politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » GrEUxit?

Plato said:

Saw that earlier - very impressive. Went to a 1066 enactment down here nr Battle and it wasn't so spectacular, but great fun.

IIRC there were 115k troops at Waterloo.

Moses_ said:

Just saw on Sky news part of the reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo. They had 5000 participants a lot less than the actual battle of course but absolutely stunning and really really shows how confusing such a battlefield could be. The amount of smoke generated that obscured large areas would have led to additional confusion as to what was happening on many parts of the battlefield.

A comment from a WW1 veteran came to mind where he pointed out that a battlefield could have action in one area and the rest were waiting for something to happen. You can actually see this in this reenactment.

Well done to them all.

I noticed during the reenactment they all had bayonets on their rifles (muskets?) as well. I should imagine in that melee even though not an actual battle it could get quite dangerous.

23,000 British troops with 44,000 allied troops and 160 guns against 74,000 French troops and 250 guns.

http://www.britishbattles.com/waterloo/waterloo-june-1815.htm

Moses_ said:

Sky news...

Head of Oxfam just demanded open boarders so we can take many more refugees and states it's our humanitarian duty.

Auto spell.... I meant "borders" but the original spelling probably was not far from the truth either.

Morris_Dancer said:

Practice about to get under way. And Button has a 25 place grid penalty. The grid is 20 cars.

Starts in the public car park then?

David H - thank you. Just a couple of points:

You say,"Greece is a semi-sovereign country". Please could you explain exactly what you mean by that definition - is it due to its membership of the EU plus the EZ?

Also, it is quite apparent that Greece does not want to reform its public sector. So how far will it go in threatening say to allow Russia to stable its Med fleet at Piraeus or even sell off say Rhodes to China - which is busy acquiring assets in Europe.?

Moses_ said:

Sky news...

Head of Oxfam just demanded open boarders

B&B or all inclusive?

Wet in Austria. Probably no accurate qualifying simulations. May mean some mis-pricing, with any luck.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Moses, I think he starts last, then gets a stop-and-go penalty (I think the bands are something like 5s, 10s and 25s, or thereabouts).

Ha!
Thanks. Just broke the news to Mrs Moses and she is a bit upset as she is quite a fan of Jenson. She was also born in the same town Frome , Somerset.

Did you know just on the outskirts of Frome is a pub called "The Frome Flyer" named after JB

The Frome Flyer, Commerce Park Jenson Ave, Frome, Somerset BA11 2LD
http://www.bookatable.co.uk/table-table-frome-flyer-frome-somerset

Charles said:

(As an aside, I was told last night by a very plugged in friend of mine in Paris that part of the issue is that Tspiras is being advised by a specific Lazard banker who delights in chaos for its own sake and therefore might be encouraging him to take a hard line for very odd reasons!)

I think Tsipiras knows that he cannot get anything past his own party unless he is seen to have fought to the very end.

Financier said:

David H - thank you. Just a couple of points:

You say,"Greece is a semi-sovereign country". Please could you explain exactly what you mean by that definition - is it due to its membership of the EU plus the EZ?

Also, it is quite apparent that Greece does not want to reform its public sector. So how far will it go in threatening say to allow Russia to stable its Med fleet at Piraeus or even sell off say Rhodes to China - which is busy acquiring assets in Europe.?

ou say,"Greece is a semi-sovereign country". Please could you explain exactly what you mean by that definition - is it due to its membership of the EU plus the EZ?

According to the EU president the UK belongs to the EU so Greece probably does as well hence a semi sovereign country

rcs1000 said:

GIN1138 said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

Two explanations:

1. The British people have lost their minds.

2. The same pollsters who have been embarrassingly hopeless and useless for the past five years are getting it catastrophically wrong once again.

I know which one I think is most likely...

75% of people never think about the EU.

But they do see Nigel Farage on the TV all the time. And if they don't like Nigel Farage(1), they will tend - in the absence of all other evidence - to like what Nigel Farage dislikes.

Immigration is as unpopular as ever and Farage is more closely connected with that, the EU is as you say not thought about. The In vote is low information status quo supporting.

I assume Greece has a large tourist industry. Isn't that being adversely affected by the uncertainty? I know of one family who have already dropped plans to visit this year.

I have a Canadian friend at the IMF in Washington. She email me to ask if Ambrose Evans-Pritchard smokes crack. Apparently, they find his Telegraph columns incredibly amusing.

FalseFlag said:

rcs1000 said:

GIN1138 said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

Two explanations:

1. The British people have lost their minds.

2. The same pollsters who have been embarrassingly hopeless and useless for the past five years are getting it catastrophically wrong once again.

I know which one I think is most likely...

75% of people never think about the EU.

But they do see Nigel Farage on the TV all the time. And if they don't like Nigel Farage(1), they will tend - in the absence of all other evidence - to like what Nigel Farage dislikes.

Immigration is as unpopular as ever and Farage is more closely connected with that, the EU is as you say not thought about. The In vote is low information status quo supporting.

In that Farage has brought an immigrant in through marriage? I don't think most of the public knows about that.

I do agree the percentages now are low information. Hopefully we'll have a proper debate. But I'm not optimistic.

OT. Just scanned through the comments on the last piece (Local By-Election Results : June 18th 2015 ). Would it be a record that there didn't seem to be one comment referring to that piece, all were on other issues?

Mr. Rider, welcome to pb.com.

Might be. I wasn't on at the time, but do usually thank Mr. Hayfield for his ongoing contributions.

linkrider said:

OT. Just scanned through the comments on the last piece (Local By-Election Results : June 18th 2015 ). Would it be a record that there didn't seem to be one comment referring to that piece, all were on other issues?

There were most definitely a few! At the very start, granted, but in fairness that was because the results were known the night before. It's more a nice follow up to the pre result post than a topic of conversation I say.

rcs1000 said:

Charles said:

(As an aside, I was told last night by a very plugged in friend of mine in Paris that part of the issue is that Tspiras is being advised by a specific Lazard banker who delights in chaos for its own sake and therefore might be encouraging him to take a hard line for very odd reasons!)

I think Tsipiras knows that he cannot get anything past his own party unless he is seen to have fought to the very end.

Did you see that the former CEO of PAI (retired beginning of this year) has just been made Prime Minister of Benin?

What could possibly go wrong...

Financier said:

Cherie Blair's bid to match her husband's riches met with disaster yesterday when her chain of healthcare shops went bust.

Eleven stores have closed with the loss of dozens of jobs.

Staff told bosses to 'rot in hell' during a heated conference call announcing the business was going into liquidation.

It is a massive setback for Mrs Blair, who launched Mee Healthcare with her American business partner Gail Lese in 2011 to exploit reforms opening up the NHS to private competition.

Mrs Blair, 60, a lifelong socialist, has always rejected claims that she was cashing in on NHS privatisation – even though Mee Healthcare was funded via an investment company in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132166/Cherie-Blair-s-chain-health-shops-funded-Cayman-Islands-goes-bust-sacks-dozens-staff-mass-conference-call.html

A tragedy for those facing the sack but.... LOL @ Blair.inc

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Normal Lamon (who along with John Major - And a certain Mr D. Cameron - Bankrupted thousands of home owners in one day and destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years - All on the alter of the ERM) doesn't think much to the current shambles...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11686679/The-euro-was-doomed-from-the-start.html

I would dispute that. Lamont inherited the disaster that had been started by Major when as chancellor he persuaded Thatcher to join the ERM. Lamont was the one left holding the bomb when it went off and had the added problem of having the architect of the whole mess as his boss.

Major is a classic case of reaping what he sowed and does not deserve the Elder Statesman profile he enjoys today. It was he rather than Lamont who "destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years" .

I have always had sympathy for Lamont's position, but in the end he was the one shoving up interest rate's on a seemingly hourly basis, when it was obvious to everyone that we should just get the %^&* out of the thing...

GIN1138 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Normal Lamon (who along with John Major - And a certain Mr D. Cameron - Bankrupted thousands of home owners in one day and destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years - All on the alter of the ERM) doesn't think much to the current shambles...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11686679/The-euro-was-doomed-from-the-start.html

I would dispute that. Lamont inherited the disaster that had been started by Major when as chancellor he persuaded Thatcher to join the ERM. Lamont was the one left holding the bomb when it went off and had the added problem of having the architect of the whole mess as his boss.

Major is a classic case of reaping what he sowed and does not deserve the Elder Statesman profile he enjoys today. It was he rather than Lamont who "destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years" .

I have always had sympathy for Lamont's position, but in the end he was the one shoving up interest rate's on a seemingly hourly basis, when it was obvious to everyone that we should just get the %^&* out of the thing...

And yet it was the getting the %^&* out (which was obviously the right thing to do I hasten to add) that resulted in the consequent complete loss of economic reputation for the Tories. Lamont was screwed whatever he did from the moment he accepted the position of Chancellor under a PM who had made such a catastrophic decision from that post a few years earlier.

Newcastle gets a bit precious

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132405/Lawyers-Great-North-Run-threaten-sue-tiny-village-Narth-calling-annual-charity-run-Great.html

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Normal Lamon (who along with John Major - And a certain Mr D. Cameron - Bankrupted thousands of home owners in one day and destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years - All on the alter of the ERM) doesn't think much to the current shambles...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11686679/The-euro-was-doomed-from-the-start.html

I would dispute that. Lamont inherited the disaster that had been started by Major when as chancellor he persuaded Thatcher to join the ERM. Lamont was the one left holding the bomb when it went off and had the added problem of having the architect of the whole mess as his boss.

Major is a classic case of reaping what he sowed and does not deserve the Elder Statesman profile he enjoys today. It was he rather than Lamont who "destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years" .

I have always had sympathy for Lamont's position, but in the end he was the one shoving up interest rate's on a seemingly hourly basis, when it was obvious to everyone that we should just get the %^&* out of the thing...

And yet it was the getting the %^&* out (which was obviously the right thing to do I hasten to add) that resulted in the consequent complete loss of economic reputation for the Tories. Lamont was screwed whatever he did from the moment he accepted the position of Chancellor under a PM who had made such a catastrophic decision from that post a few years earlier.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think a great deal of the "incompetence" narrative comes from the massive profits reaped from Soros and others. The Tories - rightly or wrongly - were seen to have given 10s of billions of pounds to hedge fund managers. Had Lamont been better advised, he would have recognised that the UK government and the Bank of England could not have "bucked the market".

Like with Greece, it would have been better for the UK not to have joined the EMU in the first place (although it was probably less bad than the shadow DM peg that Nigel Lawson instituted). However, the moment it was recognised that the peg was doomed, it should have been abandoned.

Watching the last match of this magnificent series I was reflecting that it is only a few months since England thought that Cook, Trott and Bell were essential to have a solid start and build a proper base in an ODI.

Now 60 in the first 10 is really a minimum and as we saw in the last match 350 is not even par. This game is evolving as we watch and NZ (and Australia of course) are leading the way. It is marvellous entertainment.

nigel4england said:

antifrank said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

The alternative, personified by Nigel Farage, is looking worse and worse.

Really? Why?

You think he's had a good month in the media?

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Financier, just from the headline, it sounds pathetic.

The Fallout games are a massive videogame series, but I was unimpressed when the firm involved had lawyers force a small indie game to change its name from something like Fallout Apocalypse (it was completely different, and nobody could've confused the series with the smaller game).

Sometimes similar naming is a serious issue (if I adopted the pen name JRR Tolkien, I dare say a lawyer might say hello) but sometimes organisations just throw their weight around.

I think the problem with Trademark is that it has to be defended; if you don't then you can lose it.

Therefore they sometimes go over the top on minor issues.

Of course, some people go over the top just because they can.

rcs1000 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

GIN1138 said:

Normal Lamon (who along with John Major - And a certain Mr D. Cameron - Bankrupted thousands of home owners in one day and destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years - All on the alter of the ERM) doesn't think much to the current shambles...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11686679/The-euro-was-doomed-from-the-start.html

I would dispute that. Lamont inherited the disaster that had been started by Major when as chancellor he persuaded Thatcher to join the ERM. Lamont was the one left holding the bomb when it went off and had the added problem of having the architect of the whole mess as his boss.

Major is a classic case of reaping what he sowed and does not deserve the Elder Statesman profile he enjoys today. It was he rather than Lamont who "destroyed the Tory Party as an election winning force for 20 years" .

I have always had sympathy for Lamont's position, but in the end he was the one shoving up interest rate's on a seemingly hourly basis, when it was obvious to everyone that we should just get the %^&* out of the thing...

And yet it was the getting the %^&* out (which was obviously the right thing to do I hasten to add) that resulted in the consequent complete loss of economic reputation for the Tories. Lamont was screwed whatever he did from the moment he accepted the position of Chancellor under a PM who had made such a catastrophic decision from that post a few years earlier.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think a great deal of the "incompetence" narrative comes from the massive profits reaped from Soros and others. The Tories - rightly or wrongly - were seen to have given 10s of billions of pounds to hedge fund managers. Had Lamont been better advised, he would have recognised that the UK government and the Bank of England could not have "bucked the market".

Like with Greece, it would have been better for the UK not to have joined the EMU in the first place (although it was probably less bad than the shadow DM peg that Nigel Lawson instituted). However, the moment it was recognised that the peg was doomed, it should have been abandoned.

As you say we should never have joined the ERM in the first place.Of course I have a similar view of the EU as a whole. I expect to be proved equally correct on that point in time as well.

nigel4england said:

antifrank said:

nigel4england said:

antifrank said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

The alternative, personified by Nigel Farage, is looking worse and worse.

Really? Why?

You think he's had a good month in the media?

He hasn't had a good time since he went way OTT during the debates with his appalling attack on HIV sufferers.

I don't see how that has made leaving the EU 'worse and worse' though.

Nigel Farage is the personification of leaving the EU. The public react accordingly.

nigel4england said:

foxinsoxuk said:

antifrank said:

nigel4england said:

antifrank said:

nigel4england said:

antifrank said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

The alternative, personified by Nigel Farage, is looking worse and worse.

Really? Why?

You think he's had a good month in the media?

He hasn't had a good time since he went way OTT during the debates with his appalling attack on HIV sufferers.

I don't see how that has made leaving the EU 'worse and worse' though.

Nigel Farage is the personification of leaving the EU. The public react accordingly.

UKIP did poorly in the Byelections on Thursday and were below the LDs for the first time in ages in the Evening Standard poll last week.

UKIP and Farage are a tarnished brand.

I agree, and Farage in particular.

But the likes of Kate Hoey will be campaigning for out, if you think it's all down to Farage you may be surprised.

It's deliciously ironic that it will end up being the Out campaign who complain most bitterly about how much undeserved coverage Farage gets on TV.

I've always suspected Farage desperately want's to stay in the EU, as leaving sort of destroy's his future (not to mention booting him and Mrs F off the gravy train)

I'm quite confident someone will "grasp the nettle" for NO though and take control of the campaign...

YES already looks very complacent...

Steve Baker raises the stakes:

https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/612166256507133952

GIN1138 said:

I've always suspected Farage desperately want's to stay in the EU, as leaving sort of destroy's his future (not to mention booting him and Mrs F off the gravy train)

I'm quite confident someone will "grasp the nettle" for NO though and take control of the campaign...

YES already looks very complacent...

I think people are attaching far too much importance to whether voters are pro or anti-Farage.

The government's enjoying its honeymoon, people are prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt, the dire headlines of 2011/12 have receded, and the MORI poll is in any case way out of line with other pollsters.

" “Greece’s problems are four-fold: they have one of the least flexible labour markets in the developed world, they collect too little tax, they think it is OK for civil servants to retire in their mid-50s, and corruption is rife. Leaving the Euro will not solve any of those issues.”

And he’s right. Indeed, there’s every reason to expect that a Greek government outside the Euro would use the flexibility that comes with an independent currency to put off solving those problems."

Huh? rcs was only listing Greece's supply-side problems (and not even all of those: lack of a credible land registry, for instance, is an important one). And nobody has argued that pulling out of the euro would solve those. What it would do, if default and devaluation work as they should in the best case scenario, is create a more bouyant economic climate for solving them, so that not every reform is associated with economic pain and failure. Greece COULD still mess up outside the eurozone, but it undoubtedly IS messing up inside it.

The demand-side problems are what are screwing Greece right now. The main ones are: a highly overvalued exchange rate, an insanely tight fiscal squeeze (from this point of view, Greece collects far too much tax) and a collapsing banking system (this is a supply-side problem, but its implications are mostly on the demand side). These simply not soluble within the eurozone, without an unthinkable level of charity from northern Europe.

Sean_F said:

GIN1138 said:

I've always suspected Farage desperately want's to stay in the EU, as leaving sort of destroy's his future (not to mention booting him and Mrs F off the gravy train)

I'm quite confident someone will "grasp the nettle" for NO though and take control of the campaign...

YES already looks very complacent...

I think people are attaching far too much importance to whether voters are pro or anti-Farage.

The government's enjoying its honeymoon, people are prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt, the dire headlines of 2011/12 have receded, and the MORI poll is in any case way out of line with other pollsters.

Currently, Cameron has a 49% approval rating, and the government has 43%. It's fair to assume that both numbers will be well down by Autumn 2016.

GIN1138 said:

I've always suspected Farage desperately want's to stay in the EU, as leaving sort of destroy's his future (not to mention booting him and Mrs F off the gravy train)

I'm quite confident someone will "grasp the nettle" for NO though and take control of the campaign...

YES already looks very complacent...

It is already happening. There is a Parliamentary Cross Party OUT campaign being organised at the moment with initial meetings to discuss who would be best placed to lead and how to get the widest possible spread of support. Currently involved are Steve Baker (Con), Douglas Carswell (UKIP), Kate Hoey (Lab), Kelvin Hopkins (Lab), Bernard Jenkin (Con), Owen Paterson (Con), and Graham Stringer (Lab). Also involved is Dominic Cummings.

They are already in talks with many of the long standing anti-EU groups who seem so far to be happy to work under their potential banner.

The key here will be getting a solid campaign group running that can rightly claim to be cross party. In that instance they have far more chance of sidelining Farage and so reducing the damage he might do.

GIN1138 said:

(not to mention booting him and Mrs F off the gravy train)

I think that's unfair. It's not Ukip and Farage's fault that PR is used for the Euro Elections and not for Westminster. I am sure Mr Farage would much rather be in the Commons.

"Vote Out and get your duty free allowance back"

A certain vote winner.

Fishing said:

"

The demand-side problems are what are screwing Greece right now. The main ones are: a highly overvalued exchange rate, an insanely tight fiscal squeeze (from this point of view, Greece collects far too much tax) and a collapsing banking system (this is a supply-side problem, but its implications are mostly on the demand side). These simply not soluble within the eurozone, without an unthinkable level of charity from northern Europe.

I think you are right.

Greece needs to defer its debt repayments until it can afford them, and reflate its economy.
Its creditors will not allow it to do this.

So Greece should take unilateral action. It should declare its own debt repayment schedule - take it or leave it - and start issuing Euro IOUs (I promise to pay the bearer one euro from 1 Jan 2020). These will trade at a discount to real Euros but that is fine. It can pay pensions, salaries, invest in infrastructure and generally boost demand.

It will be in technical default so it won't be able to borrow Euros but it can print its own IOUs. It will be a dual currency economy - still in the Eurozone but reflating its economy.

It should tell its creditors to take a jump. I guess that is what it is doing.

Sean_F said:

Support for In and Out has fluctuated sharply over the years.

The MORI poll finds the most popular position (a free trade area) is not the one that's on offer.

Indeed. It is interesting to dig into the figures of that poll that TSE was so keen to trumpet yesterday.

Given a choice of what they would like to see as far as the UK relationship with the EU goes:

13% said they want to leave
14% said they want closer union.

They are the ones with a clear black and white view

33% said they wanted a return to a economic Community with no political links
31% said they wanted the relationship to stay as it is now.

I don't think there is anyone on either side who is informed about the EU who believes either of these things are possible. They are not being offered and will not happen as long as we remain inside the EU.

So we have 27% of the electorate equally split who have a realistic view of the EU and 64% who are are wanting something they simply cannot have. Rather similar I suppose to the situation in Greece where people want their cake and eat it.

Oh and those numbers are no where near as bad as the headline figures TSE was pushing.

Richard_Tyndall said:

Indeed. It is interesting to dig into the figures of that poll that TSE was so keen to trumpet yesterday.

Given a choice of what they would like to see as far as the UK relationship with the EU goes:

13% said they want to leave
14% said they want closer union.

They are the ones with a clear black and white view

33% said they wanted a return to a economic Community with no political links
31% said they wanted the relationship to stay as it is now.

I don't see anything encouraging for your position in those numbers. If, as you say, the status quo is really 'closer union' then on these figures 45% would vote for it with a further 33% not wanting to be left out.

@JamesTapsfield: Jeremy Corbyn suggests EU renegotiation should be used to bolster union rights & rules on working conditions. Maybe in a parallel universe

williamglenn said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Indeed. It is interesting to dig into the figures of that poll that TSE was so keen to trumpet yesterday.

Given a choice of what they would like to see as far as the UK relationship with the EU goes:

13% said they want to leave
14% said they want closer union.

They are the ones with a clear black and white view

33% said they wanted a return to a economic Community with no political links
31% said they wanted the relationship to stay as it is now.

I don't see anything encouraging for your position in those numbers. If, as you say, the status quo is really 'closer union' then on these figures 45% would vote for it with a further 33% not wanting to be left out.

No. The point is that the status quo is not on offer and it then depends on how those voters split when they realise that is the case. The final choice is OUT or closer union. Neither of the other options is on offer.

That is the message that the OUT campaign will be concentrating on. There is no status quo option.

So how would you and the others on here waiting to see what Cameron delivers vote if that were the choice?

Indigo said:

JEO said:

foxinsoxuk said:

williamglenn said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

In some ways I think it's a proxy approval rating for Angela Merkel. The polls would look very different if Germany had a different leader.

I had an interesting conversation with a patient this week (a lull in the final Med School exams). His view (at the age of 70 and with two grandparents interned as Italian aliens) was that much British anti-europeanism dated from the emphasis in Britain on the two world wars. As these fade into history, and with the Cold war ending 3 decades ago, attitudes to Europe will become more positive.

I think that he had a point. Angel Merkel is not to be feared, and neither is Juncker. Europe is a different and more positive place than in previous decades.

Thats not true at all. 20 years ago the EU was just a single market with few if any demans on sovereignty. Now its integrating on matters monetary, fiscal and political. And trying for military unification too. Your claims also do not back up the polling. Support for out is lower than a few years ago but far higher than a decade or two ago.

Fox you really should consider changing the last two letters of your moniker to EU rather than UK, you clearly think the former is better than the latter and won't be happy until we are part of a federal United States of Europe, since that is the stated aim of the EU, which you are so keen to tie us ever closer to. You talk as if there is an option to continue as we are "just good friends" with the EU, but that isn't on the table, the two options available are "out" or "ever closer union", but dishonest Europhiles, which I hope you are not amongst would prefer the voters to believe that continuing as we are with that nice Mr Juncker is the end result of an IN referendum, where as every pronouncement from EU leaders, not to mention that founding articles of the EU show this to be a false and dangerous assumption.

The UK on my moniker is because on the Leicester city site there is another foxinsox.

I am proud to be British, which is one of several overlapping identities including being English, Leicesterian (by choice) and European.

I feel strong affinity with other Europeans and am perfectly capable of being fully British and fully European.

foxinsoxuk said:

Indigo said:

JEO said:

foxinsoxuk said:

williamglenn said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

In some ways I think it's a proxy approval rating for Angela Merkel. The polls would look very different if Germany had a different leader.

I had an interesting conversation with a patient this week (a lull in the final Med School exams). His view (at the age of 70 and with two grandparents interned as Italian aliens) was that much British anti-europeanism dated from the emphasis in Britain on the two world wars. As these fade into history, and with the Cold war ending 3 decades ago, attitudes to Europe will become more positive.

I think that he had a point. Angel Merkel is not to be feared, and neither is Juncker. Europe is a different and more positive place than in previous decades.

Thats not true at all. 20 years ago the EU was just a single market with few if any demans on sovereignty. Now its integrating on matters monetary, fiscal and political. And trying for military unification too. Your claims also do not back up the polling. Support for out is lower than a few years ago but far higher than a decade or two ago.

Fox you really should consider changing the last two letters of your moniker to EU rather than UK, you clearly think the former is better than the latter and won't be happy until we are part of a federal United States of Europe, since that is the stated aim of the EU, which you are so keen to tie us ever closer to. You talk as if there is an option to continue as we are "just good friends" with the EU, but that isn't on the table, the two options available are "out" or "ever closer union", but dishonest Europhiles, which I hope you are not amongst would prefer the voters to believe that continuing as we are with that nice Mr Juncker is the end result of an IN referendum, where as every pronouncement from EU leaders, not to mention that founding articles of the EU show this to be a false and dangerous assumption.

The UK on my moniker is because on the Leicester city site there is another foxinsox.

I am proud to be British, which is one of several overlapping identities including being English, Leicesterian (by choice) and European.

I feel strong affinity with other Europeans and am perfectly capable of being fully British and fully European.

It's impossible to be both British and European?

But, of course, they'll also tell you it's totally possible to be British and Scottish.

EPG said:

It's impossible to be both British and European?

But, of course, they'll also tell you it's totally possible to be British and Scottish.

"European" as an identity is artificial and meaningless.

foxinsoxuk said:

williamglenn said:

JonCisBack said:

So at the very time the EU is at its worst, and the whole thing looks like being in danger of collapse, the poll ratings for staying IN are the highest they have been for ages..?

WTF?

I really don't get it.

In some ways I think it's a proxy approval rating for Angela Merkel. The polls would look very different if Germany had a different leader.

I had an interesting conversation with a patient this week (a lull in the final Med School exams). His view (at the age of 70 and with two grandparents interned as Italian aliens) was that much British anti-europeanism dated from the emphasis in Britain on the two world wars. As these fade into history, and with the Cold war ending 3 decades ago, attitudes to Europe will become more positive.

I think that he had a point. Angel Merkel is not to be feared, and neither is Juncker. Europe is a different and more positive place than in previous decades.

I think it's much more deep-seated than that. There's a streak of bloddy-minded independence in the average Brit that simply doesn't like being told what to do. Even London is at best grudgingly accepted. And as you get further and further away, they are more and more resisted.

Whereas Europeans have had tiers of princelings for multiple generations and basically just ignore them rather than resist.