I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
We have been amongst the fastest growing members of the EU since the crash. It was inevitable that some would catch up at some point. Hammond is not nearly as deft as Osborne was either.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
We have been amongst the fastest growing members of the EU since the crash. It was inevitable that some would catch up at some point. Hammond is not nearly as deft as Osborne was either.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
The customs partnership definitely falls in the “too clever by half” bucket. Only somebody with no business experience would propose something so administratively burdensome. Unfortunately, that describes 90% of senior civil servants.
Theresa May needs to decide if she wants the U.K. to have its own trade policy. If she does, then she needs to get agreement for max fac in the Brexit subcommittee, the Cabinet, and the House of Commons. If she really wants it, she should promise to resign as party leader and PM if the Commons won’t vote for it. There is no other way.
Sadly, I don’t think she will take the initiative. It is not in her nature, and she was bitten for doing so less than 12 months ago.
I felt like I was having a massive stroke reading that. May's preferred solution, which incidentally she can't overtly advocate, has already been rejected by the EU and the ERG but she's persisting with it anyway? I'm sure that's all going to end wonderfully.
Chill. Almost everything you read in the press on the negotiations has been selectively leaked for public consumption, and written up to generate an emotional reaction in you. That’s how news is sold. And it’s also how the politics of negotiation is done.
Negotiations behind the scenes will be far more well advanced than is generally known. But, because we’re now at the business sharp end, where all the trade-offs are now being weighed up, all sides are flexing a bit of muscle as they jockey for position in the final agreement.
I wish I shared your confidence.
Indeed. Whatever else is happening behind the scenes we know that the cabinet are still locked in arguing about various points, even 2 years in. That is a very bad sign.
I do enjoy @ydoethur's historical contributions to the site, it gives a different perspective.
My own perspective is more modest. When I was in Primary School, about the time of the 1970 election, our teacher decided to have mock elections to elect our own HoC. As the only one interested in politics, I had been leafleting for Heath believe it or not, I got elected Speaker. What an incredibly frustrating role it was. I have never forgotten how powerless I felt as the debates went careering off into nonsense. I have had a little empathy with Speakers ever since, even Martin.
I think most Speakers enjoy the job - yes, some tedious debates to sit through and I'd hate it myself, but it has authority, status and high profile without the need to do anything much. Bercow enjoys the chance to use his (IMO genuinely entertaining) wit, and I reckon will think that opposition by Tory backwoodsmen is a really good reason not to stand down anyway.
School politics reminiscences are usually a mixture of pain and amusement. When I was 10, I was in a mainly American international school in Vienna, and we had a debate on Nixon vs Kennedy. Privately communist that I was, I read somewhere that communists preferred Nixon - easier to rally against and yet better able to do a deal with Russia or China without being blocked by the military-industrial complex (as we thought of it in those days): Kennedy seemed too keen on the role of cold warrior. I was the only volunteer to speak for Nixon and vaguely remember giving a passionate harangue about the missile gap that only Nixon would close.
It's embarrassing, because I was being naughty as a pseudo-Republican and Nixon turned out badly in the end. But Kennedy delivered the Bay of Pigs and Nixon delivered the China deal, so maybe not all that wrong.
Being very political as a child wasn't that unusual in the 60s - I get the impression that it's rarer now.
On a related point I have a Euro-devil from Italy working with me at the moment. He is an employment law solicitor in Milan.
I was discussing the differences between our countries last week. The point he made was that practically every bar and restaurant in the Grassmarket had a sign up seeking additional staff. I didn't really notice this until he pointed it out. He said you never see that in Italy where youth unemployment is chronic and jobs are filled through social networks rather than being advertised.
' 2,500 young Italians compete for one job
Around a third of young Italians are out of work.
For some, going the distance in their job search means taking a special bus up and down the country to reach interviews.
They're all competing for the same job – and only one of them will succeed. '
We have been amongst the fastest growing members of the EU since the crash. It was inevitable that some would catch up at some point. Hammond is not nearly as deft as Osborne was either.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
Its easy to get higher growth - you simply borrow more money and spend it.
But that extra growth has been stolen from the future.
That's what the UK has been doing since 2000.
And we are now in the future from which that growth was stolen from.
I would rather have growth of 1.5% that is driven by a decline in net imports and better wage growth, than 2.5% driven by asset sales and debt-funded consumption.
As with companies, the quality of economic growth is just as important as the quantity.
I felt like I was having a massive stroke reading that. May's preferred solution, which incidentally she can't overtly advocate, has already been rejected by the EU and the ERG but she's persisting with it anyway? I'm sure that's all going to end wonderfully.
The ERG and the Corbynistas both want the hardest of hard Brexits because they believe that the immense economic pain this will cause will lead to changes that benefit them. It could just be that May is beginning to understand that the only way to avoid the calamity she created by triggering Article 50 without a plan or any cabinet consensus is to allow time for a Commons consensus that excludes the hard right and far left to build; while hoping that time also gives her the space to show the EU that, in practice, what she is advocating will be pretty much what we have now - both with regards to the CU and the Single Market. At some point, though, she will have a decision to make: what is best for the country or what is best for her. That can cannot be kicked down the path forever.
I don't think that it is correct to say that the ERG wants a hard Brexit. What they want is cake and the eating of cake. They want a free trade, minimum bureaucracy, close relationship with the EU but the freedom to do whatever they want with everyone else.
They remain convinced that the EU will give us this because it is very much in their economic interests to do so (which it is, of course). The empirical evidence supporting this viewpoint is slight but their conviction means that there are compromises that May is going to find it impossible to sell. Will politics trump economics? That, it seems to me, is the real question.
Everyone wants a cake and eat it Brexit. Everyone. Some are willing to compromise on not being able to have one. Others are not. The ERG is one of those. They are either too stupid to understand they cannot have what they want or they are merely playing games. I tend towards the latter explanation, but do not rule out the former.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
All together now: economic arguments don't sway constitutional choices about the future.
It's as if Project Fear-ers have learned nothing...
That is probably true - until the abstract economic arguments become hard-nosed economic reality. Let's see what happens then. The practical impacts of well paid jobs being lost, not only on those who suffer directly, but also on the communities in which they live, are well-known to us because we have seen it happen before.
I do enjoy @ydoethur's historical contributions to the site, it gives a different perspective.
My own perspective is more modest. When I was in Primary School, about the time of the 1970 election, our teacher decided to have mock elections to elect our own HoC. As the only one interested in politics, I had been leafleting for Heath believe it or not, I got elected Speaker. What an incredibly frustrating role it was. I have never forgotten how powerless I felt as the debates went careering off into nonsense. I have had a little empathy with Speakers ever since, even Martin.
I think most Speakers enjoy the job - yes, some tedious debates to sit through and I'd hate it myself, but it has authority, status and high profile without the need to do anything much. Bercow enjoys the chance to use his (IMO genuinely entertaining) wit, and I reckon will think that opposition by Tory backwoodsmen is a really good reason not to stand down anyway.
School politics reminiscences are usually a mixture of pain and amusement. When I was 10, I was in a mainly American international school in Vienna, and we had a debate on Nixon vs Kennedy. Privately communist that I was, I read somewhere that communists preferred Nixon - easier to rally against and yet better able to do a deal with Russia or China without being blocked by the military-industrial complex (as we thought of it in those days): Kennedy seemed too keen on the role of cold warrior. I was the only volunteer to speak for Nixon and vaguely remember giving a passionate harangue about the missile gap that only Nixon would close.
It's embarrassing, because I was being naughty as a pseudo-Republican and Nixon turned out badly in the end. But Kennedy delivered the Bay of Pigs and Nixon delivered the China deal, so maybe not all that wrong.
Being very political as a child wasn't that unusual in the 60s - I get the impression that it's rarer now.
Good story. IIRC the missile gap turned out to be almost entirely fictitious.
I agree that my children show absolutely no interest in party politics but they were extremely interested and active in the Indyref and had very strong views on Brexit. They are less interested in teams and more interested in individual issues. If they are in any way typical political parties are going to struggle even more in the future.
On a related point I have a Euro-devil from Italy working with me at the moment. He is an employment law solicitor in Milan.
I was discussing the differences between our countries last week. The point he made was that practically every bar and restaurant in the Grassmarket had a sign up seeking additional staff. I didn't really notice this until he pointed it out. He said you never see that in Italy where youth unemployment is chronic and jobs are filled through social networks rather than being advertised.
' 2,500 young Italians compete for one job
Around a third of young Italians are out of work.
For some, going the distance in their job search means taking a special bus up and down the country to reach interviews.
They're all competing for the same job – and only one of them will succeed. '
I remember the early 90s being like that here, certainly in Dundee. It was unbelievably demoralising and set the framework for our chronic drug problems today as entire schemes left the world of work and fell into despair. The jobs miracle is something we can be genuinely proud of, no matter how poor many of those jobs are.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine question, because I really don't get it: if a Brexit deal that leaves the UK outside the customs union and single market causes companies that are located here because we were part do the single market and customs union to mothball operations, relocate and close down, are you saying that you believe the subsequent job losses and tax revenues will be replaced at the same level? Or am I missing something here?
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
Indeed.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
I felt like I was having a massive stroke reading that. May's preferred solution, which incidentally she can't overtly advocate, has already been rejected by the EU and the ERG but she's persisting with it anyway? I'm sure that's all going to end wonderfully.
The ERG and the Corbynistas both want the hardest of hard Brexits because they believe that the immense economic pain this will cause will lead to changes that benefit them. It could just be that May is beginning to understand that the only way to avoid the calamity she created by triggering Article 50 without a plan or any cabinet consensus is to allow time for a Commons consensus that excludes the hard right and far left to build; while hoping that time also gives her the space to show the EU that, in practice, what she is advocating will be pretty much what we have now - both with regards to the CU and the Single Market. At some point, though, she will have a decision to make: what is best for the country or what is best for her. That can cannot be kicked down the path forever.
I don't think that it is correct to say that the ERG wants a hard Brexit. What they want is cake and the eating of cake. They want a free trade, minimum bureaucracy, close relationship with the EU but the freedom to do whatever they want with everyone else.
They remain convinced that the EU will give us this because it is very much in their economic interests to do so (which it is, of course). The empirical evidence supporting this viewpoint is slight but their conviction means that there are compromises that May is going to find it impossible to sell. Will politics trump economics? That, it seems to me, is the real question.
Everyone wants a cake and eat it Brexit. Everyone. Some are willing to compromise on not being able to have one. Others are not. The ERG is one of those. They are either too stupid to understand they cannot have what they want or they are merely playing games. I tend towards the latter explanation, but do not rule out the former.
Who knows? They may prove to be right. But they are certainly rolling the dice.
I see Rallings and Thrasher now calculate NEV at 37 Con, 36 Lab, 14 Lib Dem.
That's a seriously depressing result for the LibDems.
Outside of their upper-middle class comfort zones they are still going backwards.
Yes, sadly, as I said yesterday. The LibDems are getting good coverage on the back of spinning the gaining of a handful of key councils. But SW London and south Cambs account for 70 of the total 75 councillor gains - for everywhere else it remains a matter of standing still at rock bottom. Indeed, wihout the last local votes that EU citizens working here will be allowed to cast, the LibDems could well have gone backwards.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
Indeed.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
Creating additional problems for the economy is a bizarre way of seeking to improve it.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
Indeed.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
Creating additional problems for the economy is a bizarre way of seeking to improve it.
Change can bring both opportunities and problems, advantages and disadvantages.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
When the UK leaves the EU their top ranking University will be the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, which is ranked 43 in the world, just ahead of Bristol. It will be their only representative in the top 50. The UK has 4 in the top 10 and 7 in the top 50. We have 28 ranked in the top 200, second only to the US.
Universities are not everything but if we are proceeding to a knowledge economy surely the EU has a major problem.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
I see Rallings and Thrasher now calculate NEV at 37 Con, 36 Lab, 14 Lib Dem.
That's a seriously depressing result for the LibDems.
Outside of their upper-middle class comfort zones they are still going backwards.
Yes, sadly, as I said yesterday. The LibDems are getting good coverage on the back of spinning the gaining of a handful of key councils. But SW London and south Cambs account for 70 of the total 75 councillor gains - for everywhere else it remains a matter of standing still at rock bottom. Indeed, wihout the last local votes that EU citizens working here will be allowed to cast, the LibDems could well have gone backwards.
Getting good coverage will help the LibDems but they must not make the mistake of believing their own spin or of ignoring their failings in most of the country.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The EU seems to want us not to leave the customs union and seem to have no Plan B.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine question, because I really don't get it: if a Brexit deal that leaves the UK outside the customs union and single market causes companies that are located here because we were part do the single market and customs union to mothball operations, relocate and close down, are you saying that you believe the subsequent job losses and tax revenues will be replaced at the same level? Or am I missing something here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Who knows? They may prove to be right. But they are certainly rolling the dice.
Only because they personally have no skin in the game
Hmmm - hedge funders like Rees Mogg can clean up on a chaotic, no deal Brexit. My guess is that he is not the only one in the ERG with such connections. Not that they would ever dream of doing such a thing given just how patriotic they are.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
If the UK were able to impose a solution on Ireland things would be so simple...
Hmmm - hedge funders like Rees Mogg can clean up on a chaotic, no deal Brexit. My guess is that he is not the only one in the ERG with such connections. Not that they would ever dream of doing such a thing given just how patriotic they are.
Sorry, point of clarification.
You are right, they stand to win big, but they are playing with other peoples' lives stakes
I don't think that it is correct to say that the ERG wants a hard Brexit. What they want is cake and the eating of cake. They want a free trade, minimum bureaucracy, close relationship with the EU but the freedom to do whatever they want with everyone else.
They remain convinced that the EU will give us this because it is very much in their economic interests to do so (which it is, of course). The empirical evidence supporting this viewpoint is slight but their conviction means that there are compromises that May is going to find it impossible to sell. Will politics trump economics? That, it seems to me, is the real question.
That as close to a perfect explanation of the ERG'S position I've ever read on here. Others could take note.
It is perfectly wrong. The ERG don't 'want our cake and eat it' - they want what every other independent country has - free trade agreements, a close relationship with its trading partners AND the ability to set their own trade policy and tariffs and regulations. There is nothing strange about that at all.
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
The ERG are perfectly happy as far as I can see not to eat the EU's cake and instead bake our own.
It is the REMAINERS who are obsessed with 'frictionless trade' and it is the REMAINERS who are desperate to have this bit of the cake and that is what causes all the problems. Once you want one bit of this cake, you get the whole thing force fed down your gullet.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
If the UK were able to impose a solution on Ireland things would be so simple...
The UK will promise not to build a border across Northern Ireland, and to allow the free passage of goods from the Republic to the UK with minimal customs formalities as happens now.
If the RoI and the EU decide to build a border, that’s entirely their own choice.
All together now: economic arguments don't sway constitutional choices about the future.
It's as if Project Fear-ers have learned nothing...
Well sort of. I dismissed Project Fear because there is no reason why leaving the EU should cause more than minimal economic disruption. But that would have meant a 10-15 year project with a lot of attention to details. We can still have that. Just put Article 50 on hold for 10 years while we get everything in place.
I see Rallings and Thrasher now calculate NEV at 37 Con, 36 Lab, 14 Lib Dem.
That's a seriously depressing result for the LibDems.
Outside of their upper-middle class comfort zones they are still going backwards.
At the moment, focusing on a few winnable constituencies is the best option.
Abandoning much of the country to the extent of not having candidates in whole districts isn't though.
And by concentrating on a few winnable areas they risk falling into some feedback reinforced comfort zone.
With the disintegration of UKIP and the problems Labour and the Conservatives are having there really should be an opportunity for the LibDems to pick up NOTA votes.
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
Idiots.
Our economy depends on International JIT supply chains. These are in jeopardy.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
If the UK were able to impose a solution on Ireland things would be so simple...
The UK will promise not to build a border across Northern Ireland, and to allow the free passage of goods from the Republic to the UK with minimal customs formalities as happens now.
If the RoI and the EU decide to build a border, that’s entirely their own choice.
Quite. williamglenn - can you actually explain why the UK could not impose MaxFac on the NI border in the case of no deal and why it actually would not work (for incoming goods, ignore what the Irish may do)?
There is no such thing as frictionless trade already. There are a plethora of taxation schemes plus no other EU nation uses sterling so there already is some friction.
The only question is the varying degrees of friction.
The four biggest EU economies are in the bottom 7: Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Low growth is an issue for large, advanced, populous economies. Demographics has a big part to play.
And I expect the economy to do better than that. Q1 was very sluggish, for a variety of reasons, and it has been in the UK for some years.
Last year I was more bullish than the forecasts and even won a bet on the back of it. This year I am not so sure. There are quite a number of indicators that growth has slowed. We continue to live well beyond our means. Some retrenchment at some point is inevitable and it may well be now. I think 1.5% will not be far away.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
Indeed.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
Creating additional problems for the economy is a bizarre way of seeking to improve it.
Change can bring both opportunities and problems, advantages and disadvantages.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
Slashing your wrists while lost in the woods is rarely a wise strategy.
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
Idiots.
Our economy depends on International JIT supply chains. These are in jeopardy.
Somehow international JIT supply chains exist internationally and not just within the EU. Funny that.
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
Idiots.
Our economy depends on International JIT supply chains. These are in jeopardy.
Why, in that case, can these suppliers not make arrangements with UK and EU customs to have their goods cleared very quickly? It is not impossible. Almost all customs regimes have special arrangements for perishable goods. Given that both the UK and EU have companies that rely on these supply chains it should be easy to agree (if they were serious about solving the problem).
As you should know (given that you think we are all idiots) components used in JIT supply chains are usually not subject to tariffs anyway, since tariffs are usually only levied on finished goods. And it is not going to be hard for them to prove compliance with relevant regulations given they send them all the time. So coming up with a solution for this would be very, very easy as they could easily be pre-cleared at both ends.
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
Idiots.
Our economy depends on International JIT supply chains. These are in jeopardy.
Somehow international JIT supply chains exist internationally and not just within the EU. Funny that.
When the UK leaves the EU their top ranking University will be the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, which is ranked 43 in the world, just ahead of Bristol. It will be their only representative in the top 50. The UK has 4 in the top 10 and 7 in the top 50. We have 28 ranked in the top 200, second only to the US.
Universities are not everything but if we are proceeding to a knowledge economy surely the EU has a major problem.
The problem the UK has with universities is the dross at the bottom end.
Instead of turning local tech colleges into pretendy univerities it would have been better to let the real universities expand with outstations.
Quite. williamglenn - can you actually explain why the UK could not impose MaxFac on the NI border in the case of no deal and why it actually would not work (for incoming goods, ignore what the Irish may do)?
I am sure that some briefcase wanker on here said it was against WTO Most Favoured Bollocks or something. ie the UK would be dealing with RoI on a basis that wasn't extended to other WTO members. I was watching Shoenice on YouTube in another window when I read it so I can't be sure.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
You haven't caught up with the new Brexit world yet. We will have a land border with the EU in Ireland. We aren't negotiating with the RoI we are negotiating with the EU. For the first time in its history, the UK will be the least powerful polity in the British Isles. That is what leavers voted for.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The EU seems to want us not to leave the customs union and seem to have no Plan B.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
The CU is just a proxy front for insisting on full alignment with SM rules. Their entire strategy has been to tie us to existing rules because they know perfectly well that if they can't, we will succeed because their regulations are so inefficient.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
You haven't caught up with the new Brexit world yet. We will have a land border with the EU in Ireland. We aren't negotiating with the RoI we are negotiating with the EU. For the first time in its history, the UK will be the least powerful polity in the British Isles. That is what leavers voted for.
You didn't address the point. What is to stop the UK imposing MaxFac on the NI border even if the EU did not agree with it?
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The EU seems to want us not to leave the customs union and seem to have no Plan B.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
The CU is just a proxy front for insisting on full alignment with SM rules. Their entire strategy has been to tie us to existing rules because they know perfectly well that if they can't, we will succeed because their regulations are so inefficient.
Can you name a regulation that if repealed would make UK goods or services more competitive?
Quite. williamglenn - can you actually explain why the UK could not impose MaxFac on the NI border in the case of no deal and why it actually would not work (for incoming goods, ignore what the Irish may do)?
I am sure that some briefcase wanker on here said it was against WTO Most Favoured Bollocks or something. ie the UK would be dealing with RoI on a basis that wasn't extended to other WTO members. I was watching Shoenice on YouTube in another window when I read it so I can't be sure.
Yeah, it is bollocks. We would introduce MaxFac at all our borders - why wouldn't we? The UK is not interested in collecting tariffs, we are interested in trading off tariffs against access to services markets overseas. The rules would be exactly the same for everyone.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The EU seems to want us not to leave the customs union and seem to have no Plan B.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
The CU is just a proxy front for insisting on full alignment with SM rules. Their entire strategy has been to tie us to existing rules because they know perfectly well that if they can't, we will succeed because their regulations are so inefficient.
Can you name a regulation that if repealed would make UK goods or services more competitive?
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
The EU seems to want us not to leave the customs union and seem to have no Plan B.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
The CU is just a proxy front for insisting on full alignment with SM rules. Their entire strategy has been to tie us to existing rules because they know perfectly well that if they can't, we will succeed because their regulations are so inefficient.
Yes, the one thing above all the EU wants to achieve is to prevent the UK from going it’s own way after we leave. Of ending up with a larger version of Singapore or Switzerland next door.
They are sh!t-scared that Brexit is a success which undermines their political project and everything it stands for.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
Indeed.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
Creating additional problems for the economy is a bizarre way of seeking to improve it.
Change can bring both opportunities and problems, advantages and disadvantages.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
Slashing your wrists while lost in the woods is rarely a wise strategy.
We saw what 'slashing your wrists' amounted to - there was an immediate recession, the car factories shut down, the City relocated to Frankfurt, pensions were cut, the stock market crashed and we all starved to death because the crops weren't harvested.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
You haven't caught up with the new Brexit world yet. We will have a land border with the EU in Ireland. We aren't negotiating with the RoI we are negotiating with the EU. For the first time in its history, the UK will be the least powerful polity in the British Isles. That is what leavers voted for.
You didn't address the point. What is to stop the UK imposing MaxFac on the NI border even if the EU did not agree with it?
Nothing, just as there is nothing to stop us requiring all RoI citizens to have their arses painted green if they cross the border. Allowing goods in easily while not being allowed to export them easily doesn't sound the optimum outcome.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
You haven't caught up with the new Brexit world yet. We will have a land border with the EU in Ireland. We aren't negotiating with the RoI we are negotiating with the EU. For the first time in its history, the UK will be the least powerful polity in the British Isles. That is what leavers voted for.
You didn't address the point. What is to stop the UK imposing MaxFac on the NI border even if the EU did not agree with it?
Nothing, just as there is nothing to stop us requiring all RoI citizens to have their arses painted green if they cross the border. Allowing goods in easily while not being allowed to export them easily doesn't sound the optimum outcome.
So you now admit that MaxFac would work perfectly well if only the Irish were reasonable and agreed to implement it as well (as required by the GFA)?
Just as they knew all along before they decided to abandon planning for it to become Barnier's little bitch.
Mr. Recidivist, the electorate won't trust the politicians with that now. We've had the Miller court cases, Grieve's 'meaningful vote' amendment, and now the Lords and the EU's allies in the Commons seeking to give the EU permanent power to determine our trade deals.
Quite. williamglenn - can you actually explain why the UK could not impose MaxFac on the NI border in the case of no deal and why it actually would not work (for incoming goods, ignore what the Irish may do)?
I am sure that some briefcase wanker on here said it was against WTO Most Favoured Bollocks or something. ie the UK would be dealing with RoI on a basis that wasn't extended to other WTO members. I was watching Shoenice on YouTube in another window when I read it so I can't be sure.
I suspect the briefcase was wrong - it is our only land border and so we could say that we apply MaxFac trade over a land border.
Implementing MaxFac for the RoI only might just about be possible if we underwrite the admin costs. But I don't see how we can extend it to the whole of the EU. Again we could underwrite the extra trading costs for the whole continent but I imagine that is going to be rather more expensive than actual membership. And given that the EU could close it down any time they choose, it gives them a handy stick to beat the UK with if they ever wanted to. But then being a small economy in close proximity to a very large one does have disadvantages any way you slice it. Ask the Irish.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why would a company that exports most of its products to the EU27 and which depends on the frictionless and timely arrival of components from the EU27 continue to invest in the UK at the same level when it becomes harder and more expensive to trade and secure the components it needs? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Hopefully you are right, though. The effects on communities of 1980s deindustrialisation are still with us 30 years later. These are not problems that go away quickly.
That said, it is true that government interventions can make a difference, here; but what that essentially means are subsidies and tax breaks, which in turn means less to spend elsewhere, or higher borrowing - and all to maintain a situation that could have been maintained at no cost by staying in the customs union and single market. Again, that makes absolutely no sense to me.
I thought the EU were the ones who'd rejected the idea first?
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Yes, that's my understanding. The EU have rejected both of May's schemes.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
It is not entirely pointless. Because the Customs Partnership is just a crap idea, but MaxFac is going to be what will be used if there is no deal, at least from the UK side. The UK can just implement this anyway, as they can require ROI importers to file electronically if they want to cross the border.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
You haven't caught up with the new Brexit world yet. We will have a land border with the EU in Ireland. We aren't negotiating with the RoI we are negotiating with the EU. For the first time in its history, the UK will be the least powerful polity in the British Isles. That is what leavers voted for.
You didn't address the point. What is to stop the UK imposing MaxFac on the NI border even if the EU did not agree with it?
Nothing, just as there is nothing to stop us requiring all RoI citizens to have their arses painted green if they cross the border. Allowing goods in easily while not being allowed to export them easily doesn't sound the optimum outcome.
Doesn't most NI trade come across the Irish Sea to GB?
Quite. williamglenn - can you actually explain why the UK could not impose MaxFac on the NI border in the case of no deal and why it actually would not work (for incoming goods, ignore what the Irish may do)?
I am sure that some briefcase wanker on here said it was against WTO Most Favoured Bollocks or something. ie the UK would be dealing with RoI on a basis that wasn't extended to other WTO members. I was watching Shoenice on YouTube in another window when I read it so I can't be sure.
I suspect the briefcase was wrong - it is our only land border and so we could say that we apply MaxFac trade over a land border.
It isn't the EU's only border though but it was still wrong. The EU has many land borders - with Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and many more and they're all treated differently and have different deals agreed. No WTO reason it can't add another deal to that list with us.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why would a company that exports most of its products to the EU27 and which depends on the frictionless and timely arrival of components from the EU27 continue to invest in the UK at the same level when it becomes harder and more expensive to trade and secure the components it needs? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Hopefully you are right, though. The effects on communities of 1980s deindustrialisation are still with us 30 years later. These are not problems that go away quickly.
That said, it is true that government interventions can make a difference, here; but what that essentially means are subsidies and tax breaks, which in turn means less to spend elsewhere, or higher borrowing - and all to maintain a situation that could have been maintained at no cost by staying in the customs union and single market. Again, that makes absolutely no sense to me.
For the same reasons why they chose to remain in the UK after we chose not to join the Single Currency despite that being a "friction" in your "frictionless" system.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why quickly.
That no sense to me.
For the same reasons why they chose to remain in the UK after we chose not to join the Single Currency despite that being a "friction" in your "frictionless" system.
Hmmm - now we are looking to increase the cost of trade further, though, and - crucially - its timeliness. A weak currency may help persuade them to stay in the short term, but that weak currency has significant costs elsewhere, doesn't it? As David implies, it will all come down to tax breaks and subsidies.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why quickly.
That no sense to me.
For the same reasons why they chose to remain in the UK after we chose not to join the Single Currency despite that being a "friction" in your "frictionless" system.
Hmmm - now we are looking to increase the cost of trade further, though, and - crucially - its timeliness. A weak currency may help persuade them to stay in the short term, but that weak currency has significant costs elsewhere, doesn't it? As David implies, it will all come down to tax breaks and subsidies.
Or efficiencies we can create elsewhere that mean we're better suited rather than increasing costs further like you assume.
Would you want to live in a single monolithic global nation covering Europe, the USA, Russia, North Korea etc with a single set of rules globally? I wouldn't as my vote would be irrelevant and meaningless - so why assume that its better and more cost effective in Europe to be part of a single state?
How many Tory Westminster seats in Liverpool do you think Corbyn is going to win in the next General Election in order to be able to become PM?
Results like Labour winning popular vote in Wandsworth should be a huge concern for the Tories.
Surely they cant underestimate Corbyn AGAIN.
According to john Curtice the Wandsworth result showed the Tories winning back Battersea and holding Putney presumably with tooting becoming safer for Labour - same problem as Liverpool Labour piling up votes where they aren't needed.
How many Tory Westminster seats in Liverpool do you think Corbyn is going to win in the next General Election in order to be able to become PM?
Results like Labour winning popular vote in Wandsworth should be a huge concern for the Tories.
Surely they cant underestimate Corbyn AGAIN.
Probably not but by the same token might we be overestimating Jezza ?
There is little doubt that Corbyn enjoys the campaign and the cut and thrust of personal voter interaction in contrast to the Prime Minister who'd rather be in a snake pit with President Trump as company than mix with the electorate or appear in a debate with Jezza.
That said I wonder whether a parallel with 1992 might be appropriate for the next election. Perhaps Corbyn did so well in 2017 because few realistically expected him to perform so well and accordingly the punters thought of the general election as a massive by-election risk free option. However the actual prospect of PM Corbyn might have voters in the marginals hold their nose and opt for the Tories as they did in 92 when faced with the very real vision of Kinnock in Number 10.
I haven't crunched the numbers with the other related odds but the female president looks interesting. Dems have to be favourites running against either Trump or a Republican Party that either ditched Trump or had their POTUS pushed out under a cloud. Among the Dems, there are women with a good claim to basically all the different slots:
* Plodding careerist who ticks the right boxes: Kamala Harris * Feisty base-pleaser: Elizabeth Warren * Audacious opportunist: Kirsten Gillibrand * Old-generation establishment politician with a grip on the machine that the hapless party can't seem to shake off: Hillary Clinton * Fuck everything, they beat us with a TV star, let's give that a try: Oprah Winfrey
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are currently polling better than all those
Right now all the potential Democrat candidates are either septuagenarians or have no appeal outside California and New England.
They desperately need to find someone in their 40s or 50s who’s going to talk to middle America in the swing states, could well end up going for a governor that no-one really knows yet.
As @DavidL mentions above there’s a good chance of a booming US economy in 2020, for which Trump’s going to take every bit of the credit.
Step forward the popular governor of swing state, John Hickenlooper.
Albeit, he's not exactly Mr Charisma. But that may well be an advantage in 2020.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I have said on here many times before I don't think that the Brexit deal, whatever it turns out to be, will prove to have a material effect on our growth prospects but the removal of the uncertainty will help.
But us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
A genuine here?
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why quickly.
That no sense to me.
For the same reasons why they chose to remain in the UK after we chose not to join the Single Currency despite that being a "friction" in your "frictionless" system.
Hmmm - subsidies.
Or efficiencies we can create elsewhere that mean we're better suited rather than increasing costs further like you assume.
Would you want to live in a single monolithic global nation covering Europe, the USA, Russia, North Korea etc with a single set of rules globally? I wouldn't as my vote would be irrelevant and meaningless - so why assume that its better and more cost effective in Europe to be part of a single state?
I am not assuming anything, except that businesses will locate in the places that work best for them. Post-Brexit, what that is likely to mean are tax breaks and subsidies for a number of companies and sectors, neither of which are optimal, to say the least, given that this will mean diverting funds from elsewhere, or higher borrowing.
As for votes, I am 53 and for the first time in my life live in a constituency where my vote makes a difference. For my first 45 years, it didn't.
I think we’ve done rather well. Day to day spending is back in the black.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
As I
A genuine here?
Ther.
Why quickly.
That no sense to me.
For the same reasons why they chose to remain in the UK after we chose not to join the Single Currency despite that being a "friction" in your "frictionless" system.
Hmmm - now we are looking to increase the cost of trade further, though, and - crucially - its timeliness. A weak currency may help persuade them to stay in the short term, but that weak currency has significant costs elsewhere, doesn't it? As David implies, it will all come down to tax breaks and subsidies.
Or efficiencies we can create elsewhere that mean we're better suited rather than increasing costs further like you assume.
Would you want to live in a single monolithic global nation covering Europe, the USA, Russia, North Korea etc with a single set of rules globally? I wouldn't as my vote would be irrelevant and meaningless - so why assume that its better and more cost effective in Europe to be part of a single state?
Well I'd rather live in that hypothetical state than be killed in a hypothetical nuclear war. Luckily neither are in prospect at the moment.
But the non-hypothetical EU isn't primarily about economics. It's a political project. And I like living in a union with other countries that share our values and traditions and with whom we have a long and shared history.
You said in effect that his position in the Order of Precedence (which is a medieval thing) depended on his impartiality. I was pointing out this is not correct.
As for the last sixty years, in that time we've had the following speakers: Hylton-Foster (solicitor General at the time of appointment) King (Deputy Speaker and one of the best appointments so far as I can judge) Selwyn Lloyd (former Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Thomas (former Welsh Secretary who spent much of his time in the chair abusing Plaid Cymru) Bernard Wetherill (whom Clare Short described as the best Speaker in her time in Parliament and a former whip, FFS) Boothroyd and Martin (both deputy speakers) and now Bercow (opposition backbencher).
Now you might point out with justice it's not what they did before but how they behaved at the time they were Speaker that matters. That's true. However, for all this myth of 'neutrality' the fact is that the whips would stitch up an election between them (known as the 'usual channels') and the Govenrment would always try to get an acceptable candidate. They didn't always succeed - Thatcher wanted anyone but Wetherill, although why she suggested Pym instead I don't know, unless she saw him as a rival - but generally the office of Speaker has been one the government controls to at least a limited extent.
I also have to say, I don't get why Bercow comes in for such stick. True, he's not perfect, but he's sharp, he's on the ball, he's willing to tell people off (on all sides) and he's a million times better than the abject Martin. The irony is that if he really is there to be independent of the government the criticism suggests he's doing a magnificent job!
Yorkshire look as though they might win despite being bowled out for 50 in the first innings. Ben Coad might just be a replacement for Anderson in a couple of years’ time...
Change can bring both opportunities and problems, advantages and disadvantages.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
So we've been on the road of failure ever since we made the decision to stay out of the Euro? The change we need should be obvious.
Joining the Euro would likely have pushed the UK even faster down the road of failure just as joining the ERM was damaging for the UK.
Unless that is you think the UK would have joined the Euro with a much lower exchange rate than it had at the time.
Isn't your rationale for Brexit partially to instigate some creative destruction?
I agree that all things being equal the consequences of Brown's mismanagement during the 2000-2006 period could have been worse had we been in the Euro, but it's a counterfactual and I think it's quite likely that things would have played out very differently if we had been in the Eurozone.
You said in effect that his position in the Order of Precedence (which is a medieval thing) depended on his impartiality. I was pointing out this is not correct.
As for the last sixty years, in that time we've had the following speakers: Hylton-Foster (solicitor General at the time of appointment) King (Deputy Speaker and one of the best appointments so far as I can judge) Selwyn Lloyd (former Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Thomas (former Welsh Secretary who spent much of his time in the chair abusing Plaid Cymru) Bernard Wetherill (whom Clare Short described as the best Speaker in her time in Parliament and a former whip, FFS) Boothroyd and Martin (both deputy speakers) and now Bercow (opposition backbencher).
Now you might point out with justice it's not what they did before but how they behaved at the time they were Speaker that matters. That's true. However, for all this myth of 'neutrality' the fact is that the whips would stitch up an election between them (known as the 'usual channels') and the Govenrment would always try to get an acceptable candidate. They didn't always succeed - Thatcher wanted anyone but Wetherill, although why she suggested Pym instead I don't know, unless she saw him as a rival - but generally the office of Speaker has been one the government controls to at least a limited extent.
I also have to say, I don't get why Bercow comes in for such stick. True, he's not perfect, but he's sharp, he's on the ball, he's willing to tell people off (on all sides) and he's a million times better than the abject Martin. The irony is that if he really is there to be independent of the government the criticism suggests he's doing a magnificent job!
When you put it like that Bercow doesn't seem so bad. How the vile George Thomas became so revered is beyond comprehension. A truly horrible man.
Yorkshire look as though they might win despite being bowled out for 50 in the first innings. Ben Coad might just be a replacement for Anderson in a couple of years’ time...
Durham are being thrashed harder than a client paying 50 dominatrices by the lash...
Warwickshire look good for the 2nd division title already.
Can I remind people of my tip Middlesex would struggle? They're mid-table and Sussex still have the edge, although a draw would seem likely.
These are the statistics we need to be looking at - not this 'best result since 1871' BS.
Good point. When you look at the detail it turns out that the increase in the Lib Dem vote is the big story.
The LibDem vote share was lower than last year.
Anyway, time to head out to watch the Tour de Yorkshire whizz past...
For all the talk of a big LibDem success, I'm still yet to hear of any extra seats they'd be likely to gain in a general election on the basis of these results, except for Richmond Park.
Change can bring both opportunities and problems, advantages and disadvantages.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
So we've been on the road of failure ever since we made the decision to stay out of the Euro? The change we need should be obvious.
Joining the Euro would likely have pushed the UK even faster down the road of failure just as joining the ERM was damaging for the UK.
Unless that is you think the UK would have joined the Euro with a much lower exchange rate than it had at the time.
Interest rates would have been even lower, resulting in an even bigger house price and consumer boom. It would have been ugly.
It would have been more obvious that we were in a boom, and without the complacency that came from having an independent Bank of England, the government would have had to take steps to regulate the mortgage market more aggressively.
Yorkshire look as though they might win despite being bowled out for 50 in the first innings. Ben Coad might just be a replacement for Anderson in a couple of years’ time...
Durham are being thrashed harder than a client paying 50 dominatrices by the lash...
Warwickshire look good for the 2nd division title already.
Can I remind people of my tip Middlesex would struggle? They're mid-table and Sussex still have the edge, although a draw would seem likely.
Done ! That is a pretty improbable victory. Young Brook worth watching as a possible England no.3 again in a couple of years, too.
The error, in my view, is in they hypothesis. Companies based here will continue to trade with the SM after we leave as they will continue to trade with us. The degree of friction may increase marginally but there are many, many more important factors such as the exchange rate, interest rates, educational support, infrastructure, UK domestic demand, rates and other taxation policies...You could really go on all day. It's just not that important. If it was the US would not be our largest trading partner.
Why would a company that exports most of its products to the EU27 and which depends on the frictionless and timely arrival of components from the EU27 continue to invest in the UK at the same level when it becomes harder and more expensive to trade and secure the components it needs? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Hopefully you are right, though. The effects on communities of 1980s deindustrialisation are still with us 30 years later. These are not problems that go away quickly.
That said, it is true that government interventions can make a difference, here; but what that essentially means are subsidies and tax breaks, which in turn means less to spend elsewhere, or higher borrowing - and all to maintain a situation that could have been maintained at no cost by staying in the customs union and single market. Again, that makes absolutely no sense to me.
For all the more important reasons I have listed. The benefits of being in and the detriments of leaving the SM are being massively overstated. We really will be poking around in the detritus of our inaccurate economic figures trying to find an effect one way or the other. The political obsession with this arises from those who actually believed in the project and can't believe that not having UK politicians swanning around at endless EU conferences will be good for us rather than the reverse.
Comments
Either way , May is screwed. She doesn't have support for her plans - if she did they wouldn't still be arguing about it - but not do the skeptics in Parliament. Chances of a collapse seem to be increasing.
Outside of their upper-middle class comfort zones they are still going backwards.
We need a successful end to Brexit negotiations, so we can move on, and then go hell for leather for growth in 2021 and early 2022 to spike Corbyn for good prior to GE2022.
Theresa May needs to decide if she wants the U.K. to have its own trade policy. If she does, then she needs to get agreement for max fac in the Brexit subcommittee, the Cabinet, and the House of Commons. If she really wants it, she should promise to resign as party leader and PM if the Commons won’t vote for it. There is no other way.
Sadly, I don’t think she will take the initiative. It is not in her nature, and she was bitten for doing so less than 12 months ago.
School politics reminiscences are usually a mixture of pain and amusement. When I was 10, I was in a mainly American international school in Vienna, and we had a debate on Nixon vs Kennedy. Privately communist that I was, I read somewhere that communists preferred Nixon - easier to rally against and yet better able to do a deal with Russia or China without being blocked by the military-industrial complex (as we thought of it in those days): Kennedy seemed too keen on the role of cold warrior. I was the only volunteer to speak for Nixon and vaguely remember giving a passionate harangue about the missile gap that only Nixon would close.
It's embarrassing, because I was being naughty as a pseudo-Republican and Nixon turned out badly in the end. But Kennedy delivered the Bay of Pigs and Nixon delivered the China deal, so maybe not all that wrong.
Being very political as a child wasn't that unusual in the 60s - I get the impression that it's rarer now.
Around a third of young Italians are out of work.
For some, going the distance in their job search means taking a special bus up and down the country to reach interviews.
They're all competing for the same job – and only one of them will succeed. '
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43007377/2500-young-italians-compete-for-one-job
But that extra growth has been stolen from the future.
That's what the UK has been doing since 2000.
And we are now in the future from which that growth was stolen from.
As with companies, the quality of economic growth is just as important as the quantity.
But we still have a series of structural problems in our economy: excessive consumption, excessive debt, a consequential trade deficit that has become structural as we pay more and more "rent" on foreign owned assets in our country, a grossly inadequate education system (albeit with a remarkable crown for the best), poor productivity, poor management, a short termist view to investment and training, a chronic housing market that impedes social and economic mobility... Very few, if any, of these are related to EU membership. None of them will be solved by leaving (although training might get a modest boost). A political class that is obsessed with the relative trivia of Brexit is doing us no favours. It is long past time we moved on to the real issues.
I agree that my children show absolutely no interest in party politics but they were extremely interested and active in the Indyref and had very strong views on Brexit. They are less interested in teams and more interested in individual issues. If they are in any way typical political parties are going to struggle even more in the future.
But I don't think they was any interest in dealing with any of that before the Referendum.
Leaving the EU is IMO likely to force the UK into addressing some of those problems.
This whole row across the Tory party is complete waste of time. They are arguing, it seems to me, over which of the two schemes they would like the EU to definitely rule out first.
But continuing on the road of failure which the UK has been on since 2000 guaranteed further failure.
When the UK leaves the EU their top ranking University will be the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, which is ranked 43 in the world, just ahead of Bristol. It will be their only representative in the top 50. The UK has 4 in the top 10 and 7 in the top 50. We have 28 ranked in the top 200, second only to the US.
Universities are not everything but if we are proceeding to a knowledge economy surely the EU has a major problem.
What the ROI do would be up to them but in reality of course they would have no choice but to join in with MaxFac - what else are they going to do? This is why the discussion is so pointless - it is nothing to do with NI and everything to do with Remainers trying to reverse Brexit.
Which is bizarre considering no EFTA nations even are in the customs union.
You are right, they stand to win big, but they are playing with other peoples'
livesstakesIf Nissan leave the UK, no skin off JRM's nose
They realise that 'frictionless trade' will not occur after Brexit (which, lets face it, is the only benefit of the SM that anyone seems to be able to name). They think that trade between major partners should be as frictionless as possible, just as is the case with the US and Canada, Australia and NZ etc etc, but under an FTA framework which everyone else uses. The ERG don't think that in the end the loss of 'frictionless trade' is that big a deal, and I agree.
The ERG are perfectly happy as far as I can see not to eat the EU's cake and instead bake our own.
It is the REMAINERS who are obsessed with 'frictionless trade' and it is the REMAINERS who are desperate to have this bit of the cake and that is what causes all the problems. Once you want one bit of this cake, you get the whole thing force fed down your gullet.
If the RoI and the EU decide to build a border, that’s entirely their own choice.
And by concentrating on a few winnable areas they risk falling into some feedback reinforced comfort zone.
With the disintegration of UKIP and the problems Labour and the Conservatives are having there really should be an opportunity for the LibDems to pick up NOTA votes.
Our economy depends on International JIT supply chains. These are in jeopardy.
The only question is the varying degrees of friction.
https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/993042371846819841
As you should know (given that you think we are all idiots) components used in JIT supply chains are usually not subject to tariffs anyway, since tariffs are usually only levied on finished goods. And it is not going to be hard for them to prove compliance with relevant regulations given they send them all the time. So coming up with a solution for this would be very, very easy as they could easily be pre-cleared at both ends.
Instead of turning local tech colleges into pretendy univerities it would have been better to let the real universities expand with outstations.
All goods are automatically pre-cleared at both ends, but virtue of membership of the single market and customs union.
Sounds like a winner. Tell Jacob...
They are sh!t-scared that Brexit is a success which undermines their political project and everything it stands for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GQZyP_Odio
Oh wait...
Surely they cant underestimate Corbyn AGAIN.
Just as they knew all along before they decided to abandon planning for it to become Barnier's little bitch.
That said, it is true that government interventions can make a difference, here; but what that essentially means are subsidies and tax breaks, which in turn means less to spend elsewhere, or higher borrowing - and all to maintain a situation that could have been maintained at no cost by staying in the customs union and single market. Again, that makes absolutely no sense to me.
Would you want to live in a single monolithic global nation covering Europe, the USA, Russia, North Korea etc with a single set of rules globally? I wouldn't as my vote would be irrelevant and meaningless - so why assume that its better and more cost effective in Europe to be part of a single state?
There is little doubt that Corbyn enjoys the campaign and the cut and thrust of personal voter interaction in contrast to the Prime Minister who'd rather be in a snake pit with President Trump as company than mix with the electorate or appear in a debate with Jezza.
That said I wonder whether a parallel with 1992 might be appropriate for the next election. Perhaps Corbyn did so well in 2017 because few realistically expected him to perform so well and accordingly the punters thought of the general election as a massive by-election risk free option. However the actual prospect of PM Corbyn might have voters in the marginals hold their nose and opt for the Tories as they did in 92 when faced with the very real vision of Kinnock in Number 10.
Albeit, he's not exactly Mr Charisma. But that may well be an advantage in 2020.
As for votes, I am 53 and for the first time in my life live in a constituency where my vote makes a difference. For my first 45 years, it didn't.
It deserved to lose control imo
But the non-hypothetical EU isn't primarily about economics. It's a political project. And I like living in a union with other countries that share our values and traditions and with whom we have a long and shared history.
You said in effect that his position in the Order of Precedence (which is a medieval thing) depended on his impartiality. I was pointing out this is not correct.
As for the last sixty years, in that time we've had the following speakers: Hylton-Foster (solicitor General at the time of appointment) King (Deputy Speaker and one of the best appointments so far as I can judge) Selwyn Lloyd (former Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Thomas (former Welsh Secretary who spent much of his time in the chair abusing Plaid Cymru) Bernard Wetherill (whom Clare Short described as the best Speaker in her time in Parliament and a former whip, FFS) Boothroyd and Martin (both deputy speakers) and now Bercow (opposition backbencher).
Now you might point out with justice it's not what they did before but how they behaved at the time they were Speaker that matters. That's true. However, for all this myth of 'neutrality' the fact is that the whips would stitch up an election between them (known as the 'usual channels') and the Govenrment would always try to get an acceptable candidate. They didn't always succeed - Thatcher wanted anyone but Wetherill, although why she suggested Pym instead I don't know, unless she saw him as a rival - but generally the office of Speaker has been one the government controls to at least a limited extent.
I also have to say, I don't get why Bercow comes in for such stick. True, he's not perfect, but he's sharp, he's on the ball, he's willing to tell people off (on all sides) and he's a million times better than the abject Martin. The irony is that if he really is there to be independent of the government the criticism suggests he's doing a magnificent job!
Unless that is you think the UK would have joined the Euro with a much lower exchange rate than it had at the time.
Ben Coad might just be a replacement for Anderson in a couple of years’ time...
I agree that all things being equal the consequences of Brown's mismanagement during the 2000-2006 period could have been worse had we been in the Euro, but it's a counterfactual and I think it's quite likely that things would have played out very differently if we had been in the Eurozone.
Warwickshire look good for the 2nd division title already.
Can I remind people of my tip Middlesex would struggle? They're mid-table and Sussex still have the edge, although a draw would seem likely.
Anyway, time to head out to watch the Tour de Yorkshire whizz past...
That is a pretty improbable victory.
Young Brook worth watching as a possible England no.3 again in a couple of years, too.
Although I think Blair says these days that even if there had been a referendum on Euro, it would have probably been lost.