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I'd almost welcome a Jamba or a THM right now, in order to paint a positive picture of the forthcoming shit storm.
I’d almost welcome a Jamba or a THM right now, in order to paint a positive picture of the forthcoming shit storm.
The bankers have made plans and will all get by fine.
How did I do?
Plus there will be less immigrants (combination of not letting them in plus them not wanting to be here any way and less jobs to do). That's a positive to many.
Can’t someone at least pretend to a brexiteer so we’ve got someone to argue with
I won't go there but maybe it's at least worth holding back a tad on the hysteria until we get the curtain call.
May certainly seems to wriggle out of things.
I do think the constant reporting is a field day and not making things any clearer.
I mean - how many times have we heard a vote of no confidence is coming?
(Or pop over to piston heads EU thread - you will struggle to find a remainer. )
I do think the constant reporting is a field day and not making things any clearer.
Does make you wonder what is slipping by withyus seeing it.
I think it’s beginning to look like “kick the can down the toad” is taking over.
Both sides will just allow more and more time in the hope that a solution to the NI border problem will emerge (as it probably will, given enough gestation) and all the nappy-wearing shouty Brexiteer types will calm down/run out of energy/cry themselves to sleep.
A classic fudge (good thing) will result in a workable compromise (another good thing) and we can all shut the door on it and get on.
I don't understand what the extension is going to achieve? Just allow more time to solve the problem or what?
The bankers have made plans and will all get by fine.
I liked it when jambalaya said that there was no bad brexit effect on the economy because luxury yacht makers were doing great 😂😂
The schadenfreude is strong with this one.
Where did all those signs in fields get them?
I do think the constant reporting is a field day and not making things any clearer.
It is actually very clear; we triggered A50 too soon & were totally unprepared. And the Brexiters MPs in particular have made huge errors, Davis, Johnson, Gove, Leadsom, even Hunt exposed as dangerously stupid. The entire cabinet signed off on the NI backstop last December, even Mogg hailed it as a victory, now they say they didn't understand it. That was a 15 page document, trade deals run to many 1000s. They have got a hope.
It's about where you get your news from, if you just read the pro brexit press & listened to the Brexiters this chaos comes as a surprise. Their magic wand that turned any potential downsides into 'Project Fear' was always gonna bite them in the arse one day.
If they'd written 'Brexit will be insanely complex & cost the country £350m a week ' on their bus, then maybe people wouldn't be so confused now.
As i said though, it's about where you get your news from, Brexitcenteral is pro-brexit site run by actual grownups & well worth checking out, Peston, kussenberg, newton-dunn, Harry Cole, NinIa schick , faisal islam, ian dunt, Jim cornelius all worth following on Twitter, don't follow the likes of Mogg- he has a terrible record of tweeting fakenews about stuff he obviously doesn't understand (or knows his followers don't understand) about the WTO etc. Guardian live blog is by far best political blog around, not necessarily for its own content, but for the other sources it links to.
2 very good reads recently - the FTs look at Olly Robbins (& Sabine weyand) THMs 'grown ups' that are doing the actual negotiations & how the process works
https://www.ft.com/content/a7298efa-cc1c-11e8-b276-b9069bde0956
And Ivan Rogers, ex ambassador to the EU, recent speech
Download available here..
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86987
Dwelling on a few home truths, Sir Ivan pointed out that none of this was difficult to foretell. Leaving the EU would be a tortuous process not an event, would take years to get right, and would involve hundreds of individual issues and complex trade-offs on both sides. No FTA on the planet has been easy and rapid to negotiate, and this is the first one on the planet which will be between partners seeking to diminish rather than enhance their level of trade liberalisation and integration.
Both explain far more about what brexit actually entails than you'll find in a day of reading every paper & watching skynews & bbcnews for a solid week
What I take from it all is that the Brexiters are either stupid or lying.
What Johnny Mercer calls a sh*tshow is the inevitable consequence of brexit: Thatcher rebuilt the economy: finance, agriculture, manufacturing, around tbe single market, May is desperately trying to keep the benefits of membership after we leave.
And the GFAs open border as it is now, would've been impossible to replicate had NI. & Ireland not both been within the EU
The problem for May & the Brexiters is that they have spent the last 3 years (well, 2.3 years for May) pretending those benefits don't exist.
The problems (& their solutions) that led people to vote for brexit have always been in Westminster not Brussles.
Northern working class communities voted for Brexit because somehow - maybe because all their mates own all the media - the Tories managed to convince them that the poverty and hopelessness that a decade of Tory austerity had delivered them was actually the fault of immigrants and the EU
What is going to happen when instead of the land of milk and honey they were promised, Brexit is then exploited by right-wing ideologues to turbocharge this rampant inequality and makes their lives infinitely worse?
Theres only one way this is all going to end....
I'll just leave this here!!
Theres only one way this is all going to end….
Those who have instigated this sh*t storm, won't care if a load of working class oiks set fire to their own neighbourhoods. Hard Brexit, economic chaos, riots, end of the GFA, Its all simply a means to an end for them, like the trump supporters who thank the Russians, or the Christian right prepared to overlook his "Sins" so they can get their President.
They will be insulated from the effects, untouchable. We need to make sure that they can and will be touched after all of this.
The schadenfreude is strong with this one.
Your enjoyment of their misery won't last long when their misery becomes your misery because you haven't got cheap food.
We might not all be in this together, but most of us are - you*, me and the farmers. A lack of understanding of this issue has caused the whole mess in the first place.
* unless you are in fact super rich
Peston, kussenberg, newton-dunn, Harry Cole, NinIa schick , faisal islam, ian dunt, Jim cornelius all worth following on Twitter
@Kimbers - not to pick bones but Peston is a bugger for 'a no confidence vote' is about to be triggered.
I try and read all news. My take is journalism has been pretty poor on the subject. Too much agenda, too much VI etc, and worst of all too much hysteria.
Will check out the other tidbits from your post.
yeah you need to check through a lot of jourmos to get a good overview
The FT remains ever optimistic that a deal is about to be struck, I think they just conclude that economic & financial self-harm trumps ideology, I think they are wrong
would just add @jasonjhunter & @Sime0nStylites if you want to understand the arcane world of international trade law (theres quite a few MPs who obviously have no freaking clue about it)
I have been shot down on this thread before (as i am apparently well padded?) But i really dont believe there is any other way than letting it fall and allowing the full misery to impact all (including me) otherwise what ever half arsed deal we get it will always be "sold down the river" and yes i understand the misery of a hard Brexit will still be blamed on the EU but you can only shout at them for so long as we are no longer part of the club.
It will take generations to sort this out and i believe as a country we may never recover (a bit dramatic but there have been plenty of historical mini empires that have disappeared up their own arse)
The damage is done in my view and what we see between now and March and 2021 is just the bitter, unpleasent and lingering demise of this country.
I have business acquaintances in France and Germany and in general they have simply "disconnected" from the UK as a partner and market. They dont trust our judgement and that is very very serious in business.
I think Europe will thrive without us.
Personally I am completely at a loss as to just how stupid people are. I hope Boris JRM Davis Fox etc take them back to the ****ing stoneage. I am not hard left politically but by christ you have to wonder where this is going and what the hell you vote for.
Your enjoyment of their misery won’t last long when their misery becomes your misery because you haven’t got
cheapfood.
FTFY.
I try and read all news. My take is journalism has been pretty poor on the subject. Too much agenda, too much VI etc, and worst of all too much hysteria.
For people like the BBC balance has always been the issue, they don't seem to be able to call the outright BS as it's balancing the other side.
In terms of Hysteria I'd agree the Leave press has been full of it. In the main media the implications have been heavily downplayed so far.
My take is journalism has been pretty poor on the subject.
I think journalism is pretty iffy on most topics these days.
This country is struggling, we don't have a well educated population. The demise of skilled people in well organised trade unions with supporting education has all but gone.
Like it or not the people who fought Thatcher on a daily basis are dead or knackered. I am 55 and the last of them, beyond me is "working class Tories" Alf Garnett if you like. Behind me is poorly educated, unorganised working poor who dont have a *ing clue, behind them are my kids, well educated, free movement driven, they also give a shit and feel like they have been fed by old people.
We have to accept that about half of this country is not fit to make economic or political decisions ..
Unpleasant, unfortunate, unacceptale but ****ing true.
I am sorry folks but Its a plain truth.
This for me had been hard to accept, my faith in the working class was based upon a culture from 40 years ago. I was miles away from the current working class folks view. I got it wrong but thst does not make them right.
This country is struggling, we don’t have a well educated population. The demise of skilled people in well organised trade unions with supporting education has all but gone.
whether its demise of trade unions or not I dont know but this is spot on, our fractured education system feeds our widening skills deficit leaving us dependent on immigration, as well as robbing so many of opportunity & driving resentment further.
sort of relevant example...
lunch today with 3 doctors, all bemoaning the crisis in the NHS, its not winter yet & its not left last winters crisis, nursing shortage is at epic levels, bursaries gone so with record number of unfilled posts, its now even worse, those that do join have to head straight onto specialisms to earn better money to pay off the debts, but leave wards empty.
Numbers of EU nurses have collapsed as their status after March is currently unknown, the upshot is that last weekend the hospitals serving >1.5million people in north london had only enough staff for 1 functional operating theatre, when a 2nd emergency case came in they had to close down Ealing A&E & taxi the nurses to Northwick park to carry out the operation. For this ealing trust was fined >£100,000 for missing ts A&E targets.
It's just utter frickkng madness.
And we've not oficcialy left yet.
If we do leave with no deal and the pound tanks, it will be a lot worse. A LOT WORSE.
Whilst i still have concerns about the impact that the 'exit from Brexit' movement would have on the 'body politic' were it to be 'just' forgotten about - and i do think we need to be serious about the ramifications of ignoring the result, however flawed you may think it to be - i am also incredibly concerned about the idea of just going through with it regardless because, you know, **** 'em.
At the risk of sounding all won't-somebody-think-of-the-children, we need a way out of this.
The 'extending the Transition Period until all Leave voters have died' option is a bit risky, but has got to be worth a shot hasn't it?
I mean, how is...
this ealing trust was fined >£100,000 for missing ts A&E targets.
Going to help anyone? That's a hundred k out of the tax payers purse.
It's a 100k back into the "tax payers purse".
But you're right, it doesn't help anyone to punish trusts for the failed policies of central government.
Back to Brexit… anyone still in contact with people who voted Leave to "do the right thing by the NHS"? May has remembered that they exist… she repeated the lies about a Brexit dividend for the NHS at PMQs this week… a dangerous game not to be honest with these people.
Also, i'm fairly sure the NFU were pro-Remain, but their membership were on the whole not.
Let's not shoot the messenger.
and i do think we need to be serious about the ramifications of ignoring the result,
It is not a case of ignoring the result. It is looking at the practicalities and doing what is best which may not be what was voted for but that is what government is for (to look at the finer points and make more reasoned decisions)
Lack of education of many of the population chimes with me. Our education system totally and utterly fails to cater for the non academic and changes made by Gove have made it all much much worse. In science my subject a few years ago we could do BTec Science with weaker pupils or single award gcse science, now everyone has to do double award GCSE, many just cannot do it. Combine this with needing 98/420 over 2 papers to get a 4-4, (equivalent of 2 C's) or maths 47/240 we teach kids that having no idea what is going on can still lead them to be successful. At the 289/420 got you a 9-9 in science thats beyond A* level at less than 70% of the papers correct.
Its no wonder people dont see the value of understanding things.
… she repeated the lies about a Brexit dividend for the NHS at PMQs this week…
i think she was hoping BoJo would pay it for her...
Combine this with needing 98/420 over 2 papers to get a 4-4, (equivalent of 2 C’s) or maths 47/240 we teach kids that having no idea what is going on can still lead them to be successful. At the 289/420 got you a 9-9 in science thats beyond A* level at less than 70% of the papers correct.
I don't particularly like what Gove's done to the education system but I believe the various grade boundaries are adjusted each year so that the percentages achieving A* (or 9 etc) are roughly the same as the year before. Obviously it varies; the year below me was clearly thicker and this was reflected in the results.
Harder paper: fewer marks required to get higher grade. It's also possible that someone is technically correct but the mark scheme doesn't permit them to gain more points for the answer, either because it's missing key words or a logical step is missing in the working.
One of the problems I have with Gove is my own ambivalence towards him: in many respects he's a raving, idiotic, backwards, gammon Brexiteer; yet on his previous secretarial postings he is by all accounts the only person to have ever aimed to understand them. He was the least "conservative" justice secretary in 20 years, and for that I do give him credit.
As someone who went through their GCSE / A Levels in the early 00's, I can distinctly remember that formalised exams started in year 9 with SATS, then mock exams or early GCSEs in year 10, then GCSEs in year 11, followed by AS in year 12, and taking them to A2 in year 13.
Double science was compulsory when I was at school; that's not a recent change.
So - and this is solely my opinion - fewer exams are a good thing.
Obviously it varies; the year below me was clearly thicker and this was reflected in the results.
I would imagine it would be very hard to see that in a big enough sample which AQA take. How do you know they were clearly thicker?
Double science was compulsory when I was at school; that’s not a recent change.
Oh right, all those kids I taught BTec science or single award science for about 10 years must have been a figment of my imagination!
How do you know they were clearly thicker?
You didn’t really take that seriously, surely?
and i do think we need to be serious about the ramifications of ignoring the result,
I've said this since practically day 1. We don't have to leave in order to not ignore the result, that's not the only course of action available to us.
The referendum didn't tell us that the country wanted to leave the EU. It told us that we were a country divided. The result was as near a 50:50 split as makes no statistical difference. The sensible thing to do, and what we should have done, is to look at the result and analyse why people voted to leave and then worked out the best way of acting on that in the country's best interests.
And we've done this subsequently, of course. The single biggest motivator by a long way was concerns around our immigration policy. It was in our power to address this internally, we have the flexibility to exercise tighter checks and balances around immigration but we choose, as a country, not to do this. We could have shored up our policy and that would have been a great chunk of leave voters appeased straight out of the gate.
The NHS was another hot topic. Giving more money to the NHS sounded like such a great idea that they wrote it on the side of a bus. Don't tell me the money isn't there - how much have we spunked in the last two years on court cases, general elections, bungs to the DUP, cash to South African countries to secure trade deals we already have, corporate funding to bribe people like Nissan into not doing a runner, and so forth? We send £350M a week to the EU, why not give it to the NHS as well?
I could go on. All of these things are, ipso facto, honouring the result of the referendum. A referendum which, let us not forget, was a non-binding opinion poll and could cheerfully be ignored anyway if parliament had wanted. Boaty McBoatface was just as much "the will of the people" as the EU referendum.
Whereas (ironically), blindly triggering Article 50 was in fact actually ignoring the result - it conveniently ignored the sixteen and a half million people who wanted to remain. Who's giving a remote shite right now about the will of those people? We won, you lost, shut up and get over it, something about bananas. It's perfectly acceptable to ignore the result of the referendum when it involves people you don't agree with, that's how 21st Century "democracy" works now seemingly.
Double science was compulsory when I was at school; that’s not a recent change.
When I was at school, "Science" (double or otherwise) was taught to the lower streams. The more academic kids got separate subjects for Physics, Chemistry and Biology (and Electronics at GSCE Options time). For reference, ours was the first year ever to do GCSEs rather than O Levels.
I can't find how many people are attending the pro march in Harrogate.
Has anyone turned up?
Good numbers here in London.
When I was at school, “Science” (double or otherwise) was taught to the lower streams.
When I was at school....is usually followed by some pointless, inaccurate or just plain stupid statement.
Before the Gove reforms to GCSE which had the first exams for science last summer a number of different courses were available which fulfilled the requirement for everyone to do science. With the the very low ability having to now do a double award GCSE it means you needed less than 25% to get a C equivalent.
I love the BBC reporting on the demonstration. Several hundred thousand is as far as they will commit, although they do admit stewards estimates as high as 570000 people. And then, just to add kudos they choose to mention that some 150 coaches from all over the country have brought people to the march. Now unless I am way out with my calculations, 150 coaches with 50 people max on each makes about 7500 people. Hmmm, either someone has miss-counted or else that was a wholly pointless statistic to even mention!
When I was at school….is usually followed by some pointless, inaccurate or just plain stupid statement.
Was there any need for that?
Nothing I said was incorrect. "When I was at school" is perfectly valid when talking about being at school rather than making a pissy comment about someone not being able to add up or something.
Meanwhile a typical leave voter...
https://news.sky.com/video/lets-get-back-to-being-a-british-empire-11530606
Jesus, that's depressing.
That's why London needs to sow a giant strip of landmines outside the M25 - maybe with a West Bank style guarded corridor to Oxford and Cambridge and then cut the rest of the country off.
Those people shouldn't even be given suffrage - they didn't even vote because they seem hard up or depressed - no they voted cuz "empire".
Idiots.
China has the right idea with re-education internment camps for anyone who gets uppity.
Just got back from the march. A very British, good natured thing with babies though pensioners queuing quietly (apart from the "Bollocks to Brexit" and "Where's Jeremy Corbyn?") waiting for the march to start. Took until 14:00 for my part of the crowd to get out of Hyde Park and I wasn't at the back. I got as far as Green Lane by 14:30 but bailed out as I've got to pack for an 06:00 flight tomorrow. Crowd was massive - way more than 100,000. I can easily believe 500,000+ as the whole route was packed with the head of the march arriving at Westminster whilst we were still on Park Lane.
Be better to split the country in half and have brexiters on one side and remainers on the other side. Only then the less than super rich people on the brexiter side will realise there error of their ways but tough, they are not allowed into the remainer side. I would love to live in a country such as the remainder country - reasonable people who are able to think about the good of society past their own selfishness
Can't see that plan going wrong, splitting countries in two always works out well...