If 700,000 people went to London and just sat down in the streets. Refused to move until we got a second referendum. They might just bring the government down in the process.
Yes, I was thinking that. The French would be tearing up railway tracks and driving tractors down to Downing St. I suppose the Waitrose set are not going to do that.
Yes, I was thinking that. The French would be tearing up railway tracks and driving tractors down to Downing St. I suppose the Waitrose set are not going to do that.
What you are missing is that that's what we do for domestic disputes, when the "enemy" is perceived as being our own government, which traditionally then backs down (exception: Macron). The same applies to the Poll Tax, @Doc Tor. Good for toppling a domestic leader - but how does that get anybody any forrarder here?
As stated on the Brexit thread, what gets me about 90% of the Brexit debate now in the UK - including both sides, Leavers and Remainers - is the utter, utter, myopia. You all seem to have completely forgotten there are 27 Member States on the other side of the table waiting to see what you'll do and apparently believe they're more than prepared for their world to stop turning until you make your minds up.
Does anyone else think people in Britain sometimes overstate their influence?
Regularly. Especially those who advocate leaving the EU with the promise that the rest of the EU need us so much that they'll sign-up to any scrap of paper we put before them, and the rest of the world will be queuing up to make deals with us. Wishful thinking of monumental proportions, and definitely overstating their influence.
Does anyone else think people in Britain sometimes overstate their influence?
You only have to look at the rhetoric to see that. Apparently we won the war on our own (it wasn't just because we are an island, and so more difficult to invade). People want us to return to the Empire - which we haven't had for decades, and is irrelevant (we will never have that level of influence again. I doubt any country will, in the same way).
Most international business like us becasue a) we speak English and b) we are part of Europe. Possibly c) we have a good relationship with the US.
a) is becoming less important. b) is not going to be true. c) is becoming irrelevant, or a negative.
We are an arrogant small island that nobody will care about by the end of next year.
Nobody has mentioned Margaret Thatcher. Treeza may be anything but strong and stable but Thatcher was the other way round. Brought the country to its knees because she wanted to. There has never been a worse PM.
Agreed. But Cameron’s actions in calling for a referendum may be even more damaging long term.
Not just in calling the referendum (with such ill-defined options and a 50%+1 winning line) but for then bailing out and leaving the mess to someone else to sort out. I sometimes think that there might be case for charging him with crimes against the nation. Hang the blighter!
Still, I can be relatively calm in the knowledge that I now have Permanent Resident status in Canada. There's no way I am ever returning to a UK that has so foolishly cut its own throat.
I heard a British comedian on the radio do a show in Dublin about getting Irish citizenship through her Dad - Jo Lyons? Her wife is Dutch, and she reckoned they were a very competitive couple. Jo couldn't stand the thought of her wife beating her to the baggage carousel at Schiphol because Jo had to stand in the 'foreigners' line while her wife got waved through with her special EU pass.
It's funny, and I don't frequent the Brexit threads usually because my anti-English cricket related bias might seep out, but it is a fucking liberty that the Tories are putting you through this. You don't need Australians jeering at you...
I am disturbed by your level of rhetorical violence. The Honourable Member for Witney is, despite everything, a democratically elected representative, and the best way to deal with them is at ballot box, not the scaffold.
Does anyone else think people in Britain sometimes overstate their influence?
Regularly. Especially those who advocate leaving the EU with the promise that the rest of the EU need us so much that they'll sign-up to any scrap of paper we put before them, and the rest of the world will be queuing up to make deals with us. Wishful thinking of monumental proportions, and definitely overstating their influence.
Very few people even considered that. What swung it was a combination of 3 things
- a desire to give Cameron a bloody nose
- concern about immigration and jobs (rather whipped up)
- the promise of £350 million per week to the NHS (load of porkies)
Now the first group are realising what a bad idea revenge is and the third how much they have been duped. The middle group just don't see it
And those who were annoyed with the Government still want to vote against the current Government to show them what a poor job they are doing in agreeing a Brexit deal. Although they might want things put back to where they were before that is now impossible.
Those I know who voted Leave in an area that voted Remain really didn't really expect that a vote against the Cameron Government in the referendum would make anything change, it was just a protest vote, wasn't it? Everyone they spoke to was voting Remain. Whereas, where I was, in the outskirts of London, there was a big groundswell of anti-immigration feeling so I wasn't surprised when those areas voted Leave.
We are an arrogant small island that nobody will care about by the end of next year.
We also happen to be the fifth biggest economy in the world. Not bad for such an irrelevant speck of land somewhere off the north coast of the important places. Maybe one or two people will still care after all...
The world’s fifth largest economy is going to take a hammering after leaving the EU.
I feel a strange kind of muted grief at the whole thing. Once upon a time, I used to feel quite proud of my home country in that very British way that can’t say anything too good about itself. I’m now on my way to throwing my lot in with our old enemy the frogs, and I realise that part of me will feel more comfortable being French than being British. Because the UK has turned into a dismal fiasco that sold me and two million other British citizens in the EU down the river for no discernible benefit whatsoever.
Gibraltar (99% remain) is entirely dependent on its Spanish border for everything.
The Spanish would quite like Gib back, thank you very much, and the only thing that allows the UK to hold into the territory is that Spain can't blockade another EU country.
After March, that's not going to be the case, and I absolutely guarantee Spain will gradually ratchet up the border checks until they strangle Gibraltar into submission.
What, with Catalonia, the Basques, the increasingly vocal Galicians and various islanders who like to do things their own way (and yes, a Castilian people who want Spain to be a "Greater Castile") does Madrid really need another stroppy and distinctly united community?
I see Treeza is now under fire for lying in PMQs yesterday. I find this surprising, really. It's not that she usually tells the truth - she doesn't - it's just that her words are usually so vacuous that values such as True and False just don't apply.
We are an arrogant small island that nobody will care about by the end of next year.
We also happen to be the fifth biggest economy in the world. Not bad for such an irrelevant speck of land somewhere off the north coast of the important places. Maybe one or two people will still care after all...
We are a lot further down the list if the Square Mile is removed. Our financial services sector does a lot of business much of that is due to the "Financial Services" freedom conferred by membership of the EU (which is attractive to third-party countries the EU). When it comes to industry proper our standing is far lower and an awful lot of that is foreign-owned. Then there is the charming James Dyson (who makes the machines that suck) who exported thousands of jobs, showing what he things of Great Britain.
The UK might have been the 5th largest economy in terms of GDP (though, whether that's a good thing would be an interesting discussion). But, we certainly aren't after ten years of a government intent on suppressing economic growth through the strangling of investment in the name of "austerity". And, the last two years spent driving business out of the UK in blind obedience to a few neo-fascists.
I am disturbed by your level of rhetorical violence. The Honourable Member for Witney is, despite everything, a democratically elected representative, and the best way to deal with them is at ballot box, not the scaffold.
No more, please.
DT
HH
No quarrel with your hostly ruling or the general sentiment, but Mr Cameron hasn’t been the member for Witney for a couple of years now. Pedant? Moi? Surely not!
Oh, he's an utter cockwomble whom the future will treat as just another wankstain on the already much-sullied page of this particular part of history, and clearly of such national importance that I didn't even realise he'd gone.
I'll break out the world's smallest violin as I lament his 'career'.
Are there many popular peacetime PMs of postwar Britain? I don't know enough to comment. Also, most of what I know about modern British politics comes from satirical radio programmes, and they often have a certain slant. Competent is not funny.
Well, Atlee certainly wasn't funny but he was highly competent, even though some of what he did was, with hindsight, mistaken, especially the rush to Indian Independence, with all the tragedy that involved. And anyone who lived through the starving winter of 1947 as I did would be well aware of what a botch was made of both food and coal supplies. But at least you could get all your medical needs seen to free of charge, a wonderful idea which some benighted backwaters still regard as wicked. (And yes, USA, I've got you right in my sights here.)
But part of being a great PM is surely to do with who you appoint to your cabinet. Treeza has stuffed hers with fools and self-interested idiots and hypocrites, though in fairness it has to be said that her back benches aren't exactly full of sensible and competent individuals from which she could have made a better choice.
We also happen to be the fifth biggest economy in the world.
Sixth. And falling.
That is important - on the way down. Most interest will be in the fire sale post-brexit. The financial services sector is already looking at moving, and their contribution to our nation is questionable. While the impact to our economic indicators would suffer, I am not sure how much it would really impact us if some of them left. They seem to put a large portion of their money in other coutnries anyway. And the banks still owe us several billion.
I understand some Brexiteers have already arranged to conduct business based in the EU rather than Britain. Patriots, one and all...
All the leading, loudest ones. Of course. All the ones still saying "Project Fear" and "We are better outside the EU" and "We have had a peoples vote".
Are there many popular peacetime PMs of postwar Britain? I don't know enough to comment. Also, most of what I know about modern British politics comes from satirical radio programmes, and they often have a certain slant. Competent is not funny.
Had he more support from his party I'm sure Harold Wilson would have had fewer knives in his back and therefore a better reputation. He was after all PM from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976 (when he quit suddenly, on health grounds) and (just) kept Britain out of the Vietnam War. Amongst others Gordon Brown was honest and competent. He can't be held responsible for securitised lending which is at the root of the credit crunch/recession/whatever you want to call it.
Wilson had Alzeheimer's. Other people had noticed (presumably including his wife), and it was a matter of urgency for him to stand down.
As for Brown, history will treat him far kinder than we do now. He had to make split second decisions that would either cost trillions or everything, and that we're not (yet) eating rat-on-a-stick is a testament that he got us through.
For sure, I would have done things differently (like not handing banks a blank cheque, but buying part or all of their loan book in return for recapitalisation), but that's in hindsight.
Wilson had Alzeheimer's. Other people had noticed (presumably including his wife), and it was a matter of urgency for him to stand down.
As for Brown, history will treat him far kinder than we do now. He had to make split second decisions that would either cost trillions or everything, and that we're not (yet) eating rat-on-a-stick is a testament that he got us through.
For sure, I would have done things differently (like not handing banks a blank cheque, but buying part or all of their loan book in return for recapitalisation), but that's in hindsight.
When innumerable ordinary people contributed to the fund for those bereaved and otherwise affected by the Aberfan disaster, Wilson, with the approval (or at the urging) of George Thomas, later Lord Tonypandy, took their generous contributions and just gave them to the National Coal Board to pay for coal-tip removal; the money was finally repaid just a few years ago, minus interest.
Wilson was a cheating, conniving bastard, and Tonypandy was just as bad, and very possibly worse.
I do think Gordon Brown was a very much better person than anyone since (or immediately before). Whether he would have made a good PM longer term, it is hard to say. But he did good work when in power.
Of course, he inherited a shitpile. He was never going to do well.
I do think Gordon Brown was a very much better person than anyone since (or immediately before). Whether he would have made a good PM longer term, it is hard to say. But he did good work when in power.
Of course, he inherited a shitpile. He was never going to do well.
I'd have more sympathy for this view if he hadn't been Chancellor for the entire previous government. The shitpile he inherited was at least partly of his own making.
On the telly a few days ago, the sneering George Osborne was trotting out the old lie that the financial crisis of 2008 was due to Labour profligacy.
Certainly they did some stupid things - the Iraq war and PFI to name just two - but the crisis was caused by Osborne's banker friends and no-one else; and it should be remembered that the UK economy under Brown was beginning to recover when Osborne slammed on the brakes and caused all the problems we've had since, right down to and including Brexit.
Osborne and his half-witted friend Cameron have been the source of many woes, but even they weren't as thoroughly vacuous, dishonest and plain stupid as Treeza.
I'm stuffed. Born of Brits, and married a Brit born of Brits. I could possibly swing an Israeli passport, but in the circumstances, that's a bit of a frying pan and fire scenario
I have a second citizenship but again it's rock and hard place stuff.
It should be remembered that the UK economy under Brown was beginning to recover when Osborne slammed on the brakes and caused all the problems we've had since, right down to and including Brexit.
Precisely this - the biggest crisis we were facing he was dealing with. Osborne didn't deal with it.
Partly, I'll give you. Partly more than me, I'll give you that too. But 'partly' makes it sound like he was responsible, which he wasn't.
It's pretty widely accepted that a lack of regulation on banks and financial markets was what caused the crash. Financial regulation is, ISTM, squarely within the remit of the Chancellor. And who had been Chancellor for the entire decade prior to the crash?
It required a global solution, as it was a global problem. Partly Bown's fault, I've already conceded. And partly the fault of every other finance minister in almost every other nation, which makes Brown's culpability a small fraction of the total.
The Tories, of course, kicked all this off, and were championing complete deregulation. It could have been worse.
Comments
But we're spineless. The Poll Tax 'riots' worked.
Leading politicians don't care what people think. We need to reveal their dodgy financial dealings - money is the only thing that motivates them.
Short of the baseball bat in the face that so many of them are asking for,
Look at you, waving your sensibility around defensively in an idiocy fight. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
What you are missing is that that's what we do for domestic disputes, when the "enemy" is perceived as being our own government, which traditionally then backs down (exception: Macron). The same applies to the Poll Tax, @Doc Tor. Good for toppling a domestic leader - but how does that get anybody any forrarder here?
As stated on the Brexit thread, what gets me about 90% of the Brexit debate now in the UK - including both sides, Leavers and Remainers - is the utter, utter, myopia. You all seem to have completely forgotten there are 27 Member States on the other side of the table waiting to see what you'll do and apparently believe they're more than prepared for their world to stop turning until you make your minds up.
Does anyone else think people in Britain sometimes overstate their influence? Has Blair been unfairly pilloried, as is suggested here?
It's quite possible to be on the wrong side of history, and at the same time overstate your influence on it.
Not just in calling the referendum (with such ill-defined options and a 50%+1 winning line) but for then bailing out and leaving the mess to someone else to sort out. I sometimes think that there might be case for charging him with crimes against the nation. Hang the blighter!
Still, I can be relatively calm in the knowledge that I now have Permanent Resident status in Canada. There's no way I am ever returning to a UK that has so foolishly cut its own throat.
It's funny, and I don't frequent the Brexit threads usually because my anti-English cricket related bias might seep out, but it is a fucking liberty that the Tories are putting you through this. You don't need Australians jeering at you...
The show did talk about how many others are doing the same thing.
Absolutely, so would I.
I wouldn’t be missed, but the 100s of scientists and professionals who are considering it will.
My son has German citizenship and I’m mighty relieved about that. I feel that he’s safe whatever pigs ear of a country we become.
I am disturbed by your level of rhetorical violence. The Honourable Member for Witney is, despite everything, a democratically elected representative, and the best way to deal with them is at ballot box, not the scaffold.
No more, please.
DT
HH
Very few people even considered that. What swung it was a combination of 3 things
- a desire to give Cameron a bloody nose
- concern about immigration and jobs (rather whipped up)
- the promise of £350 million per week to the NHS (load of porkies)
Now the first group are realising what a bad idea revenge is and the third how much they have been duped. The middle group just don't see it
Those I know who voted Leave in an area that voted Remain really didn't really expect that a vote against the Cameron Government in the referendum would make anything change, it was just a protest vote, wasn't it? Everyone they spoke to was voting Remain. Whereas, where I was, in the outskirts of London, there was a big groundswell of anti-immigration feeling so I wasn't surprised when those areas voted Leave.
Nah, you're adorbs! Castles, cathedrals and cute accents.
We'll care. Just not in a way you'll like.
We also happen to be the fifth biggest economy in the world. Not bad for such an irrelevant speck of land somewhere off the north coast of the important places. Maybe one or two people will still care after all...
I feel a strange kind of muted grief at the whole thing. Once upon a time, I used to feel quite proud of my home country in that very British way that can’t say anything too good about itself. I’m now on my way to throwing my lot in with our old enemy the frogs, and I realise that part of me will feel more comfortable being French than being British. Because the UK has turned into a dismal fiasco that sold me and two million other British citizens in the EU down the river for no discernible benefit whatsoever.
What, with Catalonia, the Basques, the increasingly vocal Galicians and various islanders who like to do things their own way (and yes, a Castilian people who want Spain to be a "Greater Castile") does Madrid really need another stroppy and distinctly united community?
Sixth. And falling.
Mind, when torching someone's house represents more GDP than not torching someone's house, GDP as a measure is not worth much anyway.
A Red, White and Blue Brexit anyone?
We are a lot further down the list if the Square Mile is removed. Our financial services sector does a lot of business much of that is due to the "Financial Services" freedom conferred by membership of the EU (which is attractive to third-party countries the EU). When it comes to industry proper our standing is far lower and an awful lot of that is foreign-owned. Then there is the charming James Dyson (who makes the machines that suck) who exported thousands of jobs, showing what he things of Great Britain.
No quarrel with your hostly ruling or the general sentiment, but Mr Cameron hasn’t been the member for Witney for a couple of years now. Pedant? Moi? Surely not!
To find he is no longer a sitting MP is something that had passed me by completely.
Not that I can now approve violence on his person...
Maybe not, but he no longer enjoys parliamentary privilege. I am sure there is some mileage in that.
I'll break out the world's smallest violin as I lament his 'career'.
But part of being a great PM is surely to do with who you appoint to your cabinet. Treeza has stuffed hers with fools and self-interested idiots and hypocrites, though in fairness it has to be said that her back benches aren't exactly full of sensible and competent individuals from which she could have made a better choice.
That is important - on the way down. Most interest will be in the fire sale post-brexit. The financial services sector is already looking at moving, and their contribution to our nation is questionable. While the impact to our economic indicators would suffer, I am not sure how much it would really impact us if some of them left. They seem to put a large portion of their money in other coutnries anyway. And the banks still owe us several billion.
All the leading, loudest ones. Of course. All the ones still saying "Project Fear" and "We are better outside the EU" and "We have had a peoples vote".
Fuck the lot of them.
Had he more support from his party I'm sure Harold Wilson would have had fewer knives in his back and therefore a better reputation. He was after all PM from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976 (when he quit suddenly, on health grounds) and (just) kept Britain out of the Vietnam War. Amongst others Gordon Brown was honest and competent. He can't be held responsible for securitised lending which is at the root of the credit crunch/recession/whatever you want to call it.
As for Brown, history will treat him far kinder than we do now. He had to make split second decisions that would either cost trillions or everything, and that we're not (yet) eating rat-on-a-stick is a testament that he got us through.
For sure, I would have done things differently (like not handing banks a blank cheque, but buying part or all of their loan book in return for recapitalisation), but that's in hindsight.
When innumerable ordinary people contributed to the fund for those bereaved and otherwise affected by the Aberfan disaster, Wilson, with the approval (or at the urging) of George Thomas, later Lord Tonypandy, took their generous contributions and just gave them to the National Coal Board to pay for coal-tip removal; the money was finally repaid just a few years ago, minus interest.
Wilson was a cheating, conniving bastard, and Tonypandy was just as bad, and very possibly worse.
Of course, he inherited a shitpile. He was never going to do well.
I'd have more sympathy for this view if he hadn't been Chancellor for the entire previous government. The shitpile he inherited was at least partly of his own making.
Certainly they did some stupid things - the Iraq war and PFI to name just two - but the crisis was caused by Osborne's banker friends and no-one else; and it should be remembered that the UK economy under Brown was beginning to recover when Osborne slammed on the brakes and caused all the problems we've had since, right down to and including Brexit.
Osborne and his half-witted friend Cameron have been the source of many woes, but even they weren't as thoroughly vacuous, dishonest and plain stupid as Treeza.
I have a second citizenship but again it's rock and hard place stuff.
I read that as "now that I can approve..."
Precisely this - the biggest crisis we were facing he was dealing with. Osborne didn't deal with it.
It's pretty widely accepted that a lack of regulation on banks and financial markets was what caused the crash. Financial regulation is, ISTM, squarely within the remit of the Chancellor. And who had been Chancellor for the entire decade prior to the crash?
The Tories, of course, kicked all this off, and were championing complete deregulation. It could have been worse.