🇧 brings almost nothing to the table in this deal, and at the same time UK gov seems to be deliberately trying to exasperate the diplomatic fallout.


    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1440668439928991747
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,942
    NEW: energy crisis latest- provider Green has ceased trading. It has blamed “unprecedented market conditions and regulatory failings.”

    The company has more than 250,000 customers and 185 staff.

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1440673545659371526
  • Options

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    True.

    Though I wonder if during Victorian times - when 6 or 8 or 10 kids was normal, and you’d expect to lose at least a few to cholera - parents felt quite the same way.
    Of course they did. If you go further back, to the Medieval period, when infant mortality was worse, then you have the example of the poem Pearl. Just because they had to deal with loss more often than us does not mean that they were unaffected by it.

    https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-strange-power-of-a-medieval-poem-about-the-death-of-a-child
  • Options
    rcs1000 said:

    gealbhan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    I actually understood that to have been not true, it was fiction in history of ten and a half chapters.
    Really?

    Well, I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm glad no actual harm was done to monkeys. But on the other, I'm gutted that I've lost one of my two good dinner party stories.
    Related to that, one of the most harrowing moments ever from TV has to be the 'chicken' scene from the finale of M*A*S*H

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvBS0VqJPXs
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,896

    Comedy Dave's verdict on Aukus is in:

    I would guess that the Biden Administration may be regretting including the UK in #AUKUS.

    🇬🇧 brings almost nothing to the table in this deal, and at the same time UK gov seems to be deliberately trying to exasperate the diplomatic fallout.


    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1440668439928991747

    Does he not realise that the submarine boat technology is joint UK/US technology, and that the deal not only depended on British involvement, but the British were involved before the Americans?
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,148

    Comedy Dave's verdict on Aukus is in:

    I would guess that the Biden Administration may be regretting including the UK in #AUKUS.

    🇬🇧 brings almost nothing to the table in this deal, and at the same time UK gov seems to be deliberately trying to exasperate the diplomatic fallout.


    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1440668439928991747

    Not great when a supposed journalist doesn't know the difference between "exasperate" and "exacerbate"
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,847
    edited September 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    NEW: energy crisis latest- provider Green has ceased trading. It has blamed “unprecedented market conditions and regulatory failings.”

    The company has more than 250,000 customers and 185 staff.

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1440673545659371526

    Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?

    What’s that?
    Oh, ok. Blow out the candles, then.
  • Options
    turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 15,185

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW: energy crisis latest- provider Green has ceased trading. It has blamed “unprecedented market conditions and regulatory failings.”

    The company has more than 250,000 customers and 185 staff.

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1440673545659371526

    Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?

    What’s that?
    Oh, ok. Blow out the candles, then.
    You do know that Green don't actually produce the energy don't you? You don't get different electrons when you switch providers...
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,942

    You do know that Green don't actually produce the energy don't you? You don't get different electrons when you switch providers...

    http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/F/fat-electrons.html
  • Options
    Leon said:

    Replace it with this one (which I learned only yesterday)


    "Fearful memories haunt mouse descendants"


    "Mouse pups — and even the offspring's offspring — can inherit a fearful association of a certain smell with pain, even if they have not experienced the pain themselves, and without the need for genetic mutations. "


    YOU CAN INHERIT, FROM YOUR PARENTS, EVEN GRANDPARENTS, A SHUDDERING FEAR OF SOMETHING STRANGE THAT HAPPENED TO THEM, NOT YOU

    Extraordinary. The ramifications are endless, and creepy as hell. Good for someone trying to write spooky stories, tho


    https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.14272

    Any application in the dildo whittling?

    ‘This one would have frightened your gran.’
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,942
    Here in US, the row between US/France is dominating this PM trip. Biden/Macron STILL haven’t spoken. Jen Psaki told reporters on Tues still finalising details of call

    Boris Johnson says France needs to 'get a grip' amid anger over AUKUS pact
    https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-says-france-needs-to-get-a-grip-amid-anger-over-aukus-pact-12414414
  • Options
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-independent-report-into-regulation-of-football-index

    Summary of their findings:

    Could have done better
    Lessons must be learned
    Updated frameworks and memorandums.

    ---------

    In reality, regulators were naive and incompetent (not simply could have done better), no accountability (so why will the lessons be learnt), its being whitewashed and forgotten.
  • Options

    The best analogy is that Brexit is like a giant poo.

    After much straining, you feel a moment’s relief, only to realise you have suffered a massive rectal prolapse.

    You're not having a good day, are you?
  • Options
    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,860
    Useless Nonentity falls further behind on best PM

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1440658975356162049
  • Options
    I will happily say something "Remainy" for a change: given the European continent shares many advanced Western economies that have similar-ish values and do a lot of trade with each other it makes sense to have an ambitious level of common market across them for agricultural produce, manufactured goods and some associated services, with a limited level of worker movement across it, but also with the freedom and flex to do trade deals with other non-European nations as well, subject to a commensurate level of internal customs/ROO checks depending on what each nation picks.

    Were that on the table (without any of the extra gubbins) and we had votes on it I think the UK would (today) go for it by a clear margin. We'd see it purely as an economic and trading arrangement, and about free collaboration between independent nation states.

    However, that wasn't what was on the table: we were told we had to take or leave full membership with full free movement, European citizenship and ever-closer political, legal and economic union, and ever greater EU-level legislative scope creep over national legislation, or become a satellite with no votes, or take a cold hard full exit.

    We all know its federalist ideology, so it ultimately became about making a decisive break for national self-governance and we took the cold hard full exit. If the middle option was available *with* votes/ unanimity, limitations and caveats then we'd have gone for that.

    I think the most likely long-term outcome of Brexit is that we end up back there in a loose outer tier of associate members after 20-30 years, once the EU and the UK have both come to their senses, and the current generation of politicians are long gone.
  • Options
    gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    rcs1000 said:

    gealbhan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    So Brexit was about exciting new trade deals until they don't transpire, then it was never about that.

    And Brexit wasn't about a tripartite military alliance with the US and Australia until this happens, then it was always about that.

    I sense we'll see much of this so might as well get used to it.

    I am reminded of this quote in the Spectator from the late, great SeanT, who told us, when he compared Brexit to "having a baby", that

    "Secondly, Brexit isn't any old political change, it's a profound life-change. Trying to predict what the economy will be doing ten years after Brexit, is like trying to guess exactly what furniture you will own, and how happy you might be, ten years after you first become a parent. Brexit is huge, dynamic, scary, turbulent, wholly unique, and inherently unpredictable: it will change our economy and our polity in good and bad ways we cannot, by definition, even begin to predict. This is why the forecasts have already proved to be so rubbish."

    Brexit is INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE. It will change our economy and politics in ways we cannot foresee

    He was right. I hope this prophetic character returns

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-brexit-is-just-like-having-a-baby
    But having a baby isn't very unpredictable. When you're due, out it comes, a baby, and usually you even know the sex.
    Lordy, you're such an accountant

    Becoming a father changed me in enormous ways, emotionally and practically, that I hadn't even considered. eg The power of the parental instinct, the reflexive love, can only be understood once you have actually experienced it
    Up to a point, but most people usually have a fairly good understanding of what it's like to love someone before they have a child. Indeed, I believe that it's frequently what got them into the situation in the first place!
    Surely wrong. For me, at least

    Many parents - most? - would literally die to save their children. How many husbands would die to save their wives, how many daughters would die to save their fathers?

    The love for a child is in a different league
    You do know about the monkey experiment, right?

    They put a monkey mother and her child in a room with a heated floor. Over time they raised the temperature of the floor. At first the mothers would protect the babies, holding them away from it. But in the end, all the mothers chose to save themselves, by putting the babies on the floor and standing on them.

    I suspect humans would be no different.
    Awful.

    Moderator, please ban this poster.
    I actually understood that to have been not true, it was fiction in history of ten and a half chapters.
    Really?

    Well, I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm glad no actual harm was done to monkeys. But on the other, I'm gutted that I've lost one of my two good dinner party stories.
    I’ve taken a note not to invite you to any dinner parties, until you clean up your act. 😆

    Apart from 10 and 1/2 chapters, have you found that story anywhere else?
This discussion has been closed.