Which British brand has gone downhill and is making worse cars than before?
Which brand of cars is still British? It is one industry we did manage to ruin. Luckily we do or did excel at a few others.
it is very odd that Chewkw has suddenly become coherent and seems to be advocating all assembly/factory jobs should be shed in favour of high tech ones. While the idea that high tech jobs can add more value could be sound, not everyone can do a high tech job.
mind you once the borders are controlled and the empire re-established we can import highly skilled people and drop all the serfs into the sea...
Note that the "labour playing the clever waiting game" still requires them to not win an election before brexit has been seen to fail. It would help to explain Corbyn's dire performance but there is a more straightforward explanation for that.
how many people on here understand how national and local government works? Who their representatives at each level are? What the responsibilities of the government and the individual are? How to voice displeasure at each level?
i understand some basics but am pretty ignorant. Non of this was taught at school…
I'm not one for conspiracy theories but ....I wonder why non of this is taught at school.
However, like you I understand some basics yet the more I understand the more shambolic the "democracy"
Whether its cash or questions or obvious conflicts of interest our own system seems far from democratic if the basis of this is if you don't like something an elected representative does you don't need to vote for that person.. be it local or regional or national...
How many people on here can say which acts their MP actually bothered to turn up to vote for just this session let alone if they voted the way they would have elected them to vote? Not that I'd expect my MP to vote every time how I'd want them to vote but on balance they should be mostly voting the way I'd like or I voted for the wrong MP. My point is most of us have no clue... has anyone ever checked what their MP voted on something really important and then asked why they voted the way they did?
Local is no different... we had a consultation last year on speed reduction measures on our avenue.
I don't know a single person expressed a preference to implement them... (I'm sure some may have) but after I mentioned this to someone in the know they just laughed and said the contract was already promised... consultation was a formality they had no intention of even reading. I wasn't convinced until they named the contractor and then 3 months later... yep...
Which British brand has gone downhill and is making worse cars than before?
Bentley
Ford
Land Rover
Caterham
RR
UK component parts import ... crikey at 78.8%
Motor vehicle trade between the UK and its main EU partners
Just go check it out yourself on those websites ...
and the next twist, May stating no new referendum in this parliament, but also making It clear work with chequers or GE.
sub text GE and new referendum if chequers fails.
messy.
Hang on… THM is on a ban and chewkw is suddenly posting several times a day?
Nah! Chewkw can copy and paste links.
When the EU bureaucratic system starts to object or interfere with the individual nation, it is essentially over ruling democracy by imposing their own views.
How is that overriding democracy?
If (just for example) a country voted not to leave the EU would it be overriding democracy for a Union to override that because more members of the union disagreed?
Nation states essentially exist to limit individual freedom.
Most of what they do can be done by councils (albeit you’d need a large council).
However councils don’t tell me I’m not allowed to work in (say) Leeds because I was born in Hull. Or that need special paperwork to do so.
Councils don’t impose import tariffs on each other to stop / limit me doing business with another council area.
Councils don’t declare war on each other (physical or tariff). Actually bureaucracies don’t either - that tends to be elected politicians.
Nation states came into being for the benefit of the ruler / ruling class.
i look forward to the end of nation states and the increase in personal freedom that will bring.
In so far as the EU breaks down borders and diminishes nation states it is a brilliant thing.
if Chewkw you wish to live under the yoke of the Westminster elite and their ilk (eg BoJo, JRM, Farage, etc) thatvis your choice - I wish you didn’t want to impose your anti-freedom values on the rest of us.
it is very odd that Chewkw has suddenly become coherent and seems to be advocating all assembly/factory jobs should be shed in favour of high tech ones.
You have just twisted my words.
I did Not say shed jobs but actually said most high teach manufacturing in car components are in the hands of EU while UK get the very basic left overs.
Nevermind Chewkw, after Brexit the EU can have the rest of the car jobs too. 😘
Incidentally given where the car giants site their research centres I’m not sure you can actually make the broad generalisation you have. I think they are shared around.
Nah! Chewkw can copy and paste links.
Those are interesting statistical information. 😀
Nevermind Chewkw, after Brexit the EU can have the rest of the car jobs too.
That is why it is important to start bringing back some high end technology development unless people are happy becoming the assembly "robots"
How is that overriding democracy?
If (just for example) a country voted not to leave the EU would it be overriding democracy for a Union to override that because more members of the union disagreed?
Refer to the case of Hungary.
Those are interesting statistical information.
Yup proof we need to stay in the EU.
Do you mean the focus is getting the Party to win over the importance of the Nation?
That's the focus of any of our political parties and why being in the EU is a good idea. It acts as a moderator to those short sighted halfwits we have running this country.
I wish you didn’t want to impose your anti-freedom values on the rest of us.
Do as you wish as I don't impose on you other than use my vote in a democracy.
Not sure I can vote for the EU bureaucrats though.
That’s the focus of any of our political parties and why being in the EU is a good idea. It acts as a moderator to those short sighted halfwits we have running this country.
Interesting view that. 😀
Yup proof we need to stay in the EU.
Read and interpret the statistic as you wish. 😀
Folks, ok enough for the day ... me dinner time now.
See below
Not sure I can vote for the EU bureaucrats though.
Not sure you can vote for Whitehall bureaucrats either. Or council officers
But you can vote for MEPs just like MPs or councillors. Of course if one votes for UKIP layabouts who don’t bother to do their job as MEPs...
You struggle a bit with democracy Chewkw, don’t you. Get yourself a good textbook.
This is a public service announcement in support of the killfile. Since installing it, my STW forum experience has improved by 98.7%.
Chewk, how many members of the WTO have been voted for?
None. Yet they will force my government to make me to put my prices up.
A sovereign nation bowing down to some unelected bankers in a foreign country.
That sounds like taking back control to me.
how many people on here understand how national and local government works? Who their representatives at each level are? What the responsibilities of the government and the individual are? How to voice displeasure at each level?
I am a political geek and have been for decades. I do understand fairly well how the various systems in scotland work (4 different systems in use.) However I cannot name all my representatives. I have 1 mp, 1 msp directly and several others indirectly representing me( list and constituency). One MEP ( I think), 4 councillors. Highly complex
Ben Shepard is my MP. Deidre Brock ( a foul woman) my constituency MSP (but I cannot name the list ones) Don't know my MEP. One of the councillors is a green but I cannot remember his name right now
Now if a political geek like me has di8fficulty with this then how is the non politically interested supposed to know?
PJM1974 wrote
This is a public service announcement in support of the killfile. Since installing it, my STW forum experience has improved by 98.7%.
Indeed. For any other numpties like me who struggled with this, download the .zip from here and then follow the instructions here
It acts as a moderator to those short sighted halfwits we have running this country.
This encapsulates perfectly why I'm as about as pro European as you can get.
I think, and I realise I'm probably in a minority here, that the loss of THM is actually a great loss to this thread.
I don't think his often quite ridiculously gnomic offerings will be much missed, but I do think he has at the very least one point.
In one way it is very simple - a simple question, in? or out?
Obviously it was never that simple, but for many people perhaps it is only actually 'obvious', now that it is all falling apart, that it wasn't 'obvious' at all.
Part of the problem for anybody 'making the case' for the EU was that they/we would always find them/ourselves fighting against 20 years of what had been essentially anti-EU propaganda in the mass media.
This has never been helped by the fact that England at least has never taken European elections seriously. One would suggest that few could name their MEP, and fewer could tell you from which Party they hail. Turnout for Euro elections has been notoriously poor for at least as long as i've been eligible to vote in them.
Consequently too many seats have been unfulfilled by the likes of UKIP MEPs, who have unserved us whilst guaranteeing that that's what your vote will insecure.
We have watched by while this has happened - low turnout has all but guaranteed it.
THM is quite right to defend what is a potential 'democratic deficit' - all you have to do is walk in another man's moccasins. Imagine if Remain had won the day with such a narrow margin, imagine if there had been a Leadership bid in the immediate aftermath and Johnson had won. Imagine he then said ' well the result was inconclusive, so I've decided to 'trigger' Article 50 anyway'?
You'd be losing your collective shit in a way that was large.
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade:
One would suggest that few could name their MEP, and fewer could tell you from which Party they hail.
No one has 1 MEP, depending upon where you live you can a maximum of 10 (the South East) and a minimum of 3 (Northern Ireland). It is a list system using D'Hondt, except in NI where it is STV.
If that was meant to disprove my original motion, one would have thought it only serves to hyper-prove it.
It is somewhat laughable, is it not, to decry accountability in a system to which so little is generally known?
Wow - Mefty, err... Mefty'd.
But guys, Chewkw’s point that you still don’t get to vote for your Whitehall bureaucrats is still valid and on his reasoning Westminster is an evil place that should be gotten rid of.
Likewise your local council and virtually every other form of government, club, association, company, organisation, etc.
The EU, if it really is undemocratic, is only that way because we voted for the ‘Kippers.
Don't forget that our government (decide for yourself if there is a democratic deficit in how that is chosen) holds the real power in the EU. Sorry… I mean "did hold". Most of the moaning about EU policy (eastward expansion etc) was UK government policy. It is the government that wields a veto. MEPs are a lessser part of how we play a democratic role in the EU… and it was UK government policy that it stayed that way… remember Thatcher's, "no, no, no!"? National governments still have the power as regards what the EU does. Don’t like how we play our part in that? Look to our governments.
Interesting story kicking about regarding May’s new stance on Northern Ireland.
This stance?
Cherry picking, Euro stylee
Doesn't matter what her stance is, brexit is still dead.
Have I heard/read correctly that she’s going to ask EU27 leaders how they’d feel if their countries were carved in two??? 😮
Mefty - are the euro elections D’Hondt ? I thought that was the holyrood system of constituencies plus a list top up. I thought the euro were simple regional list sytems?
No one is asking =that the UK be carved into two - just that May lives up to her promise of complete regulatory alignment on the island of ireland and that this must mean a solution to the issue of the open border on the island of ireland to stop smuggling and tax avoidence and adherence to standards.
Chequers cannot do this. So May has to come u-p with another solution or accept the EUS solution or accept no deal.
Have I heard/read correctly that she’s going to ask EU27 leaders how they’d feel if their countries were carved in two???
And to think all those people said she was devoid of humour...
Imagine, DD, if someone carved sat Germany into two bits.
They would never stand for it. Hmmm
Actually it looks like NI is going to effectively be part of the customs union and/or single market (details vague at present).
And given the Irish passport rules (which may have changed slightly based around 2005), NI may not really be leaving the EU.
Germany...how about Ireland?
Not to mention all the others...roughly half of the EU I believe. Not all entirely due to the brits though.
Surely the DUP Will never accept it.
Thats Mays issue. The DUP will not accept NI being treated any differently to the rest of the UK but May has already agreed " full regulatory alignment on the island of ireland"
Her only options are shafdt the DUP and possibly loose a confidence vote, accept that the UK is going to have to remain in the single market fully or accept no deal. there are no other options.
The thing is, the EU is offering NI the best deal imaginable, for the sake of the whole of Ireland… no payments, but staying in the Single Market, and presumably low friction access to RoW markets as well, and so many mainland based politicians will want to block it even more than the DUP will… they don't want NI to get a carve out that the rUK population can compare with what they end up being stuck with. To a certain degree, this will happen no matter what, due to NI people being able to remain EU passport holders, when most of the rest of us lose our right to ours.
Also if NI gets a special deal Scotland wants the same .
for me the most likely end result is the UK fractures. England goes off and plays by itself, NI, Scotland and Wales leave the UK to remain in the EU
Next most likely is that there is a huge fudge and it become brexit in name only. next is that we have a second referendum and stay in the EU
there is zero chance of scotland going along with England in a hard brexit and zero chance of NI doing the same. Polls are showing huge support for a unite ireland if the UK leaves the EU on a cvliff edge adn the same for scotland - UK leaves the eu on a cliff edge big majorty for independence.
Chequers cannot do this. So May has to come u-p with another solution or accept the EUS solution or accept no deal.
Between now and March, as the EU resolutely refuses to blink, every single one of Mays precious red lines will be dropped. No doubt to the anguished howls of the headbangers, but there really is no alternative
I suspect May has known this all along, and it's playing out exactly as she knew it would. She was just trying to shut the ****ers up for as long as possible until the true reality of things, as opposed to their ridiculous fantasies, becomes apparent
I
If a hundred of us chipped in and bought a hovel and split the bills would we all be Northern Irish?
Also if NI gets a special deal Scotland wants the same .
for me the most likely end result is the UK fractures. England goes off and plays by itself, NI, Scotland and Wales leave the UK to remain in the EU
Next most likely is that there is a huge fudge and it become brexit in name only. next is that we have a second referendum and stay in the EU
there is zero chance of scotland going along with England in a hard brexit and zero chance of NI doing the same. Polls are showing huge support for a unite ireland if the UK leaves the EU on a cvliff edge adn the same for scotland – UK leaves the eu on a cliff edge big majorty for independence.
Plot twist, Activate the Queen!
The Queen doesn't like the idea of the nation being torn up and annexed so refuses to give Royal Assent.