Are Defibs and CPR beneficial? In short, yes.

The BHF are doing a big push on both getting defibs installed and on CPR training at the moment. Further info here on how you can get a defib installed in your community and on free CPR training

https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators/apply-for-a-free-defibrillator-for-your-community

https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life

Obviously your consultant should be your first port of call for advice but for another good source: there’s a load of good info available from the BHF including their heart helpline if you want to chat to someone else about it.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/treatments/valve-heart-surgery

This:

It’s just a load of shit is all i can say. I’m really sorry for you. It’s happened to lots of people i know at the moment. This country is becoming a total shit to live in.

I think it’s quite possible that house price and rent (hyper) inflation have effectively broken the country despite many many people having been warning about it for years now. I don’t quite know how we’re going to get out of it as prices dropping back to affordability would ruin many such are the assumptions they’ve made about prices remaining at unaffordable levels in perpetuity (!), but it looks horribly like it’s swallowed up so much of our money that we’ve basically run out…

That aside, OP, as a tenant myself you have my sympathy and my moral support. Having been in a similar situation myself recently, here’s some practical thoughts as its important to remember you do have rights, you do have support, you do have agency and you do have choices…

1. Consider this: you’re effectively in an abusive relationship and you need to exit it ASAP – anyone who behaves like that under current circumstances is not someone you want in your life in any way, shape, or form
2. Call their bluff. Tell them you can’t afford it and that’s that, and you’ll move out if they make any attempt to increase your costs. I did this when the agent tried to increase rent by 10% and they backed right down – clearly demand is not outstripping supply to the extent they say it is…
3. Remind them you’re an excellent tenant and valuable to them as such. Remember, the landlord has a debt to pay, and it’s their name on the mortgage, not yours and the risk of a void could be very problematic for them, and this is neither morally nor legally your responsibility
4. Consider your options: can you find a shared house, is moving elsewhere with cheaper rents possible with WFH, can you move back with your parents, could you become a lodger, any friends who could help you out for a few months whilst you find somewhere with a less toxic agent/landlord?
5. The Council I believe do have rent review boards who will help you challenge excessive increases – which this is
6. Shelter have a good webchat service – they’re understandably very busy right now, but they’re helpful and knowledgeable. There’s also Citizens Advice
7. Worth trying your MP and asking for support – even if they’re a Tory, you never know…

Good luck.

Give the BHF nurses a call – they’ll be able to chat you through all the ins and outs.

0300 330 3311 or hearthelpline@bhf.org.uk

Just to add, I qualified as an executive (work-based) coach a few years ago so I’m happy to help out with a couple of sessions if that would be of any use – my email address is in my profile.

This is a good book. Starts from the bottom up – who you are, what’s important to you and what you love doing.

How To Get A Job You Love

Under current economic circumstances I think formal jobs might well be a bit thin on the ground for a year or so, and any jobs that are available will have massive numbers of applicants, so it may be best to think about how you can create an income based on your skills and experience and then setting up on your own

As well as gp / NHS, the BHF will be able to help. Heart helpline will be open on Monday
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/support/heart-helpline

Ah my favourite commentator
.

Still waiting for the crash i see brooess every so often you do like to mention it’s imminancy.

That’s 6 years now iirc .

6 years is alot of rent wasted (assuming you don’t need the mobility renting affords)

Nasty response that. Really nasty. People’s ability to get on in life, save for a pension, mental health issues, communities being broken up, homelessness increasing, forcing people into massive debt etc etc.

Why would you gloat about other people’s misfortune without provocation?

Go on, give us the argument that unaffordable housing is good for the economy, good for people, good for communities, good for families…

If you want to talk about catastrophic effects on house prices let’s talk about what happens when the baby boomers start to die in large numbers.
There are 5 million baby boomers. 80% of them own their own home. Those homes are the top end of the housing stock typically. There are 25 million homes in the UK, which means that in the next five to ten years, 16% of our housing stock is going to come onto the market for sale.

Worth supplementing this demographic reality of a population with an overweight of old people with this economic reality:

Only 3 in 10 16-18 year olds think they’ll be able to afford to buy[/url]

To the extent that real estate is a Ponzi scheme requiring new entrants, that doesn’t bode well for continued growth if the new entrants have already decided they won’t be bothering…

Other factors to consider
1. Foreign investors already bailing out of London[/url]. The Donald’s description of Nine Elms as an ‘off location’ this week wont have helped bring in new investors either
2. Foxtons share price down from 400p in 2014 to 74p last week – never recovered from a big drop after the Referendum which should tell you something about how many foreign buyers are ‘pouring into London’ and overall transaction numbers
3. Countrywide down from around 680p in 2014 to 109p last week after issuing a profit warning
4. London prices now falling even with government and banks having thrown everything they possibly could to keep prices rising (QE, low interest rates, extended terms, bank of mum and dad, turning a blind eye to foreign money laundering etc) and they’re still falling… tells you something about underlying fundamentals of demand/affordability if prices are dropping with such an immense amount of market manipulation…
5. Interest rates beginning to rise, QE beginning to taper off. Up goes the cost of debt. Consumer confidence already on the floor and real incomes falling
6. Tories losing the youth vote – homeowners tend to vote Tory, renters tend to vote Labour – you now have a political motivation for policy to change – Tory base dying off with no young Tories to replace them… The youth appear to be going sharply Socialist in an attempt to force policy change as the Tories refuse point blank to listen to them.
7. Buy To Let dead in the water – likely to increase supply as they sell and reduce demand if no new BTL entrants. As above – Millenials and Gen Z can’t afford to replace them – Why Britains BTL boom is over
8.A little more economic reality: rising house prices are actually doing very little for the net worth of most households since they occur alongside rising debt burdens which cannot be sustained indefinitely (The Wealth of Humans, Ryan Avent – writer for The Economist)
9. Another economic reality: same writer notes that high housing costs stunt growth, squeeze wages and productivity across the economy and channel the gains from what growth does occur to the rich… Worth noting that since the boom in the UK from 2013 onwards, this is exactly what has happened… Just increases the pressure on the Tories to act if they don’t want a recession on their watch (they won’t be able to blame Labour this time)

As others said, sorry to hear this OP – road culture needs improving in the UK.

I’m guessing she’s an experienced cyclist but has she considered Bikeability? I did mine a few years ago, at which point I’d been riding for 35+ years – club runs and London riding so was very experienced yet I still learnt a huge amount of good technique.

Road positioning and your own observation can help ensure you’re seen and/or give you time and space to spot those drivers who aren’t paying attention, so you can take evasive action, as well as making drivers aware you’re a human being.

All the high-vis in the world does nothing if the driver’s not bothering to look. Good technique can help force them to see you… or at least help you see them and spot that they’re not looking…

My non-scientific view would be that after an exertion like that, replenishing sugar levels would be a necessity rather than something to avoid, surely? Hence the classic recovery drink being a chocolate milkshake – protein, carbohydrate and sugars…

When I get back from a ride I make a pint of chocolate milkshake – semi-skimmed milk in the blender with a couple of rounded spoons of Cadbury’s Hot Chocolate. It’s pretty effective at stopping any sugar cravings taking hold.

Alternatively a tin of rice pudding if I’ve been on a particularly effortful trip.

Brexit voters dying at a faster rate than Remain voters

Interesting point – in just 2 years time – 2020, the Brexit majority will no longer exist…

That being the case there’s simply no justification for carrying on with it – or at least not in a democracy where the will of the majority stands. The only argument for carrying on is an autocratic/dictatorial one.

It was always an important point – that the older generation were forcing on a younger generation something they didn’t want but I’d not realised the electoral/demographic calculations meant the majority would disappear in such short timescales.

It’s now very clear why May went for A50 so quickly and the Brexit camp are so panicked when they’re challenged…

Might as well call the whole thing off – demographics are destiny after all.

Good man. Happy New Year :-)

I work for the OU. We were set up to help people in exactly your circumstances and that supportive mission remains central to us.

You’ll get far far better support from the OU re your mental health issues and lack of experience studying than you will from any of the pure online providers.

When any of us attend a graduation ceremony we’re absolutely blown over by how much the achievement means to our students, it’s a huge thing they’ve done, almost always against the odds.

Re funding, depending whether you’re in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, the support available is different. Even in England you don’t start paying off the loan till you’re earning £21k…

Access courses are designed specifically as tasters…

Give us a call and have a chat to one of our student support people and they’ll help you out.

Good luck and best wishes with it

What the **** has 18th century gunboat diplomacy (or just gunboat policy) got to do with Brexit and it being a colossally bad idea?

I know we’re 841 pages in and probably scratching around a bit, but even so…..

The point is that our historic way of dealing with the world is no longer applicable and we need to learn to share and be interdependent with all kinds of countries all over the world, especially ones who used to be poor but are now becoming very rich (and therefore powerful) – as a matter of great urgency – if we want to remain relevant, have influence and to maintain our living standards, and to help ensure we don’t become the target of someone else’s empirical ambitions!

out of interest, what is the french term for french people working abroad what about the Germans, do they have the word ex-pat???

Henning Wehn likes to point out that foreigners in the UK are called ‘immigrants’ but Brits abroad are called ‘ex-pats’. It’s especially funny when it’s a German immigrant telling the joke :-)

Worth a read of this article – buyer beware no longer applies when buying property… Worth getting some legal advice and a letter from a lawyer to the developer?

When selling my house, am I legally obliged to disclose any information that may affect a potential buyer’s decision?

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/property/when-selling-my-house-am-i-legally-obliged-to-disclose-any-information-that-may-affect-a-potential-buyer-s-decision-1-4170528

Yes they are. They should also be sure their estate agent is adhering to this and other regulations that could leave the seller open to prosecution if they don’t.

It was generally believed that the sale or purchase of a property is a transaction covered by “Caveat Emptor – let the buyer beware.” When it’s up to the buyer to ask the questions and the seller or their agent to give honest answers.

However, this is no longer the case. Since 2013 with the repeal of the Property Misdescriptions Act the sale and advertising of property has come under the 2008 Consumer Protection Against Unfair Trading Regulations (CPR’s).

In simple terms, the CPR’s require a seller to inform their estate agent – and any potential buyer – of material information that may affect an average consumer’s transactional decision, not only to buy a property but even “an omission that may affect a potential buyer’s decision to view a property”. No longer can you choose what to tell your agent or buyer.

as so far it has fallen somewhat flat.

so far yes but…. the times, they are a-changin’ as per all the talk at the moment. What’s different this time is we’ve finally realised that 2008 crash was not the source of the problem but the problem making itself known i.e. we’ve had our time and we’ve been living on money borrowed from the future for too long.

Labour and Tory parties worked well enough when UK was leading the world but increasingly global leadership has to be shared with China and India, plus quite likely Africa, and we have to learn to adapt to a globalised world in which we are merely one of many. Therefore working with our trading partners and compromising will become essential if we want to maintain power and influence (in part what the EU was all about in the first place!). Taking gunboats over to developing/poor countries and nicking all their resources is 18/18th century strategy but no longer effective… time we learnt to adapt…

The French are appearing to be ahead of us in this right now.

3.2 millions eu immigrants allowed to stay, must be a few Brexiters very disappointed they are not being Sent home.

My line manager voted Brexit because she thinks we have too many immigrants. She has, however, happily sold her overpriced house to a bunch of Kuwaitis. That’s how principled and adult the anti-immigrant lot really are…

A Tory split is looking increasingly likely unless they want to be out of power for a generation. They’re simply no longer fit for purpose now globalisation is among us and we’ve moved to be much more socially liberal over the last 20+ years.

I have to say it’s not something I ever expected to see after Tony Blair was forced to push Labour to the Right as Maggie had done such a solid job in moving the country to the Right…

Interesting times. My deep Blue Tory parents will be bereft however.

It seems to me the very obvious and very massive elephant in the room is the opportunity for a new party who are economically right of centre (create the wealth in a responsible, sustainable manner so it can then be distributed more evenly), but socially liberal with a huge chunk of seeking a more equal society, a la Macron/En Marche. They’d mop up a huge proportion of the electorate – the more liberal old, a big chunk of the middle aged and loads of the young…

Who’s going to step up and do it?

#1 rule when buying a house in the UK – somewhere along the line you’ll be getting screwed over… not least by the price you’ve paid.

Just take a look at what Taylor Wimpey have been caught doing selling leasehold houses and how they’ve responded to being caught ie; doing their best to wriggle out of what is a clear scam, leading to what is effectively extortion of their customers…

IMO without anything in writing you’re probably screwed, and the developers probably knew full well they were lying to you, which is why they gave you nothing in writing. If you do have something in writing, expect them to wriggle and obfuscate until you give up

I for one think it’s too densely populated as it is

Lots of reasons why one person’s opinion is not a wise methodology for writing critical government policy:
1. By what criteria is the UK ‘too densely populated’?
2. Where do you live and how much have you travelled around the UK? Population density varies hugely from Central London to the Highlands of Scotland so your perception may be totally unrepresentative
3. What economic sectors are dependent on immigration? What’s the impact on those sectors and the wider economy of falling immigration? (Data-driven/empirical answer please, not sentiment)
4. What geographical areas are dependent on immigration. What’s the impact here on those areas and the wider economy of falling immigration? I’ll give you a clue, London is 40% immigration and produces 22% of UK GDP despite accounting for only 12.5% of the UK population. Depopulating London of immigrants would crash the housing market, crash the economy, lower the tax take needed for essential public services.
5. What social impacts would reducing immigration have? Many Brits I know have foreign born spouses – what would be the impact for them and their kids?
6. What would happen to all the cheap food we like to eat if cheap foreign labour were no longer available?
7. What would be the impact on all the foreign direct investment of a policy of reducing immigrants? Would it make investors less willing if they felt unwelcome?
8. What would be the impact on the NHS and the care sector? Both very very necessary right now as we deal with the impact of an ageing population and a population that appears to be addicted to eating itself to an early grave (c65% of adults overweight or obese)

etc etc etc.

You’re entitled to your opinion but are you sure you’ve fully thought through the implications of imposing it on a country that’s deeply embedded in international trade and on the skills and labour that immigration provides?

Sure we can ‘send them home’ or ‘stop them coming’ but are you sure you want to lose your job, see your house price plummet, not be able to get the care you want in hospital, see your weekly shop shoot up in price?

Sentiment does not good policy make…

The old “if I cannot have it why should they” mentality stinks.

So does the ‘I’m going to grab what I can and sod how I make it and sod the impact on everyone else’ mentality. That’s what the current anger is about.

Framing it as jealousy is a typical autocratic approach so you give yourself the excuse to criticise and crack down on legitimate anger. Look at Syria and Turkey for the best current examples of that technique!

Setting up a business and running it in a legal manner paying required taxes, providing jobs and treating your investors, suppliers, employees and customers with respect is completely and utterly viable and you can make yourself incredibly rich like that. Take a look at Timpsons if you want to see a family make itself very rich but doing so responsibly and ethically. I might add that they are very well connected with the Parliamentary Tory Party so by no means are they some kind of lefty collective!

Info here Timpsons…

Worth also pointing out that the biggest cause of inequality in the UK is NOT earned wealth, but housing… House prices are only currently going up because the younger generation are being forced into a life of debt slavery to keep the whole bubble going…
Property driving inequality

In a new report, the thinktank noted that the baby boomers born in the 20 years after the second world war were the big beneficiaries of rapidly rising house prices, but had amassed most of the wealth through no skill of their own. Wealth disparities would have “worrying consequences” for the living standards of younger generations, it added.

Greater equality of wealth keeps economic growth running more smoothly. A rich man spends a lower proportion of his income than a poor man – there’s only so much he can spend it on. So the more evenly spread a country’s earnings are across the population, the more of it gets spent and the more growth you get.

If you want riots or the proles to come around and smash your windows then keep making sneery comments about inequality and keep making assumptions that people who’re poor have had the same life chances as everyone else and therefore are poor from their own lack of hard work… and that people who’re rich have somehow created every last bit of it through their own entrepreneurialism and hard work. That’s a myth and not one you want to repeat to the face of someone tired of dealing with sneery middle class prejudice…

If we do get violence then it won’t be because of our inequality per se, it’ll be the nasty victim-blaming by the middle classes and the rich that generates the anger… I might point out that plenty of middle classes and rich aren’t stupid enough to be like this, just an idiot few…

I’ve also been around the City for 15 years. Plenty of people there make their money legally and legitimately but I also saw a culture of real nasty backstabbing and general dishonesty… might be worth noting SFO being all over Barclays for an example of City culture…

Well the. Irishtimes agrees with my assessment

Looks a lot like schadenfreude to me after years of the Irish being the butt of English jokes about the Irish being idiots…

I agree with him… we’re being led by utter donkeys at the moment…

The housing crisis does tend to being out the callous in people.

One of the worst was from a ‘lady’ at work who’s into BTL telling me if young people thought housing was too expensive for them to move out and start a family, then they shouldn’t aspire to it in the first place… 8O

This link below is well worth a listen – the difference in life expectancy in Kensington & Chelsea between the richest and poorest is 14 years… which is a direct result of the difference in living conditions. One of the very richest boroughs in the UK. I’ve lived in London for 15 years and am well aware of the stark differences between rich and poor but that’s a real shocker… and shows you just how perverse and corrupt our housing market is and how widespread the effects are.

Just possibly, Grenfell will shine a light on the situation and begin a process of change, although I’m deeply cynical it will with so many MPs playing in BTL and so many of the UK population utterly resistant to the crisis being solved.

Start The Week – Radio 4

85% of votrs at the GE being cast for Brexit Manifestos.

No.

85% of votes went to one of the two main parties in what is in effect (and has been for decades) a two-party system… we effectively have no realistic choice to vote for either Labour or Tory if we want our vote to count towards putting a government in place that we approve of.

Liberals don’t have a strong enough proposition and are badly weakened by their coalition experience. Greens are a tiny party so of course they got tiny numbers of votes. UKIP lost huge numbers of votes. Thank God.

This voting pattern does NOT mean we voted for either Brexit manifesto. Anyone who wants to suggest that is clearly grasping at straws. Correlation does NOT mean causation.

It gives me hope – having to misrepresent stats in order to reassure yourself of your argument is a tacit acceptance of the data not backing up your beliefs.

Brexit will fall apart under it’s own contradictions. It is already, and we’ve not even started the negotiations…

Angry? yes but not angry enough to riot I don’t think. We do passive aggressive rather than proper aggressive.
Unsettled and scared, yes.
Realising we’ve thrown all our money, power and political influence away in a fit of utter complacency and consumerism and feeling more than a little bit stupid, yes.

I don’t know if it’s from leaving London or not but around me I’m certainly hearing some rather strident right-wing views expressed relatively publicly which I’ve not heard for a long time, but that may just be because I’m living in middle England for the first time in 25+ years.

I think we’d all rather surf the internet, go shopping and watch TV than riot though. The right-wing bigots I know aren’t the rioting type – small minded wealthy middle-class middle englanders, all of them…

That said, I suspect most of us on this forum haven’t been impacted by austerity as much as other people so maybe we don’t realise how hard things are for a lot of people down on the ground…

1) The opportunity to scrap an enormous burden of legislation, some of it admittedly arcane and to start from scratch.

2) To cause a severe shock to the UK economy, to force a restructure and eventual recovery. This approach is sometimes known as ‘Disaster Capitalism’.

3) To erode and repeal EU legislation protecting the workforce – note the language from pro-Brexit MPs proclaiming protection for employee rights in the workplace – which most workers will not be afford to enforce through tribunal courts since a fee was introduced. There’s a strong drive amongst Brexiteers to take advantage of our low skill, poor productivity workforce as the cheaper option to fixing the skills and productivity gap, which requires investment.

A lot of the thinking is based on the experience of European economies in the immediate post war period, the restructures inevitably paved the way for prosperity for countries like Germany. Of course, they neglect to mention the existence of The Marshall Plan…

re pt2 – we had a severe shock to the economy in 2008, haven’t restructured (we’re in even more government and personal debt, house prices are even more unaffordable and we’re still dependent on debt-driven consumer spending and a badly behaved financial sector) – and still haven’t recovered. I’m not sure what kind of shock these people think will improve this situation?

As well as The Marshall Plan, we also had the happy situation of a baby boom – leading a massive boost in the working age population from the early 60’s which then drove productivity and GDP growth. Plus, given we were bust after WW2 – any economic growth would have looked good in % terms… Plus every European economy, supported by USA was working at the same time to rebuild the continent, it wasn’t just one country on it’s own.

These people are lunatics.

I always wondered why May was going for the most extreme version of Brexit given that in April 16 she thought that leaving was a really stupid thing to do – it seemed inconsistent to say the least.
I assumed it was one of two things – the extreme right wing in her party really did have that much of a hold over her.

OR – she knew that the harder the Brexit she offered, the more likely there’d be resistance from her MPs, Parliament overall and from us, the electorate – as by definition hard Brexit was disfavoured by almost the entire nation.

Interesting that today the leaks are coming out that cross-party talks are already taking place around a softer Brexit as a reaction to this ultra-hard approach. If Parliament as a whole takes a view of Brexit that is representative of the views of individual MPs then we’ll not be leaving as most were Remain.

As the economy sinks (already doing so) as a result of the referendum and sentiment around the ultra-hard option, the more moderate Out voters will soften up and reconsider if they really made the right decision (as well as many of them suffering the anger of their family member over what they’ve done…

So we’re already beginning to slide down the slippery slope of leaving hard Brexit behind. How long before public opinion shifts away entirely? When will be the right point to suggest a second referendum once an actual deal is on the table?

Or am I making massive assumptions that May is that cunning…

What is needed is a snappy party title that people who are not hard core socialist and not hard core right wing nut-jobs can actually get behind and feel comfortable with.

This is what I’m hearing all over – my friends in London want it (currently left of centre) my friends in the home counties want it (currently right of centre) and a chunk of my work colleagues in Middle England want it (currently a Tory seat but only just scraped through last week.

I suspect a lot of previous Labour and Tory voters don’t want to stay with either of those parties as they’re heading off to the extremes but don’t feel the Liberal Party has a strong enough vision-based cause to fall behind.

Plus I think we all recognise that brexit or not, we’re seriously up the creek and we’ve used up all our paddles and got no money left to buy any more – and the two-party ‘shout at each other and ignore the electorate’ system just isn’t anything we respect any more – it’s not fit for purpose in a crisis.

I think the middle ground is there for the taking – we need a technocratic, pragmatic ideology-free coalition that governs for the people and the situation we’re in rather than for itself. The sooner someone serious and capable steps up to the plate, the better. The longer they fail to do this the more down the slippery slope of extremism we going to fall…

He is an experienced yachtsman, so those are the circles he moves in.

he may be experienced but he can’t be that competent if he’s just sailing the boat round in circles.

Maybe if he was a little more balanced and wasn’t leaning so hard over to the right then the thing would sail in a straight line :-)

Someone in the UK needs to have Macron’s confidence and vision and use putting a stop to Brexit as a base to their manifesto.
Forgive me, I don’t know much about French politics, but isn’t Macron’s whole party a new movement? I cannot see the political climate in the UK allowing a new party to sweep to power in a short time – but I am not exactly sure why.

Agreed – someone needs to but on the surface at least, no-one appears to be stepping forward. Liberal Party are too weak it seems, so we need a new centrist movement. Tony Blair hinted at something like this in the video I posted last week but he’s pretty toxic for the British public so I don’t think he’s the right figurehead. We probably need someone younger too.

Tories think they’re the natural party of power in the UK – being the party of the aristocracy and establishment so they’ll not go down without a very, very hard fight. This election may just be the beginning of the end of them – their base is already dying off… in 10 years time they’ll be far less dominant amongst the electorate and the generation below (mine) are more naturally socially liberal so are less likely to instinctively vote Tory just because they always have…

I can’t believe no-one’s plotting something – Brexit is too much of a loss for too many powerful people. Maybe they’re just biding their time – once the economy’s hurting and house prices have fallen more and people are feeling real pain then they’ll move – not before end 2017 at the earliest IMO. Economy is already struggling on so many metrics – inflation, growth, retail volumes, real wages and now the holy grail of house prices beginning to go too… but people need to feel more pain before they’ll act IMO.

In the meantime there’s an awful lot of people at work who’re openly hostile to Brexit and to May/Tories – I’ve never known the UK so politicised since I’ve been an adult. The hard Brexiters keep quiet – they know we all think they’ve made the stupidest decision and they’re certainly not proud of it as they never try and make their case publicly. If the hard Brexiters are already feeling challenged to this extent then I suspect there’s more than a few soft Brexiters silently regretting what they did and if we give them an easy way to change their minds where they don’t have to do it publicly then they’ll take it I reckon… Farage is clearly a spent force likely to have less influence if we come to another referendum

I think the bicycle was invented by a German. So not really a British invention…

ok, best British invention: Nicking other countries’ ideas and resources and taking them as our own :-)

Any blow landed on the Tories improves the potential to get a grip on the Brexit fiasco and slam the brakes on, maybe even hit reverse. Hope springs eternal.

Hope does indeed spring eternal.

I suspect that that number of remainers who the recent polls suggest have accepted Brexit against their wishes will turn right back again into strong remainers if they’re given a strong leader to follow with a positive vision for staying in…

Perhaps even a grand exercise in mass anti tory voting ?

That was me – for first time ever.

Even my very very deep true blue parents didn’t like May – that’s how weak she is

The hard brexiteers apparently number about 30-40. THis result will give them waaaay to much sway over the next Tory leader and therefore over the negotiations. If so I suspect the UK will not be a pleasant place as that particular group do NOT represent the people as a whole…

If this turns out to be the case then the Tories are seriously going to struggle for the next term – they’ve done huge amounts of damage to the UK in the last few years – some of which for me as a (previous) lifetime Tory voter will struggle to forgive them for. I suspect they’ll have lost their place as the ‘natural’ party of leadership that many in the UK have previously seen them as and this may do them long term damage.
Damage done:
1. Taking super high house prices and sending them into the stratosphere simply to help them win an election and holding back a whole generation
2. Brexit
3. Making us the laughing stock of Putin and the rest of the world by calling this election and utterly fudging it…

Edit: Boris will be loving this. Why do you think he stayed away from the leadership election last year? He knew it was a poisoned chalice

Right now in the 21st century – giving away our wealth, power and influence in a fit of stupidity!

+1 for the bicycle. although maybe I’m a little biased :-)

i think they should be governed by the same rules and they can have positions but what they say has to be grounded in fact rather than polemic and diatribe

Which is what Leveson is supposed to move us towards and look what May wants to do with that…

It’s very very hard not to be cynical about whether the UK really is a paragon of a liberal democracy or just a pretend one…

Thank God for social media.

Effect of the media being forced to give equal time to both sides during a campaign?

I wonder how different the UK would be if we had a more neutral press. More balanced social views, generally more global in our outlook, less bigoted, less divided, remaining in the EU etc?

Hopefully social media will kill the nastier elements of our press and remove their influence from our national conversation…