Just to confirm, the immigrants we hated between 2010 and 2016, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Bulgarians, they're good immigrants now are they?
Is it Indians and Afghans we don't like now? I get lost
I very much doubt it's Indians 'we' don't like now. Probably the strategy is to keep it vague, so that xenophobes can picture the bad ones as whichever foreigners they don't like, and non-xenophobes can (maybe) imagine it's not based on foreignness.
PS But Albanians are fair game. Not many voters have Albanian blood.
Albanians are the latest fad in the cheap, cash in hand, building trade.
One company owner was quite open about how it was done - he owns a huge, rambling house, with outbuildings, not far outside London. Which he turns into a barracks for his guys - 4 to a room. Which they pay him for. They bus them into London for the jobs, in vans.
If he needs more, he just gets some more cousins….
So treat them like shit and pay less than minimum wage. Plus rip them off on accommodation. Nice.
Why is that their fault? Isn't it the guy doing the stuff we should be going after?
He is, of course, Albanian himself. Just more established and speaks idiomatic English.
The people who abuse migrant workers like this, nearly always come from their own community.
This happens, time and again, round the world. The main feature is hiring people who don’t speak English. Easier to control.
I find it surprising that most people still don’t realise this. Then again, when prosecutions are reported, the ethnicity of the perpetrators is always left out of the reporting.
In the States, places like California have this down to a tee re the hiring of non-English speaking speakers. Encouraging the use of Spanish in official and everyday signs is promoted as a sign of inclusivity but, in reality, is a very nice control mechanism to make sure such workers do not get too uppity about things.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
Yep, the supply chains still have problems with spare parts, and the manufacturing of new vehicles, especially EVs, is much more modular.
The manufacturers don’t care, it means that more car are written off for relatively trivial damage, and they get to sell another new car. The same manufacturers are working hard to keep EVs out of the third-party repair ecosystem, thanks to their control of the car via computer, and the interaction between an EV and the charging system.
Insurance premiums though, they are going up for everyone as a result.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
Meanwhile, in a neat inversion of "no British PM would be mad enough to have a General Election campaign running over Christmas", the Spanish PM has called an election for July 23rd.
Un poco loco, methinks.
Most of the Spanish media are also somewhat bemused. Unless the polls change dramatically he could well be tostadas!
Just going by the figures I can find: GDP PPP 2021
UK $45000 France $45000 Italy $42000 Poland $35000
So Poland is still some way off. However if Poland is to overtake the UK it's also likely to overtake France and Italy too. The implications for the Euro in that scenario might be an even more pressing question.
Not surprising if Polish incomes do overtake UK ones. Educational standards are very high (especially for machine learning etc - AI woohoo!) and they are also in the Market, unlike us.
France and Italy also growing slightly faster than us. At the moment.
Poland won’t overtake the UK either in GDP or GDP per capita
It’s absurd declinism. Britain is going through a fit of post-Covid manic depression, complicated by the war and made worse by the lingering neurosis of Brexit. Yes, the UK has some major problems - things look a lot tougher than they did in 2013 or 2003, but that is true of many countries on earth, including nearly all the developed western nations
And Britain has multiple advantages which other countries do not. From a still-splendid university system, to the English language, to a world city capital, to a global network of friends and allies
I can’t believe I’m the still, sober voice of sanity on here, but so it is. Calm down, everyone
I'm perfectly calm. Actually I don't see any reason why we should be surprised or upset if Poland does become richer than the UK. Ireland already has, for much the same reasons as Poland will do, if it does.
Incidentally a large organisation I know was looking at where to set up a base for highly skilled analytical work with the choice being Poland and the UK. They chose Poland, and it wasn't close, for a. better availability of numerate graduates b. Poland in EU Single Market c. lower salaries. Obviously.c will disappear over time but that doesn't help the UK in being richer.
I'm guessing the language used in the new base was going to be English regardless of location.
@Leon - Why is the fact that Britain speaks English a big advantage? Elites in many countries speak English. There are several sectors too where it's dominant in most of the world, e.g. aerospace, infotech, science. Among decision makers, who cares what language the office cleaner or the man on the omnibus speaks?
Indeed. One way the UK can partially level that playing field is by importing an army of technical graduates from India.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
Just going by the figures I can find: GDP PPP 2021
UK $45000 France $45000 Italy $42000 Poland $35000
So Poland is still some way off. However if Poland is to overtake the UK it's also likely to overtake France and Italy too. The implications for the Euro in that scenario might be an even more pressing question.
Not surprising if Polish incomes do overtake UK ones. Educational standards are very high (especially for machine learning etc - AI woohoo!) and they are also in the Market, unlike us.
France and Italy also growing slightly faster than us. At the moment.
Poland won’t overtake the UK either in GDP or GDP per capita
It’s absurd declinism. Britain is going through a fit of post-Covid manic depression, complicated by the war and made worse by the lingering neurosis of Brexit. Yes, the UK has some major problems - things look a lot tougher than they did in 2013 or 2003, but that is true of many countries on earth, including nearly all the developed western nations
And Britain has multiple advantages which other countries do not. From a still-splendid university system, to the English language, to a world city capital, to a global network of friends and allies
I can’t believe I’m the still, sober voice of sanity on here, but so it is. Calm down, everyone
I'm perfectly calm. Actually I don't see any reason why we should be surprised or upset if Poland does become richer than the UK. Ireland already has, for much the same reasons as Poland will do, if it does.
Incidentally a large organisation I know was looking at where to set up a base for highly skilled analytical work with the choice being Poland and the UK. They chose Poland, and it wasn't close, for a. better availability of numerate graduates b. Poland in EU Single Market c. lower salaries. Obviously.c will disappear over time but that doesn't help the UK in being richer.
I'm guessing the language used in the new base was going to be English regardless of location.
@Leon - Why is the fact that Britain speaks English a big advantage? Elites in many countries speak English. There are several sectors too where it's dominant in most of the world, e.g. aerospace, infotech, science. Among decision makers, who cares what language the office cleaner or the man on the omnibus speaks?
There are many subtle advantages to speaking English
Here’s just one: if you want your kids to prosper, you’ll want them to speak really good English. Sure you can send them to an English language school in a non-Anglophone country, but it’s much easier to simply educate them in an English language country. The UK is therefore able to attract high flying people with kids
This is one reason Ireland has done well in the last 30 years. They don’t hide it. They tell investors: ‘come here, we speak English!’
People often talk about FOM as something we'd have to "accept" if we rejoin and is unpopular. It should be presented as a *benefit* to us, to enjoy the ability to move all over Europe ("Get to retire in sunny Spain" etc.).
Just going by the figures I can find: GDP PPP 2021
UK $45000 France $45000 Italy $42000 Poland $35000
So Poland is still some way off. However if Poland is to overtake the UK it's also likely to overtake France and Italy too. The implications for the Euro in that scenario might be an even more pressing question.
Not surprising if Polish incomes do overtake UK ones. Educational standards are very high (especially for machine learning etc - AI woohoo!) and they are also in the Market, unlike us.
France and Italy also growing slightly faster than us. At the moment.
Poland won’t overtake the UK either in GDP or GDP per capita
It’s absurd declinism. Britain is going through a fit of post-Covid manic depression, complicated by the war and made worse by the lingering neurosis of Brexit. Yes, the UK has some major problems - things look a lot tougher than they did in 2013 or 2003, but that is true of many countries on earth, including nearly all the developed western nations
And Britain has multiple advantages which other countries do not. From a still-splendid university system, to the English language, to a world city capital, to a global network of friends and allies
I can’t believe I’m the still, sober voice of sanity on here, but so it is. Calm down, everyone
I'm perfectly calm. Actually I don't see any reason why we should be surprised or upset if Poland does become richer than the UK. Ireland already has, for much the same reasons as Poland will do, if it does.
Incidentally a large organisation I know was looking at where to set up a base for highly skilled analytical work with the choice being Poland and the UK. They chose Poland, and it wasn't close, for a. better availability of numerate graduates b. Poland in EU Single Market c. lower salaries. Obviously.c will disappear over time but that doesn't help the UK in being richer.
I'm guessing the language used in the new base was going to be English regardless of location.
@Leon - Why is the fact that Britain speaks English a big advantage? Elites in many countries speak English. There are several sectors too where it's dominant in most of the world, e.g. aerospace, infotech, science. Among decision makers, who cares what language the office cleaner or the man on the omnibus speaks?
Indeed. One way the UK can partially level that playing field is by importing an army of technical graduates from India.
Terrible accent though! Luckily neither Mum nor my late Dad have/had a noticeable Indian accent.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
Does this mean that immigration is actually a 'good' thing?
Demographically? Certainly.
The problem is that nobody is really prepared to say immigration is good, which is depressing.
If every country is competing to increase their population, how do you expect to solve climate change?
By investing in renewables and becoming a global leader.
Regardless of how much you invest in renewables, there's a relationship between environmental sustainability and population size.
Okay let's close the borders, crash the economy. Good idea.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
It’s not about damage spread in this case.
The problem is that the design of the vehicle is so tightly integrated that to gain access to replace the rear quarter panel requires taking the entire car apart, including some internal parts of the cab which require careful handling because the owner is going to see them every day after you (carefully!) put them all back together again.
Talking of problems in other countries, this is surely going to be huge
Times (£):
‘The Italian government has forecast that 400,000 migrants will seek to enter Italy from north Africa this year, The Times has been told — four times as many as arrived last year.‘
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government, it could neutralise Farage again, and make Starmer look very shaky indeed. People don't like or trust him. My Con Maj bet might still come in.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
There was a class of Italian battleship that had a large fluid-filled tube along its length to act as extra torpedo protection: the collapsing of the drum would absorb much of an explosion's pressure. Sadly it did not work very well, in part because the connections with the hull would shear the hull plates.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government, it could neutralise Farage again, and make Starmer look very shaky indeed. People don't like or trust him. My Con Maj bet might still come in.
Whoever leads the Tories now they will almost certainly lose, it is just whether Sunak and Hunt can limit the damage.
Then once in opposition it is game on, provided the Tories pick a reasonably sensible candidate like Barclay, Mordaunt or Tugendhat as leader rather than say Braverman if the new Starmer government fails to cut inflation and the cost of living voters will soon turn on them too. Especially if their taxes go up and strikes start again
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
People often talk about FOM as something we'd have to "accept" if we rejoin and is unpopular. It should be presented as a *benefit* to us, to enjoy the ability to move all over Europe ("Get to retire in sunny Spain" etc.).
I think it's possible to sell large-scale immigration if it is restricted to those viewed as beneficial to society. Unfettered freedom of movement is a different kettle of fish, because most voters don't want the hand car washers and other inessential migrants back.
Trying to sell FOM to the public as something desirable is unlikely to work. If the UK does, eventually, attempt to go back into the EU then it will be because people are sufficiently convinced of its other merits to accept the resumption of free movement as a price worth paying.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
DefMin @troelslundp announces a historical investment in defence and security, incl. substantially beefing up military support for 🇺🇦 for almost 3 billion €. The new package will take 🇩🇰 to the NATO 2% target already this yr https://twitter.com/JKaarsbo/status/1663136071159275520
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
There was a class of Italian battleship that had a large fluid-filled tube along its length to act as extra torpedo protection: the collapsing of the drum would absorb much of an explosion's pressure. Sadly it did not work very well, in part because the connections with the hull would shear the hull plates.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
Russia has yet again hit new depths, and is forcing Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship or risk losing vital medication https://khpg.org/en/1608812310
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
I'd argue that's a positive change.
Of course it pins the country together! Parliament, the Judiciary and This Morning are the bedrocks of our British way of life. Anyone who wants to launch a successful coup in this country would need the loyalty of the armed forces and Holly Willoughby as a prerequisite.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
Two things: Russia must be really desperate if it's relying on South African arms supplies. South Africa has a very dysfunctional government that doesn't know what its foreign policy should be.
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
I'd argue that's a positive change.
Of course it pins the country together! Parliament, the Judiciary and This Morning are the bedrocks of our British way of life. Anyone who wants to launch a successful coup in this country would need the loyalty of the armed forces and Holly Willoughby as a prerequisite.
Yet these things change. At one stage, the Tellytubbies were the underpinnings of British society. And after that, Crazy Frog. Who can recall the time the Speaker stopped a parliamentary debate so the entire house could recite "Ring ding ding daa baa Baa aramba baa bom baa barooumba" ?
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
Two things: Russia must be really desperate if it's relying on South African arms supplies. South Africa has a very dysfunctional government that doesn't know what its foreign policy should be.
South Africa has a very robust arms industry. And yes, I think their government is dysfunctional enough to do so. Sadly.
Or worse; that it's being done without the government's knowledge or blessing.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
David Miliband was no Tony Blair. He spoke almost entirely in policy wonkese and would have been subject to the same Tory press ridicule. The only difference would be a banana instead of a bacon roll.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
David Miliband was no Tony Blair. He spoke almost entirely in policy wonkese and would have been subject to the same Tory press ridicule. The only difference would be a banana instead of a bacon roll.
And Rishi Sunak is no David Cameron but they are/were the best options for their parties at the time
People often talk about FOM as something we'd have to "accept" if we rejoin and is unpopular. It should be presented as a *benefit* to us, to enjoy the ability to move all over Europe ("Get to retire in sunny Spain" etc.).
FOM was fabulous. One of the few reasons I went remain.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
It was also in large part about immigration, especially from Eastern Europe
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
He is now, yes. But you used to say that if the single priority was Con performance at the next election it would probably be best to stick with "Boris". Don't you think that anymore? You were right to ditch him?
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
Into the broad sunlit uplands with Michael Fabricant!
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
He is now, yes. But you used to say that if the single priority was Con performance at the next election it would probably be best to stick with "Boris". Don't you think that anymore? You were right to ditch him?
In terms of maximising Conservative voteshare yes Boris was still the best bet, the problem was he would also have got more tactical votes against him than Rishi. So end result now little different
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
David Miliband was no Tony Blair. He spoke almost entirely in policy wonkese and would have been subject to the same Tory press ridicule. The only difference would be a banana instead of a bacon roll.
You're talking to the guy who will state with confidence the religious beliefs of every PM from Smith-Stanley to Sunak. The person who will diligently mine every cross tab for the tiniest crumb of good news and descend from the mountain with it carved into stone tablets. If there's a wonk blob, it's HYUFD.
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
Two things: Russia must be really desperate if it's relying on South African arms supplies. South Africa has a very dysfunctional government that doesn't know what its foreign policy should be.
I’m sure their government can be firmly reminded what its foreign policy should be, by those countries which buy their more conventional exports.
If China can manage to stay firmly neutral in this conflict, then so can anyone.
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
He is now, yes. But you used to say that if the single priority was Con performance at the next election it would probably be best to stick with "Boris". Don't you think that anymore? You were right to ditch him?
In terms of maximising Conservative voteshare yes Boris was still the best bet, the problem was he would also have got more tactical votes against him than Rishi. So end result now little different
What backs up your argument that there will be less tactical voting against Sunak than there would have been against Boris? The local council wipe out suggests the opposite.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
David Miliband was no Tony Blair. He spoke almost entirely in policy wonkese and would have been subject to the same Tory press ridicule. The only difference would be a banana instead of a bacon roll.
Is 'Tony Blair' now generic shorthand for 'vote gobbling Labour politician'?
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
With Sunak and Hunt, it's all over. Those two are building up approval amongst people who would never vote Tory, and losing it amongst those who might. If they get tossed and the party shows signs of forming an effective Government...
LOL. Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
No, it would need to be a stitched up coronation of sorts with a confirmatory membership vote. And I agree it isn't ideal, but I see little alternative other than taking electoral Armageddon on the chin. And I never support that option - both sides should be in the election to win it and form different types of Government. To just say 'it's time for Labour' isn't democracy.
The Tories have already effectively chosen David Miliband, as Labour arguably should have done pre 2010 also after 12/13 years in power and removed Brown to give themselves their best chance of re election rather than leaving his leadership campaign to Opposition when he lost to his more leftwing brother. Sunak is their David Miliband and polls better than the party he leads, he is their best chance to get a very unlikely 5th consecutive general election win
He is now, yes. But you used to say that if the single priority was Con performance at the next election it would probably be best to stick with "Boris". Don't you think that anymore? You were right to ditch him?
In terms of maximising Conservative voteshare yes Boris was still the best bet, the problem was he would also have got more tactical votes against him than Rishi. So end result now little different
What backs up your argument that there will be less tactical voting against Sunak than there would have been against Boris? The local council wipe out suggests the opposite.
Locally it was more a reaction against southern Tory councils Local Plans and building on the greenbelt, a legacy of Boris and Truss which Sunak and Gove are now rowing back from. Indeed now Starmer has said he will encourage more development on the greenbelt as PM the Tories have taken the lead in the latest Redfield bluewall seats poll for the first time since Sunak became PM
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
It was also in large part about immigration, especially from Eastern Europe
No it wasn't. Even if left-behind person A blames his left-behind status on immigrants, even if there were no immigrants, he'd still be left behind so would still have voted for levelling up. Immigration is a red herring.
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
So did Ted Heath.
The Tories have only won most under 40s once this century, 2010 despite winning 4 general elections since 2000. Under 40s almost always vote Labour.
Indeed given the median voter is now 50 the Tories could even lose most voters under 50 and still have a chance of winning most seats and provided they won voters over 45 another majority
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
You think we've got right wing economics?
It's an irregular verb. It's a view. Point of order Lord Copper.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
So did Ted Heath.
The Tories have only won most under 40s once this century, 2010 despite winning 4 general elections since 2000. Under 40s almost always vote Labour.
Ted Heath is hardly an electoral model to emulate is he?
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
The terms left and right have lost their previous definitions. Michael Foot and Peter Shore were closest to national conservatives in 2023 political terms.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
In line with food and fuel inflation.
Nope my car ins is about 30pc up on last yr
If only PB had a site admin who owns a car insurance company.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
It was also in large part about immigration, especially from Eastern Europe
No it wasn't. Even if left-behind person A blames his left-behind status on immigrants, even if there were no immigrants, he'd still be left behind so would still have voted for levelling up. Immigration is a red herring.
Yes it was and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
It was Blair's failure to impose transition controls on East European migrants post 2004 like Germany that led to the UKIP surge in the European elections and Blair's failure to impose transition controls that almost certainly got Leave to 52% rather than the 45-48% they would likely have got otherwise.
Failure to impose transition controls undercut working class wages and put pressure on housing and public services and directly led to the Leave vote in 2016.
Indeed with transition controls there would have been no UKIP surge post 2004 in the European elections and from 2010 in national polls and Cameron would not have proposed a referendum to try and lance the UKIP boil either
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
Is it because of your time on here and finding left of centre PB contributors to be generally extremely impressive?
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
Well, that would solve Marta Kostyuk's problem about shaking Russian/Belorussian players' hands...
What will become of Brexit? The attempts to resuscitate it seemed doomed (last week's 'Brexit is great cos it increases immigration' was particularly zany). So all we're left with is this sort of permanent national migraine. I don't think rejoin is a practicable option, but we can't go on like this. What to do? Brexit is killing us.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
For me, EU membership was always about more than just economics; it was an attitude of mind. Were we at one with our neighbours or were we ourselves alone? In that sense, I think Brexit has been a total failure; I’ve got family and friends all over the world, but I still think of myself as a European, not as a citizen of some artificial grouping around the Pacific rim! So for me, Brexit is a total failure.
In that sense it was always going to be a total failure for you no matter what happened. That is hardly an argument one way or another in terms of this thread.
Of course I do not consider myself 'European' in your terms and Brexit has made no difference to my ability to have friends and family all over the world. And given that (unsurprisingly) all the dire warnings of disaster that were promulgated by the Remain campaign have failed to happen, I consider Brexit to have been a success. It achieved its aim of getting us out of the (for me) undemocratic political institutions of the EU.
It could be even more of a success were we to have a sensible Government that took us into the EEA but I am content at the moment with where we are along the road.
That of course, in a nutshell, is why we differ. In spite, perhaps, of my genetics showing me to be almost entirely from England and Wales, I’ve always thought of myself as a European. And I don’t think the EU is ‘undemocratic’; it could be, and one day will be, better but it’s on the right track. And UK could have been a force for good in that journey.
We tried to be a force for good (as we saw it) for 40 years and failed. The old saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results springs to mind.
That’s not right, is it. We encouraged, promoted, supported all sorts of things.
Not least we led on eastwards expansion of membership, and modernising the post Communist economies there. These countries could have become failed states like Belarus, but instead are modern liberal democracies.
I think this an unequivocal good that we led.
Yes. I think that's correct. I would have expected far more settling of scores in Eastern Europe, after 1989, than turned out to be the case.
Only in Yugoslavia did ethnic hatrd spill over into civil war, and only in Romania was the revolution (a little bit) bloody. The speed with which the Ceascescus went from lording it over the country to facing a firing squad shows just how rapidly their inner circle turned on them.
It is ironic that the best thing we did in the EU, and possibly the most unequivocally positive thing done by the EU ever is the thing that precipitated Brexit.
There wouldnt have been a problem if Blair had put restraints on immigration as Germany and France did.
Yes there would because the Brexiteers in the Tory party would have been there, so Cameron would still have held the referendum, and the left-behind towns and non-voters would still have voted for taking back control and levelling up.
It would likely have been 52% Remain 48% Leave rather than the reverse though
Probably unchanged, if the Brexit vote was about left-behinds voting for levelling up.
It was also in large part about immigration, especially from Eastern Europe
No it wasn't. Even if left-behind person A blames his left-behind status on immigrants, even if there were no immigrants, he'd still be left behind so would still have voted for levelling up. Immigration is a red herring.
Immigrants are easy to demonise politically because they have a weak voice, electorally. That's partly why I support votes for all long-term legal residents.
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
She turns them back or puts them in camps on islands in the Med. What you say may well come to fruition, though I doubt the AfD will come second in Germany, though may be Kingmakers if Merz and the CDU are tempted, although they probably won't be
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
So did Ted Heath.
The Tories have only won most under 40s once this century, 2010 despite winning 4 general elections since 2000. Under 40s almost always vote Labour.
Ted Heath is hardly an electoral model to emulate is he?
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
She turns them back or puts them in camps on islands in the Med. What you say may well come to fruition, though I doubt the AfD will come second in Germany, though may be Kingmakers if Merz and the CDU are tempted, although they probably won't be
Yes. I can easily see Le Pen winning in France. Germany will be more resistant due to history
That said, whoever would have predicted the hard right in government in Sweden?
Just to confirm, the immigrants we hated between 2010 and 2016, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Bulgarians, they're good immigrants now are they?
Is it Indians and Afghans we don't like now? I get lost
I very much doubt it's Indians 'we' don't like now. Probably the strategy is to keep it vague, so that xenophobes can picture the bad ones as whichever foreigners they don't like, and non-xenophobes can (maybe) imagine it's not based on foreignness.
PS But Albanians are fair game. Not many voters have Albanian blood.
What will become of Brexit? The attempts to resuscitate it seemed doomed (last week's 'Brexit is great cos it increases immigration' was particularly zany). So all we're left with is this sort of permanent national migraine. I don't think rejoin is a practicable option, but we can't go on like this. What to do? Brexit is killing us.
I think for the UK that the great tragedy of Brexit was Cameron's resignation - he was comfortably the best placed to deliver on the vote, and equally would have been the best leader here and now.
If the South African government start sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, is it time to restart the same sort of sanctions we had over apartheid ?
Two things: Russia must be really desperate if it's relying on South African arms supplies. South Africa has a very dysfunctional government that doesn't know what its foreign policy should be.
I’m sure their government can be firmly reminded what its foreign policy should be, by those countries which buy their more conventional exports.
If China can manage to stay firmly neutral in this conflict, then so can anyone.
The South African government is already whining about “hostility” from Western governments.
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
There’s quite a funny clip of the Danish immigration minister being interviewed by a French journalist who couldn’t understand how someone on the left could support tough policies on immigration. He answered that it’s always the working class who pay the price for immigration and integration and not the rich or bourgeois.
People often talk about FOM as something we'd have to "accept" if we rejoin and is unpopular. It should be presented as a *benefit* to us, to enjoy the ability to move all over Europe ("Get to retire in sunny Spain" etc.).
For those of us who wanted that it was very clear - unfortunately it is and probably always will be, a minority aspiration.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I think the under 40s or maybe even under 50s are becoming increasingly left wing, because right wing economics has demonstrably failed.
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
So did Ted Heath.
The Tories have only won most under 40s once this century, 2010 despite winning 4 general elections since 2000. Under 40s almost always vote Labour.
Ted Heath is hardly an electoral model to emulate is he?
Ted Heath did win a general election
if Sunak wins the same share of the popular vote Heath did in February 1974 he'll remain prime minister.
If he gets the same number of seats he's a reluctant Turkish conscript.
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
She turns them back or puts them in camps on islands in the Med. What you say may well come to fruition, though I doubt the AfD will come second in Germany, though may be Kingmakers if Merz and the CDU are tempted, although they probably won't be
Yes. I can easily see Le Pen winning in France. Germany will be more resistant due to history
That said, whoever would have predicted the hard right in government in Sweden?
In Sweden though the centre right Moderates were willing to work with the nationalist right Sweden Democrats.
In Germany no sign yet the centre right CDU/CSU are willing to work with the nationalist right AfD
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
Possibly. Just finished a marathon (my first in two months due to ****ing covid), and seem to have lost all of my sense of humour in Hilsea.
NOT to brag, but yours truly walks four miles each morning, rain or shine, to and from my humble abode to my fav coffee shop.
So while YOU've been lollygagging, I've walked equivalent of TWO marathons! An inspiration for every PBer!!
Seriously, kudos on getting back in the saddle, so to speak, and best of British (and Irish American) luck re: your health, wealth and (occasional) sanity.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Armoured decks were clearly the right choice in a very small time window. A modern carrier, if hit, is just going to sink.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
The relentless media attack on This Morning shows how much respect in the institutions that pin our country together is eroding.
"This Morning" is an institution that pins our country together? Really?
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
Possibly. Just finished a marathon (my first in two months due to ****ing covid), and seem to have lost all of my sense of humour in Hilsea.
NOT to brag, but yours truly walks four miles each morning, rain or shine, to and from my humble abode to my fav coffee shop.
So while YOU've been lollygagging, I've walked equivalent of TWO marathons! An inspiration for every PBer!!
Seriously, kudos on getting back in the saddle, so to speak, and best of British (and Irish American) luck re: your health, wealth and (occasional) sanity.
What's lollygagging? Do I need an O-ring collar/necklace to partake?
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
Is it because of your time on here and finding left of centre PB contributors to be generally extremely impressive?
Haha or Jaja as we say in Spain. It's the way you tell'em
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Comments
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
The manufacturers don’t care, it means that more car are written off for relatively trivial damage, and they get to sell another new car. The same manufacturers are working hard to keep EVs out of the third-party repair ecosystem, thanks to their control of the car via computer, and the interaction between an EV and the charging system.
Insurance premiums though, they are going up for everyone as a result.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
Here’s just one: if you want your kids to prosper, you’ll want them to speak really good English. Sure you can send them to an English language school in a non-Anglophone country, but it’s much easier to simply educate them in an English language country. The UK is therefore able to attract high flying people with kids
This is one reason Ireland has done well in the last 30 years. They don’t hide it. They tell investors: ‘come here, we speak English!’
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
The problem is that the design of the vehicle is so tightly integrated that to gain access to replace the rear quarter panel requires taking the entire car apart, including some internal parts of the cab which require careful handling because the owner is going to see them every day after you (carefully!) put them all back together again.
It’s extremely labour intensive.
Times (£):
‘The Italian government has forecast that 400,000 migrants will seek to enter Italy from north Africa this year, The Times has been told — four times as many as arrived last year.‘
400,000!!
More likely: The relentless media attack on This Morning shows that the 'talent' can no longer treat those they work with as their personal playthings.
I'd argue that's a positive change.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littorio-class_battleship#Pugliese_torpedo_defense_system
Then once in opposition it is game on, provided the Tories pick a reasonably sensible candidate like Barclay, Mordaunt or Tugendhat as leader rather than say Braverman if the new Starmer government fails to cut inflation and the cost of living voters will soon turn on them too. Especially if their taxes go up and strikes start again
Trying to sell FOM to the public as something desirable is unlikely to work. If the UK does, eventually, attempt to go back into the EU then it will be because people are sufficiently convinced of its other merits to accept the resumption of free movement as a price worth paying.
Just one more leadership contest and it will all be OK ?
https://twitter.com/JKaarsbo/status/1663136071159275520
Why are red states hiring so much faster than blue states?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/26/hiring-red-blue-states/?
Russia has yet again hit new depths, and is forcing Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship or risk losing vital medication
https://khpg.org/en/1608812310
Voltaire.
Or worse; that it's being done without the government's knowledge or blessing.
Rousseau.
If China can manage to stay firmly neutral in this conflict, then so can anyone.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
I mean, even Rishi Sunak wants price controls on supermarkets.
The Tories have only won most under 40s once this century, 2010 despite winning 4 general elections since 2000. Under 40s almost always vote Labour.
Indeed given the median voter is now 50 the Tories could even lose most voters under 50 and still have a chance of winning most seats and provided they won voters over 45 another majority
-- Rūmī
It's an irregular verb.It's a view.Point of order Lord Copper.It was Blair's failure to impose transition controls on East European migrants post 2004 like Germany that led to the UKIP surge in the European elections and Blair's failure to impose transition controls that almost certainly got Leave to 52% rather than the 45-48% they would likely have got otherwise.
Failure to impose transition controls undercut working class wages and put pressure on housing and public services and directly led to the Leave vote in 2016.
Indeed with transition controls there would have been no UKIP surge post 2004 in the European elections and from 2010 in national polls and Cameron would not have proposed a referendum to try and lance the UKIP boil either
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains
elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
That's partly why I support votes for all long-term legal residents.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
That said, whoever would have predicted the hard right in government in Sweden?
https://twitter.com/gentilhomme_v/status/1662026144516898816
If he gets the same number of seats he's a reluctant Turkish conscript.
In Germany no sign yet the centre right CDU/CSU are willing to work with the nationalist right AfD
So while YOU've been lollygagging, I've walked equivalent of TWO marathons! An inspiration for every PBer!!
Seriously, kudos on getting back in the saddle, so to speak, and best of British (and Irish American) luck re: your health, wealth and (occasional) sanity.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course