FrancisUrquhart said:

Does anybody seriously believe that if we left the EU, the government wouldn't have an immigration system whereby doctors and nurses couldn't come to the UK? Oh wait, we already have that for the rest of the world, hence why we have loads of non-EU staff already.

Its been very difficult to get a visa for Non-EU docs in recent years, I have had to jump through hoops to employ some.

Being in the EU means that the EU docs (and nurses) can register with the GMC easily, Its not just a visa thing, but the whole package of recogniton of professional qualifications.

nigel4england said:

Tykejohnno said:

SouthamObserver said:

TCPoliticalBetting said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Rooney's not getting back in this team whilst Vardy and Kane are fit

If only true. Two decent centre backs and we walk the Euro's.

Yep, the centre backs do look to be the weak link. If only Ledley King had not been forced to retire.

Injury hit jones of Man U i like the look of,Stones of Everton looks Quality but the Slug like Phil Jagieka will be taken with smalling and cahill.

I think Jones is terrible, I pray he is not fit.

For England he hasn't let the side down,when he and smalling came together in the last group game of the last world cup,both looked good together.

Pulpstar said:

Hillary's national support is a mile wide and an inch deep. No one wants to wait for hours to vote for her. She'll need those superdelegates to get over the line.

Don't go all caucus poncey boots.

Clinton will win comfortably without the Super Delegates and massively with them.

JackW said:

Pulpstar said:

Hillary's national support is a mile wide and an inch deep. No one wants to wait for hours to vote for her. She'll need those superdelegates to get over the line.

Don't go all caucus poncey boots.

Clinton will win comfortably without the Super Delegates and massively with them.

Are there any more caucuses left ? Also Washington is very much white, liberal and rural ;p

runnymede said:

'I could never vote for one of these scaremongering idiots as my constituency MP, the way they have insulted people's intelligence is beyond contempt.'

Agreed.

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Pulpstar said:

JackW said:

Pulpstar said:

Hillary's national support is a mile wide and an inch deep. No one wants to wait for hours to vote for her. She'll need those superdelegates to get over the line.

Don't go all caucus poncey boots.

Clinton will win comfortably without the Super Delegates and massively with them.

Are there any more caucuses left ? Also Washington is very much white, liberal and rural ;p

The contest will pivot in a few weeks to areas of much greater Clinton strength where her margins will be significant. Effectively the nomination is over but it suits both Clinton and Saunders for the race to continue.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/labour-chief-whip-rosie-winterton-furious-corbyn-loyalty-list

I believe like ones credit rating she is trying to appeal that they have made a mistake in relation to some old debts...

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Sod off

runnymede said:

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Sod off

May I quote you on that?

nigel4england said:

runnymede said:

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Sod off

That's what I was thinking, pompous prat.

@runnymede might be a rude and charmless cretin but naming him a "pompous prat" is overstating his qualities by some margin.

TheScreamingEagles said:

The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union, health secretary Jeremy Hunt says.
In a controversial intervention in the Brexit debate, Hunt warns in an Observer article that leaving will create risks to levels of service and investment and could trigger a loss of key staff that will leave gaps on the NHS frontline.

Since the world will end for all of us with Brexit, we will have no fking use for an NHS.

nigel4england said:

JackW said:

nigel4england said:

runnymede said:

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Sod off

That's what I was thinking, pompous prat.

@runnymede might be a rude and charmless cretin but naming him a "pompous prat" is overstating his qualities by some margin.

Most amusing Jack, really.

Thank you.

On the substance of the matter. I take it @runnymede posts to make informed comments with the opportunity for others to reply. The 'quote' facility makes this dialogue much easier to follow. My earlier comment was well meant and intended to assist him.

Why he took offence is frankly bizarre.

Good evening (or should I say good night, given that it's 11:08pm).

Why is it every time England win a friendly, social media, pundits etc have to go over the top and start talking about winning the Euros and so on? Why not just enjoy the win, take the performance what it was - a very good one - and see how things go in the summer? We have read one million things into friendlies, especially in friendly games playing Germany in the past and we've all seen how that story has ended.

And well, politics has certainly been interesting in the last few weeks. Did not see IDS' resignation coming. It's hard to say just how genuine he is, though. I suspect Europe did factor into his decision, but he probably also resented the way, Osborne attempted to turn his universal credit plan into a mere budget-cutting exercise. After seeing that YouGov poll regarding Osborne as a potential PM, his chances for the Tory leadership should be well and truly done. He doesn't appear to have that many friends in the party these days, and certainly doesn't seem to really enthuse the public.

I am actually glad Corbyn has flopped in these past couple of weeks. I just know that his supporters would have held on to any decent performance at PMQs, and in response to the budget. McDonnell is far better communicator than Corbyn, but he's also a problematic figure. If Labour don't move against Corbyn this summer, he's probably going to hang on until 2020.

TCPoliticalBetting said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union, health secretary Jeremy Hunt says.
In a controversial intervention in the Brexit debate, Hunt warns in an Observer article that leaving will create risks to levels of service and investment and could trigger a loss of key staff that will leave gaps on the NHS frontline.

Since the world will end for all of us with Brexit, we will have no fking use for an NHS.

I thinking of making a similar case to Mrs JackW over retail shoe therapy ....

Not hopeful ....

Good night PBers ....

FrancisUrquhart said:

Two Belgian nuclear power plant workers have joined ISIS

One of the men, reportedly known as Ilyass Boughalab, is believed to have been killed in Syria, while the second served a short prison sentence in Belgium for terror-related offences in 2014.

With an extensive understanding of nuclear facilities, the convict's short jail sentence has raised further questioned of the Belgian security services as well as fears he may have passed on important knowledge about the site's to the terrorist group.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3510384/Belgian-nuclear-plant-guard-murdered-security-pass-stolen-two-days-Brussels-attacks.html

Belgian police say the claim about a security pass being stolen was made up, and the murder of the security guard has no particular terrorism angle.
http://mobile.lesoir.be/1163392/article/actualite/belgique/2016-03-26/meurtre-d-un-agent-securite-froidchapelle-piste-terroriste-dementie

nigel4england said:

JackW said:

nigel4england said:

JackW said:

nigel4england said:

runnymede said:

Please use the 'quote' facility otherwise at times your posts are unintelligible.

Thank you.

Sod off

That's what I was thinking, pompous prat.

@runnymede might be a rude and charmless cretin but naming him a "pompous prat" is overstating his qualities by some margin.

Most amusing Jack, really.

Thank you.

On the substance of the matter. I take it @runnymede posts to make informed comments with the opportunity for others to reply. The 'quote' facility makes this dialogue much easier to follow. My earlier comment was well meant and intended to assist him.

Why he took offence is frankly bizarre.

Perhaps you could try to be a little less condescending

Perhaps I should have been less tactful, direct, accurate and polite and told @runnymede to get a f*cking grip and learn the essentials of the site or LEAVE and take his unintelligible drivel with him - That's condescending.

MyBurningEars said:

foxinsoxuk said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Does anybody seriously believe that if we left the EU, the government wouldn't have an immigration system whereby doctors and nurses couldn't come to the UK? Oh wait, we already have that for the rest of the world, hence why we have loads of non-EU staff already.

Its been very difficult to get a visa for Non-EU docs in recent years, I have had to jump through hoops to employ some.

Being in the EU means that the EU docs (and nurses) can register with the GMC easily, Its not just a visa thing, but the whole package of recogniton of professional qualifications.

I can't get my head around the "Being in the EU means that the EU docs (and nurses) can register with the GMC easily, Its not just a visa thing, but the whole package of recogniton of professional qualifications" argument, doc.

If the UK government so desired to recognise certain foreign qualifications etc then why couldn't it, regardless of whether the UK is in or out of the EU?

In principle one could imagine circumstances in which it might be desirable to recognise such qualifications from non-EU member states, and/or to withdraw blanket recognition those from particular EU member states that had proven problematic (the latter course of action being very difficult if the UK remains in the EU) or include additional requirements/restrictions along the lines of language fluency for instance.

I'm not making a case for leaving here, I'm just confused as to why this should constitute an argument for staying in. It strikes me as very similar to the silly arguments along the line of "if Britain leaves the EU, it will levy tariffs on EU goods/services which will make them more expensive, stoking inflation and screwing the poor - therefore the UK should stay in the EU" (which I've seen some people argue, but which seems to me to miss the point completely - we get to decide our own tariffs; the problem isn't so much with imports as that it might make exporting harder, to the detriment of employers and employees alike).

This isn't a silly argument, you have to assess what would actually happen given the voters and political incentives Britain has, not what could theoretically happen if you were benevolent dictator. And the best guide to that is what Britain currently does when it isn't restricted by EU rules.

As the arguments pro/con Brexit have intensified and the view of the EU become more polarised, one of the more saddening effects is the meme that the French were not allies during the Falklands. If reliability was adjudged by having supplied arms to Argentina then we would have to indict the US and ourselves: many Argentinian ships were former USN or RN, alongside the French-built Super Etendards flew the US-built Skyhawks, and British-built Type 42 destroyers sailed for both the RN and Argentinian Navy. Urban myth states that the Argentine pilot who bombed the Sir Galahad, and the British soldiers that it killed, both spoke Welsh...which is one of those stories too good to check.

And if you're going to quote John Nott, one of the three people to authorise the Order in Council setting up the Task Force, well the least I can do is quote one of the other two:

"...I was particularly grateful to President Mitterrand, who with the leaders of the Old Commonwealth, was among the staunchest of our friends and who telephoned me personally to pledge support on Saturday. (I was to have many disputes with President Mitterrand in later years, but I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support on this occasion and throughout the Falklands crisis)..."

Margaret Thatcher The Downing Street Years (1993), pp173-85

runnymede said:

Sir John Nott

"We asked Mitterrand not to give assistance to the Argentinians. If you're asking me: 'Are the French duplicitous people?' the answer is: 'Of course they are, and they always have been.'"

The_Apocalypse said:

Good evening (or should I say good night, given that it's 11:08pm).

Why is it every time England win a friendly, social media, pundits etc have to go over the top and start talking about winning the Euros and so on? Why not just enjoy the win, take the performance what it was - a very good one - and see how things go in the summer? We have read one million things into friendlies, especially in friendly games playing Germany in the past and we've all seen how that story has ended.

And well, politics has certainly been interesting in the last few weeks. Did not see IDS' resignation coming. It's hard to say just how genuine he is, though. I suspect Europe did factor into his decision, but he probably also resented the way, Osborne attempted to turn his universal credit plan into a mere budget-cutting exercise. After seeing that YouGov poll regarding Osborne as a potential PM, his chances for the Tory leadership should be well and truly done. He doesn't appear to have that many friends in the party these days, and certainly doesn't seem to really enthuse the public.

I am actually glad Corbyn has flopped in these past couple of weeks. I just know that his supporters would have held on to any decent performance at PMQs, and in response to the budget. McDonnell is far better communicator than Corbyn, but he's also a problematic figure. If Labour don't move against Corbyn this summer, he's probably going to hang on until 2020.

Probably. Given the Tory civil war, he may even win! Seems unlikely even in those circumstances, but these are strate times.

EPG said:

Imagine the outrage if LEAVE wins but the Tories under May or Gove accept EEA and continue the current immigration policy! Given that the negotiations and implementation would surely continue until 2019 at earliest, Ukip would have a field day with the soft Referendum Tories this time and thus Labour might win the election
So LEAVE supporters may have to accept that LEAVE means EFTA at best and an end to immigration

Leave means having the ability to elect a government that can make these choices.

Relating leave to policy decisions of a potential future administration entirely misses the point

It's about democracy and sovereignty

RodCrosby said:

ThreeQuidder said:

JackW said:

Pulpstar said:

JackW said:

Pulpstar said:

Hillary's national support is a mile wide and an inch deep. No one wants to wait for hours to vote for her. She'll need those superdelegates to get over the line.

Don't go all caucus poncey boots.

Clinton will win comfortably without the Super Delegates and massively with them.

Are there any more caucuses left ? Also Washington is very much white, liberal and rural ;p

The contest will pivot in a few weeks to areas of much greater Clinton strength where her margins will be significant. Effectively the nomination is over but it suits both Clinton and Saunders for the race to continue.

Sanders!

Someone should make him an honorary colonel...

He's Clinton kickin' good.

edmundintokyo said:

This isn't a silly argument, you have to assess what would actually happen given the voters and political incentives Britain has, not what could theoretically happen if you were benevolent dictator. And the best guide to that is what Britain currently does when it isn't restricted by EU rules.

While I can see some value in your counter-argument, I don't think that your "best guide" is particularly good. Geographical proximity and economic ties make it unlikely that rest-of-EU would get treated the same way as outside-EU does now. Moreover, even if we did switch to treating "remaining-EU" and "outside-EU" the same on some matters, then it's really not clear that we'd do so by treating the former as we currently treat the latter. Incentives change.

For instance, we are quite at liberty to allow low-skill migration from poorer, English-speaking Commonwealth countries, but currently are pretty strict on it. The EU doesn't prevent us from loosening up. But because the EU currently provides us with as many low-skill migrants as we might need, we have no incentive to do so. If we leave the EU, it is not inconceivable we could switch to a system that gives more priority to English-speakers if we leave the EU (points for language skills would hardly be an international novelty) and then the situation of, say, Romanians and Jamaicans become quite different - both to each other, and to the current set-up. High-skill migration faces somewhat different pressures, but it's hard to believe a government that faces a shortage of doctors would demonstrate complete inflexibility. (I acknowledge that governments are capable of self-sabotage, particularly if desperate to hit net migration targets.)

Test

AndyJS said:

I'm veering towards supporting Remain at the moment, although it's got nothing to do with the Remain campaign which has been dreadful IMO.

I'm going to decide on the arguments.

Therefore I am not paying the least attention to either campaign, as they have yet to put forward any actual arguments.

Happy Easter

ydoethur said:

AndyJS said:

I'm veering towards supporting Remain at the moment, although it's got nothing to do with the Remain campaign which has been dreadful IMO.

I'm going to decide on the arguments.

Therefore I am not paying the least attention to either campaign, as they have yet to put forward any actual arguments.

I will be voting Remain. Ultimately like much politics it depends more on gut feeling than anything else. Few people make a decision to vote after carefully weighing up the political manifestoes, even if these bore a resemblance to reality. Can Trump really force the Mexicans to build a wall? Or ban Muslims from America for example?

I like the EU and its institutions, and think that we are a positive influence in Europe and it is a positive influence on us.