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In any case, the notion that we could just refuse to pay it is a pipe dream. Aside from the fact that we could be taken to court for failure to pay,
No court that could enforce the debt, the fundamental of any sovereign lending is that ultimately if they don't want to pay it they can renege, of course there are ramifications but in this case they are far more limited than your typical sovereign default.
No court that could enforce the debt
Well was the debt Argentina had not “sovereign debt? That was bought by a vulture fund and made a mess of them...
obviously and payments to the EU we will make will be a good faith to honour previous commitments and maintain the good working relationship. We could have cancelled all the old war debts to the USA if there were no ramifications
May campaigning around the country trying to garner support for her Brexit and the BBC news lead story is suddenly about migrants?
Hmmmnnn....
Cornholio - we have a collapsing health service, collapsing police service, rising inequality, rising poverty, rising homelessness, rampant runaway corporate greed. We waste billions on very expensive privatised services where nationalised ones are cheaper.
Labour have a few small steps planned to address some of this - all stuff that is mainstream in the rest of europe. You really think cold hungry children is OK? You really think that some of the most expensive services in europe is OK> You really think that allowing the bosses to take all the money out of business is OK, pay next to know tax on this is OK. that anyone losing their job this week will receive no benefits until the new year is OK?
Our benefit levels are so low as to be impossible to live on yet we have some of the lowest taxation in europe?
Hammond just admitted on the BBC that on a purely economic basis remaining in the EU is the best option.
Im not sure I’ve seen that from him before?
Reporting today on the financial impact of No deal, May deal and Remaining.
Let’ s use our psychic powers to predict the findings.
all stuff that is mainstream in the rest of europe.
Yet somehow in the UK our hands our tied by the EU rules to fix any of this? I would like to see everything work better but JCs vision that we can only do this outside of the EU concerns me. Much like the idea that we can only control immigration when outside of the EU...
we really don’t have it bad in the UK. It really should be better but for the wastage and piss poor management both from public and private sides. It is a much nicer place to be than many others I have lived in.
Good old brexit broadcasting corporation desperately trying to emphasise that May's deal is "better" than no deal without managing to mention that both are substantially worse than the status quo.
.
we really don’t have it bad in the UK
And by "we', you are actually meaning "I"
They literally just had Hammond in who said the remain was better for the economy.
I think anyone who doesn't let racism or a fear of immigration cloud their judgement has always known that but good to see people slowly making it a bit more public.
I hope May is enjoying her fairwell tour.
All this people greeting and calling for televised debates, when there isn't a public vote, won't make people forget that when public votes do actually happen she hides away… only has stage managed meetings with Conservative members in secret locations… sends Amber Rudd to meet the cameras for her… appears on the One Show instead of any programmes where political questioning might occur… she's an unaccountable submarine suddenly pretending to be a proper PM in the hope that her MPs fall for it… she knows she'll never face a public vote as PM ever again. She's already said she'll resign if parliament push for a referendum, and there's no chance her MPs and members will let her lead them into another general election.
Hold on, is May visiting a factory in Glasgow to sell her Brexit deal?
I wonder if they’ve vetted who she’ll be speaking too?
Hammond just admitted on the BBC that on a purely economic basis remaining in the EU is the best option.
Im not sure I’ve seen that from him before?
Phillip Hammond is despised in the party because he's the only member of the cabinet who's actually living in the real world, and not some flag-waving 1950's colonial fantasy
Much like Kier Starmer in the labour shadow cabinet (such as it is). The only voice of sanity in a world of delusional idiots
Its coming to something when you look at the two main party's and there are only two individuals out of the lot of them who seem to be in contact with reality
I wonder if they’ve vetted who she’ll be speaking too?
Of course. And restricted the journalists too. No one from The National (again).
And by “we’, you are actually meaning “I”
I currently live in Siberia, the Uk is a hell of a lot better than here. When I was earning min wage in UK it was still a nicer place than when I was earning much more in the USA. No one is afraid to go to a doctor because of cost. Our public hospitals are much better than the ones I used in Italy.....
it is by no means perfect and we should always be trying to make it better but even with all the austerity there are still first world countries with crapper services. To say everything is broken and we are living worse than everyone else is just wallowing in self pity for no good reason and disrespects the people who work hard providing these services.
The sad thing is Brexit IMO will start the sell off and progression to a US style system for health, benefits and services which is a very bad thing.
The sad thing is Brexit IMO will start the sell off and progression to a US style system for health, benefits and services which is a very bad thing.
That is exactly what the brexiteers have wanted all along. Freeing themselves of the shackles of EU legislation will enable them to turn us into an uber-free-market fantasy island with a race to the bottom. Bye bye NHS. Bye bye welfare state. Hello chlorinated chicken and hormone injected beef. Hence the lust for a no deal Brexit. The resulting chaos will provide the perfect opportunity to get that ball rolling.
I bet they really can't believe their luck that they not only successfully conned the proles into voting for it, but were then faced with a Labour party who were quite happy to sit there with their thumbs up their arses andlet them get on with it, totally unopposed
Agreed, same thing happening in France at the moment. Protesters saying life is too expensive but it is 100 times better than 99 % of the rest of the world .
UK is the same ,it might not be perfect but it is pretty good.
'Lord' Nigel Lawson is on Five Live advocating a no deal Brexit and loftily pontificating on what is best for the UK
... from his home in France
Protesters saying life is too expensive but it is 100 times better than 99 % of the rest of the world .
Maybe those protestors want a system where wealth is redistributed more equally globally instead of being hoarded by a tiny few?
… from his home in France
Did the presenter take him to task on this, or just try to be 'balanced' by ignoring it?
would staying in the EU be Humiliating, this is what polling has come to in this country!
Another possible glimmer of hope.
Saying it is not shit because other things are more shit is missing the point...
would staying in the EU be Humiliating, this is what polling has come to in this country!
I do love a good loaded question.
Truth is, it would be utterly humiliating. But even that is better than the other two options.
Well was the debt Argentina had not “sovereign debt? That was bought by a vulture fund and made a mess of them…
But not by enforcing the debt, they had nuisance value because, in broad brush terms, they managed to get an injunction stopping Argentina from paying its interest on their rescheduled debt unless they were paid. They could therefore bring the debt restructuring effort crashing down, so they were paid off.
What we are looking at in this case is very different because it would be a dispute between two parties and therefore is unlikely to have the same sort of domino effect.
& the actual survey behind the mail headline...
https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1067722729175113728
I did check and hence the edit 😀
so I should have said "is this what reporting polls has come too!" 😉
… from his home in France
Did the presenter take him to task on this, or just try to be ‘balanced’ by ignoring it?
She did pick him up on it that. She also pointed out that most people wouldn't appreciate being told that a 'short term financial impact' was worth it in the long run, by a multi-millionaire from his home in another country.
What a ****!
I did check and hence the edit
I didn't see that when I posted my twitter comment! Soz.
& yeah it's shitty journalism
I wouldn’t feel humiliated so don’t worry about it.
I would feel quite proud that the country can learn and accept mistakes.
the trouble for May is that a 2nd ref would be good for getting the country out of a hole but not the tory party.... they are determined to drag the rest of us down with them.
Saying it is not shit because other things are more shit is missing the point…
But isn’t that the point? Many places are more shit..We have free schools, healthcare, are relatively safe, not very corrupt, you don’t need to fear the police or the government
Things can always be better but if the UK is such a hole why don’t more people leave?
It is likely the paradises we seek are in Europe, North America or Aus/NZ and those are relatively accessible. In fact most of the world is quite accessible to UK citizens. If someone can get from sub Saharan Africa to the UK we can get on a ferry or a plane.
To complain that we should have everything we want and that if we just do some very simple things but someone is stopping us is the type of thing that created this whole mess. Trouble is the people stopping us are the voters and the politicians we elect. we only have ourselves to blame for our greed and failures. It’s not even that we don’t demand competence from our elected representatives we don’t even aak for it or expect it.
The trouble for Mrs May is that there is literally nothing she can offer the Brexit nutters in her party. But its kind of a moot point anyway as without the support of the DUP even if all the Tories back her deal ( and we are very far away from that) it won't get through parliament.
There are 3 ways out of this mess. In order of probability i would say they are:
1. Parliament coalesces around a softer Brexit (Norway +-/*) and votes it through. The EU will almost certainly agree to a softer Brexit
2. No Deal - remember parliament doesn't have to vote for this its simply a natural consequence of not getting a deal ratified by the end of March
3. 2nd Referendum
It is likely the paradises we seek are in Europe, North America or Aus/NZ and those are relatively accessible. In fact most of the world is quite accessible to UK citizens. If someone can get from sub Saharan Africa to the UK we can get on a ferry or a plane.
Not at all true, Europe is obviously relatively easy now, but Brexit will end that. Points based migration excludes the majority of people. I have a good job, but I cannot emigrate to the US, Canada, Australia or NZ, because my qualifications aren't sufficient to get me enough points.
You may be sitting pretty and it maybe an option for you, but that does not mean that everyone is in the same situation.
Further survey results are here:
https://www.survation.com/are-the-public-warmer-on-the-prime-ministers-brexit-deal-than-mps/
Which are a bit closer to what the DM is spinning.
Things can always be better but if the UK is such a hole why don’t more people leave?
Okay, give up. You REALLY don't get it.
Things can always be better..
Thiiiiiiings... They can only get... they can only get...
Better....... ?
The point I am trying to make is that when your location is really crap you move. The people getting on boats to cross the Med to Europe are not worried about a points based immigration system neither are the people jumping the border to the US. The families in China or India pooling all their cash to send one kid to the USA or another western country get a degree and visas for chain migration have a long term plan to get to somewhere else.
The fact that we worry about maintaining our (imo quite high) standard of life and getting points for visas rather than becoming illegals says that where we are is not so terrible.
There is another possibility which is that the MPs do their ****ing job. Unlikely I know.
The fact that we worry about maintaining our (imo quite high) standard of life and getting points for visas rather than becoming illegals says that where we are is not so terrible.
Very true but its my key priority at the moment, you can call that selfish but I see it as stopping self harm. There are people who will be seriously hurt in the process and it's important to protect them.
Okay, give up. You REALLY don’t get it.
No I don’t.
People want better services but aren’t prepared to pay more tax for it. They would rather rich people or large companies take the burden for this
while this is admirable we don’t vote in any politicians who actually do this.
we don’t demand better from our leaders and are lead by sound bites or someone who looks good in a suit rather than anyone with any competence. We just vote in the same shits time and again
we don’t hold government or parliament accountable for pissing away money or ruining education/nhs/public services
we are lucky enough to have good links with many countries that allow us to study or to go on working holidays.
Wtf happened? When did we go from Britain rules the world and we can go anywhere and do anything we want to it’s a bit shit here but I don’t have the points to leave? When did we acquiesce to this is our lot and we can’t do anything?
Imo the uk is a pretty good place overall
The point I am trying to make is that when your location is really crap you move.
So we need to make it even more crappy for the less privileged to the point they feel their only option is to get on a dinghy and cross the channel or should we be looking to improve things for them? We could of course just shout "you have never had it better" as they on are their way to the food bank
The families in China or India pooling all their cash to send one kid to the USA or another western country get a degree and visas for chain migration have a long term plan to get to somewhere else.
Actually - maybe it's the case with Indians. But Chinese parents send their children abroad not to exploit visa systems like you are insinuating, but to give them a good education and expose them to a different way of doing things. The top Chinese Universities are ridiculously hard to get into because of the amount of competition and the fact that the children of political elites get favored, a western education is viewed as being better than going to one of their middling establishments. China isn't poor and they don't hate their country, most of them are fervently patriotic and would rather work in China. A minority of them send their kids abroad and/or move money abroad because they feel politically exposed due to either actual or alleged criminality on their part - usually corruption, embezzlement etc.
Britain is the backwards shithole now, not China - ever been to Chengdu? It makes London feel decrepit.
My brothers wifes family are hardened ethnic Tibetans, they dislike Britain and much prefer living in China. Personally, I think that says it all.
3.9% Deal 9.3% No Deal.
Did they just reverse the numbers?
Not that forecasts are ever correct.
One could say
no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.
The fact we have poverty and the need for food banks is because people are only looking after themselves and not also their neighbours.
although I am not sure the person who spoke those words was famed for helping people.
Five Live were talking to leading political journalists after PMQ's and it turns out Danny Dyer's assessment was absolutely right - and not just about Cameron being a *! Nobody has got a *ing clue whats going to happen next.
I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime. We've always had a large degree of political stability. You may not have liked it, but you always knew where you were. Now... who ****ing knows? Nobody apparently.
I wish we could go back to politics being dull again 🙁
Death throws of a stagnant country that is becoming less relevant with each passing year Binners, this has been a long time coming. Maybe Brits will wake up and lose their entitled sense of exceptionalism after this, who knows?
But isn’t that the point? Many places are more shit..
Indeed they are. Two points though.
1. That is no excuse for wanting to make things more shit by leaving the EU.
2. Wealth distribution within Britain does not compare well with other European and Scandinavian countries. That could be improved should the government be interested.
Death throws of a stagnant country that is becoming less relevant with each passing year Binners, this has been a long time coming. Maybe Brits will wake up and lose their entitled sense of exceptionalism after this, who knows?
Never really understood why some seem so desperate for us to be a great power on the world stage. I mean I wouldn’t knock it, but compared to what it’s like to live here it’s pretty meaningless.
I wonder when the ECJ will hand down its A50 ruling. (And which way it will go, with both the UK Gov and EU arguing against for different reasons.)
Never really understood why some seem so desperate for us to be a great power on the world stage.
Whats even more baffling is the paradox of the 'Global Britain' rhetoric and the actual reality of retreating into a backward-gazing parochial insularity
I wonder when the ECJ will hand down its A50 ruling. (And which way it will go, with both the UK Gov and EU arguing against for different reasons.)
Advocate Generals Opinion on 4th December.
Full ECJ ruling likely around 9th December.
Never really understood why some seem so desperate for us to be a great power on the world stage.
Nor me, but I guess people are clinging to the past? I look to Scandinavian countries and always feel they seem satisfied to just get on with their own lives in their own country without having to interfere in everyone else's or pretend they have a say in things globally
Ah., so before the Westminster vote. ECJ ruling will be a game changer; if 'yes' then may embolden MPs to vote down May's deal. If 'no' then MPs likely to bottle it and vote it through.
ROFL. Which MPs are voting for it again? A large number have made unequivocal public statements. The question is whether the margin of defeat is so great that she has to resign, and whether she finds a way of avoiding the vote if this seems likely to happen.
These MP's that are saying they'll definitely going to vote against it? These the same ones who all said they'd put their letters in to the 1922 committee to trigger a vote of no confidence, yeah?
Theres an awful lot of posturing going on by a bunch of windbags who are clearly lying and won't actually put there money where their mouth is. Ask Rees Mogg 😀
Never really understood why some seem so desperate for us to be a great power on the world stage.
The simple answer to this is that many people are thick and don't understand the difference between politics and economics and their own everyday experiences. They want their football team to be top of the league, to earn more than the next person at work, to have a better car than their neighbour. They apply the same instinctive competitive logic to the country they live in.
For instance one of my work colleagues is obsessed about the concept of Manchester being the UK's 'second city', on pretty much any metric. He gets offended and argumentative if I suggest Leeds might have a higher population, and takes great pride that outside London Manchester has more and higher skycrapers than other UK cities. It has no actual bearing on his life yet it's still important to him. It's quite bizarre.
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are saying they’ll definitely going to vote against it? These the same ones who all said they’d put their letters in to the 1922 committee to trigger a vote of no confidence, yeah?
Theres an awful lot of posturing going on by a bunch of windbags who are clearly lying and won’t actually put there money where their mouth is. Ask Rees Mogg
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agreed they will abstain at best
Ive got a sneaking suspicion Mays deal might well pass & she'll be PM for the next decade!
Lying in private to grease-blob (perhaps with the deliberate goal of humiliating him) is very different to making public statement and going back on it.
Don't forget May doesn't even have a majority to start with, and all those cabinet ministers hardly resigned in order to support her from the back benches. As for Labour, they won't miss this last chance to take down May irrespective of their views on brexit. If they vote for this or even abstain they have rendered themselves absolutely irrelevant (which arguably they've already been doing but up to now they've had the excuse of keeping their powder dry).
agreed they will abstain at best
Ive got a sneaking suspicion Mays deal might well pass & she’ll be PM for the next decade!
For the deal to pass (assuming no DUP suuport) all the Tories need to vote for it. May doesn't have a parliamentary majority. So given the likelyhood of one or two Labour rebels cancelling out the absence of the DUP, May still needs every Tory to vote for it.
The Tory whips are going to be heavily leaning on MP's to back it as the only game in town other than total chaos. Chaos which their constituents will never forgive. There will be plenty on the labour benches, who've no love for the 'leadership' (such as it is) that will be coming to the same conclusion. I think we could well be looking at a fairly significant labour rebellion on this.
I have no doubt it will pass . Too much at risk.
Nor me, but I guess people are clinging to the past?
Of course they are. Xenophobes aside, this entire debacle was born to a large extent from people with a rose-tinted halcyon memory of their past which never really existed.
Living on a street where everyone knew each other (because they were all nosy bastards and not scared of talking to someone with a tan, where you literally couldn't take a shit without everyone knowing because you'd to walk across your yard to do it). Days where you could go out and leave your door unlocked (because no-one had **** all worth stealing). Back when we didn't have poncy HIV, we had proper man's diseases like rickets and polio. When Britain was a world power (because we'd spent decades invading developing countries and slaughtering anyone who disagreed with us). Before political correctness (because we like to make jokes about Paddies, Nig-Nogs and poofters). When we'd to work hard for what we had (because we'd just been bombed back to the stone age, unlike these precious, privileged bloody Millennials who have it easy because they don't have to worry about luxuries like food).
They sit there, in their quarter of a million pound house that they paid <£20K for back in 1980, with their savings and their fat pensions and their summer holiday home in Costa Del Little England, ruing how shit their life is now. Meanwhile the current generation are leaving education with thirty grand plus worth of debt and looking at probably never getting on the property ladder, and the Boomers' parting legacy before they shuffle off this mortal coil is to see how badly they can **** up the country even further for everyone else.
The parting two fingers from the gilded generation
I don't see it Binners - I would be surprised if there is a dozen. On the labour side Hoey has said she will not vote for it so I doubt a big rebellion - maybe some abstentions? Its an opportunity to take the government down that every right thinkng labouorite will take.
There are 80 odd declared tory rebels - even half of them is enough
Well said cougar.
Even 10 of them is enough, in fact she would struggle to get it through if every single tory voted for her.
The guardian did a head count on all the likely votes and came up with about 410 vs 230. That's making some fairly obvious assumptions about party loyalty on both sides from those who have not clearly stated their intentions. There are certainly quite a lot of back-bench sheeple on both sides who will do what they are told, but like I said, the tories start off from a minority and are only going downhill from there.
Cougar, have you met my parents and father-in-law?
and the Boomer’s parting legacy before they shuffle off this mortal coil is to see how badly they can **** up the country even further for everyone else.
All valid points, but as I have said before, the boomers are only doing what they've always done, which is exercise their democratic rights and sometimes when that doesn't work, get out on the streets. If the young are really that incensed then the answer is obvious, and I'm not talking about filling in a petition on the bloody internet or sharing meme's on facebook.
TJ. Its not Hoey and Frank Field that Corbyn needs to worry about. Personally he probably shares their opinion and wishes he could vote like they have so far. In fact I bet he longs for th days of being a backbench PITA
But the labour MPs who aren't Corbynites/loons, who lest we forget are the overwhelmingly the majority of the party, may well break ranks and vote this though if the alternative is chaos.
Everyone is being very very quiet in the party at the moment. Unlike the Tories, nobody is saying a word about how they plan to vote.
One things for sure. This isn't going to play out along party lines
Its not Hoey and Frank Field that Corbyn needs to worry about.
I'm not convinced. The corbyn haters are pro-remain and mostly pro-second referendum. They're not going to get either of those by voting through this deal. Why would they suddenly turn into soft-leavers? Yes they may be worried about the chaos and potential for a no-deal brexit but I think all but the most unhinged will recognise that this is a remote possibility for obvious reasons. I'm sure some will take the opportunity to once again have a go at Corbyn but if that's the case they'll rightfully be seen as sell-outs willing to support a lame duck tory government, and they'll be inviting deselection.
Everyone is being very very quiet in the party at the moment. Unlike the Tories, nobody is saying a word about how they plan to vote.
Lots of Labour MPs have said exactly how they'll vote. A few have come down in favour, but most have come down against.
binners, Corbyn has said he'll whip against it, Starmer is fully agreed. Despite their brexit differences all of labour knows this is their one chance to bring down the govt. There's about one loony who will break the whip, also one libdem amazing as that sounds. But that's nowhere near enough to matter.
All valid points, but as I have said before, the boomers are only doing what they’ve always done, which is exercise their democratic rights and sometimes when that doesn’t work, get out on the streets. If the young are really that incensed then the answer is obvious, and I’m not talking about filling in a petition on the bloody internet or sharing meme’s on facebook.
I don't think it was all the boomers who made up the 700,000 who marched in the people's march
If the young are really that incensed then the answer is obvious,
Go on then what is the obvious answer?
I don’t think it was all the boomers who made up the 700,000 who marched in the people’s march
Indeed, that was a good start, but one off organised marches never changed anything. Any and all means need to be used from civil unrest, marches, picketing, letter/petition campaigns, direct action, joining political parties and changing them from within, and generally just being a constant, noisy and very visible pain in the arse to anyone who supports brexit. Instead what do we have? Tony bloody Blair and Chukka Umunna, and an upper middle class London solicitor who's always on Question Time.
Any and all means need to be used from civil unrest, marches, picketing, letter/petition campaigns, direct action, joining political parties and changing them from within, and generally just being a constant, noisy and very visible pain in the arse to anyone who supports brexit. Instead what do we have?
And how does that stop people being at the mercy of the loony right of the tory party?
How did it work out for the miners?