Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
Ledbury Estate is a poor comparison because it was badly built, but in general a fashionable area like Peckham will always be far more desirable than an extension of Dorchester.
The four 13-storey blocks are being replaced by six towers in a range of heights between 6 and 22 storeys - 224 council flats are being replaced by 260, with another 80 for private sale. The resident's group was involved in the design, and it's being built in the 'New London Vernacular' (ie. brick-clad) style that's been in fashion for the past decade, with ground floors housing retail units, a GP's surgery, and a community centre.
This is exactly the sort of project we need much, much more of - and yet all the discussion is around Poundbury!
Sure, build more Poundburys. Personally, I reckon that it looks like a shit 1980s shopping precinct, but I've no problem with building hundreds more of them if there's demand.
But Ledbury is much more important, and more useful.
Speaking of which, the decades delayed Ajax and Ares are nearly ready to be deployed, honest. Ajax is too big for reconnaissance, too lightly armed to be effective, and insufficiently armoured to fight. Ares is similarly kak. I could continue but you get the point. ☹️
So the little museum of Taranto has possibly the greatest suite of classical sculptures I’ve ever seen
Orpheus and the Sirens. In terracotta. Looted by the Sacra Corona Unita - the Pugliese mafia. Sold to the Getty in Malibu - boo! - but recently repatriated to Taranto! Yay!
That would be enough for most provincial museums - it certainly knocks Hereford’s “badly stuffed fox weirdly staring at decomposing weasel” into a cocked hat
But the museum ALSO has one of the greatest collections of jewellery from the ancient world anywhere on the planet
I tell you. Taranto. You read it here first
In ten years time EVERYONE will be raving about Taranto
Wasn't Taranto the most polluted city in Italy, and, I think, the EU, at some point, due to poor control over its heavy industry? It may still be.
Lecce is on my Italian bucket list (generally been to most of the top tier places and want to work my way through Italy's second tier), be good to see what you make of it if you're heading there.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Doesn't that already happen in Cyprus at the British airbase there?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
FPT (and the continuing discussion of housing): These are questions, not conclusions, since answering them would require far more knowledge than I have about the UK.
Would the problems forming pair bonds in the UK contribute to a housing shortage? And if so, how much?
If fewer couples are forming among young people -- mostly the fault of men -- then it seems likely to me that many starting in life will be living single in an apartment, instead of double. (In the US there is a trend for single women who are doing well enough to start thinking about buying a home when they reach the age of 30, even though they have no prospects of getting married.)
Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
Ledbury Estate is a poor comparison because it was badly built, but in general a fashionable area like Peckham will always be far more desirable than an extension of Dorchester.
The four 13-storey blocks are being replaced by six towers in a range of heights between 6 and 22 storeys - 224 council flats are being replaced by 260, with another 80 for private sale. The resident's group was involved in the design, and it's being built in the 'New London Vernacular' (ie. brick-clad) style that's been in fashion for the past decade, with ground floors housing retail units, a GP's surgery, and a community centre.
This is exactly the sort of project we need much, much more of - and yet all the discussion is around Poundbury!
Sure, build more Poundbury's. Personally, I reckon that it looks like a shit 1980s shopping precinct, but I've no problem with building hundreds more of them if there's demand.
But Ledbury is much more important, and more useful.
Hey, I lived in Skenfrith House for a few months in the early 1990s, so know what it's like to descend each morning in a lift stinking of p*ss. (*) But there are many blocks around it - 'poorly built', to use your phrase - which people were forced to live in for many decades. One of the problems with 'socialist' architects is that they design properties for people to live in - people other to themselves, that is...
A notable exception is the Wyndham Court estate immediately to the north of Southampton Station. When they designed it, they made the architects live in it. But also note that it was built to house 'professionals'; and therefore was built to a higher quality finish. ..
Speaking of which, the decades delayed Ajax and Ares are nearly ready to be deployed, honest. Ajax is too big for reconnaissance, too lightly armed to be effective, and insufficiently armoured to fight. Ares is similarly kak. I could continue but you get the point. ☹️
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
The Gibraltarians voted to Remain, fearing a harder border. By putting them in quasi-schenghen, we get them no border (for people, they have never been in the customs union, so there is still a border for goods), so it's the right thing to do, if the terms are acceptable.
What happens to British people's right to stay in Gib for 6 months, I don't know. I suppose it will have to be reduced to 3 months to comport with Schenghen.
(Reports are that the Spanish are currently playing hardball, requiring hotel reservations to cross the border, which prevents Gibraltarians and British going into La Linea for the evening to get the decent food...)
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians?
Remain: 96% Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
Whereas you know all of Liz Kendall’s supporters by name?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
It strikes me that the vast majority of PBers, who I assume are owner occupiers, are quick to denigrate any form of rent control, but also don't have any solutions to the problems faced by (young, in particular) renters. Down here on the south coast average private-sector rents are around 56% of take-home pay, rising to over 60% when bills are included. On average pay, this means life is a struggle. And, of course, many rental properties at the lower end are pretty abysmal and/or pokey.
The obvious solution is more house-building, but this a) may not happen, and b) even if it does, will take many years to have an impact. The second solution is to move somewhere cheaper. But for all sorts of reasons - family, friends, work - many people can't, or don't want to, uproot. And of course, the third solution is to buy. But for most young renters down here, you're having a laugh.
So, I'd be genuinely interested if anybody has any practical solutions to the short-term and mid-term rental crisis.
Council housing. Build lots more council housing.
We already see from Scotland that rent controls don't work. They are not the anwer to the problem. The answer is to build more housing on a not for profit basis - Council houses.
Question about the "we already see from Scotland" trope. Where's the data? I looked on the ONS earlier and there was a caveat saying "don't compare this with other countries/regions of the UK, it's not the same." But that dataset was from January. So where's the recent data that's suddenly gotten people talking about it?
Zero curiosity about this question, then. Just, here's a narrative that will play well to landlords, so we'll just accept it as true. But is it true? Does nobody ever dig into the things they read? Do you just, I dunno, instinctively trust journalists?
If the Tele and Speccie are pushing it that’s good enough for most PBers. See also how much worse the Scottish NHS is than the rUK.
The only reason they have heard of different legislation in the first place was because of the fury of the London types because the local landlords can't any longer kick the locals out of nice flats near the centre of Edinburgh in Broghton, Marchmont, etc., for Festival time, because protected tenancies etc. You may recall the wailing from the luvvies that it would assuredly mean the decline and collapse of the Fringe in particular.
So the movers and shakers have to slum it in the outskirts or even commute from your side of the Great Scottish Central Desert.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
It's actually like the NI border in the sense that a fudge that works for both sides will be essential if any form of sustainable deal is to be reached. And that means ease of access across the UK-Gibraltar "border" for all forms of British citizen (bear in mind almost all Gibraltarians consider themselves to be as British as Scots, Welsh, NI, Channel Islanders or English, just down in the Med so they don't particularly like any sort of border) as well as ease of access across the La Linea-Gibraltar border, where many of its day-to-day workers come from.
But, they will never trade anything that leaches sovereignty for ease of day-to-day worker movement. And younger generations of Gibraltarians are even less interested in Spain than their current adults.
When I last went there 2 years ago my taxi driver was complaining that his kids only spoke English, their Spanish was absolutely terrible, and they had no interest in learning it.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians?
Remain: 96% Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
There was a poster from Gibraltar on here - @GeoffM – but he was banned for some reason in 2017
Poundbury will always be an outlier, because of its circumstances and motive. But those brutalist concrete jungles Meades seems to love were an utter failure, both for the people forced to live in them and the nation. Would you prefer to live on the fifth floor of Skenfrith House or on Blackbird Close?
Ledbury Estate is a poor comparison because it was badly built, but in general a fashionable area like Peckham will always be far more desirable than an extension of Dorchester.
The four 13-storey blocks are being replaced by six towers in a range of heights between 6 and 22 storeys - 224 council flats are being replaced by 260, with another 80 for private sale. The resident's group was involved in the design, and it's being built in the 'New London Vernacular' (ie. brick-clad) style that's been in fashion for the past decade, with ground floors housing retail units, a GP's surgery, and a community centre.
This is exactly the sort of project we need much, much more of - and yet all the discussion is around Poundbury!
Sure, build more Poundbury's. Personally, I reckon that it looks like a shit 1980s shopping precinct, but I've no problem with building hundreds more of them if there's demand.
But Ledbury is much more important, and more useful.
Hey, I lived in Skenfrith House for a few months in the early 1990s, so know what it's like to descend each morning in a lift stinking of p*ss. (*) But there are many blocks around it - 'poorly built', to use your phrase - which people were forced to live in for many decades. One of the problems with 'socialist' architects is that they design properties for people to live in - people other to themselves, that is...
A notable exception is the Wyndham Court estate immediately to the north of Southampton Station. When they designed it, they made the architects live in it. But also note that it was built to house 'professionals'; and therefore was built to a higher quality finish. ..
(*) Yes, this was outside the flat...
The other problem with large blocks is that they need to be replaced (or modernised) in one go rather than doing it piecemeal.
The sympathetic redevelopment of Ledbury was only really made possible by the massive upturn in Peckham's desirability brought about by the opening of the Overground, and that's hard to replicate. You'd get a similar effect north of the Old Kent Road by greenlighting the Bakerloo extension, but that looks like it won't now happen for another generation or two at least.
That's actually another of our problems - we're bad at quantifying all of the extended benefits of a project when coming up with a business case for funding.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians?
Remain: 96% Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
There was a poster from Gibraltar on here - @GeoffM – but he was banned for some reason in 2017
He was the only leaver in the village, as I recall?
To all more generally:- What's going on with the blurry images thing?
The admins have pressed the wrong buttons somewhere along the line, so the system uploads tiny images (which saves bandwidth and hence, one assumes, money) but then stretches these teeny, tiny images to a ludicrous size, too big for many screens, which makes them blurry to the point of... well, you get the drift).
I'll say what I said before: the Conservatives have forgotten how to govern. What is the point of the party if it doesn't stand by "what we have, we hold"? Shouldn't there be some variant of "gauntlet, heavy, for the smiting (1)"?
One of us on PB used to go on about how it would be necessary to nuke Madrid etc. if there was any threat to Gib. Wondering how that's supposed to work now ...
To all more generally:- What's going on with the blurry images thing?
The admins have pressed the wrong buttons somewhere along the line, so the system uploads tiny images (which saves bandwidth and hence, one assumes, money) but then stretches these teeny, tiny images to a ludicrous size, too big for many screens, which makes them blurry to the point of... well, you get the drift).
On topic: To me, the most signficant thing in that graph is how consistent the trends are among Democrats, independents, and Republicans. We don't see that kind of agreement as often as we should, in the US.
Since January 2024 that is.
Before then NOT so consistent, which is why (according to the chart) in most recent data point, RFKjr is +11 points with Republicans versus -35 with Democrats.
To all more generally:- What's going on with the blurry images thing?
The admins have pressed the wrong buttons somewhere along the line, so the system uploads tiny images (which saves bandwidth and hence, one assumes, money) but then stretches these teeny, tiny images to a ludicrous size, too big for many screens, which makes them blurry to the point of... well, you get the drift).
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
To all more generally:- What's going on with the blurry images thing?
The admins have pressed the wrong buttons somewhere along the line, so the system uploads tiny images (which saves bandwidth and hence, one assumes, money) but then stretches these teeny, tiny images to a ludicrous size, too big for many screens, which makes them blurry to the point of... well, you get the drift).
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
I think I was clear that in my view it's up to them.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Setting the economics aside, rent controls are smart politics. Labour are at risk from losing some younger/poorer voters to the Greens, and only about 1/20 people are landlords (and likely cast-iron Tories anyway).
The renting class have increased dramatically over the last 10 years, and the average age of a first time buyer is 34 - prime voters to catch now, doubly screwed by rents and interest rates.
And while the SG policy on rent controls has failed, it's not like anyone is going to vote Conservative as a result. In fact, if I were still renting my instinct would be to vote Green for an even more dramatic (if economically illiterate) intervention on private rentals.
Full disclosure: I am an Edinburgh landlord and very grateful to my tenant who, enjoying a rent freeze, had not burnt the place down yet.
You must be barking , we have seen what the greens hav edone to Scotland, feckin disasters and now another 150 million going to have to be paid out on their mental failed bottle scheme. Only a raving lunatic would vote green in Scotland.
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
You've got me there. However from the article you linked:
Last week, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told The Telegraph that it was “wrong” to suggest that the deal would “in any way affect British sovereignty” and criticised Tory MPs for wanting to “set themselves up as a greater guardian of Gibraltar’s sovereignty than the people of Gibraltar”.
You'll notice he referred to British sovereignty and Gibraltar’s sovereignty as two different things.
I assume the Chief Minister of Gibraltar is at least as legitimate in representing Gibraltarians as the Tory government is in representing the British.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Doesn't that already happen in Cyprus at the British airbase there?
To my knowledge, there are normally no passport checks at the border from Akrotiri or Dhekelia to Cyprus. You do need a valid passport to enter the SBAs but (a) border control is handled at the airbase by the SBA Customs and Immigration controls (us), and not Frontex, and (b) Cyprus isn't part of Schengen anyway.
Sandpit, can I ask why you are rooting for Trump when he is going to hang Ukraine out to dry?
I’m really not rooting for Trump, simply trying to provide an element of balance to an otherwise very one-sided betting forum.
That said, my longstanding prediction for how Ukraine would be handled by Republicans was shown to be correct only a couple of weeks ago, couching “aid for Ukraine” as spending taking place primarily inside the US, and supporting millions of American jobs in hundreds of Republican-held districts and States.
There’s probably 10% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats who don’t like the idea of helping Ukraine defend itself, but the 80% of pragmatists in the middle are all for it, especially if the spending goes to some of the biggest donors to both parties, and there’s no American boots on the ground to come home in flag-draped coffins.
I believe you underestimate Trump's Russian obligations.
The Dems spent half of his first term, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to get the narrative going of Trump being a Russian asset, but they came up with precisely nothing.
Please yourself, but I think you are p1ssing on your own chips. Should Trump become President we will all regret it.
Yep , you can kiss goodbye to Ukraine and lots of trouble for Europe with Russia. Lots of stupid people over here.
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
You've got me there. However from the article you linked:
Last week, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told The Telegraph that it was “wrong” to suggest that the deal would “in any way affect British sovereignty” and criticised Tory MPs for wanting to “set themselves up as a greater guardian of Gibraltar’s sovereignty than the people of Gibraltar”.
You'll notice he referred to British sovereignty and Gibraltar’s sovereignty as two different things.
I assume the Chief Minister of Gibraltar is at least as legitimate in representing Gibraltarians as the Tory government is in representing the British.
He's a politician. Self-aggrandisement comes with the territory.
And he only won by a tiny whisker last year. He is now starting to become unpopular.
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
You've got me there. However from the article you linked:
Last week, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told The Telegraph that it was “wrong” to suggest that the deal would “in any way affect British sovereignty” and criticised Tory MPs for wanting to “set themselves up as a greater guardian of Gibraltar’s sovereignty than the people of Gibraltar”.
You'll notice he referred to British sovereignty and Gibraltar’s sovereignty as two different things.
I assume the Chief Minister of Gibraltar is at least as legitimate in representing Gibraltarians as the Tory government is in representing the British.
More so. Fabian Picardo may be a twat but he has won several elections to stay in power.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Doesn't that already happen in Cyprus at the British airbase there?
To my knowledge, there are normally no passport checks at the border from Akrotiri or Dhekelia to Cyprus. You do need a valid passport to enter the SBAs but (a) border control is handled at the airbase by the SBA Customs and Immigration controls (us), and not Frontex, and (b) Cyprus isn't part of Schengen anyway.
That's the key though, isn't it? It's easy because it's not Schengen - and it's an island.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
Obviously not stupid , get themselves freed fro UK stupidity, cannot be anything but a bonus.
Now hang on, Malc. I know you don't like the U.K. much, but would they *really* be better off under a government like Spain's? Sunak didn't try to have Sturgeon beaten up over her abortive referendum, did he?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Great deal for Gibraltarians, they get to rejoin Europ and free themselves from the dead hand of England
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
'Donald Trump’s lawyer fighting to stop former president from testifying in trial next week Mr Trump has told the media he would ‘absolutely’ testify and that he would give evidence ‘if necessary’ John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the former president would be “mad” to expose himself to questioning by the prosecution.
“He would open himself to a perjury indictment, even if he won in this case,” he said. “An early question on cross [examination] if Trump testified would be whether he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels.”
'Duncan Levin, a former New York prosecutor, agreed that Mr Trump was an “uncontrollable client” who would be “nearly impossible to prepare for testimony”.
'Donald Trump’s lawyer fighting to stop former president from testifying in trial next week Mr Trump has told the media he would ‘absolutely’ testify and that he would give evidence ‘if necessary’ John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the former president would be “mad” to expose himself to questioning by the prosecution.
“He would open himself to a perjury indictment, even if he won in this case,” he said. “An early question on cross [examination] if Trump testified would be whether he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels.”
'Duncan Levin, a former New York prosecutor, agreed that Mr Trump was an “uncontrollable client” who would be “nearly impossible to prepare for testimony”.
'Donald Trump’s lawyer fighting to stop former president from testifying in trial next week Mr Trump has told the media he would ‘absolutely’ testify and that he would give evidence ‘if necessary’ John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the former president would be “mad” to expose himself to questioning by the prosecution.
“He would open himself to a perjury indictment, even if he won in this case,” he said. “An early question on cross [examination] if Trump testified would be whether he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels.”
'Duncan Levin, a former New York prosecutor, agreed that Mr Trump was an “uncontrollable client” who would be “nearly impossible to prepare for testimony”.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Don't focus on what Winston Suez: concentrate on what he did.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians?
Remain: 96% Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
There was a poster from Gibraltar on here - @GeoffM – but he was banned for some reason in 2017
Was he banned? I remember he was very pro Trump and neurotically pro gun ownership (3D printed guns were a blow for freedom against The Man etc) but that’s not usually enough to get you driven from the Garden of Eden.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Great deal for Gibraltarians, they get to rejoin Europ and free themselves from the dead hand of England
The dead hand of Scotland restricting our free discussion too.
I don't believe for a moment that Scottish opinion is as yours, but if it is then off you go. Free!
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
So the little museum of Taranto has possibly the greatest suite of classical sculptures I’ve ever seen
Orpheus and the Sirens. In terracotta. Looted by the Sacra Corona Unita - the Pugliese mafia. Sold to the Getty in Malibu - boo! - but recently repatriated to Taranto! Yay!
That would be enough for most provincial museums - it certainly knocks Hereford’s “badly stuffed fox weirdly staring at decomposing weasel” into a cocked hat
But the museum ALSO has one of the greatest collections of jewellery from the ancient world anywhere on the planet
I tell you. Taranto. You read it here first
In ten years time EVERYONE will be raving about Taranto
Wasn't Taranto the most polluted city in Italy, and, I think, the EU, at some point, due to poor control over its heavy industry? It may still be.
Lecce is on my Italian bucket list (generally been to most of the top tier places and want to work my way through Italy's second tier), be good to see what you make of it if you're heading there.
Lecce is sublime. Don’t go in July or August. Stay overnight to enjoy it sans trippers
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Don't focus on what Winston Suez: concentrate on what he did.
I can't remember the name of the northern Suez port said Winston.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Don't focus on what Winston Suez: concentrate on what he did.
I can't remember the name of the northern Suez port said Winston.
He coloured up at this embarrassing faux pas. All red, see?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians?
Remain: 96% Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
You don't know many Gibraltarians, do you?
There was a poster from Gibraltar on here - @GeoffM – but he was banned for some reason in 2017
Was he banned? I remember he was very pro Trump and neurotically pro gun ownership (3D printed guns were a blow for freedom against The Man etc) but that’s not usually enough to get you driven from the Garden of Eden.
Gibraltarians seem to want this as it puts them in Schengen. So I guess it comes down to whose sovereignty? Gibraltar or UK.
Obviously not stupid , get themselves freed fro UK stupidity, cannot be anything but a bonus.
Now hang on, Malc. I know you don't like the U.K. much, but would they *really* be better off under a government like Spain's? Sunak didn't try to have Sturgeon beaten up over her abortive referendum, did he?
debateable ydoethur but we would get tapas and cheap wine so a yes from me
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
But remember, we won't see the benefits of Brexit for 5 years.
And when those benefits don't magically appear by 31 January 2025... why, it will all be Labour's fault of course.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Great deal for Gibraltarians, they get to rejoin Europ and free themselves from the dead hand of England
The dead hand of Scotland restricting our free discussion too.
I don't believe for a moment that Scottish opinion is as yours, but if it is then off you go. Free!
If only, England will not free the Golden Goose willingly.
'Donald Trump’s lawyer fighting to stop former president from testifying in trial next week Mr Trump has told the media he would ‘absolutely’ testify and that he would give evidence ‘if necessary’ John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the former president would be “mad” to expose himself to questioning by the prosecution.
“He would open himself to a perjury indictment, even if he won in this case,” he said. “An early question on cross [examination] if Trump testified would be whether he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels.”
'Duncan Levin, a former New York prosecutor, agreed that Mr Trump was an “uncontrollable client” who would be “nearly impossible to prepare for testimony”.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
So still 11% more with Yougov think we were right to leave the EU than the Tories current 20% Yougov poll rating, so hard to see the Conservatives moving away from Brexit even if they do lose the next GE
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Don't focus on what Winston Suez: concentrate on what he did.
I can't remember the name of the northern Suez port said Winston.
He coloured up at this embarrassing faux pas. All red, see?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
Don't focus on what Winston Suez: concentrate on what he did.
I can't remember the name of the northern Suez port said Winston.
He coloured up at this embarrassing faux pas. All red, see?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Great deal for Gibraltarians, they get to rejoin Europ and free themselves from the dead hand of England
The dead hand of Scotland restricting our free discussion too.
I don't believe for a moment that Scottish opinion is as yours, but if it is then off you go. Free!
With nothing on the horizon roughly 50% are that way minded so if the English were not too scared to lose our money it would be an almost certainty.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Great deal for Gibraltarians, they get to rejoin Europ and free themselves from the dead hand of England
The dead hand of Scotland restricting our free discussion too.
I don't believe for a moment that Scottish opinion is as yours, but if it is then off you go. Free!
If only, England will not free the Golden Goose willingly.
Fly, fly, fly!
I don't want to see Scotland go, but I'd not suggest the slightest restraint.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
The original Eurosceptics were Enoch Powell, Michael Foot and Tony Benn yes. It was the ultra traditional nationalist right and the socialist left who opposed entry into the EEC while the Liberals, Tory centrists and Labour social democrats supported it
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
So still 11% more with Yougov think we were right to leave the EU than the Tories current 20% Yougov poll rating, so hard to see the Conservatives moving away from Brexit even if they do lose the next GE
Wait, what's your logic here? The Tories are not capturing all of the fish in the small pond, so that means they won't go fishing in the huge loch instead?
I mean, I can't fault your conclusion, but your path to get there is a fucking mess.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
So still 11% more with Yougov think we were right to leave the EU than the Tories current 20% Yougov poll rating, so hard to see the Conservatives moving away from Brexit even if they do lose the next GE
Another way of looking at it is that they could go for the 58% which no other party wants to touch. There were some cost of Brexit figures in the middle of last week and the cost of Brexiting has been horrendous
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
I think it's fair to say that no-one really imagined us as being part of anything like what would become European Coal & Steel Community.
Jean Monnet & Robert Schuman deliberately didn't involve the UK in negotiations, after initial approaches had been rebuffed (at, I think, the Civil Service level rather than by Ministers). The UK seems to have thought that France and Germany weren't actually serious - if they were, then why didn't they go away and come back with a proposal that would allow Britain to continue to privilege its Empire?
So the Schuman Declaration took us completely by surprise, Ernie Bevin reacted badly against it - and at that point rejection probably became inevitable.
It wasn't for another decade that Macmillan came to realise that the Empire was a dead loss and that we'd be much better off turning to face Europe instead. But that was a truly radical shift - it almost certainly couldn't have happened without the country being jolted so badly after Suez.
To all more generally:- What's going on with the blurry images thing?
The original explanation was too many photos posted too close together, but that can’t be right?
Insufficient dogs for scale? (Given it's you)
With dog
At least the hound looks sort of fuzzy in the first place.
If I couldn’t look up and see that the TV was sharp and clear I would be getting worried!
Is the problem limited to images uploaded via vanilla?
Yes - not an issue for other externally sourced or held images.
Any guesses on location? (Egret in place of dog for scale.)
Will no-one rid me of this turbulent question?
Fascinatingly, there's a watercourse near this church called "Puddledock Sewer", which is one of those fun place names which is the same thing three times: "puddle" from Old English "pudd" meaning ditch "dock" from Middle Dutch, meaning trench "sewer" from Latin exaquaria, meaning drain
- Build a load of new social homes. Aim for 150,000 per year. - Allow councils to buy land for housing at current (pre-planning-uplift) values rather than post uplift values - Reform the "meaningful start" condition so there genuinely is a use-it-or-lose-it aspect to planning permissions so developers have to get on with it. If necessary, introduce a landowner levy on land with planning permission that's not yet built on - Build ten new garden cities
I'm sure I'd heard promises from politicians about new garden cities. I did a little Google, and found lots of different references, lots of different schemes using the name. I couldn't make any sense of it.
Earliest promise I could find was under the coalition in 2014. Ten. Years. Ago. Are we any nearer to building any?
It's anybody ever going to get anything done in Britain?
Ironically, the King's Poundbury is the only example I can think of.
You need to define your terms; Poundbury is tiny. It started in 1993 and the population is now - 30 years later - just over 4000.
Milton Keynes had after 30 years (1997) hit between 150k and 200k, of which about 75% was new growth.
There are plenty of Poundbury sized places, but many are expanded village. One larger example designated a New Town in the Cambridgeshire Local Plan, for example, is Waterbeach - which is planned for 11,000 new dwellings, and is going from approx 5000-7000 to approx 25,000 people in a shortish period of (guestimating) 10-20 years or so.
Waterbeach has been quite carefully planned afaics, and there was a presentation about it at Active Travel Cafe (weekly online Zoom meeting of active travel type people from officers and Councillors to planning / development experienced activists like me) here:
The presentation focuses on active travel aspects, but sets the context well and discusses linking in and transport strategy.
There are large projects all over, but not many qualify as new towns including everything.
When these things do not have overarching strategy and masterplanning, they suffer badly in overall implementation.
There are a couple of developments near me that are adding 2000-3000 dwellings, but they are tending to be urban extensions.
I fear that many of the lessons learnt from its construction appear to have been forgotten with Waterbeach and Northstowe, whose densities and respect of the existing environment (perhaps because they are old airfield sites...) are poorer.
This - especially lack of institutional memory - is an important point.
Why my relatives live in SW London, the 1930s estates have plenty of traffic calming and modal filters, and bus stop bypasses.
In the 1950s SPAN were doing things like building modern estates in garden closes with the paths made deliberately slightly narrow so that neighbours had to encounter each other rather than walking past without talking. Subtle placing.
Where I am my dad as a council architect laid out a number of the estates and there are things that have been forgotten from the techniques he used, as well as things learned.
The active travel routes about 1967-1970 junctions on the M1 are higher quality and safer than what we get now *. And so on.
But there are also things we need to forget. For decades after I believe the experience of places like Blackbird Leys and the Meadows in Nottingham, police told Planners to separate and isolate developments into pieces, so that they could catch the local scrotes in their police cars. Now we know that naturally surveilled active frontages and people present everywhere is better, but the institutional memory of decades of security advice is still in the community memory so it is hard to move on.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
I take a different view. I am increasingly impatient with those who are unwilling to accept our decision and accept that we have moved on.
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
I think it's fair to say that no-one really imagined us as being part of anything like what would become European Coal & Steel Community.
Jean Monnet & Robert Schuman deliberately didn't involve the UK in negotiations, after initial approaches had been rebuffed (at, I think, the Civil Service level rather than by Ministers). The UK seems to have thought that France and Germany weren't actually serious - if they were, then why didn't they go away and come back with a proposal that would allow Britain to continue to privilege its Empire?
So the Schuman Declaration took us completely by surprise, Ernie Bevin reacted badly against it - and at that point rejection probably became inevitable.
It wasn't for another decade that Macmillan came to realise that the Empire was a dead loss and that we'd be much better off turning to face Europe instead. But that was a truly radical shift - it almost certainly couldn't have happened without the country being jolted so badly after Suez.
We should never have gone in. It was a sticking plaster to avoid confronting the failure of post-war consensus policies, which then happened later and more damagingly under Thatcher. It's now a sticking plaster once again, to avoid confronting the deep structural issues that have best the economy both pre and post-Brexit.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
I take a different view. I am increasingly impatient with those who are unwilling to accept our decision and accept that we have moved on.
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
Yes. I view it as something unnecessarily divisive, helped in no part with Theresa May opening it all up again, but it was a reckoning that was coming anyway as our position inside the EU was politically unsustainable.
What I think will happen is closer relations, with lots of fudging, but from the outside. We will do fine and it will cease to be much of an issue.
Last year we got the 2nd highest level of FDI in the whole of Europe, and we were the only country growing in FDI whilst the rest declined, and pragmatism will now reign.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
I take a different view. I am increasingly impatient with those who are unwilling to accept our decision and accept that we have moved on.
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
Yes. I view it as something unnecessarily divisive, helped in no part with Theresa May opening it all up again, but it was a reckoning that was coming anyway as our position inside the EU was politically unsustainable.
What I think will happen is closer relations, with lots of fudging, but from the outside. We will do fine and it will cease to be much of an issue.
Last year we got the 2nd highest level of FDI in the whole of Europe, and we were the only country growing in FDI whilst the rest declined, and pragmatism will now reign.
Some master craftsman turd polishing going on there Casino.
We are where we are and we are not going back in my lifetime. Nonetheless a future Government without the shackles of the ERG could make some inroads into a more pragmatic relationship with the EU. It won't be the Conservative Party for the moment. However it will be a phoenix from the ashes iteration of one nation conservatism that will take Britain back to some sort of common market in twenty plus years time.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
I take a different view. I am increasingly impatient with those who are unwilling to accept our decision and accept that we have moved on.
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
Yes. I view it as something unnecessarily divisive, helped in no part with Theresa May opening it all up again, but it was a reckoning that was coming anyway as our position inside the EU was politically unsustainable.
What I think will happen is closer relations, with lots of fudging, but from the outside. We will do fine and it will cease to be much of an issue.
Last year we got the 2nd highest level of FDI in the whole of Europe, and we were the only country growing in FDI whilst the rest declined, and pragmatism will now reign.
Maybe it will work like that.
But nostalgia for what one has lost is a powerful drug.
In any case- is there a magnitude and duration of support for Bregret/Brejoin/Brejoin even if it means adopting the Euro that would make you think 'this is probably unwise, but it is the will of the people'?
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
No, but it probably gives Labour pretty broad leeway for closer a relationship with the EU that falls short of membership.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Whatever's best. Who decides? - they do. The UK cannot be cut off. It's the rest of the world that runs such a risk.
We decide. Defence, foreign policy, internal security and general good governance are reserved to the British government.
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
I find it hard to imagine that Gibraltarians might disapprove of their being the right to decide their future. In this instance 'we' don't decide.
If you think Gibraltarians would prioritise ease of access to the EU over their Britishness then you're totally deluded. Self-determination rests with them, and they want to stay British. Overwhelmingly. And that puts their foreign affairs and defence with our government just as it does for any UK citizen, and they want it to do so.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Huh, I was always assured that those of us who voted Remain did so because we were all treacherous beta cuck Quisling commie fascists who would wipe our arses on Magna Carta after shitting on the grave of Florence Nightingale.
Not quite; we were followers of Winston Churchill! Margaret Thatcher was also pro-EU.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Churchill was pro-EU but didn't see Britain as a part of it. Perhaps if he had lived long enough through decolonization, he would have. Who knows.
I think it's fair to say that no-one really imagined us as being part of anything like what would become European Coal & Steel Community.
Jean Monnet & Robert Schuman deliberately didn't involve the UK in negotiations, after initial approaches had been rebuffed (at, I think, the Civil Service level rather than by Ministers). The UK seems to have thought that France and Germany weren't actually serious - if they were, then why didn't they go away and come back with a proposal that would allow Britain to continue to privilege its Empire?
So the Schuman Declaration took us completely by surprise, Ernie Bevin reacted badly against it - and at that point rejection probably became inevitable.
It wasn't for another decade that Macmillan came to realise that the Empire was a dead loss and that we'd be much better off turning to face Europe instead. But that was a truly radical shift - it almost certainly couldn't have happened without the country being jolted so badly after Suez.
We should never have gone in. It was a sticking plaster to avoid confronting the failure of post-war consensus policies, which then happened later and more damagingly under Thatcher. It's now a sticking plaster once again, to avoid confronting the deep structural issues that have best the economy both pre and post-Brexit.
Probably would have worked out better for us if de Gaulle hadn't said "non"!
We'd have gone in when the Treaty of Rome was still coming in to force, we'd have played a part in the merger of the EEC and Coal & Steel Comunity, and would have been one of the strongest voices in setting the initial direction for the community.
As it was, the 1960s were a lost decade for us - sure, growth was high by modern standards, but France and Germany began to overtake us despite both having started in a much worse position.
But that's been the story of our association with Europe for 70 years - we say no then change our minds far too late, and end up getting the worst of both worlds.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Surely inevitable that we'll rejoin. Just watching all these peripheral European countries falling over each other to be admitted will be getting through to the uncommitted what we have let go.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
No, but it probably gives Labour pretty broad leeway for closer a relationship with the EU that falls short of membership.
This is a chimera. We already have a close relationship now, and short of rejoining the single market there isn't anything especially substantive that we could do.
Whatever's best for the Gibraltarians is the right way to proceed. The UK might want to have a powerful airbase in Gibraltar and a substantial naval force, but when the reality is paper planes and floating leaves then it is irrelevant.
Quite why the MoD fail to spend their enormous budget on things that actually look like a Defence of the realm escape me.
Having EU border guards apply their controls to British citizens and access to a British territory through a RAF airbase is unacceptable.
It dissolves the border between Spain and Gibraltar but creates one between Gibraltar and the UK, and further isolates the UK. That's very obviously not in the interests of Gibraltarians either.
No deal.
Just like the Johnson solution to NI
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Bingo.
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
Latest YouGov on Brexit:
Wrong to Leave 58% Right to Leave 31% DK 11%
And, a 15% swing would reverse that. Which could easily happen in a referendum where we're staring down the barrel of signing up to the Euro and full Federal Union.
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
The trend has been in only one direction.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
Have you seen how recent referendums have gone around the world for those who thought "the tide of history" was with them and had an unassailable lead?
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
I take a different view. I am increasingly impatient with those who are unwilling to accept our decision and accept that we have moved on.
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
Do you think the Party which has led the Government for 14 years has made any serious impact on any of these problems? Perhaps if it hadn't spent so much time on its own self-indulgence regarding Europe and the EU, some progress might have been made.
In any case- is there a magnitude and duration of support for Bregret/Brejoin/Brejoin even if it means adopting the Euro that would make you think 'this is probably unwise, but it is the will of the people'?
@wethinkpolling · May 17 Replying to @wethinkpolling And if Britain had to adopt the euro as a condition of re-joining the EU, how would people vote if there was a referendum tomorrow? ❎ Stay Out: 39% (-2) ☑️ Re-Join: 39% (NC) 😐 Wouldn’t vote: 11% (+1) 🤷♂️ Don’t know: 11% (+1)
In any case- is there a magnitude and duration of support for Bregret/Brejoin/Brejoin even if it means adopting the Euro that would make you think 'this is probably unwise, but it is the will of the people'?
@wethinkpolling · May 17 Replying to @wethinkpolling And if Britain had to adopt the euro as a condition of re-joining the EU, how would people vote if there was a referendum tomorrow? ❎ Stay Out: 39% (-2) ☑️ Re-Join: 39% (NC) 😐 Wouldn’t vote: 11% (+1) 🤷♂️ Don’t know: 11% (+1)
Rejoin even 9% below the 48% Remain got in 2016 and a massive 19% behind the 58% Wrong to Leave the EU Yougov has if rejoining the Euro becomes a requirement
Comments
Besides, the replacement for Ledbury is being built as we speak! https://www.karakusevic-carson.com/projects/ledbury-estate
The four 13-storey blocks are being replaced by six towers in a range of heights between 6 and 22 storeys - 224 council flats are being replaced by 260, with another 80 for private sale. The resident's group was involved in the design, and it's being built in the 'New London Vernacular' (ie. brick-clad) style that's been in fashion for the past decade, with ground floors housing retail units, a GP's surgery, and a community centre.
This is exactly the sort of project we need much, much more of - and yet all the discussion is around Poundbury!
Sure, build more Poundburys. Personally, I reckon that it looks like a shit 1980s shopping precinct, but I've no problem with building hundreds more of them if there's demand.
But Ledbury is much more important, and more useful.
Lecce is on my Italian bucket list (generally been to most of the top tier places and want to work my way through Italy's second tier), be good to see what you make of it if you're heading there.
It will all get easier when GB moves toward closer alignment
Would the problems forming pair bonds in the UK contribute to a housing shortage? And if so, how much?
If fewer couples are forming among young people -- mostly the fault of men -- then it seems likely to me that many starting in life will be living single in an apartment, instead of double. (In the US there is a trend for single women who are doing well enough to start thinking about buying a home when they reach the age of 30, even though they have no prospects of getting married.)
A notable exception is the Wyndham Court estate immediately to the north of Southampton Station. When they designed it, they made the architects live in it. But also note that it was built to house 'professionals'; and therefore was built to a higher quality finish. ..
(*) Yes, this was outside the flat...
https://amzn.eu/d/iLQZHyX
…costs so much second hand. It explains the exact problem with developing post WWII APCs and how some escape from it.
What happens to British people's right to stay in Gib for 6 months, I don't know. I suppose it will have to be reduced to 3 months to comport with Schenghen.
(Reports are that the Spanish are currently playing hardball, requiring hotel reservations to cross the border, which prevents Gibraltarians and British going into La Linea for the evening to get the decent food...)
However, do you know many Gibraltarians? They'd make the most patriotic of posters on here look like Jeremy Corbyn. Picardo only won very narrowly last year (by one seat) and has pledged to stand down this parliament. This is one of the top issues in the territory and it's not popular.
This deal could finish him.
Leave 4%
And that was then; this is now,
So the movers and shakers have to slum it in the outskirts or even commute from your side of the Great Scottish Central Desert.
But, they will never trade anything that leaches sovereignty for ease of day-to-day worker movement. And younger generations of Gibraltarians are even less interested in Spain than their current adults.
When I last went there 2 years ago my taxi driver was complaining that his kids only spoke English, their Spanish was absolutely terrible, and they had no interest in learning it.
The sympathetic redevelopment of Ledbury was only really made possible by the massive upturn in Peckham's desirability brought about by the opening of the Overground, and that's hard to replicate. You'd get a similar effect north of the Old Kent Road by greenlighting the Bakerloo extension, but that looks like it won't now happen for another generation or two at least.
That's actually another of our problems - we're bad at quantifying all of the extended benefits of a project when coming up with a business case for funding.
Before then NOT so consistent, which is why (according to the chart) in most recent data point, RFKjr is +11 points with Republicans versus -35 with Democrats.
The trouble is that a lot of mainland Remainy Britons think the reason Gibraltarians so overwhelmingly voted Remain must be for the same reasons they did: because they pride themselves on their internationalist, liberal and 'open' credentials, and aren't much fussed about Britishness which they find faintly embarrassing anyway.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, Gibraltar was always 'less' a part of the EU than even we were - it was never part of the Customs Union or CAP, as well as being out of Schengen like us - and was only in the single market.
They voted Remain because they knew Spain would use its leverage in the EU to open up the issue of sovereignty all over again. Voting patterns in referendums and EU elections by Gibraltarian citizens show, time and time again, that it's that issue which is decisive.
Last week, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told The Telegraph that it was “wrong” to suggest that the deal would “in any way affect British sovereignty” and criticised Tory MPs for wanting to “set themselves up as a greater guardian of Gibraltar’s sovereignty than the people of Gibraltar”.
You'll notice he referred to British sovereignty and Gibraltar’s sovereignty as two different things.
I assume the Chief Minister of Gibraltar is at least as legitimate in representing Gibraltarians as the Tory government is in representing the British.
And he only won by a tiny whisker last year. He is now starting to become unpopular.
Sunak has never won any elections...
And we will. I will cautiously predict that in 10 years time we will for all practical purposes be so aligned to the EU sphere that serious conversations will start to be had about rejoin.
I remain skeptical that rejoining is on the agenda any time soon, for the practical and emotive reasons that make some aspects a hard sell politically. But the status quo does not work, and (anecdotally, but I think polling bears it out) more and more people are growing increasingly aware that those great Brexit benefits we were promised haven’t materialised.
It was Tony Benn who led the No campaign. Jeremy Corbyn’s spiritual leader.
Ain’t politics weird sometimes! Fancy Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage on the same side as Tony Benn!
Mr Trump has told the media he would ‘absolutely’ testify and that he would give evidence ‘if necessary’
John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the former president would be “mad” to expose himself to questioning by the prosecution.
“He would open himself to a perjury indictment, even if he won in this case,” he said. “An early question on cross [examination] if Trump testified would be whether he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels.”
'Duncan Levin, a former New York prosecutor, agreed that Mr Trump was an “uncontrollable client” who would be “nearly impossible to prepare for testimony”.
“He would make a terrible defence witness because he is unpredictable, saddled with past adverse rulings, and has very little to offer on the substantive charges,” he said. “His cross-examination would be blistering.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/18/donald-trumps-lawyer-fighting-former-president-testifying/
That, if we're honest, is the problem here.
I wonder if he would be the Edith Thompson of a later time...
Yes - not an issue for other externally sourced or held images.
Any guesses on location? (Egret in place of dog for scale.)
I don't believe for a moment that Scottish opinion is as yours, but if it is then off you go. Free!
Wrong to Leave 58%
Right to Leave 31%
DK 11%
And when those benefits don't magically appear by 31 January 2025... why, it will all be Labour's fault of course.
"You Can't Handle the Truth (Social)!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtpOtFIEkbs
Cynicism and resignation, two terribly British traits, doesn't translate to euroactivism in the wider populace.
I don't want to see Scotland go, but I'd not suggest the slightest restraint.
I mean, I can't fault your conclusion, but your path to get there is a fucking mess.
Brexit will be the albatross around the neck of the Tory party for a long time yet. Fewer and fewer will want the architects of Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez back in power for at least a generation.
One thing I hope we'll agree on though: it's something of a relief to be debating Brexit again rather than Gaza, Trans or AI.
Words I thought I'd never say, but there you go.
Jean Monnet & Robert Schuman deliberately didn't involve the UK in negotiations, after initial approaches had been rebuffed (at, I think, the Civil Service level rather than by Ministers). The UK seems to have thought that France and Germany weren't actually serious - if they were, then why didn't they go away and come back with a proposal that would allow Britain to continue to privilege its Empire?
So the Schuman Declaration took us completely by surprise, Ernie Bevin reacted badly against it - and at that point rejection probably became inevitable.
It wasn't for another decade that Macmillan came to realise that the Empire was a dead loss and that we'd be much better off turning to face Europe instead. But that was a truly radical shift - it almost certainly couldn't have happened without the country being jolted so badly after Suez.
"puddle" from Old English "pudd" meaning ditch
"dock" from Middle Dutch, meaning trench
"sewer" from Latin exaquaria, meaning drain
Basically, Ditchditch Ditch
Why my relatives live in SW London, the 1930s estates have plenty of traffic calming and modal filters, and bus stop bypasses.
In the 1950s SPAN were doing things like building modern estates in garden closes with the paths made deliberately slightly narrow so that neighbours had to encounter each other rather than walking past without talking. Subtle placing.
Where I am my dad as a council architect laid out a number of the estates and there are things that have been forgotten from the techniques he used, as well as things learned.
The active travel routes about 1967-1970 junctions on the M1 are higher quality and safer than what we get now *. And so on.
But there are also things we need to forget. For decades after I believe the experience of places like Blackbird Leys and the Meadows in Nottingham, police told Planners to separate and isolate developments into pieces, so that they could catch the local scrotes in their police cars. Now we know that naturally surveilled active frontages and people present everywhere is better, but the institutional memory of decades of security advice is still in the community memory so it is hard to move on.
* eg The pedestrian underpasses at M1 J29:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/M1/@53.1984569,-1.321866,36a,35y,158.18h,79.11t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x48777dff0b838d67:0x3d57a8aebad4f6f9!8m2!3d53.1326742!4d-1.3290586!16zL20vMDE4dmIw?entry=ttu
The challenge now is how do we make the best of where we are? How do we make a better fortune for the good ship UK plc? This involves close and friendly cooperation with our European neighbours, particularly on things like security, immigration and, of course, trade. It also involves making the best we can of our relationships with the rest of the world. It means focusing on our internal weaknesses and problems, our trade deficit, our skills shortages, our seriously inadequate public services, our inequality, our failure to protect and nurture our weak and needy. There is absolutely no end to the challenges we face. Wasting our time and energy arguing about might have beens is simply not productive.
What I think will happen is closer relations, with lots of fudging, but from the outside. We will do fine and it will cease to be much of an issue.
Last year we got the 2nd highest level of FDI in the whole of Europe, and we were the only country growing in FDI whilst the rest declined, and pragmatism will now reign.
We are where we are and we are not going back in my lifetime. Nonetheless a future Government without the shackles of the ERG could make some inroads into a more pragmatic relationship with the EU. It won't be the Conservative Party for the moment. However it will be a phoenix from the ashes iteration of one nation conservatism that will take Britain back to some sort of common market in twenty plus years time.
But nostalgia for what one has lost is a powerful drug.
In any case- is there a magnitude and duration of support for Bregret/Brejoin/Brejoin even if it means adopting the Euro that would make you think 'this is probably unwise, but it is the will of the people'?
We'd have gone in when the Treaty of Rome was still coming in to force, we'd have played a part in the merger of the EEC and Coal & Steel Comunity, and would have been one of the strongest voices in setting the initial direction for the community.
As it was, the 1960s were a lost decade for us - sure, growth was high by modern standards, but France and Germany began to overtake us despite both having started in a much worse position.
But that's been the story of our association with Europe for 70 years - we say no then change our minds far too late, and end up getting the worst of both worlds.
·
May 17
Replying to
@wethinkpolling
And if Britain had to adopt the euro as a condition of re-joining the EU, how would people vote if there was a referendum tomorrow?
❎ Stay Out: 39% (-2)
☑️ Re-Join: 39% (NC)
😐 Wouldn’t vote: 11% (+1)
🤷♂️ Don’t know: 11% (+1)