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But, but, but DFDS Fox Told us he'd have 40 lined up by Brexit day!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47319533
AS much as the Labour implosion is a car crash, how long will it take for the Tories to recover their reputation as the 'party of business' (tbf Fox always was a ridiculous choice for the job)
So if it all goes to shit then they deserve what is coming to them; we can easily absorb a 20% hike in living costs if necessary, lets hope they can.
And this is exactly why they voted for brexit. You see they don't give a shit about your life or the patronising sympathy you may have had for them, or the taxes you think you generously pay. You think they don't want opportunities for their kids like you do? The difference is that people like yourself who can afford a 20% drop in wealth as you proudly proclaim are in a position to give their kids a leg up. Because the taxes you and everyone above you pay are not enough to provide decent opportunities and services for people who don't have the luxury of savings or disposable income to pay for the things you take for granted. So yes, they'll vote for a change, any change. They'll grasp at any straw that is offered them. And yes, sadly, they'll also be taken in by snake oil salesmen telling them that it's the fault of foreigners or whoever else is an easy scapegoat, because they're too busy trying to pay the bills and feed their kids to figure out who's really at fault.
dazh you seem to be romanticizing these downtrodden cry-for-help brexiters
the demographics & pesumably motivation for voting leave are far more complex than that
Leave is associated with older age, white ethnicity, low educational attainment, infrequent use of smartphones and the internet, receiving benefits, adverse health and low life satisfaction. These results coincide with corresponding patterns at the aggregate level of voting areas. We therefore do not find evidence of ecological fallacy. In addition, we show that prediction accuracy is geographically heterogeneous across UK regions, with strongly pro-Leave and strongly pro-Remain areas easier to predict. We also show that among individuals with similar socio-economic characteristics, Labour supporters are more likely to support Remain while Conservative supporters are more likely to support Leave.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268018301320
that aside its obvious that brexit is a shitshow & damaging the country & that the poorest will suffer the most, why do you seem so keen for that to happen?
You see they don’t give a shit about your life or the patronising sympathy you may have had for them, or the taxes you think you generously pay. You think they don’t want opportunities for their kids like you do?
They don't though do they, you see this in their children's attitude towards education. The working classes have a lot of contempt for teachers and education in general.
It's pure entitlement.
wealth as you proudly proclaim are in a position to give their kids a leg up.
Why the **** should I give one of thier multiple thick kids a leg up as opposed to some bright kids from the developing world? Why are they allowed to spew out as many kids as they ****ing like without satisfying border control that their income can cover it?
Border control on vaginas please.
You haven't convinced me, **** them all.
Dazh isn't romanticising anything. I think he's trying to take a proper look at society rather than just blurt out 'leavers are ****s'.
I'm a remainer, I'm as horrified as anyone, but even I'm finding this kind of thoughtlessness hard to swallow.
I’m finding it hard to add to any brexit disgusion out of sheer head slapping frustration but...
You’re implying there were proper ‘rules’ for the referendum;)
To torture the football analogy further, any team breaking financial fair play are sanctioned and anyone in administration are relegated. Just playing an unregistered or banned player can result in a 3-0 forfeit. Shall I go on?
Of course, football rules, whilst not perfect, have been refined over many years and challenged in the courts on occasion…
Not all teams that fail ffp get sanctioned and no one has ever been relegated for going in to administration. They get a points deduction that may lead to relegation but plenty have survived it, my team Leeds a decent example having been deducted 15 points but then nearly getting promoted.
And this is exactly why they voted for brexit. You see they don’t give a shit about your life or the patronising sympathy you may have had for them, or the taxes you think you generously pay. You think they don’t want opportunities for their kids like you do? The difference is that people like yourself who can afford a 20% drop in wealth as you proudly proclaim are in a position to give their kids a leg up. Because the taxes you and everyone above you pay are not enough to provide decent opportunities and services for people who don’t have the luxury of savings or disposable income to pay for the things you take for granted. So yes, they’ll vote for a change, any change. They’ll grasp at any straw that is offered them. And yes, sadly, they’ll also be taken in by snake oil salesmen telling them that it’s the fault of foreigners or whoever else is an easy scapegoat, because they’re too busy trying to pay the bills and feed their kids to figure out who’s really at fault.
Taxes certainly won’t be enough if we continue to spunk £800m a week or whatever it is on preparing for an act of self harm. You seem remarkably angry about the parlous state people are in, but then use this as a reason as to why they must be screwed over. Strange times. Strange contortions people are putting themselves in.
Anyone who still thinks we should go through with this falls into two categories. Exploiters who are going to make a quick buck when the country burns or cretins. The types who think they’re getting National Socialism (you know, the ones who wear a leather jacket with a shirt and tie) are also cretins, because the real movers behind this don’t give a shit about them.
Exploiter or cretin. Or call it off. It couldn’t be clearer.
dazh you seem to be romanticizing these downtrodden cry-for-help brexiters
Nope, not romanticising them at all. I grew up as one of them and got out at the first opportunity as I couldn't stand the small minded parochial mindset of a Newcastle council estate. They used to call me a snob, and still do. I even got called a traitor once when I went back to the local pub after a long time away. Doesn't mean I don't understand where they're coming from, or what they're thinking*.
They really don't care what the middle classes think of them. They hate them quite frankly, and would happily make themselves poorer if they thought it would burst the comfortable and hubristic bubble that exists in places like this forum. That may be irrational, but they're used to dealing with adversity, and one more thing to deal with is not really going to trouble them.
*It's not universal to be fair, attitudes towards brexit are varied, but I can guarantee that any hint of snobbery will send them into the arms of the brexiteers.
Too obviously provocative raybanwomble. Nought out of ten.
one more thing to deal with is not really going to trouble them
That is where you are wrong. They only think they have nothing now. But they can go to the local hospital for free with whatever ailments they may have. That will go.
The working classes have a lot of contempt for teachers and education in general.
Cockwomble, surely.
It comes down to politicians doing thier jobs (or not).
If brexit was a costed project it would never have gotten out of incubation due to all the questions and the potential massive cost.
MPs are not project managers, but they bloody well should be, it's not thier job to do as they're told, but they should consider the electorates opinion and act in the best interests of all.
This doesn't seem to happen, and is dereliction of duty.
They only think they have nothing now.
Try going to a council estate pub in Newcastle or Sunderland and giving the locals a lecture on how they don't understand how hard things can get. I can guarantee you'll be lucky to walk out under your own steam.
Dazh.
I come from the same streets too, this is predominantly my family I'm talking about who despise me because I worked like hell to get out rather than just sit in Castleford doing **** all after the pits closed.
I always thought they could get out too but the bottom line is most of them just can't be bothered.
They don't want a fair crack of the whip, they want it on a plate, no risk, no cost to them. And if they don't get it run it surely must be someone else's fault.
That's what really worries me, I'm almost 40, and I've enjoyed a very cushty life despite having an overdraft, bad credit, and not being able to secure a mortgage despite earning enough to pay for it.
I think a lot of people don't appreciate just how lucky they are to live in times of such stability.
Maybe it really will take the price of a pint of milk rising to a fiver, and empty supermarket shelves before they understand that there is no universal guarantee that "every thing is fine and it always will be".
dazh while I agree that mtbing is a middle class hobby, were not all wood burning stove, T4 drivers that winter in courcheval.
Also grew up in a council estate, tho moved away when I was 6, have friends & family who had similar backgrounds to me & still voted leave- my brother being a good case control there, hes married a racist lazy idiot & sadly spouts the same crap she does.
School for him was always about footy with his mates, i went to uni 1st in my family etc, he joined the navy- got electrician qaulification, earns more than me, but still has racked up crazy debts with his stupid wife- blaming immigrants & the EU is simply easier for him than admitting that he made crap decisions.
Brexit is properly straining my realtionship with him, quite frankly he is an idiot, his wifes company (also electrical) is struggling to stockpile b4 brexit & obviously its all the EUs fault. I had to leave the room.
Dont get me started on my parents.....
Its obvious to all that brexit is a car crash of epic proportions, that so many people still think its a good idea, is evidence that people are doubling down on the tribalism & are going to be in for a painful come down when it doesnt deliver what was promised.
Totally agree with Mattyfez
We’ve been very very lucky in this country. More through luck than judgement in most cases. Though you can’t acknowledge that in this atmosphere of Nationalist English Exceptionalism
Just because it’s never happened here before, doesn’t mean it won’t....
People need to wake up to reality, rather than the cosy nationalist fairy tales they’ve been sold by the right wing press (who can easily afford a five pound pint of milk in there tax-free nirvana)
Try going to a council estate pub in Newcastle or Sunderland and giving the locals a lecture on how they don’t understand how hard things can get. I can guarantee you’ll be lucky to walk out under your own steam.
Give it five years and I won’t have to.
So, what you are basically saying is:
We have to let them get screwed over because it is what they want.
Yet, you jump on people who say “**** em, it’s what they voted for”.
Strange times. Strange contortions.
Shit is going to hit the fan big time, I don't think brexit punters really understood the damage it would cause to UK food supply's and possibly a 40% tariff on basic food stuff.
To be honest it's a mahoosive f-up.
And scary, ridiculous situation.
Shit is going to hit the fan big time, I don’t think brexit punters really understood the damage it would cause to UK food supply’s and possibly a 40% tariff on basic food stuff.
To be honest it’s a mahoosive f-up.
And scary, ridiculous situation.
But we can’t call it off because people in council estate pubs in Sunderland will kick off if they aren’t allowed to be screwed over by their own hang ups and prejudices.
Is anyone else starting to think that even LSD wouldn’t make this shit seem any weirder?
that so many people still think its a good idea, is evidence that people are doubling down on the tribalism & are going to be in for a painful come down when it doesnt deliver what was promised.
Absolutely. This is why I keep saying that howling insults at the other side and celebrating the inevitable job losses and suffering that brexit will bring about is self defeating, even if we disagree with the other side. Where will it end? How low do we have to go before everyone comes to their senses? I don't want to be melodramatic but history is littered with examples of previously stable and successful societies which descended into chaos and violence. We can either carry on down our spiralling holes of hatred, or we can break out of them before we reach a point of no return. I know what I would prefer, and if that means accepting brexit, then so be it.
Last post from me on this.
I also object to the middle class jibes. I still work for a living and both me and my wife are from mining families.
Now I've retrained as a nurse I'm obviously part of the chosen elite and deserve the hatred of those poor souls who weren't as fortunate as me.
I know what I would prefer, and if that means accepting brexit, then so be it.
I see absolutely no evidence that accepting Brexit will resolve anything, I can assure you that my brother & his wife will just find something else to blame crap on.
a poorer country will be an even more bitter & divided one, and even more fertile ground for extreme views.
Now I’ve retrained as a nurse I’m obviously part of the chosen elite and deserve the hatred of those poor souls who weren’t as fortunate as me.
I'm not saying they're justified, just pointing out that's how they think. Whether we like it or not, this is the reality. We can either recognise it and do something about it, or carry on retreating into our respective corners. As always with these things, the solution is understanding the other side and showing empathy, even if that is unpalatable.
I see absolutely no evidence that accepting Brexit will resolve anything, I can assure you that my brother & his wife will just find something else to blame crap on.
To clarify I'm talking about the softest brexit possible not a no deal scenario. Preferably that would be a customs union + single market option with free movement, at the very least a customs union for obvious reasons. And for the record anyone wanting a no deal is quite frankly an idiot, but I think only a small minority are in that camp.
I don’t want to be melodramatic but history is littered with example of previously stable and successful societies which descended into chaos and violence. We can either carry on down our spiralling holes of hatred, or we can break out of them before we reach a point of no return.
Totally agree. I’m more than happy to work, pay my taxes and contribute to society. I won’t rant on about, and never have. At the % I pay, that is really quite awesome of me.
If I lose my job, there’ll be less in the pot for those really in need.
Where’s the upside again?
Or just pass the acid and we’ll all take a trip together?
One last time, although I’m going to bed now, so I won’t see the contortions that have to be gone through to get an answer.
WHY IS BREXIT A GOOD THING AND WHY SHOULD IT HAPPEN?
What's all this mention of class stuff, we all sh-t in the same bucket, I think some/a lot brexiteer's were most definitely not told the true negative effects of leaving the EU, personally I think we should never of joined to start with.
We should of kept our farms and stayed as much self sufficient as we once were instead of selling farms and land/posh house barn conversions or building shit housing estates on arrible land.
Politicians should of planned for an EU Failure.
Proper fkup
**** me.
I was only joking about the acid.
And for the record anyone wanting a no deal is quite frankly an idiot, but I think only a small minority are in that camp.
leaving without a deal has polled consistently at around 30% - its propa brexit!
We should of kept our farms and stayed as much self sufficient as we once were
When was this?
What were we eating?
My biggest fear is not that they’ve an agenda. I used to think that. I now don’t think they have. That’s crediting them with far too much intellect
Now? We’ll crash out, no deal, and look to the people who wanted this and say “right... you’ve got what you wanted. What now?”
And I know they’ll have about as much idea as there was the day after the vote.
There’s no plan. There’s no vision. There’s no anything. Just....
What?
Empty rhetoric and broken promises
I've worked on a few cattle farms and they have all but gone both meat and dairy, turned into poncy horse stables and the fields only for hay.
We are not as self sustainable as we were before we joined the EU.
Society has changed completely we rely on supermarkets at the best price and unfortunately their is not enough food in the uk alone to feed happy go lucky shoppers who want everything on the shelves all year round.
Leaving the EU, it has been quoted today that ;
So what are you saying? Eat turnips instead of salad?
Aye they be lucky to get Turrnips around these parts. Lol
Praps a few magic mushrooms ay!
50p a bag of all sorts of em.
So be seeing you next weekend then (giggles not maybe)
It’s easier to throw a turnip at a brexiteer than slap them with a limp romaine lettuce
Blimey, what a tangled web we weave.
Actually, apologies the first bit of your post said much the same as mine, although I would take the other conclusions from the twitter source with a pinch of salt until the judgement is published.
It is somewhat ironic how the Miller case keeps on helping the Brexit process.
Aodhán Connolly, of NIRC, said people in Northern Ireland would be hardest hit. “Our households already have half of the discretionary income of British households and less than those in the Republic of Ireland. A no-deal Brexit will hit us first and hit us hardest. This is not acceptable.”
Surely this is all part of a Catholic plot led ny Jacob O’Reece Mogg to make reunification more attractive.
Rabid politicians have broken the UK. It will recover - eventually.
It's what happens in the "eventually" that's the problem.
When we wake up to our new reality, we'll find that a huge trading bloc that was our partner is now a ruthless competitor, and not only that, has snaffled most of our large profitable international trading entities.
Meanwhile, our large "friend" across the Atlantic will prove to be the sort of friend whose unspoken agenda for over 100 years has been the dismantling of the British empire. Fortunately, our chefs will rise to the occasion with new and ingenious recipes for red slime.
But the good news is that our Establishment class will be on the ascendant again. With the increases in their fortunes from shorting British industry, and their tax evasion tactics secure, they will be able to restore their family mansions (with a wee bit of help from the taxpayer), and staffing them will be no problem because there's plenty of cheap labour.
And there will be a surge in royal babies to keep us distracted.
See, there's always a silver lining. 🙂
We are not as self sustainable as we were before we joined the EU.
Way before that. First world war the country suffered and second world war it suffered again due to the reliance on imported food and the Germans played on that.
The country hasn't needed to be self sustainable as it can import freely from EU where a lot of food can be grown more efficiently due to climate.
The UK could easily become self sufficient in food - give grants to growers, allow south west to be covered in poly tunnels, use automated planting/picking etc,. but there is/was no need to ever do that.
We also have the problem that forming is becoming less efficient. Arable yields are, as far as I can remember, falling in relation to the fertilisers that we use, so the energy balance is not in our favour. Likelwise, farmers rely on diesel and that's only going to increase in cost, along with the farm machinery that will need servicing. I can't think of a manufacturer that actually makes tractors in the UK, so they will get tariffed when imported.
I do wonder what could be done to make the UK self-sufficient in food. Maybe giving farmers a fair amount of money for their produce would be a good start, but that would hit people like Tesco hard and they would fight against that, or just pass it straight on to consumers.
The UK could easily become self sufficient in food
Prove it.
unfortunately their is not enough food in the uk alone to feed happy go lucky shoppers
But but ...all the pesky incomers will be going back no?
We are not as self sustainable as we were before we joined the EU.
A far right version of chairman Mao's cultural revolution, is not something to applaud and welcome.
Prove it.
I have proved it, the theory anyway -
"give grants to growers, allow south west to be covered in poly tunnels, use automated planting/picking etc,. "
Or do you expect me to actually get a job in government as a minister, get the policy through parliament, give it five years and then evidence it?
Is it actually a good idea, though?
That is the other great unanswered question for me:
Even if ‘Britain Can Make It Alone’, which we palpably cannot, but even if we could, who says this is actually a good idea?
Brexit is nonsense. The knots people tie themselves up in trying to find even the vaguest reason why it might not be all that bad are indicative of something that is just a stupid idea.
Bollocks to Brexit.
The UK could easily become self sufficient in food – give grants to growers, allow south west to be covered in poly tunnels, use automated planting/picking etc,. but there is/was no need to ever do that.
Even if the first half of that statement were true - and I'm far from convinced that it is - it's not simply that we don't need to. If we were to attempt to grow, say, pineapples we'd need land, labour, some form of artificial climate control... we'd essentially need to build another Eden Project the size of Wales. Or, we could just import them from somewhere sunny at tuppence a hundredweight.
Or do you expect me to actually get a job in government as a minister, get the policy through parliament, give it five years and then evidence it?
I expect you to be able to backup your statements with facts not unicorns and rainbows. You'd need to actually prove its feasibility before making it policy.
One of the reasons we are in this mess is people espousing their ill-informed opinions as fact when the realities are entirely different and inherently more complex.
'Throw money at it / greenhouses / technological solution' is not proving anything.
the theory anyway
Brexit was great in theory to some ....how's that panning out for us?
Politicians in theory are great ...and that's not so good right now either
We could go a long way towards self-sufficiency of people didn't throw away quite so much food (which could still be eaten, rather than food waste like bones etc). Best figures I have got suggests that each person in the UK will throw out ca. 67 kilos of food each year (seems a lot! - 4.4m tonnes in total according to this story... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/10/uk-throwing-away-13bn-of-food-each-year-latest-figures-show) .
Since your average lamb has about 13 kilos of meat on it after bones, that means that the equivalent of over 5 lambs per person are grown in the UK just to end up in landfill.
So that is the equivalent of 340 million lambs being produced just to be thrown out as waste. (we only produce 12 million lambs as a nation 🙂 )
Or if you are a Vegan, then consider it to be approximately 10 trillion iceburg lettuces being grown for nothing!
Worth thinking about if we are thinking of become self sufficient any time soon.
Any notion that we can "go it alone" would mean we'd need a clear Government strategy supported by investment - called industrial policy. Since 2000 it's been promised but never delivered - they invited sectorial bids from industry. Some of us spent years working on proposals, working with other employers to get co-funding for investment - securing funding for 10 year programmes and 2 years later they canned the lot. Whilst we work within 5 year parliamentary cycles we won't achieve anything of substance - just mealy-mouthed mendacity to secure votes and then pi$$ing-off when it comes to delivering anything!
Being self sufficient in farming is a needless fantasy. Even the Romans were importing wine and olives, its likely the our neolithic ancestors were trading tin for earthen ware.
I doubt there's a time in our recorded history that we've ever been self sufficient.
he UK could easily become self sufficient in food
you call it an obesity epidemic, I call it stockpiling...
Lamb and lettuce.
Anyone else craving a kebab?
This is all just more of the stuff that got us into this mess. 10 different people promised 10 different types of Brexit, one to please the "shut the borders" lot, one to please the "invest in the North" lot, one to please the "Singapore" lot, one to please the "kick out the muslims" lot, one to please the "the EU is about to collapse" lot, one to please the "regulate the bankers" lot , one to please the "Canada/Norway" lot etc etc.
And now that it's happening we're going to be a high-tech economy, and we're going to be like Singapore, and we're going to invest in the whole country, and we're going to all be self-suffiicent hunter-gatherers after the [s]Red[/s] Khmer Rouge, white and blue Brexit.
have proved it, the theory anyway –
“give grants to growers, allow south west to be covered in poly tunnels, use automated planting/picking etc,. ”
No that isn't proof, it's an idea. You don't grow grain in polytunnels and we import masses of the stuff. Have a read of Jay Rayner's "A Greedy Man in a Hungry World". Localisation of production (i.e. growing stuff where conditions are best suited) is a given in food production. It's efficient, even factoring in the food miles and carbon footprint of transport.
Very good.
Anyway… 1850… that's my punt for when the UK was last just about self sufficient as regards food. Been a few changes in diet (and the make up of the UK) since then.
No that isn’t proof, it’s an idea
It's an idea that could clearly easily work. We wouldn't grow pineapples, you don't need pineapples to be able to live and they are not a key part of being self sufficient.
The choice would go down (i.e no pineapples) but by selectively growing what grows well in the UK (in poly tunnels where necessary to help production) it could be done if a government really wanted to do it.
However, they don't want to do it and we as a country don't need to do it.
Sunlit uplands.... no I can't see them from inside a poly tunnel desperately trying to grow citrus fruit to stop the scurvy and rickets
what a silly mess this is - like any self-respecting project manager would with a project at work that is a banjaks, stop the entire show and start again with a better plan.
I expect you to be able to backup your statements with facts not unicorns and rainbows. You’d need to actually prove its feasibility before making it policy.
One of the reasons we are in this mess is people espousing their ill-informed opinions as fact when the realities are entirely different and inherently more complex.
FFS, get some perspective. I was just giving my opinion that with the required desire we could produce a lot more food (limited in choice but enough to feed people). I have not performed a feasibility study and I won't be making anything policy and I am aware that there are complexities to it.
It was just an opinion on a bike forum and I am hardly espousing anything as fact here and really don't think I can be responsible for the mess we are in with Brexit by posting that opinion.
limited in choice but enough to feed people
Like a famine in Africa, wonder if there will be any European aid for the humanitarian crisis in Britain?
Not sure what point I'm trying to make but it all seems so long ago and yet it wasn't.
How did we **** it up so badly?
It’s an idea that could clearly easily work.
If it can 'clearly easily work' you can provide us with some kind of fact based evidence; sometimes referred to as 'proof'.
It’s an idea that could clearly easily work. We wouldn’t grow pineapples, you don’t need pineapples to be able to live and they are not a key part of being self sufficient.
I would prefer the current arrangement.
Not sure what point I’m trying to make but it all seems so long ago and yet it wasn’t.
How did we **** it up so badly?
I think that the Olympics is a perfect example of how we got here, it was a private enterprise raid on tax payers with promises of long term benefits. Even those of us who thought that during the build up, had our spirits lifted in a summer of optimism. But after the show was over, and the promises were shown to be lies, all the supposed public benefits were handed over again to private enterprise and everyone realized we were conned.
Brexit is just another heist on a bigger scale, only we will never have a summer of optimism to look back on.
I think that the Olympics is a perfect example of how we got here
As well as the reasons you mention, it was the very definition of London and the South East benefitting at the cost of everyone else. There wasn't much enthusiasm for the Olympics up here in the Pennines.
OK MSP, well when I take a group of scouts whitewater rafting this weekend on the Legacy course at Lee Valley, I'll be sure to let them know that they aren't really enjoying it and that actually they have been conned.
OK MSP, well when I take a group of scouts whitewater rafting this weekend on the Legacy course at Lee Valley, I’ll be sure to let them know that they aren’t really enjoying it and that actually they have been conned.
Maybe also tell them how much they will subsidizing west ham united for the next 25 years, or how much it will cost them to live in the supposed affordable housing that tax payers built. A couple of shiny trinkets does not alter the reality of what happened, even if it fools a few people.
There wasn’t much enthusiasm for the Olympics up here in the Pennines.
Bullshit of the highest order. Pubs here in the Pennines were packed to watch key events.
There was lots of cynicism on the run up to the games, but once they were going we embraced them wholeheartedly.
That opening ceremony linked to above was the moment that much of the UK got behind the olympics… we could see ourselves, and the real heritage of the UK, in what we expected to just be a white elephant. It was a great and surprising moment.
"A couple of shiny trinkets does not alter the reality of what happened, even if it fools a few people."
Better we hadn't bothered with hosting the olympics at all then? What would YOU have done? How would YOU have improved the lives of everyone in the country for a few weeks? Because I don't know many people that didn't feel a little bit more optimistic for the country that summer - its such a crying shame that its all been for nothing.
"There wasn’t much enthusiasm for the Olympics up here in the Pennines"
Absolute rubbish - I was kayaking on Dartmoor, equally far away from the epicentre and the atmosphere was electric in the pubs and town centres where screens had been erected.
FFS, get some perspective. I was just giving my opinion that with the required desire we could produce a lot more food (limited in choice but enough to feed people). I have not performed a feasibility study and I won’t be making anything policy and I am aware that there are complexities to it.
best to understand the state of the UK in years past, its reliance on imports, its history of rural and urban malnutrition. rickets, scurvy etc. are very real and very much a part of the current situation. Now restrict food, you could move to rationing, which only results in a huge black market and wealth getting food the poor can't.
If it can ‘clearly easily work’ you can provide us with some kind of fact based evidence; sometimes referred to as ‘proof’.
Bear in mind that the UK is already 60% self sufficient without even focusing on it as a goal. You don't think that could easily be increased via reduction of waste, more limited choices, incentives for people to grow and produce specific stuff? Of course it could if it came to it.
I am not saying it is viable and not saying it would make sense, I am just saying that it could be achieved
How would YOU have improved the lives of everyone in the country for a few weeks? Because I don’t know many people that didn’t feel a little bit more optimistic for the country that summer – its such a crying shame that its all been for nothing.
I would have spent 10bn on social housing (real social housing, not social cleansing and gentrification in a single area). Improve lives for life, not just a false glimmer of hope for 4 weeks, now long forgotten.
Even 10 billion spent on nationwide sporting facilities would have been fantastic, unfortunately while 10bn was spunked on the few, the many saw sporting facilities reduced and closed. Public facilities sold to private providers to provide councils temporary respite against slashed budgets now too expensive for the poorest members of society.
Man you wouldn't want to be the next party in power...
y 60%
so it imports 40% of its food, ie almost half!
then you have the minor issue of who is growing it? picking it etc. you can increase production, it does involve banning livestock and a massive investment in chemicals but if that is what it takes i guess that is fine.
(re the Olympics) .....we could see ourselves, and the real heritage of the UK, in what we expected to just be a white elephant. It was a great and surprising moment.
For a period of about 2 weeks - from that point where the feeling of 'what the **** is going on here' at about 12 or 13 minutes in that video turned into my phone buzzing off the hook with text messages from overseas colleagues all saying how brilliant it was, we were immense.
How have we allowed ourselves to become a laughing stock.
'London and the south east benefitting at the cost of everyone else' ?
To most of us here it makes absolutely *no* difference, so cut tbe'be efit' rubbish please. There's a velodrome / cycle circuit which replaces the old Eastway circuit I used to live near in the 80s - which if Herne Hill hadn't survived would been the only track down here(AFAIA)- I've been to the white water centre on a jolly but it's not easily accessible for many. There's a bigger shopping centre/various bars across the site but not exactly somewhere i'd ever aim to go.
As someone that lives pretty near London and goes on a few times each week, I and many others aren't happy with the post-2012 'benefits', specifically affordable/social housing, and a stadium being chucked away at a football team. But this kinda stuff happens with many Olympics, and I can think of a few 'festival of'/'expo (insert year)' events from around Europe or the wider world where the sites have very often fallen into disrepair, disuse and abandonment. Over the last 33 years the commonwealth games has been held in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Brum gets its turn in 2022. I can't vouch for the effect on those, but at least 2012 has regenerated an area, much of which needed it. And the unfortunate truth is that a nice shiny stadium, wherever it is, can't remain empty and be self funding. 'Course, not everyone's happy, some businesses had to move (I wonder whether they were compensated sufficiently), and some have moved out purely because of increased premises costs - not limited to Stratford, and that's a related but separate problem. As is the issue of developers all over London/SE trying to scale down social/affordable housing which many council struggle to deal with in terms of getting stuff built.
Experts have released a picture portraying what london will be like in april.
Apparently Brexit's going to rearrange London monuments...?
then you have the minor issue of who is growing it? picking it etc. you can increase production, it does involve banning livestock and a massive investment in chemicals but if that is what it takes i guess that is fine.
Why would you ban livestock? I reckon 80% of the sheep meat in the UK is produced on landscapes where you would be hard pushed to grow even the most hardy tiny little turnip, let alone anything most people would like to eat. Plenty of cattle, deer, pigs and poultry can thrive under similar conditions too, we have just chosen to farm them on an industrial scale as prices have fallen and artificial inputs have become cheaper too.
Turnips ate ok 👍