She may be gone shortly in any case – her base are not impressed and neither it appears are her MPs… leaking this story this evening

Why Theresa May Could Be Damaged Even If She Wins U.K. Election

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-07/why-theresa-may-could-be-damaged-even-if-she-wins-u-k-election

My parents would vote for a gerbil if it was a Tory and they’re not sure about May at all and given that it’s the Tory activists like them who select the MPs who then vote for the leader, they will make their feelings known if they’re not happy with her…

So one possibility is they’ll shift May at some point either depending on the results of this election or the path of the Brexit negotiations.

If they do, you’ll know that the Tory party clearly only care about their own needs and sod actually leading the country through a crisis, and we’ll also be the laughing stock of the world, losing two Prime Ministers in a matter of a year or so over what is essentially an internal madness about Europe, dragging the whole country through their own internal schism

This is an interesting thing to watch. I’m no fan of Tony Blair, have never voted Labour and never likely to but he has far more gravitas in this interview than any of the rhetoric coming from our current PM.

Either way – the section from 34 mins onwards for 10 mins or so where he puts out his case for campaigning for Remain is well worth a listen… there’s clearly some background organising going on IMO but presumably whoever’s running it are holding their fire for now – certainly until after the election and once there’s more substance to the A50 process and a shape of a deal… he’s clearly hinting at a Remain campaign and fightback being worked on.

Shame it’s him really as he’s so tainted but his considered seriousness is badly what we need right now. I personally think we need a younger version of someone of similar politics (centrist) with similar gravitas and seriousness to lead the fightback. Maybe they’re there sitting in the wings. Who knows…

Failed to get elected to Westminster. Led a party more likely to lose it’s deposit than win seats at Westminster. Managed to get the country out of the only parliament he could get elected to.

I’m rather curious about the psychology behind this – Farage claims to hate the very political institution that gave him power… it’s a very conflicted way of being. A bit like Stewie in Family Guy and how much he hates his mother… I guess Freud would have something interesting to say about this.

He doesn’t hate UK Parliament which has always conspired against him getting in but he does hate EU Parliament which did welcome him.

I wonder how he’d handle being in the House of Lords…

Gary Barlow’s done ok for himself

Why not plan to go just for a couple of years and see how you find it?
I’ve a mate in Abu Dhabi right now. The Expat lifestyle and the expats are a slightly rum bunch IMO – a LOT of keeping up appearances so you may find you save nowt and your neighbours are Mr and Mrs Hyacinth Bucket on stilts. Or you may love the sun the big house and big car and being out of the UK and the mess we’re in…

A couple of anecdotes:
1. My mate’s wife asked me to get some festival tickets a month ago – they’re coming back to UK for a few weeks in summer – can I buy them and she’ll Paypal me the money over c£200? Yes, no problem. I buy and then ask for the cash ‘we’ve a small cash flow problem at the moment’…. They have 3 cars, a maid, 4 kids in private school, shop at Waitrose, all the lifestyle they want but couldn’t lay their hands on a spare £200. I don’t mind at all, they’re very good friends but I was more than a bit surprised they’re living that close to the overdraft. He’s an HR Director on an ex-pat package so not suffering in income terms!
2. He was in Bahrain when the Arab Spring kicked off and they had tanks on the streets. He was so concerned it was going to get so messy that he legged it out of the country, putting his kids through a load of stress. All turned out ok in the end but it wasn’t a fun moment…
3. I chatted to a recruiter in Abu Dhabi just after Xmas this year to get an idea how it would be to work there. It’s a police state owned by the Royal Family. They’re benign enough but you have to take care to behave the way they expect and don’t say the wrong thing and you may find you have no decision-making powers as the Family essentially dictate how things will be done…

Obviously your Dad knows how to make the best of it. I’d give it a go. My mate is planning on being out there for 10 years…

Ask people if they think we should tax rich bankers or fat cat businessmen more – you’ll probably get an overwhelmingly affirmative response.

I agree that;s; what people say but look at what happens when we get offered cheap debt to buy shiny things like cars – we go nuts for it. I don’t see people so keen to spend a bit less on themselves and give some cash to charity instead…

I’ve learnt to my cost that if I point out that houses are far too expensive and we need to give up the idea of a free money tree which is coming at the massive expense of the younger generation, then I become deeply disliked very quickly.

So I agree that people like to scapegoat bankers etc but I don’t see a genuine desire to help the worse off by those of us who’re ok actually giving up anything ourselves… Not the sign of a happy, healthy society really

after a week they’re cacking themselves about where the next job is coming from.

I’m back perm now because I couldn’t get a contract after my last one finished in 2015 – was 6 months out of work…

If I could guarantee 9 months of work a year you wouldn’t see me perm ever again but life’s really not that straightforward.

Perm job security is a myth. We have big redundancies being announced in the next few months and if I go I’ll have been here less than two years. My last contract I was in the same organisation for four years and have a lot more cash in the bank to show for it that I would from the equivalent time in perm…

reckons the London bias of the media has vastly underestimated how well Labour are doing at the moment.

I struggle with this though – you look at our day to day culture in the UK now and it’s not in the slightest way Socialist – we’re grabbing everything we can in fear of losing it – look at the housing crisis and how no-one really wants it solved for e.g.

There’s pockets of people who want a more caring society and one focussed on contributing to our community rather than grabbing what we want for ourselves but I don’t see it in the broader national character at all. I’ve moved from London to Middle England a year ago and the grabbiness and outright prejudice towards minorities is really shocking me… London’s a friendly paradise in comparison!

UK seems far more Right than Left as far as I can see. Obviously I only have my own perspective but I divide my time between London and Middle England and speak to friends in the North regularly and I don’t see any real shift leftwards – my London friends don’t want to vote for any current party, we want a proper, strong Centrist party – where Liberals are in political terms, but aren’t strong enough…

Swap ‘who threw that stone?’ for ‘who wants to be PM right now?’ and I can picture how May became our PM…

Watching the Andrew Neil thing and I kindof feel sorry for her, she’s performing pretty well at appearing to be confident whilst clearly having a shocker…

I’m wondering how she ended up being PM, was it misjudged overambition or has she been pushed into it because Leadsom wasn’t favoured and everyone else was hiding in the corner, cos who’d be daft enough to try and navigate us through the tragedy that is Brexit.
All her u-turns, her control freakery and use of a tight team of trusted advisers and her pro remain speech last year suggest to me she’s been forced into being PM cos she wasn’t smart enough to get out of the way during the leadership election…
Question is, who will be gone first, her or Trump?

Secondly, whilst I understand your point, the idea that ‘much of this investment’ is criminal money is quite ludicrous.

Smarter and better-informed people than you or me support this view. Do you really think £170bn is a fair fight to people earning an average of £28k a year? (UK median income)… Ask yourself just why a foreign resident would buy property in a country they don’t actually live in if it’s not for speculation or laundering?

More than £170bn of UK property is now held overseas. Much of that is in London, where unprecedented house price inflation has transformed homes into highly profitable investments for asset speculators. Nearly one in 10 of the 31,000 tax haven companies that own British property are linked to Mossack Fonseca.

Panama Papers

“We think it very likely that the influx of corrupt money into the housing market has pushed up prices,” said Rachel Davies, senior advocacy manager at Transparency International. Donald Toon, head of the National Crime Agency, has gone further, saying last year that “the London property market has been skewed by laundered money. Prices are being artificially driven up by overseas criminals who want to sequester their assets here in the UK”.

Since 2004 £180m of UK property has been subject to criminal investigation as suspected proceeds of corruption, according to Transparency International data from 2015. Yet this probably represented “only a small proportion of the total”, added the campaign group.
FT.com

Either way, I know it’s no use explaining to people ‘winning’ from this crisis that it’s a) wrecking the economy b) a bad thing for those of us excluded from buying so there’s probably no point even putting up this kind of evidence. Those that are quite happy with the current situation will just argue against it… happens on these threads every time…

As TINAS points out, the worst financial crisis in the last 80 years did virtually nothing to house prices. An actual drop of 25% just won’t happen.

But you’re not comparing like with like.
UK house prices have gone up like a rocket (in London and SE for several reasons which weren’t present in 2008)
1. Tidal wave of speculative money coming from foreign investors (much of it criminal money being laundered)
2. Massive stimulus from BoE (super low base rate + billons upon billions of QE + Funding For Lending Scheme
3. Help To Buy – government using taxpayers money to subsidise the housing market
4. Hyperinflation in London (10%+ YOY since 2013
5. In 2008, London was still affordable to people on average and good salaries, now its not. In SE26 you could get a 2-bed flat for £250-£300K and now they’re £400k+ – yet real wages are lower than 2007
6. Affordability is way off long term norms (6x salary). London is now c12x, Oxford and Cambridge are c14x so potential for 50% drops which didn’t exist in 2008 as prices weren’t so far from wages.
7. Big push into BTL since 2008 – which is now reversing following government intervention
8. London and SE, massive amounts of building. Unprecedented in my experience, having lived there since 2000.
9. In London at least they’re building flats for speculative punts, not flats which match the wages and needs of the local workers (even the wealthy ones). Battersea currently not selling… because the demand is simply not there to match the scale at which they’re building. 10 years’ supply of flats over £1m coming on to the market over the next few years… not smart…
10. Bubbles also in USA (San Fran + NYC), Canada, Australia, New Zealand – not present in 2008. Once sentiment starts to fall these bubbles which infect each other.
11. High rents and mortgage payments for new buyers and massive deposits needed are strangling the real economy of badly needed consumer spending power (FTBs saving or spanking money in rent and not spending the money more widely across the economy) – again a factor not present in 2008 to the same extremes or extent. UK GDP is 70% consumer spending so go figure whether government need to change this or sustain it?
12. BoE now warning on debt levels – both mortgage and loans/credit cards. This time, however, banks are better capitalised and stress tested for a 35% fall in prices so BoE more confident house prices can be deflated without causing the same amount of damage to the broader economy.
13. Speculative on my part but Tories are now losing influence as homeowning voters tend to vote Tory – home ownership now in decline so they will want to change this. The Social Care change looks like it may well be designed to get the oldies to downsize en masse and pass the cash on to their kids now to save the whole lot going on their social care… That’ll release a shed load of family homes onto the market… big jump in supply

It’s simply not the same situation in any way at all… far worse now in many ways.

The idea that because prices of an asset have recently seen inflation means they’ll rise for ever is a well-known financial psychological error and is what sits behind every market bust since ever… overconfidence in prices remaining high is what causes the bust as it leads to excessive speculation and overpaying out of line with fundamentals.

Same old beatles covers they’ve been churning out since they formed I would think

That’s just besmirching the Beatles! Oasis have always been a pub band – there’s no songs which sound anything like The Beatles or even a shade of their breadth or creativity…

Rock’n’roll was a social thing as much as cultural – there was a lot of social and economic change at the time so it’s a product of its times and I’m not sure it’s realistic for us to expect music like that to be continued to be produced half a century later – by either the original artists or new ones.

However the economic, political and social tectonic plates are shifting once again so hopefully some great new art will come through over the next decade… but like the 60s and 70s, the world that produces it will not be a settled one…

+1 for Herne Hill – now the new track is in and the new grandstand completed it’s a real focal point for SE London cycling – CX in winter, track in summer.

You also have Crystal Palace crits on summer Tuesday evenings…

Join one of the SE London clubs to find out just how much is going on – there’s a great scene…

We need a rule at my place to tell people to stop people bringing in massive amounts of cake and biscuits pretty much every day – it’s overwhelming.

Of course the risk is in the long term when everyone dies of obesity-related diseases…

If I didn’t ride in I’d have joined the rest of the UK in the competition to see who can be the fattest :roll:

Pray the weather’s good – then you can spend all your days clifftop and countryside walking, eating pub lunches and playing on the beach – which will be great for kids that age.

Avoid the main touristy sites – they’re very Middle England IMO – except for the historic things like Brading Roman Villa, Carisbrooke, Osborne etc.

If the kids have too much energy, walk them up St Boniface Down above Ventnor – that’ll keep them quiet :-)

Brexit and a Tory landslide. What’s not to like ?

That just looks like a gloat – which is why I suspect your pronouncements get so much criticism and anger in response.

If you’re a Tory and you voted out then of course there’s plenty to like.

But for the c30% of the population who voted Remain and the c30% who didn’t vote (bearing in mind most of those who voted out will be dead by the time the deal is actually delivered) it’s an appalling situation – really appalling.

30% + 30% = a majority of the population so don’t you see why gloating about your ‘victory’ might actually be a rather stupid and dangerous thing to do?

For those who aren’t Tory tribalists there’s also plenty not to like…

You really really need to get some empathy and concern for others and the fact their preferences and views are different from yours if you want some respect and want people to listen to you…

One of the people there blamed a tailgating aggressive driver for bullying him to speed and the guy giving the course said slow down and just let them past as an idiot is better off infront of you than behind you.

This is great advice. I was told this on my speed awareness course and will pull in at earliest opportunity whether motorway or single carriageway – it’s very calming – puts you back in control and puts the aggressor back where you can see them…

You don’t stop playing when you grow old.
You grow old when you stop playing.

Me. Aged 43 and 3/4

The issue here is that it’s the one element that the voters of this country were able to decide to take back control of.

As I said – pure sentiment, the desire for control by a country feeling sore about its loss of place in the world – scapegoating the EU – we also have control over our national governments, our own feelings and our own ability to refuse to feel comforted by Far Right nationalist populism!

Like I said – look to your own government, your own emotions and how you use your vote instead of scapegoating the EU!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/15/jp-morgan-landmark-office-dublin-brexit

more good new i am sure all will agree.

My brother lives in Dublin – and looking at all the cash pouring into the financial district he reckons that if for any reason the banks don’t ever move in then on the scale the developers/speculators expect then Dublin’s in for another big property bust

EU rules, EU grant money

Kraft – American company
Capitalism – global
Shareholders – global

Diagnosis that it was a dirty thing to do – correct
Assumption that the only important element was our membership of the EU – wrong.
Assumption that rapacious international capitalism will leave us alone when we leave the EU – wrong.

Scapegoat the EU if you like but life aint that simple IME…

Oh, and having read that FT article on Twinings – pay attention to this:

EU rules specifically forbid grants from its structural funds from going to subsidise the relocation of businesses. But a joint investigation by the Financial Times and the non-profit Bureau for Investigative Journalism found companies ranging from British tea maker Twinings to automotive company Valeo were at the very least receiving EU subsidies to help with the establishment of new factories, the extension of existing ones and the training of workers in their new homes.

so, once again, Leavers basing their view on ill-informed sentiment and blaming the EU for the failures of others! The EU specifically forbids funds to be used like this but Twinings have manipulated their way round it – the fault is with Twinings and the demands of their shareholders, not the EU!

and leaving the EU stops that how?

Quite – hence I wrote:

IMO Brexit has happened not because those who voted for it have any good reasons

What Kraft did (a US company I might point out) may well have been lousy behaviour and may have come about because they took advantage of free movement of goods and the single market but the crooks to go after are not the EU! The crooks to go after are Kraft and their shareholders…

There’s good reasons and there’s misapprehension based on ill-informed sentiment based on the UK feeling down on its luck…

Leaving the EU will not stop rapacious capitalists doing stuff in their own interests! If we want the UK to be successful and provide jobs, maybe end our dependence on debt-led consumer spending and insane house price speculation… and invest in training, education, infrastructure, building new businesses etc – and none of these are failing to happen because of the EU – they’re the decisions of our governments desperate for the votes of a childlike electorate unwilling to face some hard truths about our the real state of our economy…

Isn’t the use of Developers’ and Estate Agents’ own conveyancers behind the massive scandal currently unfolding re leasehold houses and selling those leases on?

I think you’ve made the right decision to use your own – and agree with you that if they’re upset that you’re not using theirs, then you’ve weakened their ability to scam you somewhere along the line, which is a GOOD THING!

Just thought I’d drop into the mix that Churchill thought that greater European integration and the element of shared sovereignty that went with it was a good thing. From a speech by Chris Patten. By a Tory about a Tory, rather interestingly they’ve not always been utterly bonkers, just our hard luck the bonkers ones appear to have taken over…

In 1950 Robert Schuman made his proposal for pooling French and German coal and steel production under a supranational authority. In the Commons debate that followed, Churchill said this:
“We are asked in a challenging way: ‘are you prepared to part with any degree of national sovereignty in any circumstances for the sake of a larger synthesis ?’ …The Conservative and Liberal Parties say, without hesitation, that we are prepared to consider, and if convinced to accept, the abrogation of national sovereignty, provided that we are satisfied with the conditions and safeguards…[We] declare that national sovereignty is not inviolable, and that it may be resolutely diminished for the sake of all men in all the lands finding their way home together.”
In a speech to the Congress of Europe two years before, in 1948, he had observed that although “closer political unity…involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty” such a sacrifice might be viewed as “the gradual assumption by all the nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can alone protect their diverse and distinctive customs and characteristics of their national traditions.”
In other words, Churchill advocated both the integrity of the nation state and the need to share sovereignty the better to protect it and to promote its interests.

Full speech here Given in 2002

IMO Brexit has happened not because those who voted for it have any good reasons, but more because those who see the value of the EU (including people like me who’ve worked and lived in Europe, the saner elements of UK government (most MPs infact) and the EU institutions and figureheads themselves have utterly failed to sell its benefits and explain the deal in terms of what we give away in order to gain these benefits. Hence we’ve been comprehensively beaten by Far Right bluster and propaganda… the man on the street has no proper argument to counter it…

Good to see the French join the Dutch in accepting with maturity their relative decline in the world and voting for someone with a positive vision for the future instead of indulging in the (false) comforts of nationalist populism…
Still time for England to follow their lead.

Just need enough people locked out of buying property and not being able to meet rental prices.

Have a chat to people under 40 in London and you’ll find we’re already there.

The idea that London would be more attractive to foreign buyers after the referendum fall in Sterling has turned out to be the total lie it always was. Foxtons share price took a massive fall in July and have continued downwards since. Prices in Prime Central London have been falling since the increase in stamp duty and showing no signs of life – just more and more panicked press releases from developers and agents trying to pretend all is normal…

UK is very open and welcoming to foreigners

Or rather: UK is very open and welcoming to foreign criminals laundering their money through property.

£100bn per year to be precise

+ I might add, most homeowners are quite happy to pretend this isn’t happening as it makes them feel rich as their own place goes up in ‘value’.

Meanwhile, anyone who doesn’t own is trapped in a world of low standards of living by renting or massive debt by buying and feeling powerless to do anything about it.

UK is far from corruption-free.

OP you’re not really surprised about this are you? Have you ever tried to convince a UK homeowner that prices need to come down? Even if you present all the arguments to show how the whole economy would benefit, they hate you for even suggesting it…

An awful lot of people are quite happy for the current situation to be maintained… look at the excuses listed above…
Builders
Existing homeowners
Banks
MPs (many in BTL)
BTLers
Government (keeps a big chunk of the electorate happy)

Meanwhile the young are increasingly angry and resentful… Certainly everyone I know in London who hasn’t already bought is furious. There’s very few prepared to be forced into buying at current insane prices.

Worth looking at the volumes being sold in Battersea (SW8) compared to volumes on the market and also Foxtons share price if you want to see how much veracity there is in the idea that current prices are either sustainable or even leading to much in the way of sales…

“She will take action against the people who seek to divide us.”

and wtf does that mean?

Go back a couple of pages to the article in the FT which was posted on here (Monday I think) by Gideon Rachman, titled, “Brexit and the slide into nationalism”…

He essentially said she would do exactly this as and when she found herself under pressure. I don’t imagine he thought it would come on this fast…

First we had Amber Rudd and her lists of companies and the % of foreign workers they employed, then we had Michael Howard talking about war with Spain and now we have nationalist sentiment like this.

I don’t think it’s overdoing it to be getting worried about the tone of the current government – I’ve lived with Tory governments all my life, growing up in Thatcher years but I’ve never heard sentiment like it come from a UK government…

Even if this is just rhetoric to appeal to the party base, this is very dangerous stuff to be playing with – it can get out of hand very easily – well it already has with the referendum campaign and result…

All of it, why?

+1

Whilst the FT’s request should IMO be respected overall, this particular article should be more widely distributed. We underestimated the rise of Nationalism in the 1930s, so suggest we keep alert to it again IMO… We have a similar pattern going on now – decline of a proud, sovereign power, economic hardship followed by the rise of Nationalism and populism…

On a similar note, in The Economist article on the historic tension there’s always been between Central Banks and Governments, they have this to say… some interesting parallels…

In Britain the Labour government fell in 1931 when it refused to enact benefit cuts demanded by the Bank of England. Its successor left the gold standard. In Germany Heinrich Brüning, chancellor from 1930 to 1932, slashed spending to deal with the country’s foreign debts but the resulting slump only paved the way for Adolf Hitler.

I am on the Internet so no-one knows I am a dog

so don’t tell me we can’t do big engineering any more:

Well from that pic, it looks like we can’t. There’s massive gaps in it!

+1 from a Londoner that Londoners didn’t support the idea of the bridge either. Despite London looking pretty wealthy at the moment, there’s a lot of anger that the city’s being sold from underneath our feet to (not always legit) international money and tearing out the soul of the place. Let alone the amount of money laundering that’s gone on and made it totally unaffordable to live there anymore…

U.K. Regrets Brexit for First Time Since Referendum, Poll Says…

YouGov

Google Road ID.
Wrist bands and dog tags with your personal info and emergency contact details.
I wear mine all the time but bought it mainly for road riding

The Remain camp is just as guilty of this I think.

(speaking as a Remainer myself)

Yes – as is the case in every argument – but in this specific debate, Remainers didn’t make some massive decision impacting the whole country both now and in the future on the back of spurious evidence, plus ALL the well-informed sources suggest that Brexit will have a negative impact and is already doing so… there simply isn’t any compelling evidence to support the Leave case, only sentiment…

For e.g. my boss could only refute Experian’s view with ‘I think’, she doesn’t have an alternative data-based analysis – because there isn’t one to support her position…

Exports are ok because the global economy, and the EU are ticking along ok, therefore keeping demand high not because the UK has boosted it’s desirability as a country to trade with…

The people I know who voted out are all, at various times, grasping hold of all kinds of random proof points to try and make their case, rather than admit they may have made a poor decision. Unfortunately, because the quality and reliable data sources contradict their beliefs, all they have to show for it is lousy stuff like that link above, or just wild, subjective claims…

I went to an Experian seminar yesterday where a team of senior economists gave us a data-driven analysis of the UK economy and the impact of Brexit – which was a) well-sourced and b) bearish – negative impacts from imported inflation and reduced immigration especially. Their case was about as well-informed and compelling as you can get…

So what does my idiot Brexit-voting boss say when she gets back to the office (in a company which is officially and publicly pro-Remain and stands to suffer quite seriously from Brexit)? “I disagreed with their view on Brexit”… like she thinks her judgement exceeds the informed view of experienced professional analysts! Shockingly stupid, and too stupid to keep quiet about it…

Very sadly, London’s looking increasingly screwed. Property is unaffordable and the new stuff being built is being taken for speculation. Employers are moving jobs out because they cant afford the salaries their workers need (HSBC to Birmingham, JPMorgan to Bournemouth, KPMG getting special mortgage deals.
As per this thread – people are thinking twice about coming because of the better deal from living elsewhere in the UK (London salaries not covering cost of living)
The 30-somethings are moving out so they can start a family or emigrating for better job opportunities.
The artists are leaving because they can’t afford it either.
The immigrants are finding it less attractive from the fall in the pound and the message that we don’t want them…
If it means a better balancing of the UK economy then good in the long run but for long-term London residents who love it’s culture and energy it’s very sad.

1 bed flat in Streatham now c£400k – you’ll struggle to pay less than £400 for a 2-bed anywhere in a London postcode now…

Data shows 30-somethings are leaving London now – partly cost of living, partly it’s having the soul ripped out of it culturally – all the independent businesses, the clubs, the music venues, the artists are being pushed out by corporate money and the huge sums of corrupt foreign money being laundered through property and the City… The immigrants as well as indigenous are leaving IME.

London will still be a great city IMO but it’s losing the appeal it had which made it so popular in the first place.

You may find it easier to get a job if people are leaving of course but cost of living will still be astronomical and for me there’s no point living in a city if you don’t have the cash to make the best of all the opportunities it offers.

I’ve moved out now (50 miles away) but stay with a friend at weekends in zone 2. I’d move back if I could afford it but right now it’s cheaper to live out and pay for accommodation at weekends than it would be to either rent or buy in a London postcode

Travelled with them to Abu Dhabi at New year – never again…
Flight was delayed because of fog. Fair enough. Got voucher at heathrow for food and drink, ok.
Delayed coming into Bahrain, missed connecting flight. Communications non-existent, same for food and drink.
Trip ended up taking 48 hours instead of 24, massive sleep deprivation (30 hours no sleep), shortened trip and out of pocket for expenses on food in Bahrain and phone bill trying to let my hosts in Abu Dhabi know what was going on…
Asked for refund of my expenses – refused as fog was not their fault… legally they’re within their rights but there’s no way I’d trust them again if this is how badly they deal with that kind of situation – fog in the Gulf is regular, not an unpredictable situation at all…

what can you say to this really….

I’d expected it to unravel slowly but it’s coming on really rather fast since Article 50 was signed and the gloves have come off. More than a few people at work are expressing concern at the ‘let’s fight the Spanish’ outburst…

I’m really rather worried about how those who believed the most obvious lies of the Leave campaign will respond as it becomes clear just how big those lies were. Same as Trump supporters – having put so much faith in something so obviously an electoral ploy, what will be the reaction when the faith turns out to be misplaced…