What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
Probably the sour spot for immigration concern - enough to be visible, but not enough to be normalised.
But otherwise - average pay, average unemployment, lower than average house prices. On paper, purely objectively, that's good.
Bet it doesn't feel that way, though.
This is such a dumb argument. “This area has no immigration, why are they worried about it?”
Do you think they don’t see the news? Go to areas WITH high immigration? Perhaps they go to Birmingham or Bradford or Luton and think: ah, no, not in my area please
Also, as the country Ulsterises and we get white flight, white areas fill up with white people who are fleeing mass migration in their old areas. Cf the cockneys now in very Reform-y Essex
Not quite what I said.
Of course people can be concerned about all sorts of things without experiencing them directly. But that's different to saying that peak immigration concern is when it's a few faces, but not many.
Is today's Burnham with all these radical lefty ideas really the same person as the bland, vanilla Burnham who lost to Corbyn?
Yes, and all who sail in him.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth "Tell us one specific thing [Burnham] will do"
Simons: ".. one of the things he's really committed to.. energy, water, social housing.. have gotten so expensive.. & one of the reasons why.. is that we've privatised a lot of them"
That's hilarious, why rail against something if you won't counter it? Presumably just spend money on bills.
I think Burnham’s main argument is that the cost of Government borrowing has risen because of inflation, and that a left wing reason for inflation is that there's less cheap social housing, and utilities (and transport maybe) were cheaper under public ownership, so take them back, make them cheaper, bring down inflation, and therefore reduce the cost of Government debt.
I'm not sure it even works in theory, but I'll take a bold stab and say it doesn't stand a chance in practice. For a start, don't you have to pay market rates to bring all these things back into public ownership? And if there is an opportunity to do it (eg let Thames Water go bust and pick up the pieces for nothing), the shareholders (like the Canadian pension fund) will kick up merry hell. Personally I think that's their problem - they took the risk, but I would be shocked if Burnham let Thames Water go to the wall.
I think you lend far too much credence to Burnham's underlying political or economic thinking tbh. This is just vibes, roughly reflecting the fact that the public think utilities have monopoly power and are exploiting it.
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
Probably the sour spot for immigration concern - enough to be visible, but not enough to be normalised.
But otherwise - average pay, average unemployment, lower than average house prices. On paper, purely objectively, that's good.
Bet it doesn't feel that way, though.
This is such a dumb argument. “This area has no immigration, why are they worried about it?”
Do you think they don’t see the news? Go to areas WITH high immigration? Perhaps they go to Birmingham or Bradford or Luton and think: ah, no, not in my area please
Also, as the country Ulsterises and we get white flight, white areas fill up with white people who are fleeing mass migration in their old areas. Cf the cockneys now in very Reform-y Essex
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
The interesting one is the low unemployment rate.
Traditionally old industrial areas would have high unemployment.
Now I'm aware there will be some layabouts claiming incapacity benefits but for those who want to work there are opportunities.
Makerfield is commutable to both Manchester and Liverpool.
Commutable and with affordable housing is a good start for a place to live.
A quick google suggest the countryside is quiet nice as well and likely improving as the old mining areas are rewilded.
Has there been many new housing developments ?
Some. Although most of the new estates are over the Leigh side. Hindley Green, Westleigh, Lowton. Golborne. Only the former is in the constituency. You're right about the countryside. Wigan is the greenest urban borough in the country. 67% green space! Much of it is unbuildable due to mine workings which can go back to ancient times. There's evidence the Romans got coal from these parts.
Is it the sort of place where a lot of it has been re-landscaped with industrial units that because of the mine works are fairly low density?
My mind wanders to some of the units on the fast roads around the outskirts of Barnsley. The re-landscaping of such areas often give them a strange resemblance to Tellytubby Land.
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
The interesting one is the low unemployment rate.
Traditionally old industrial areas would have high unemployment.
Now I'm aware there will be some layabouts claiming incapacity benefits but for those who want to work there are opportunities.
Makerfield is commutable to both Manchester and Liverpool.
Commutable and with affordable housing is a good start for a place to live.
A quick google suggest the countryside is quiet nice as well and likely improving as the old mining areas are rewilded.
Has there been many new housing developments ?
Some. Although most of the new estates are over the Leigh side. Hindley Green, Westleigh, Lowton. Golborne. Only the former is in the constituency. You're right about the countryside. Wigan is the greenest urban borough in the country. 67% green space! Much of it is unbuildable due to mine workings which can go back to ancient times. There's evidence the Romans got coal from these parts.
Is it the sort of place where a lot of it has been re-landscaped with industrial units that because of the mine works are fairly low density?
My mind wanders to some of the units on the fast roads around the outskirts of Barnsley. The re-landscaping of such areas often give them a strange resemblance to Tellytubby Land.
There's one of England's most important wetlands. With an interesting history.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
Not to mention send inflation rocketing
The basically problem is that geographical Europe is not an optimal currency area and there are massive differences between the UK and EU economic structures
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
We will only rejoin if people are persuaded that it's a "must have" rather than a "nice to have".
If it is a "must have" objections about opt-outs etc will disappear.
But if it's a "nice to have" and we don't do anything, people will have to accept a suboptimal arrangement for the UK. I don't think people have accepted Brexit as the suboptimal outcome. Hence the impasse.
Yes, I agree. And for me, that lies behind Labour's odd punishment beating strategy for the first part of their term. Labour, assisted by the State (or perhaps that should be the other way round) planned to brow beat everyone back in. They would have come round to blaming Brexit for the black hole and winter fuel etc. There would have been some sort of choregraphed 'realisation' of it. I see some of the evidence for that in their current statements about Brexit - it's like the strategy has been fast-forwarded in a panic as they realise it's all slipping away.
The test will be whether Reform fights a full-throated "Your Brexit is in peril..." campaign for the by-election. Given that Makerfield was in the top 100 leave-voting seats, and Labour is moving fast towards repudiating Brexit and re-aligning with the EU, you'd expect that if Reform really thought its anti-EU message was still a vote-winner, they'd put it at the centre of their by-election messaging. If instead they choose to focus mostly on other issues, it will tell us that they know Brexit is no longer effective in winning support or votes.
No. Brexit was a proxy for anti-immigration sentiment in somewhere like Makerfield
That sentiment has definitely not gone away - hence the massive Reform win in the locals
Farage’s job is to switch the debate back to migration. Talking about the EU will help that. Farage just has to say “so you want Freedom of Movement again, Andy?”
It was a proxy for a great number of things. Immigration being only one of them.
It was a proxy for a simple solution to every discontented's problems. Just as Farage is now painting his repatriation stuff.
There is no simple, quick solution to general discontent. There are policies with positive short term payoffs, but they aren't game changing panaceas.
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
Probably the sour spot for immigration concern - enough to be visible, but not enough to be normalised.
But otherwise - average pay, average unemployment, lower than average house prices. On paper, purely objectively, that's good.
Bet it doesn't feel that way, though.
This is such a dumb argument. “This area has no immigration, why are they worried about it?”
Do you think they don’t see the news? Go to areas WITH high immigration? Perhaps they go to Birmingham or Bradford or Luton and think: ah, no, not in my area please
Also, as the country Ulsterises and we get white flight, white areas fill up with white people who are fleeing mass migration in their old areas. Cf the cockneys now in very Reform-y Essex
Not quite what I said.
Of course people can be concerned about all sorts of things without experiencing them directly. But that's different to saying that peak immigration concern is when it's a few faces, but not many.
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
Probably the sour spot for immigration concern - enough to be visible, but not enough to be normalised.
But otherwise - average pay, average unemployment, lower than average house prices. On paper, purely objectively, that's good.
Bet it doesn't feel that way, though.
This is such a dumb argument. “This area has no immigration, why are they worried about it?”
Do you think they don’t see the news? Go to areas WITH high immigration? Perhaps they go to Birmingham or Bradford or Luton and think: ah, no, not in my area please
Also, as the country Ulsterises and we get white flight, white areas fill up with white people who are fleeing mass migration in their old areas. Cf the cockneys now in very Reform-y Essex
Not quite what I said.
Of course people can be concerned about all sorts of things without experiencing them directly. But that's different to saying that peak immigration concern is when it's a few faces, but not many.
Yes. I was somewhat unfair on you. Soz
You didn’t actually make the precise argument that bugs me. But a lot of people do and it’s crass and thick
Whoever on PB last night tipped Bulgaria - many thanks!
BF have now paid my small winnings and next week's curry night is mainly paid for.
Taking notes last night (as one does) I simply wrote “Eurovision!” next to Bulgaria and my wife wrote “winner”.
Head and shoulders above the rest.
That's what I thought but my wife - who plays three musical instruments and did music as part of her degree - disagreed. She thought it was one of the worst.
LOL
What does anyone know?
Ha!
If musicality is what you’re looking for, perhaps Eurovision is the wrong choice.
But as a piece of eurotrash pop, it was a banger
FWIW - she thought UK was great: something different and inventive.
Something weird occured to me whilst I was watching Eurovision last night. The high camp and outright smut seemed to have been toned down quite a lot in the songs themselves. At stages I did think an actual song contest broke out, there was interesting and varied fare that if you heard on the radio, stripped of the need for staging in a certain manner, you might actually appreciate to some degree.
Bulgaria, whatever their merits, weren't playing that sophisticated game. The UK put in an entry much better than some of the really asinine fare we've done over the years and actually did deserve a bit better than it got.
At least one was reportedly censored.
Too many hip-thrusts, aiui. Was it the Polish one? "Too much pole".
Let's Thrust Again, like Elvis the Pelvis did in 1956. Ironically, the year Eurovision was founded.
Whoever on PB last night tipped Bulgaria - many thanks!
BF have now paid my small winnings and next week's curry night is mainly paid for.
Taking notes last night (as one does) I simply wrote “Eurovision!” next to Bulgaria and my wife wrote “winner”.
Head and shoulders above the rest.
That's what I thought but my wife - who plays three musical instruments and did music as part of her degree - disagreed. She thought it was one of the worst.
LOL
What does anyone know?
Ha!
If musicality is what you’re looking for, perhaps Eurovision is the wrong choice.
But as a piece of eurotrash pop, it was a banger
FWIW - she thought UK was great: something different and inventive.
Something weird occured to me whilst I was watching Eurovision last night. The high camp and outright smut seemed to have been toned down quite a lot in the songs themselves. At stages I did think an actual song contest broke out, there was interesting and varied fare that if you heard on the radio, stripped of the need for staging in a certain manner, you might actually appreciate to some degree.
Bulgaria, whatever their merits, weren't playing that sophisticated game. The UK put in an entry much better than some of the really asinine fare we've done over the years and actually did deserve a bit better than it got.
At least one was reportedly censored.
Too many hip-thrusts, aiui. Was it the Polish one? "Too much pole".
Let's Thrust Again, like Elvis the Pelvis did in 1956. Ironically, the year Eurovision was founded.
Bookmakers have threatened a legal challenge to the implementation of affordability checks that the industry believes will mean one in five punters with an annual spend of as little as £200 are asked to provide financial documents.
Part of a longer thread of thoughts on Brexit and Makerfield from pollster Luke.
I don't know why he has even opened this door. Why not just take the Starmer fudge line and then keep reverting to there are decisions we can take today to address problems people are facing. He can show loads of left wing leg to the party with bringing more under state control.
Part of a longer thread of thoughts on Brexit and Makerfield from pollster Luke.
I don't know why he has even opened this door. Why not just take the Starmer fudge line and then keep reverting to there are decisions we can take today to address problems people are facing.
Bookmakers have threatened a legal challenge to the implementation of affordability checks that the industry believes will mean one in five punters with an annual spend of as little as £200 are asked to provide financial documents.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
The bit in bold is the bit that matters. AFAICT the EU has no intention of offering us the choice to rejoin on the previous terms, multiple EU governments have said that they don't want that. So in reality that ship has sailed. So in all likelihood a campaign to rejoin the EU as a full-blooded member would fail. That Tony Blair think tank did some very good polling on this issue, and found that even Remainers didn't want to be full members of the EU.
If we were actually serious about our relationship with the EU we'd move on from arguing about membership, accept that the UK was always a reluctant member, and realise that the kind of relationship we do want is more like the EEA/EFTA, or something bespoke that is very similar. We aren't Federalists, and we never will be, we want to trade and work with the EU, not become part of a United States of Europe. We're "Canadian" not "American".
I wouldn’t put so much interpretation on polling using loaded questions. If you ask the question and stress one side of the argument, but don’t mention the other, it’s no surprise that the percentage supporting goes down. If you asked a loaded question stressing some benefit of EU membership, support would go up.
Part of a longer thread of thoughts on Brexit and Makerfield from pollster Luke.
I don't know why he has even opened this door. Why not just take the Starmer fudge line and then keep reverting to there are decisions we can take today to address problems people are facing. He can show loads of left wing leg to the party with bringing more under state control.
He didn’t open it. Streeting did, by openly saying Brexit was a calamitous error and we must Rejoin
@TSE suspects it was a Machiavellian move to undermine Burnham, by unhelpfully putting the EU and Rejoin on the table of debate, and I do wonder if that is the case
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
The Burnham prospectus looks pretty similar to the Starmer one when he ran for labour leadership, plus a bit of anti- London/S East populism. Suspect it will play well with Labour members.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
... and rightly so.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
I don’t believe the Restore candidate will significantly trouble Reform
More important will be
1. If and how the Greens run (ditto Tories) 2. The actual Reform candidate 3. If Starmer/Streeting subtly undermine The Chosen One (coz they can)
I don't think you fully appreciate the Lowe/Farage dynamic.
Rupert Lowe is convinced that Nigel Farage came up with a plot to see Rupert Lowe imprisoned and that would have seen Rupert Lowe murdered in prison.
At the general election, outside of Great Yarmouth, I do not expect Restore to trouble Reform but at by-elections they could.
@Leon_VotedForStarmer why don't you think the Restore candidate will have a big impact?
You're probably closer to this dynamic than others, I'd be interested to hear you expand on your statement.
Because Restore are barely known outside Great Yarmouth and nerd forums like this. They’re just not major players
Farage is a huge national figure. Lowe is a minnow. Farage will be in Makerfield campaigning. Burnham in turn will focus on Reform - coz he has to. They’re the enemy. They just took all the council seats here. This by election has two and only two contenders
I expect Restore to get a few hundred votes. Unlikely to tip any balance
Thanks. Does that dynamic hold even if Lowe decides to throw his entire army at the by-election? (And yes I'm aware his entire army may consist of the Great Yarmouth boys brigade or similar).
I guess my question is motivated by the underlying belief that both Greens and Reform are still NOTA as well as positive platforms to vote for, and Restore could become NOTNOTAs with a few good efforts in Makerfield.
However I have no idea. I was bemused by Restore's performance in Great Yarmouth; I assumed on little info that they would perform less well even there.
To be frank, even just having Restore on the ballot is going to nick some votes from Reform. If it's as tight as some people think it will be...
My guess is restore get 500-700. May be half of that would go to reform if they weren’t standing. So unlikely to be decisive - and may actually be helpful if they become all extreme and make it “safe” for Tories to vote reform
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
The negativity of Brexit in terms of Euroepan travel is massively overstated for the vast vast vast majority of people who go on hoilday once or twice a year to Europe for a summer holiday and a weekend break. It makes no difference at all (excluding this roll out of the new ESTA type scheme is a shit show which is now having an impact but the likes of Greece have binned it off).
The big downside is those that travel a lot for work / retired folk who went and lived in Europe for months on end. Even then you get 90 days in every 180, lots of people can get an Irish passport and many European countries for those living there for significant parts of the year had schemes to allow you to carry on with a bit of paperwork e.g. Portugal.
The main negative aspects of Brexit are the friction in traded physical goods.
Just reposting this as as soon as I posted it a new thread opened !
I think Starmer had the right balance currently in terms of his EU reset . It gives something to those pro EU without becoming too divisive for those that voted to Leave .
When you look at polling on whether to rejoin it’s not the headline figure that’s important.
So the figure for rejoin according to YouGov is 55% but that drops to 36% when you caveat that with losing the UKs previous opt outs in terms of Schengen , the Euro and the rebate.
And in terms of government priorities 44% think it’s the wrong priority v 37% who think it should be .
I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it in a future Labour manifesto with the explicit understanding that the terms of re-joining are clearly laid out and agreed beforehand with the EU , something the Leave side failed to do with Brexit.
You can’t find many people more pro EU than me but I think this conversation is for down the road and not now.
Am I the only person who thinks that being in the EU with Schengen and the Euro is better than without?
Being in the Euro would lower the countries borrowing costs and I like Schengen but I don’t think we’re the voters any future rejoin campaign are worrying about.
In reality the UK could kick the Euro can far down the road as you can put in tests to join that you can never pass but most of the public don’t do nuance or grey areas . The stay out campaign will hammer the Euro issue .
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
It seems to be an odd thing that the Treasury has an impulse toward. Even under a much-admired Chancellor like Nigel Lawson, the Treasury had a policy of shadowing the DM - against Margaret Thatcher's express instructions.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Never underestimate the power of spite in all this. The British Left and the EU will swallow a lot to humiliate the brexigards.
I think we all know who is being humiliated, and richly enjoyable it is too.
That's what I'm saying. At least 90% of everything 90% of politicians and politically active people do is motivated either by people pleasing or spite.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Never underestimate the power of spite in all this. The British Left and the EU will swallow a lot to humiliate the brexigards.
I think we all know who is being humiliated, and richly enjoyable it is too.
That's what I'm saying. At least 90% of everything 90% of politicians and politically active people do is motivated either by people pleasing or spite.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
The negativity of Brexit in terms of Euroepan travel is massively overstated for the vast vast vast majority of people who go on hoilday once or twice a year to Europe for a summer holiday and a weekend break. It makes no difference at all (excluding this roll out of the new ESTA type scheme is a shit show which is now having an impact but the likes of Greece have binned it off).
The big downside is those that travel a lot for work / retired folk who went and lived in Europe for months on end. Even then you get 90 days in every 180, lots of people can get an Irish passport and many European countries for those living there for significant parts of the year had schemes to allow you to carry on with a bit of paperwork e.g. Portugal.
The main negative aspects of Brexit are the friction in traded physical goods.
Yes I’d agree with that.
I’m just pointing out that Schengen in a British context is not quite the same thing as say a Belgian one, and parties could take the sting out of that debate by recognising it. The facts of geography don’t bend even if you are The European Commission (or Donald Trump with Hormuz for that matter!).
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
Farage disappeared at the end of the campaign when they realised they were going to lose.
He's very happy for the rest of the party to campaign hard and spend lots of other people's money doing so.
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Rejoin hasn't been forbidden to the political class at all.
The Lib Dems and Greens have always been in favour, and indeed called for more referenda to overturn the original one starting a couple of days after that vote as I recall, or else for ignoring the first vote entirely.
So have many in Labour and even one or two old school Tories.
“No, I do have the numbers, but I’m not going to challenge now when I am the only runner, I am going to wait until my biggest rival is able to run, and then I will challenge”
It’s bollocks
I am convinced he won’t make it on the ballot.
I would suggest if Burnham wins well the momentum will be with him and it is very likely it will be a coronation
If doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there.
At the moment this is a sub-Tory shit show. If he gets the win, he'll get the bounce. He hasn't got the win yet.
I hope when they do some constituency polling it will have questions around the UK EU relationship given it’s likely to play a big role in the campaigning .
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Rejoin hasn't been forbidden to the political class at all.
The Lib Dems and Greens have always been in favour, and indeed called for more referenda to overturn the original one starting a couple of days after that vote as I recall, or else for ignoring the first vote entirely.
So have many in Labour and even one or two old school Tories.
So no dam is starting to break.
He'll be dodging the press for the foreseeable and for as long as the £5 mill remains the main focus of their interest.
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Rejoin hasn't been forbidden to the political class at all.
The Lib Dems and Greens have always been in favour, and indeed called for more referenda to overturn the original one starting a couple of days after that vote as I recall, or else for ignoring the first vote entirely.
So have many in Labour and even one or two old school Tories.
So no dam is starting to break.
Calm down, lad. Nothing is forever. Даже огурцы в бочке перекисают / Even cucumbers in a barrel turn sour, as our Russian mates say.
I hope when they do some constituency polling it will have questions around the UK EU relationship given it’s likely to play a big role in the campaigning .
The electorate often decide what’s important in a campaign, and it’s often quite different to what the pundits think will be at the start.
For these to succeed, and be backed by the public, these needs a) To be doable financially and b) To improve service and provide benefits that only come that way. Do we also need a distinction between control and ownership, "control" being "regulation that works"? And how instant does it have to be - for some of these it has taken 3-4 decades to get where we are?
Of those 4, local transport is already being brought back into public control - eg in Manchester, and in some places never left it in eg London or Nottingham. The places with the best public transport have afaics publicly owned. And integrated transport seems to work better when publicly owned.
Passenger rail contracts are already being renationalised, as franchises expire.
For water, I'd let Thames Water go through.
Energy. I'd say tehre are ways to do that within the current system for a quick impact. This imo is one of those areas where Starmer & Co have been to timid.
Bookmakers have threatened a legal challenge to the implementation of affordability checks that the industry believes will mean one in five punters with an annual spend of as little as £200 are asked to provide financial documents.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
I guess we'll just have to await an alleged attack on something or someone or other that benefits Farage and the Right so that Burnham gets booed live on camera.
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
Interesting discussion about the governability of Britain on WATO. Including a contribution from the still pretty coherent nonagenarian Michael Heseltine.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
I guess we'll just have to await an alleged attack on something or someone or other that benefits Farage and the Right so that Burnham gets booed live on camera.
Standard right wing MAGA duped thuggery
Satire is officially dead.
Somebody who said that this country has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the Communist tyranny of China with its blocked internet, concentration camps. forced organ transplants, etc. etc. accusing somebody else of duped thuggery?
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
They were expecting the sunlit uplands promised by Farage, Johnson et al. As Rochdale says.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Almost all security checks can be done with face recognition these days. Passports are a legacy technology. We should join Schengen so we can run trains from Paris to Manchester and Glasgow. It is ridiculous that anyone has to stand for hours at immigration in this day and age anyway.
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
They were expecting the sunlit uplands promised by Farage, Johnson et al. As Rochdale says.
Then they really were idiots. I'm sorry, I know that being a Leave voter is like a protected characteristic these days.
I will never ever forget, when I was a British gov official, visiting a research institute in Singapore and a professor complained to me that the career path into civil service/politics was so desirable that they had a brain drain problem of top scientists INTO government
For these to succeed, and be backed by the public, these needs a) To be doable financially and b) To improve service and provide benefits that only come that way. Do we also need a distinction between control and ownership, "control" being "regulation that works"? And how instant does it have to be - for some of these it has taken 3-4 decades to get where we are?
Of those 4, local transport is already being brought back into public control - eg in Manchester, and in some places never left it in eg London or Nottingham. The places with the best public transport have afaics publicly owned. And integrated transport seems to work better when publicly owned.
Passenger rail contracts are already being renationalised, as franchises expire.
For water, I'd let Thames Water go through.
Energy. I'd say tehre are ways to do that within the current system for a quick impact. This imo is one of those areas where Starmer & Co have been to timid.
Housing. I'm not sure.
Transport? With rail the only bits privately owned are freight and some rolling stock. Freight is free market competition and needs support by Network Rail (paths, leccy bills etc) but otherwise gets on with it. Passenger rail contracts expiring and reverting back to the StateCo GBR. Buses? Let local authorities / regions regulate the private sector as happens in Manchester and London. Roads? Create regionally owned (RegionCo) road construction/maintenance units. Fix the potholes, bypass the obvious bits with vertical integration of planning / construction
Energy? We need a lot more local generation. Why shouldn't my village have a couple of wind turbines and solar fields? RegionCo and LocalCo to build with vertical integration again of planning / construction. End the absurd price wall of gas and price leccy on the price you actually paid to generate it.
Water? Regulate away the pirates. Hopefully a few of them will collapse into administration which means the assets revert to the public. StateCo and RegionCo to run
Housing? Four things: 1) LocalCo / LHA to CPO swathes of shithouse properties, refit and refurbish. Imagine the transformation in somewhere like Blackpool 2) LHA to borow at state levels for construction. Properties Are Not For Sale, do not need Market Prices for rent which can be set at a level which instantly fucks the rentier sector who dump property onto the market. Big reset, lots of people get houses for the first time 3) End the scandal where large portions of "welfare" are paid to rentier landlords charging £fuckyou prices to desperate LAs. No more contracts. You get the rate we set. Not happy? Fuck off and sell up 4) We don't have brickies, joiners, plasterers, sparkies or bricks. A big program of technical colleges to train the next generation of people to actually build stuff. And a few big BrickCos to actually make what we need
All this can be done, you just need the vision thing. Enter the King in the North...
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
They were expecting the sunlit uplands promised by Farage, Johnson et al. As Rochdale says.
My life is shit I don't know or care how the system works This guy says its the fault of the EU / brown people I now keep seeing other people saying the same thing in ways I understand So I want to leave the EU / deport brown people so my life is no longer shit
Brexit failed because their lives are shitter than ever. Leaving the EU was not the goal in 2016, just as deporting brown people is not the goal in 2026.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train ( tunnel to be precise)/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Almost all security checks can be done with face recognition these days. Passports are a legacy technology. We should join Schengen so we can run trains from Paris to Manchester and Glasgow. It is ridiculous that anyone has to stand for hours at immigration in this day and age anyway.
Borderless travel is not the issue. Paperless employment is. We could rejoin the EU and Schengen and not have a problem if we had secure ID cards as everyone else does. Want to work here? ID please. Want to see a doctor? ID please. Want to vote? ID please. Want welfare? ID please.
People will seek asylum and we should welcome them. But migration for work? No work. For welfare? No welfare. For healthcare? No healthcare.
Do that in conjunction with safe and legal ways to claim asylum and we have a system which removes most of the issues.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train ( tunnel to be precise)/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Ever taken a high speed train in Spain? Still have to get your shit scanned but there's no other barrier. Could be the same for us heading to Europe.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
What I do know is that the numbers of immigrants in Makerfield has ballooned since Brexit.
But still not many (assuming this data is up to date, the BBC do not give a year).
The interesting one is the low unemployment rate.
Traditionally old industrial areas would have high unemployment.
Now I'm aware there will be some layabouts claiming incapacity benefits but for those who want to work there are opportunities.
Makerfield is commutable to both Manchester and Liverpool.
Commutable and with affordable housing is a good start for a place to live.
A quick google suggest the countryside is quiet nice as well and likely improving as the old mining areas are rewilded.
Has there been many new housing developments ?
Some. Although most of the new estates are over the Leigh side. Hindley Green, Westleigh, Lowton. Golborne. Only the former is in the constituency. You're right about the countryside. Wigan is the greenest urban borough in the country. 67% green space! Much of it is unbuildable due to mine workings which can go back to ancient times. There's evidence the Romans got coal from these parts.
Is it the sort of place where a lot of it has been re-landscaped with industrial units that because of the mine works are fairly low density?
My mind wanders to some of the units on the fast roads around the outskirts of Barnsley. The re-landscaping of such areas often give them a strange resemblance to Tellytubby Land.
The word we have always used in Notts for the typical shape of re-landscaped coal mine tips is "pregnant".
Bookmakers have threatened a legal challenge to the implementation of affordability checks that the industry believes will mean one in five punters with an annual spend of as little as £200 are asked to provide financial documents.
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
I travel a lot more than you. And you do not have to "wait an hour" every time you visit the EU. Airports in the EU are quickly adopting all the time saving stuff we already do in the UK. Staggered security with numbered slots for people chucking stuff on the belt. Automatic check in machines disgorging your tags. ePassport gates. Soon they will dispense with passport stamps entirely and the last queues will largely disappear
Going through airports has never been easier. It will soon get easier still with facial recog cameras on every plane door, so you won't even have to use your passport - and passports will eventually vanish
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
If he turns up, every question will be about the £5 million.
This where I get depressed about politics. Corruption on this scale should be an obvious disqualification for office. I actually think Farage should be behind bars.
I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester. I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane; But being awaked, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train ( tunnel to be precise)/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Ever taken a high speed train in Spain? Still have to get your shit scanned but there's no other barrier. Could be the same for us heading to Europe.
However, that may be, getting on a plane means a two hour check in, with security etc, get on a boat there’s still a check in time and bags scanned (did this myself last week), the Eurotunnel is a unique piece of undersea infrastructure and the sole dry link, so is always going to be given security scrutiny (rightly so), notwithstanding the tough sell to the electorate of effectively dismantling the £millions spent on barbed wire etc to stop migrants ( hence they got pushed to the sea route).
It’s never going to be the seamless benefit it is to Belgians nipping to Lille, or Aachen, or Rotterdam. So, from a rejoining viewpoint, why not recognise the point and take it off the table? Could still have FOM,as Ireland does now, whilst acknowledging island reality.
Is today's Burnham with all these radical lefty ideas really the same person as the bland, vanilla Burnham who lost to Corbyn?
Yes, and all who sail in him.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth "Tell us one specific thing [Burnham] will do"
Simons: ".. one of the things he's really committed to.. energy, water, social housing.. have gotten so expensive.. & one of the reasons why.. is that we've privatised a lot of them"
That's hilarious, why rail against something if you won't counter it? Presumably just spend money on bills.
I think Burnham’s main argument is that the cost of Government borrowing has risen because of inflation, and that a left wing reason for inflation is that there's less cheap social housing, and utilities (and transport maybe) were cheaper under public ownership, so take them back, make them cheaper, bring down inflation, and therefore reduce the cost of Government debt.
I'm not sure it even works in theory, but I'll take a bold stab and say it doesn't stand a chance in practice. For a start, don't you have to pay market rates to bring all these things back into public ownership? And if there is an opportunity to do it (eg let Thames Water go bust and pick up the pieces for nothing), the shareholders (like the Canadian pension fund) will kick up merry hell. Personally I think that's their problem - they took the risk, but I would be shocked if Burnham let Thames Water go to the wall.
In the case of Thames Water, the shareholders could scream - but the Government has no obligation to prop up a failing company in law.
The sensible approach would be for the Government to let them go bust. They would keep running, in administration.
The important thing would be for the government to back the suppliers bills to prevent a domino effect in the supply chain. The government would make a loan to the revived Thames Water to do this. With the debt erased it could easily be paid back. Should even make a profit for the government if well managed.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
Is today's Burnham with all these radical lefty ideas really the same person as the bland, vanilla Burnham who lost to Corbyn?
Yes, and all who sail in him.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth "Tell us one specific thing [Burnham] will do"
Simons: ".. one of the things he's really committed to.. energy, water, social housing.. have gotten so expensive.. & one of the reasons why.. is that we've privatised a lot of them"
That's hilarious, why rail against something if you won't counter it? Presumably just spend money on bills.
I think Burnham’s main argument is that the cost of Government borrowing has risen because of inflation, and that a left wing reason for inflation is that there's less cheap social housing, and utilities (and transport maybe) were cheaper under public ownership, so take them back, make them cheaper, bring down inflation, and therefore reduce the cost of Government debt.
I'm not sure it even works in theory, but I'll take a bold stab and say it doesn't stand a chance in practice. For a start, don't you have to pay market rates to bring all these things back into public ownership? And if there is an opportunity to do it (eg let Thames Water go bust and pick up the pieces for nothing), the shareholders (like the Canadian pension fund) will kick up merry hell. Personally I think that's their problem - they took the risk, but I would be shocked if Burnham let Thames Water go to the wall.
In the case of Thames Water, the shareholders could scream - but the Government has no obligation to prop up a failing company in law.
The sensible approach would be for the Government to let them go bust. They would keep running, in administration.
The important thing would be for the government to back the suppliers bills to prevent a domino effect in the supply chain. The government would make a loan to the revived Thames Water to do this. With the debt erased it could easily be paid back. Should even make a profit for the government if well managed.
That is the only way to do nationalisation - pragmatically.
There are always cases where there's greater public benefit in government running a particular operation at a particular time.
Ideology should have no part in deciding which are those cases.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
The level of checking I’ve encountered would be defeated by the smuggling technique in the Day of the Jackal.
Ukraine is building the world's first wind farm in an active war zone. 65 miles from the front line.
The 500-megawatt Tyligulska plant will power 900,000 households when complete. And it makes perfect military sense.
A coal plant is one large target. One missile takes it out. A wind farm? You'd need 40 missiles to do equivalent damage. And the surviving turbines keep running.
Russia has systematically destroyed Ukraine's centralized energy infrastructure since the invasion. Half of it is in ruins. $56 billion in damage. This winter has been the worst yet. Temperatures hit minus 4°F. Over 1,000 public heating tents running on diesel generators across Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.
So Ukraine is rebuilding its entire energy system around distributed renewables. Not for climate reasons. For survival.
Ukraine installed 1.5 GW of new solar in 2025 during an active war. Plans to nearly double renewable production over the next four years. Battery storage projects that take two years in Europe take six months in Ukraine. They added half a gigawatt of storage in two years, nearly a quarter of Germany's total.
Big fossil fuel plants are centralized, slow to repair, and easy to target. Solar panels on rooftops, distributed wind farms, microgrids with local storage are scattered, hard to hit, and fast to fix. On sunny days, Ukraine now has energy surpluses.
A University of Technology Sydney study suggests Ukraine could meet 91% of its energy needs from solar and onshore wind using 1% of its land.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
Last year I brought €12,000 worth of KW/Ferrari suspension parts in through Eurotunnel without declaring them or paying duty. I bet they don't find more than 1% of everything illegal/undeclared.
Ukraine is building the world's first wind farm in an active war zone. 65 miles from the front line.
The 500-megawatt Tyligulska plant will power 900,000 households when complete. And it makes perfect military sense.
A coal plant is one large target. One missile takes it out. A wind farm? You'd need 40 missiles to do equivalent damage. And the surviving turbines keep running.
Russia has systematically destroyed Ukraine's centralized energy infrastructure since the invasion. Half of it is in ruins. $56 billion in damage. This winter has been the worst yet. Temperatures hit minus 4°F. Over 1,000 public heating tents running on diesel generators across Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.
So Ukraine is rebuilding its entire energy system around distributed renewables. Not for climate reasons. For survival.
Ukraine installed 1.5 GW of new solar in 2025 during an active war. Plans to nearly double renewable production over the next four years. Battery storage projects that take two years in Europe take six months in Ukraine. They added half a gigawatt of storage in two years, nearly a quarter of Germany's total.
Big fossil fuel plants are centralized, slow to repair, and easy to target. Solar panels on rooftops, distributed wind farms, microgrids with local storage are scattered, hard to hit, and fast to fix. On sunny days, Ukraine now has energy surpluses.
A University of Technology Sydney study suggests Ukraine could meet 91% of its energy needs from solar and onshore wind using 1% of its land.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
Last year I brought €12,000 worth of KW/Ferrari suspension parts in through Eurotunnel without declaring them or paying duty. I bet they don't find more than 1% of everything illegal/undeclared.
In the late 1980s I came back from Bangkok via Moscow with a mate - with whom I'd been living, in Bangkok, in a hotel that did China White heroin on room service
On arrival in London my mate Trevor went through his stuff and realised he'd brought back a large bag of heroin, without realising. What's more, we'd been through customs at least four times, leaving Bangkok, then through Soviet customs into still-communist Moscow itself (where we stayed a couple of nights), then out of Moscow again, then through Heathrow
We ingested the heroin, as a form of celebration, over the ensuing days
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
I think that is out dated now. Guns have started to flow again and much more powerful ones than the converted starting pistols.
I can't find the link to the video I watched. I believe it was Channel 4 talking to the plod about it and showing firing of the stuff they had siezed recently compared to the converted blank firing guns.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
And now imagine saying to the voters but with Schengen you’ll get no control once anything is past the Turkish/Bulgarian border?
If I remember correctly from the video the police said the guns being smuggled now are much more lethal than the converted starting pistol / home made stuff. There have been less shooting, but they have been more lethal. And they think the smuggling routes are starting up again, particularly popular is getting guns from Balkans e.g.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
And now imagine saying to the voters but with Schengen you’ll get no control once anything is past the Turkish/Bulgarian border?
There's no control now. All the enforcement is intelligence led rather than randomly opening punters' luggage.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
I think that is out dated now. Guns have started to flow again and much more powerful ones than the converted starting pistols.
I can't find the link to the video I watched. I believe it was Channel 4 talking to the plod about it and showing firing of the stuff they had siezed recently compared to the converted blank firing guns.
The next piece of fun coming down the road is coil guns. Electromagnetic projection acceleration.
There are already some you can buy on the US. You can 3D print most of them, the rest is electronics. They use power tool batteries.
Silent, no powder residue or rifling. The “bullets” are just a lump of metal - can even be ball bearings.
So far they aren’t very powerful. But they are already lethal.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
I guess we'll just have to await an alleged attack on something or someone or other that benefits Farage and the Right so that Burnham gets booed live on camera.
Standard right wing MAGA duped thuggery
Satire is officially dead.
Somebody who said that this country has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the Communist tyranny of China with its blocked internet, concentration camps. forced organ transplants, etc. etc. accusing somebody else of duped thuggery?
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
I guess we'll just have to await an alleged attack on something or someone or other that benefits Farage and the Right so that Burnham gets booed live on camera.
Standard right wing MAGA duped thuggery
Satire is officially dead.
Somebody who said that this country has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the Communist tyranny of China with its blocked internet, concentration camps. forced organ transplants, etc. etc. accusing somebody else of duped thuggery?
Did Farage really say that? Wow.
There was a very interesting article on Big NIge in the Times yesterday. Well worth deploying one's paywall busting technique of choice.
Labour may be favourites for the by election, however Reform really should win it on current polling given it is only their 29th target seat. If Burnham wins it and becomes PM and Labour leader that would be damaging for Farage's own prospects of becoming PM. If Restore cost Reform the seat that will be even more damaging.
On the EU Burnham has only said there is only a longer term case for rejoining the EU. In the short term he is focused on tackling inequality, building more social homes etc, likely to also include higher taxes on the rich. Streeting is the candidate for Labour leader who really pushed the case for rejoining the EU yesterday.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
If he turns up, every question will be about the £5 million.
This where I get depressed about politics. Corruption on this scale should be an obvious disqualification for office. I actually think Farage should be behind bars.
If I took a random undeclared donation of £5m from anyone vaguely related to my industry that was subsequently found out, I have no doubt I'd be fired immediately from mid-ranking financial services job #75,328. And no doubt the FCA would ban me for years if not life. In fact, the initial response would probably be the same if it was £5k.
Yet Farage thinks it's fine to take crypto bro money. As you say, I'm surprised he's not committed a criminal offence. If he's not, the laws need changing.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
If he turns up, every question will be about the £5 million.
This where I get depressed about politics. Corruption on this scale should be an obvious disqualification for office. I actually think Farage should be behind bars.
If I took a random undeclared donation of £5m from anyone vaguely related to my industry that was subsequently found out, I have no doubt I'd be fired immediately from mid-ranking financial services job #75,328. And no doubt the FCA would ban me for years if not life. In fact, the initial response would probably be the same if it was £5k.
Yet Farage thinks it's fine to take crypto bro money. As you say, I'm surprised he's not committed a criminal offence. If he's not, the laws need changing.
Laws are for little people.
If Farage goes down for taking 5 Bernie’s, the next question is who took smaller amounts.
Hence why there is a lack of enthusiasm for prosecution in the political class.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
If he turns up, every question will be about the £5 million.
This where I get depressed about politics. Corruption on this scale should be an obvious disqualification for office. I actually think Farage should be behind bars.
If I took a random undeclared donation of £5m from anyone vaguely related to my industry that was subsequently found out, I have no doubt I'd be fired immediately from mid-ranking financial services job #75,328. And no doubt the FCA would ban me for years if not life. In fact, the initial response would probably be the same if it was £5k.
Yet Farage thinks it's fine to take crypto bro money. As you say, I'm surprised he's not committed a criminal offence. If he's not, the laws need changing.
Mandy passing on sensitive information for others to profit off not being illegal in of itself I also find mind blowing.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
Farage won't campaign until he has some evidence that Reform have a good chance. He doesn't want to risk being associated with a second by-election defeat in a row, so he has to wait until he knows the lie of the land first.
No. This same bullshit was said about Farage in Gorton and Denton too, but they campaigned for every vote. Reform will scrap for every vote, as they always do.
Farage disappeared at the end of the campaign when they realised they were going to lose.
He's very happy for the rest of the party to campaign hard and spend lots of other people's money doing so.
No he didn't. Everyone here was bumping their gums about how Farage had given up and was doing something down south instead, and then he went to the constituency that very day and campaigned hard, as did the rest of the Reform front bench team all through the campaign.
AI says this:
Yes, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visited Gorton and Denton multiple times during the campaign for the by-election held on February 26, 2026.
Key details of his involvement include:
Campaign Visits: Farage made public campaign appearances in the constituency, including opening the party's campaign headquarters in Denton on February 5, 2026, and visiting ahead of the vote to rally support for candidate Matt Goodwin.
You are posting lazy Farage-bad nonsense pulled from your imagination - ironical that you are doing so whilst trying to portray Farage as a lazy, glory-seeking campaigner.
I don’t see how at this stage any party can be good on immigration if their actual policy ends up being EU rejoin. As that includes FOM.
I supported FOM. But we have left now and I don’t want it back.
Which is the killer for Burnham. If his Rejoin beliefs come under scrutiny he will get beaten up about FOM
He could potentially go for EU Migration > Tory non-EU migration, but that's very risky indeed - the left will get upset about implied racism/Islamophobia, and it's still pro-immigration.
On today’s EU excitement. Brexit is no longer a touchstone issue, even in heavy leave areas. The view is “we voted for it, but they didn’t deliver it”. People have moved on. Immigration, huge issue. Brexit. No one mentions the word now
I'm a few hours behind the thread but I read this post on Twitter earlier. "They didn't deliver it [Brexit]"
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Seriously, in what kind of parallel world have they not delivered Brexit? Is it just in my imagination that my kids have lost their right to live and work in the EU and I have to wait in like for an hour every time I fly somewhere on the continent? Thank God it is all a hallucination, cos it seems pretty shit. Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
They were expecting the sunlit uplands promised by Farage, Johnson et al. As Rochdale says.
My life is shit I don't know or care how the system works This guy says its the fault of the EU / brown people I now keep seeing other people saying the same thing in ways I understand So I want to leave the EU / deport brown people so my life is no longer shit
Brexit failed because their lives are shitter than ever. Leaving the EU was not the goal in 2016, just as deporting brown people is not the goal in 2026.
Barnsley council were one of the best for competence and efficiency. They focused hard on improving the town and it's generally felt they succeeded. I know the place well and can confirm. Yet they were kicked out wholescale on May 7th in favour of Reform.
So I don't know. There's obviously something in what you say, people are pissed off, but I'm increasingly of the view there's something else going on with voting patterns that isn't really explained by their lives being shit. Eg a lot of Reform voters are not in 'cry for help' circumstances. They are perfectly comfortable, financially and socially.
If it really is about just voting for random things like Brexit or loudmouth bigots or mass deportations of immigrants or (left side) dumbo quack hypnotists, hoping that will deliver some sort of transformative improvement in their lives, then we're in big trouble. Because it won't, it'll be the opposite, and so where does all this end?
By making Rejoin central to his leadership bid Streeting has set the national conversation onto Europe.
It is notable that rejoin has been haram to the political class for a long time and the dam is starting to break.
Rejoin hasn't been forbidden to the political class at all.
The Lib Dems and Greens have always been in favour, and indeed called for more referenda to overturn the original one starting a couple of days after that vote as I recall, or else for ignoring the first vote entirely.
So have many in Labour and even one or two old school Tories.
So no dam is starting to break.
Calm down, lad. Nothing is forever. Даже огурцы в бочке перекисают / Even cucumbers in a barrel turn sour, as our Russian mates say.
A throwaway comment up thread that Farage will be campaigning. Where is he?
If he turns up, every question will be about the £5 million.
This where I get depressed about politics. Corruption on this scale should be an obvious disqualification for office. I actually think Farage should be behind bars.
If I took a random undeclared donation of £5m from anyone vaguely related to my industry that was subsequently found out, I have no doubt I'd be fired immediately from mid-ranking financial services job #75,328. And no doubt the FCA would ban me for years if not life. In fact, the initial response would probably be the same if it was £5k.
Yet Farage thinks it's fine to take crypto bro money. As you say, I'm surprised he's not committed a criminal offence. If he's not, the laws need changing.
Mandy passing on sensitive information for others to profit off not being illegal in of itself I also find mind blowing.
I’m quite certain that if it hadn’t been a member of the #NU10K, then multiple charges would have been made by now.
Ukraine is building the world's first wind farm in an active war zone. 65 miles from the front line.
The 500-megawatt Tyligulska plant will power 900,000 households when complete. And it makes perfect military sense.
A coal plant is one large target. One missile takes it out. A wind farm? You'd need 40 missiles to do equivalent damage. And the surviving turbines keep running.
Russia has systematically destroyed Ukraine's centralized energy infrastructure since the invasion. Half of it is in ruins. $56 billion in damage. This winter has been the worst yet. Temperatures hit minus 4°F. Over 1,000 public heating tents running on diesel generators across Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.
So Ukraine is rebuilding its entire energy system around distributed renewables. Not for climate reasons. For survival.
Ukraine installed 1.5 GW of new solar in 2025 during an active war. Plans to nearly double renewable production over the next four years. Battery storage projects that take two years in Europe take six months in Ukraine. They added half a gigawatt of storage in two years, nearly a quarter of Germany's total.
Big fossil fuel plants are centralized, slow to repair, and easy to target. Solar panels on rooftops, distributed wind farms, microgrids with local storage are scattered, hard to hit, and fast to fix. On sunny days, Ukraine now has energy surpluses.
A University of Technology Sydney study suggests Ukraine could meet 91% of its energy needs from solar and onshore wind using 1% of its land.
A really interesting piece here on the interplay between gas prices and renewable electricity. There's a massive difference between countries, in part due to climate but also to national energy policy.
Is today's Burnham with all these radical lefty ideas really the same person as the bland, vanilla Burnham who lost to Corbyn?
Yes, and all who sail in him.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth "Tell us one specific thing [Burnham] will do"
Simons: ".. one of the things he's really committed to.. energy, water, social housing.. have gotten so expensive.. & one of the reasons why.. is that we've privatised a lot of them"
That's hilarious, why rail against something if you won't counter it? Presumably just spend money on bills.
I think Burnham’s main argument is that the cost of Government borrowing has risen because of inflation, and that a left wing reason for inflation is that there's less cheap social housing, and utilities (and transport maybe) were cheaper under public ownership, so take them back, make them cheaper, bring down inflation, and therefore reduce the cost of Government debt.
I'm not sure it even works in theory, but I'll take a bold stab and say it doesn't stand a chance in practice. For a start, don't you have to pay market rates to bring all these things back into public ownership? And if there is an opportunity to do it (eg let Thames Water go bust and pick up the pieces for nothing), the shareholders (like the Canadian pension fund) will kick up merry hell. Personally I think that's their problem - they took the risk, but I would be shocked if Burnham let Thames Water go to the wall.
In the case of Thames Water, the shareholders could scream - but the Government has no obligation to prop up a failing company in law.
The sensible approach would be for the Government to let them go bust. They would keep running, in administration.
The important thing would be for the government to back the suppliers bills to prevent a domino effect in the supply chain. The government would make a loan to the revived Thames Water to do this. With the debt erased it could easily be paid back. Should even make a profit for the government if well managed.
I completely agree, but Rachel Reeves has had personal visits from the Canadian pension funds that are balls deep in Thames Water, and it will cause issues beyond just a business going belly up, especially if Canada holds UK debt.
Is today's Burnham with all these radical lefty ideas really the same person as the bland, vanilla Burnham who lost to Corbyn?
Yes, and all who sail in him.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth "Tell us one specific thing [Burnham] will do"
Simons: ".. one of the things he's really committed to.. energy, water, social housing.. have gotten so expensive.. & one of the reasons why.. is that we've privatised a lot of them"
That's hilarious, why rail against something if you won't counter it? Presumably just spend money on bills.
I think Burnham’s main argument is that the cost of Government borrowing has risen because of inflation, and that a left wing reason for inflation is that there's less cheap social housing, and utilities (and transport maybe) were cheaper under public ownership, so take them back, make them cheaper, bring down inflation, and therefore reduce the cost of Government debt.
I'm not sure it even works in theory, but I'll take a bold stab and say it doesn't stand a chance in practice. For a start, don't you have to pay market rates to bring all these things back into public ownership? And if there is an opportunity to do it (eg let Thames Water go bust and pick up the pieces for nothing), the shareholders (like the Canadian pension fund) will kick up merry hell. Personally I think that's their problem - they took the risk, but I would be shocked if Burnham let Thames Water go to the wall.
Burnham is remarkably similar to Starmer, which is what people keep missing.
He's happy to trade his principles for what's flavour of the moment.
Just noting the discussion on Schengen: it’s always struck me that the great benefit of Schengen ( as opposed to FOM itself), is kind of negated for Great Britain by geography.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
I dont think we're likely to join Schengen, but this is underselling it. If I don't need to go through security or show ID for a train journey from Paris to Berlin, why would I have to do so for a train journey from Paris to London in a hypothetical UK-in-Schengen setup? We have ID and security checks there because we think it's worth having the control, which is why we didn't join the Schengen area. If we join Schengen it will be because we don't feel we want/need the control (or that it's worth trading it off for benefits elsewhere), in which case why would we still impose the delay and hassle? Being able to just turn up 15 minutes before departure and get on your train is saving even more time over the current arrangements than your "20 mins saved in 4 hours" road trip.
Yes, but you are still going to have to stop and put your bags through a scanner etc because you are using a ship/train/plane. You are still going to have to check in and produce tickets, even if immigration could be streamlined. So the seamless continental experience isn’t on the cards whatever, unless security is scrapped and that’s just not happening.
Yes, I don't think we're willing to allow guns into the country without checking, tunnel security aside.
I haven't been in a car going on a ferry/tunnel to France in a long time, but when I did, they didn't check most cars luggage. Is it different now? Because if not then you'll be easily able to smuggle something in that way.
I remember reading once that guns are hard enough to get in Britain that criminals don't destroy them after each use, but pass them around. Despite the huge risks to being caught that that entails. So I think the system seems to be working: it's quite hard to get an illegal gun here.
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
And now imagine saying to the voters but with Schengen you’ll get no control once anything is past the Turkish/Bulgarian border?
There's no control now. All the enforcement is intelligence led rather than randomly opening punters' luggage.
Yes I’ve no doubt you’re right. But try explaining that in a campaign when the other lot are saying that it’s a free for all just beyond commuting distance from Istanbul all the way to John o’Groats.
The point I’ve been trying to make in the past few posts is full fat Schengen is a hard sell for rejoiners, and won’t deliver full fat benefits anyway because geography just won’t let it. So why not aim for 95% of a loaf by going for FOM and the Common Travel Area which is an easier sell and one less barrier to cross?
Comments
Of course people can be concerned about all sorts of things without experiencing them directly. But that's different to saying that peak immigration concern is when it's a few faces, but not many.
- appeals to Labour MPs
- If Burnham says nothing he may lose support among MPs
- If he reacts he may lose support in the by election
My mind wanders to some of the units on the fast roads around the outskirts of Barnsley. The re-landscaping of such areas often give them a strange resemblance to Tellytubby Land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigan_Flashes
But yes there is some of that.
The basically problem is that geographical Europe is not an optimal currency area and there are massive differences between the UK and EU economic structures
Just as Farage is now painting his repatriation stuff.
There is no simple, quick solution to general discontent. There are policies with positive short term payoffs, but they aren't game changing panaceas.
You didn’t actually make the precise argument that bugs me. But a lot of people do and it’s crass and thick
Too many hip-thrusts, aiui. Was it the Polish one? "Too much pole".
Let's Thrust Again, like Elvis the Pelvis did in 1956. Ironically, the year Eurovision was founded.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GpE9cN22-yk
Has Farage vowed to leave it yet?
It's @TSE worthy.
I thought the standard was pretty good this year. I was at a Eurovision party last night, and I got Bulgaria in the sweepstake!
https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2055963685202366833
====
Part of a longer thread of thoughts on Brexit and Makerfield from pollster Luke.
@TSE suspects it was a Machiavellian move to undermine Burnham, by unhelpfully putting the EU and Rejoin on the table of debate, and I do wonder if that is the case
WTFFFFFFFF ? Heads like BBC Micro green screen monitors covered in fluff.
That's probably enough.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
Yes you can drive from Calais across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany in about four hours and save say 20 mins each way by not slowing down for even cursory inspection, and that’s useful and pleasing for the traveller.
However, even within Schengen, given the only way of physically leaving Britain is via, plane, ship, or tunnel you’d still in practice have ID to show and security to go through so really what’s the point? May as well keep some control because you’ve got the hassle and delay regardless. If the EU were sensible and reading the room ( yes I know) they’d allow the continued use of the Common Travel Area to exist in parallel and negate much of the poison of a “Schengen specific” debate as part of rejoin.
Though plenty of reputable economists believe we should be in the Single Market, and maybe Schengen, very few support the UK's membership of the euro.
Being in the euro would be an economic catastrophe because it would mean that our monetary and exchange rate policy would be set, not according to our needs, but those of other countries, with whose economic cycles we are often not aligned.
Every generation except the current one in the last century has made this mistake, and every time it has ended in financial disaster. Adopting the gold standard after the first world war led to a perma-slump in the 1920s; using a fixed exchange rate after the Second World War impeded recovery until there was a large devaluation in 1949, pretty much the same thing happened in 1967, and shadowing and then joining the ERM gave us an unnecssary period of inflation then slump around 1990 before we were forced out in 1992.
Thank God we kept out of the euro which nearly collapsed (and probably would have collapsed completely had we been members) in 2012.
Still, if we need to repeat the same blunder again, so be it. But we shouldn't be in any illusions as to what happens to debtor countries in exchange rate mechanisms rigged in favour of creditors - short-lived boom followed by long-lasting or even permanent recession and one or more lost decades of growth as a result.
The big downside is those that travel a lot for work / retired folk who went and lived in Europe for months on end. Even then you get 90 days in every 180, lots of people can get an Irish passport and many European countries for those living there for significant parts of the year had schemes to allow you to carry on with a bit of paperwork e.g. Portugal.
The main negative aspects of Brexit are the friction in traded physical goods.
Never underestimate the power of spite in all this. The British Left and the EU will swallow a lot to humiliate the brexigards.
On that note, time for a walk in the sun.
I’m just pointing out that Schengen in a British context is not quite the same thing as say a Belgian one, and parties could take the sting out of that debate by recognising it. The facts of geography don’t bend even if you are The European Commission (or Donald Trump with Hormuz for that matter!).
He's very happy for the rest of the party to campaign hard and spend lots of other people's money doing so.
The Lib Dems and Greens have always been in favour, and indeed called for more referenda to overturn the original one starting a couple of days after that vote as I recall, or else for ignoring the first vote entirely.
So have many in Labour and even one or two old school Tories.
So no dam is starting to break.
At the moment this is a sub-Tory shit show. If he gets the win, he'll get the bounce. He hasn't got the win yet.
Sorry, that was in reply to LostPassword
Transport.
Energy.
Water.
Housing.
For these to succeed, and be backed by the public, these needs a) To be doable financially and b) To improve service and provide benefits that only come that way. Do we also need a distinction between control and ownership, "control" being "regulation that works"? And how instant does it have to be - for some of these it has taken 3-4 decades to get where we are?
Of those 4, local transport is already being brought back into public control - eg in Manchester, and in some places never left it in eg London or Nottingham. The places with the best public transport have afaics publicly owned. And integrated transport seems to work better when publicly owned.
Passenger rail contracts are already being renationalised, as franchises expire.
For water, I'd let Thames Water go through.
Energy. I'd say tehre are ways to do that within the current system for a quick impact. This imo is one of those areas where Starmer & Co have been to timid.
Housing. I'm not sure.
Standard right wing MAGA duped thuggery
Which demonstrates that when some people voted to leave the EU, the anticipated destination was not leaving the EU. It was x.
The current hooey about immigration is a continuation of this. People want to stop immigration, but that isn't their destination. Any politician who can bypass all of these angst stages and go straight to that destination will be a huge winner.
Anyway, to lighten the load. Om! World War 3 anyone?
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/15/world/video/donald-trump-xi-jinping-notebook-beijing-vrtc-digvid
Fucksake Leave voters are idiots if this is what they are saying. They will never be happy.
Including a contribution from the still pretty coherent nonagenarian Michael Heseltine.
Somebody who said that this country has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the Communist tyranny of China with its blocked internet, concentration camps. forced organ transplants, etc. etc. accusing somebody else of duped thuggery?
As Rochdale says.
https://x.com/charlieharris01/status/2055964233704116659?s=20
With rail the only bits privately owned are freight and some rolling stock. Freight is free market competition and needs support by Network Rail (paths, leccy bills etc) but otherwise gets on with it. Passenger rail contracts expiring and reverting back to the StateCo GBR.
Buses? Let local authorities / regions regulate the private sector as happens in Manchester and London.
Roads? Create regionally owned (RegionCo) road construction/maintenance units. Fix the potholes, bypass the obvious bits with vertical integration of planning / construction
Energy?
We need a lot more local generation. Why shouldn't my village have a couple of wind turbines and solar fields? RegionCo and LocalCo to build with vertical integration again of planning / construction. End the absurd price wall of gas and price leccy on the price you actually paid to generate it.
Water?
Regulate away the pirates. Hopefully a few of them will collapse into administration which means the assets revert to the public. StateCo and RegionCo to run
Housing?
Four things:
1) LocalCo / LHA to CPO swathes of shithouse properties, refit and refurbish. Imagine the transformation in somewhere like Blackpool
2) LHA to borow at state levels for construction. Properties Are Not For Sale, do not need Market Prices for rent which can be set at a level which instantly fucks the rentier sector who dump property onto the market. Big reset, lots of people get houses for the first time
3) End the scandal where large portions of "welfare" are paid to rentier landlords charging £fuckyou prices to desperate LAs. No more contracts. You get the rate we set. Not happy? Fuck off and sell up
4) We don't have brickies, joiners, plasterers, sparkies or bricks. A big program of technical colleges to train the next generation of people to actually build stuff. And a few big BrickCos to actually make what we need
All this can be done, you just need the vision thing. Enter the King in the North...
I don't know or care how the system works
This guy says its the fault of the EU / brown people
I now keep seeing other people saying the same thing in ways I understand
So I want to leave the EU / deport brown people so my life is no longer shit
Brexit failed because their lives are shitter than ever. Leaving the EU was not the goal in 2016, just as deporting brown people is not the goal in 2026.
People will seek asylum and we should welcome them. But migration for work? No work. For welfare? No welfare. For healthcare? No healthcare.
Do that in conjunction with safe and legal ways to claim asylum and we have a system which removes most of the issues.
Going through airports has never been easier. It will soon get easier still with facial recog cameras on every plane door, so you won't even have to use your passport - and passports will eventually vanish
Stop moaning
How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester.
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
But being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
It’s never going to be the seamless benefit it is to Belgians nipping to Lille, or Aachen, or Rotterdam. So, from a rejoining viewpoint, why not recognise the point and take it off the table? Could still have FOM,as Ireland does now, whilst acknowledging island reality.
The sensible approach would be for the Government to let them go bust. They would keep running, in administration.
The important thing would be for the government to back the suppliers bills to prevent a domino effect in the supply chain. The government would make a loan to the revived Thames Water to do this. With the debt erased it could easily be paid back. Should even make a profit for the government if well managed.
There are always cases where there's greater public benefit in government running a particular operation at a particular time.
Ideology should have no part in deciding which are those cases.
The 500-megawatt Tyligulska plant will power 900,000 households when complete. And it makes perfect military sense.
A coal plant is one large target. One missile takes it out. A wind farm? You'd need 40 missiles to do equivalent damage. And the surviving turbines keep running.
Russia has systematically destroyed Ukraine's centralized energy infrastructure since the invasion. Half of it is in ruins. $56 billion in damage. This winter has been the worst yet. Temperatures hit minus 4°F. Over 1,000 public heating tents running on diesel generators across Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.
So Ukraine is rebuilding its entire energy system around distributed renewables. Not for climate reasons. For survival.
Ukraine installed 1.5 GW of new solar in 2025 during an active war. Plans to nearly double renewable production over the next four years. Battery storage projects that take two years in Europe take six months in Ukraine. They added half a gigawatt of storage in two years, nearly a quarter of Germany's total.
Big fossil fuel plants are centralized, slow to repair, and easy to target. Solar panels on rooftops, distributed wind farms, microgrids with local storage are scattered, hard to hit, and fast to fix. On sunny days, Ukraine now has energy surpluses.
A University of Technology Sydney study suggests Ukraine could meet 91% of its energy needs from solar and onshore wind using 1% of its land.
Distributed generation isn't just a climate strategy. It's a defense strategy. And Ukraine is proving it in real time.
https://x.com/skagarroum/status/2055201021220012363
Happy to be corrected, of course.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/16/gangsters-converted-guns-crackdown-weapons-nca-firearms/
"Britain’s gangsters are running out of guns and have turned to converted firearms following a crackdown on weapons, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said…"
On arrival in London my mate Trevor went through his stuff and realised he'd brought back a large bag of heroin, without realising. What's more, we'd been through customs at least four times, leaving Bangkok, then through Soviet customs into still-communist Moscow itself (where we stayed a couple of nights), then out of Moscow again, then through Heathrow
We ingested the heroin, as a form of celebration, over the ensuing days
I can't find the link to the video I watched. I believe it was Channel 4 talking to the plod about it and showing firing of the stuff they had siezed recently compared to the converted blank firing guns.
Man charged after seizure of 55 loaded handguns with hundreds of rounds of ammunition
https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/man-charged-after-seizure-of-55-loaded-handguns-with-hundreds-of-rounds-of-ammunition
The big thing that hit all serious organised criminality for a while was Encron chat hack.
There are already some you can buy on the US. You can 3D print most of them, the rest is electronics. They use power tool batteries.
Silent, no powder residue or rifling. The “bullets” are just a lump of metal - can even be ball bearings.
So far they aren’t very powerful. But they are already lethal.
On the EU Burnham has only said there is only a longer term case for rejoining the EU. In the short term he is focused on tackling inequality, building more social homes etc, likely to also include higher taxes on the rich. Streeting is the candidate for Labour leader who really pushed the case for rejoining the EU yesterday.
Yet Farage thinks it's fine to take crypto bro money. As you say, I'm surprised he's not committed a criminal offence. If he's not, the laws need changing.
If Farage goes down for taking 5 Bernie’s, the next question is who took smaller amounts.
Hence why there is a lack of enthusiasm for prosecution in the political class.
AI says this:
Key details of his involvement include:
Campaign Visits: Farage made public campaign appearances in the constituency, including opening the party's campaign headquarters in Denton on February 5, 2026, and visiting ahead of the vote to rally support for candidate Matt Goodwin.
So I don't know. There's obviously something in what you say, people are pissed off, but I'm increasingly of the view there's something else going on with voting patterns that isn't really explained by their lives being shit. Eg a lot of Reform voters are not in 'cry for help' circumstances. They are perfectly comfortable, financially and socially.
If it really is about just voting for random things like Brexit or loudmouth bigots or mass deportations of immigrants or (left side) dumbo quack hypnotists, hoping that will deliver some sort of transformative improvement in their lives, then we're in big trouble. Because it won't, it'll be the opposite, and so where does all this end?
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/2056004211838419305
Today is a good day…
https://janrosenow.substack.com/p/do-renewables-make-electricity-cheaper
I agree with Ukraines policy, renewables have a massive security advantage.
He's happy to trade his principles for what's flavour of the moment.
So that explains Kemi's relative popularity.
The point I’ve been trying to make in the past few posts is full fat Schengen is a hard sell for rejoiners, and won’t deliver full fat benefits anyway because geography just won’t let it. So why not aim for 95% of a loaf by going for FOM and the Common Travel Area which is an easier sell and one less barrier to cross?