UK Politics Thread

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/jdDs22hG/80775405-2522637407991060-4222192944934813696-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Former deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson has said he stood down as an MP because of "brutality and hostility" within his party.

The former West Bromwich East MP, who stood down last month, told the Guardian criticism from factions and on social media became a "heavy load".

Mr Watson also claimed party officials concealed a death threat towards him.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50930272

As far as I'm concerned this is further proof of how toxic Labour have become under Corbyn and Momentum.

[Jimbuna]

This article IMHO is pretty well written and hits close to the reasons Labour suffered so terribly at the polls but I doubt Momentum will allow such a far reaching review into the matter.

Labour MPs who lost their seats in the election have called for "fundamental change" at the top of the party.

In a letter to the Observer, the group said "cronyism" in the party and Labour's "unwillingness" to stand up to anti-Semitism were repeatedly raised as issues on the doorstep.

An "unflinching" look at the causes of Labour's defeat was now needed, they warned, rather than a "simple review".

A panel has been established to look at Labour's election failure.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50936655

[Jimbuna]

Former Tory leader Michael Howard has said judges sometimes "distort" the law they are interpreting "to reach the result they want to achieve".

Lord Howard, a former barrister, criticised the Supreme Court for ruling that Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament was unlawful.

On Friday, outgoing Supreme Court President Lady Hale insisted judges were not "politically motivated".

But Lord Howard questioned whether unelected judges should make the law.

The Conservative manifesto pledged to review the "relationship between the government, Parliament and the courts" and the Queen's Speech included plans for a "constitution, democracy and rights commission".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50933535

This may well open up a whole new can of worms.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/s2GzMQzM/81166876-2524890534432414-1407666812480389120-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Catfish]

.. which was based on lies and deception.

[Jimbuna]

The democratic voice of the people has won the day...eventually.

[Jimbuna]

Rebecca Long-Bailey has confirmed she is considering standing in the contest to be Labour's next leader, pledging to champion "progressive patriotism".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50942825

Progressive patriotism eh? whatever that means :hmmm:

This is most worrying when you take into consideration she is widely believed to be the closest as being a clone of Corbyn of all the contenders for the leadership.

It would appear Labour have not learned any lessons from the recent election disaster and are prepared to make the same mistakes again.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/8zwFfmKZ/16-12-19-Brian-Adcock-Independent.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Jeremy Corbyn has used his New Year message to encourage supporters, describing his party as "the resistance" against Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The Labour Party leader was speaking just weeks after his party's defeat in the general election and weeks before he is due to step down in the new year.

In his address, Mr Corbyn said it had been "quite a year" for his party but that they would "be on the front line, both in parliament and on the streets".
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/jeremy-corbyn-were-the-resistance-to-boris-johnson/ar-BBYtuH2?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

What an absolute load of tosh....arrogant to the end.

The people have voted and told you of how little you actually represent. You are the 'resistance' against the people.

[JU_88]

.. which was based on lies and deception.
according to those who also lie and deceive.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/d3LbbVFK/28-04-19-8206.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

The government says it will boost the minimum wage by more than four times the rate of inflation and takes hourly pay for people over 25 to £8.72 from April.

I continue to believe it is not enough but a fine balance must be kept because businesses warned that a sharp increase in wages would put pressure on companies and urged the government to reduce costs elsewhere for firms.

[STEED]

Had to post this...

I just had a bloody good laugh at a panel member on Sky News making his prediction on the labour party. He said if Rebecca Long-Bailey wins the leadership around 102 labour MP's will break away and form a new centralist party. :har: :har:

Stupid prediction because they had their chance after their election defeat All hope died 48 hours later, the nameless one and its gang of followers ran by that vile organisation is still here.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/3wqvH0Kn/27-12-19-Brian-Adcock-Guardian.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/Sx9W9Z1L/80847594-2527844320803702-3452940911829319680-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/jSSVK95d/Leadership-You-Gov010120.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

There are still only two declared runners (Lewis and Thornberry), but more are expected to officially enter the race in the coming weeks.

[Jimbuna]

The "first task" of the next Labour leader will be to explain why the party has not won an election for a decade, according to its former deputy leader.

Tom Watson said shadow cabinet members wanting to succeed Jeremy Corbyn will face "particular pressure" over the party's last manifesto.

Mr Corbyn confirmed in December he would stand down, after Labour suffered its worst election defeat since 1935.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50981713

Not just the next leader but also those like Thornberry, Phillips, Long Bailey and Starmer et al who are still sitting at the top table.

[JU_88]

No matter which one you ask the answer will eventually be that only they only lost because we are a inherently small minded, nationalist, stupid, contempable, backward nation of plebs easily decieved by Murdoch, Boris and Farrage etc, and if we had half a brain, we would hate ourselves and feel ashamed of almost every aspect of our nation & culture and embrace the moral superiority of our internationalist preachy middle class saviors who really know best because they read some Marx once. (and absolutey nothing else in Corbyns case)
I think that is the only answer they have, they have spent a good 10 years painting themselves in to that particular corner,
I'm not sure they can dress it up as something else now.

Honestly if I was a die hard Corbynista and truley had the strength of my convictions - that Boris and Brexit was a garrenteed socio/economic apocalypes in the making, I would just sit back quietly and wait for that exponetial 'i told you so moment' when it all crashes and burns (which for we know it still might) then snap up all the yummy backlash support. Far more dignified than hissing & spitting like a cat let out of a bag.

And how on earth can they not see that wealthy MP's claiming to be 'la resistance' and calling each other 'comrade' its so god damn cringey and pretentious. I mean, cringey enough to make people vote overwhelmingly for BORIS JOHNSON! Jesus Christ, the lack of self awareness on that is really amazing.

But, yes bottom line is, in politics -never bet against your own country and its people. rabid Anti-nationalism is no smarter than blind nationalism.

[Jimbuna]

Agreed :yep: but it is going to be interesting to see how they go about it.

[MGR1]

Ulitimately it comes down to the old British curse - class division.

The political leanings of the various groupings may change over time and what constitutes "class" also alters, but it's the still the same old problem at it's root.

I doubt that can be changed. Not without some serious social engineering, and, as a Scot(*), I have no great enthusiasm for that.

Mike.

(*)Scottish politicians of all colours have been terrible for indulging in it since at least the end of WW2, that's part of the reason why the so much of the Clyde Valley is such a kek hole. :doh: An unfortunate side effect of Scotland's Presbyterian religious tradition.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/B6t0JznG/81672301-2532953186959482-3765431711400198144-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[JU_88]

From what ive seen/heard, Starmer, Is the only one Ive heard that seems remotley willing to entertain the idea that finger pointing and doubling down might not be a a bright idea. And even usually outspoken Jess Philips seems to have (wisely) dialed the rhetroric down abit. I heard a speech by Long-Bailey and she sounds completley nuts, like she lives in an alternate reality (She's bascially Corbyn Mk2). Eu flag dress Thronberry is no better.
Not so sure about the others. might have a little read up on them.

[JU_88]

Best explaination of it ive heard yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kf1YKeq7lA

[Skybird]

^I have not listened to it all (its over one hour), but what I heard, when I free it of typically British details it sound slike a perfect description of the German SPD collapsing, and I could imagine that it is a valid explanation for the tradtional left parties collapsing across much of Europe. However, collapsing socialist parties die snot atumotically imply a collapse os socialist state reason.It only means that traditonally socialist themes get hijacked by others and then combined with these their own charactertistic themes, rendering outspoken socilaist parties useless, needless, pointless. In germany, with a Merkel party that was shifted so much to the left as Merkel did, an SPD simply is not needed anymore.


Also, the disgust for this pandemic spreading of political correctness and "new speech" does its thing to add to the turnign away from such madness.


The eU will feel the dent from this inctreasingly, making itself turning more centralistic and in an attempt even totalitarian in return. Then ther eis the rift between eastern and the rest of Europe, and the confrontaiton between lenders and leasers, net payers and net receivers in the Esperanto currency union.

[Jimbuna]

From what ive seen/heard, Starmer, Is the only one Ive heard that seems remotley willing to entertain the idea that finger pointing and doubling down might not be a a bright idea. And even usually outspoken Jess Philips seems to have (wisely) dialed the rhetroric down abit. I heard a speech by Long-Bailey and she sounds completley nuts, like she lives in an alternate reality (She's bascially Corbyn Mk2). Eu flag dress Thronberry is no better.
Not so sure about the others. might have a little read up on them.

The way I'm currently seeing things is that all candidates are treading water until the unions and Momentum make their positions known publicly. The cancer from within is still there.

Some posts back I believe I said Starmer was the most probable successor and I still believe that but so much depends on the block votes of the unions and the 10% of total membership numbers of Momentum.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/J4NLdW2s/29-12-19-Andy-Davey-Sunday-Telegraph.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

The contest for the new Labour leader will formally begin on Tuesday with the winner announced on 4 April, the party's ruling body has decided.

Those who join the party or become affiliated supporters before 20 January will be eligible to vote.

Registered supporters - who are not full party members - will have 48 hours from 14-16 January to secure a vote by paying £25.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51000133

Pretty much as it was for the previous leadership election. Anything to make a fast buck :nope:

[Jimbuna]

https://i.ibb.co/m8wkvHL/28-12-19-Morten-Morland-The-Times.png (https://imgbb.com/)

[Jimbuna]

Rebecca Long Bailey has become the sixth candidate to join the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

In an article for the Tribune magazine, she said Labour needed a "socialist leader who can work with our movement, rebuild our communities and fight for the policies we believe in".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51012381

Determined not to learn from the recent defeat, she is the closest to being a clone of Corbyn amongst the six contenders.

[MGR1]

Pretty much as it was for the previous leadership election. Anything to make a fast buck :nope:
Considering what appears to have happened last time, I wonder how many Tories are going to register so they can cause as much havoc as they can?

In the meantime, the announcement that Javid is going to set out the new budget on March 11th is causing a few problems for the devolved governments:

UK budget date is 'disrespectful to devolution', says Derek Mackay (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51019926)

Mr Mackay (SNP, MSP for Renfrewshire North and West (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renfrewshire_North_and_West_(Scottish_Parliament_c onstituency))) is the Scottish Government's Finance Secretary.

The headache is thus:
Why is the UK budget so important to the Scottish one?

Despite fiscal powers including income tax being devolved to Holyrood, the UK budget process still has a huge bearing on the Scottish one.
To start with, how much the UK government spends on each department has implications for the block grant - the package of funding allocated to Holyrood via the Barnett Formula.
The forecasts of tax revenues from the Office for Budget Responsibility - which come out alongside the budget - also have a bearing on the block grant, as they form part of the calculations underpinning the devolved tax system.
There is also the issue of the gap between the Scottish and UK tax systems - if Mr Javid decided, for example, to cut the higher rate of tax, Mr Mackay would have to decide whether to follow suit, or widen the gulf between what higher earners pay north and south of the border. He contends that he cannot make an informed decision until he has seen the full picture.

What's the process at Holyrood?

Unlike at Westminster, there is actually a hard deadline on the Scottish budget process - the end of the current financial year.
Unless a "rate resolution" setting out income tax rates and bands is passed by 1 April, the devolved income tax system ceases to apply.
The rulebook as it stands doesn't provide for this happening. The Chartered Institute of Taxation says it would see Scotland "effectively foregoing its ability to set its own income tax rates".
There are other practical hurdles too, such as drawing up and passing a Budget Bill. Normally this process stretches out over a period of months, with each Holyrood committee carrying out scrutiny of spending on their particular portfolio and MSPs holding debates in the chamber.
This year, the parliamentary part of the process might have to be pushed through in a matter of days - leaving little time for scrutiny or deal-making between parties.
Depends on what Johnson and Cummings' intentions are on the devolution question. If they're doing this with an eye to collapsing the devolved Income Tax system, they can then make major changes to the nationwide one without causing pain for Scottish tax payers (due to a potential differential caused by SNP policy if Income Tax is still under Holyrood's control) thus hopefully (for them) making Scots more likely to favour Tory policy on tax rather than that of the SNP. This would strengthen the Pro-Union side in the Independence debate, which has always been argued on the basis of finance and the economy.:hmmm:

Or, just as likely, they don't have a clue as to how the devolved financial agreements actually work.

Mike.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/d05ryzqS/82338103-2536234249964709-5793984669842145280-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

I will be quite concerned if this what we end up with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n622hidbZRs

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/gJJKb7wZ/81839990-2537762013145266-8765341202397528064-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Brexit: Full UK-EU trade deal 'impossible' by deadline - von der Leyen.

The UK and the EU will remain the "best of friends" but they will "not be as close as before" after Brexit, the new European Commission president says.

Speaking ahead of talks with the PM, Ursula von der Leyen warned it would be "impossible" to reach a comprehensive trade deal by the end of 2020.

She said if the deadline was not extended it was not a case of "all or nothing", but of priorities.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51028614

Watched her speech earlier on tv and have to say I was impressed.

[Skybird]

We have had her for years, her and her impressive speeches. But be warned: don't get fooled, she is a dud, and her speeches are empty shells. She did not score a single goal in two different ministries, only polished cosmetics. Other women paint their finger nails. She holds speeches. Its the same hobby.


More important for you brits is that the EU parliament has raised new hurdles. They just have said that their will be no access for the UK to the block's shared market without full freedom of movement into the UK. What was it again that played a decisive role in the Brexit referendum...?

[Jimbuna]

Well, she certainly came across as being more communicative than Juncker.

[Skybird]

Yes, she is a master and artist in turning sweet word garlands that pour down everyone's ears like honey, milk and sugar. Thats her most outstanding quality. And her only one.

Lagarde is the same kind of blender. Completely clueless in econcomics, and mercilessly left in anting to enforce the continetal supertsate (under French dominace, of course, with the Germans planned to be paying for it endlessly).

Terror sisters.

I say again, Jim: don't get fooled by her. Shine and facade and cluelessness, thats all. And sicn eshe has zero economic understandings and just illusions about Europe'S power and strategic options, she will do probably more damage than any of her predecessors. And it will cost us awesomly to pay for her illusions.

Why do you think the Eastern Europeans agreed to her? Because they wanted a strong EU head of superstate...?

----

On a side note, it dawns more and more on the German media crowd that the Brexit becomign real will have a consequences that before was just briefly mentioned and then ignored, since Brexit was meant to not become real anyway over here: by the dictate of Lisbon, decisions in the European Union are taken with a double majority: 28 member states, 55 percent must agree, that are 15 countries then, thes emust unite 65 percent of the total populations of all the eU state. Conversely, states that represent 36 percent of the European population guarantee something like a blocking clause. After the departure of Great Britain (64 million inhabitants), Germany will never again achieve this quota with its traditional partners. This means net payers will never be able again to block any decisions wanted by net receivers to increase the money transfers and wealth distribution from the payers to the receivers. Add to this that now there is Lagarde, and then count one and one together.

The Brexit will become far more costly for some nations than for others. For some others, it is an almost divine present from heaven. And the path is freed of any obstacles for the EU mercilessly pushing for more superstate, planned economy, socialisation of national debts, unemployment insurrances etc etc etc. That will become so much fun!

[Skybird]

Military disempowerement, Brexit, Scotland, Ireland, and now Harry and Meghan raising questions about the UK's modern identity and the meaning of its royalty - time seems to be determined to drive its fangs deep into the structural integrity of the UK. How many more challenges to its unity can it digest without breaking up?

[Catfish]

Cummings and this de Pfeffel will see to it.
(Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak shows global manipulation is out of control) (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/04/cambridge-analytica-data-leak-global-election-manipulation?CMP=share_btn_tw)

Documents:
https://twitter.com/hindsightfiles.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/pVjy2kRg/81893192-2537941059794028-7353755056165879808-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/9QsZ80p9/82428793-171052650965124-8755634383035039744-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Catfish]

Harry and Meghan stepping back from royal family.. is this really an issue in England?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/08/prince-harry-and-meghan-say-they-are-stepping-back-from-royal-family

Imho this is a reasonable decision and makes more sense than what happens in politics.

[Jimbuna]

The supposed 'highlight' of the story is apparently that they didn't inform the Queen prior to making their decision public.

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s24ulpRWHwE

[Jimbuna]

Doesn't this fool realise one of the reasons Corbyn was such a turn off to the electorate was because of his anti royal position?

Labour leadership candidate Clive Lewis has said there should be a referendum on the future of the Royal Family.

Speaking at his campaign launch in London, he said: "A lot of people would like to see the monarchy scaled down."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51062770

[nikimcbee]

I finally found a party I can get behind.


Free United Kingdom Party!


Let's do it Jim, Let's run for Office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZDxuFjM3hI




Platform

1. Move capitol to Newcastle. Renamed Geordieland.

2. Appoint Steed Minister of Fishnchips.
3. Free Buna Funkmod for all, funded by a hair length tax.

[Jimbuna]

^ If only Jason, if only :)

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/6qvRzVGF/24-09-19-16796.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Catfish]

England's memories are taking it further into darkness

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/BZV9M30f/11-01-20-Steve-Bright-The-Sun.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Skybird]

^ Super-Uschi: :haha: :haha:

[Catfish]

Maybe you could cut Popo the clown in two instead :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/jjb7drNn/82021242-2543228935931907-6938991644939124736-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Moonlight]

Oh my giddy aunt, is that it then, one of those five :o, pass me the sick bag.

[JU_88]

I feel like it doesnt matter which one it is and media are only ones who really care.^, all they they will do kick the can for next 5-10 years of being in opposition, then fizzle out with a fart, then maybe get replaced with someone who can actually resurect the Labour party (Some one who actually has some chrisma, possitivity and fresh ideas.)
At least it wont be Emma Thornbury who is basically another Jo Swinson. The rest of them are just bland, maybe Jess isnt quite so bland as the others, shes got the most character - but shes still way too negative and ideologically rigid and still peddling the politics of generation 'how dare you' which is bascially on the way out.

[Jimbuna]

NO ROOM FOR YORKSHIRE
Coming off the back of an election in which they were thumped in their former heartlands, one might expect Labour to at least try and make an effort. However, the Party of London has doubled down with the unveiling of its hustings schedule for the next stage of the leadership contest. The hustings will be held in most regions, from the south-west of England to Scotland (where the party only has one MP). Remarkably the NEC omitted Yorkshire and the Humber, a key battleground if Labour is ever to regain power and the scene of a cull of nine Labour MPs in last month's election.

It's not as if there aren't any gaps in the schedule. They've doubled the number of hustings for the first week of February holding one each on Saturday and Sunday. Surely the week before when all the candidates will be in Durham would be the ideal opportunity to drop down into Yorkshire? Then again, perhaps logistics is not their strong point. On Saturday 15th of February the candidates will be in Glasgow, followed the next day by a near 400 mile journey to London!

Leadership election hustings

Sat 18 Jan - Liverpool
Sat 25 Jan - Durham
Sat 1 Feb - Bristol
Sun 2 Feb - Cardiff
Sun 9 Feb - Birmingham
Sat 15 Feb - Glasgow
Sun 16 Feb - London

Sat 4 April - London (special conference for declaration of results)

The decision to overlook Yorkshire has been criticised by many figures in the party, including leadership candidates Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy. Another own goal for the hard left metropolitan morons running the circus!

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/GmfzKWd9/82835342-2543862099201924-7607331170862235648-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Meanwhile, down on the ranch...

The UK government has formally rejected a call from Scotland's first minister for a second independence referendum.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a referendum would "continue the political stagnation Scotland has seen for the past decade".

And he said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had previously pledged that the 2014 referendum would be a "once in a generation" vote.

Ms Sturgeon tweeted that the Tories were attempting to "deny democracy".

She said Mr Johnson's formal refusal of her request for a referendum to be held later this year was "predictable but also unsustainable and self defeating", and insisted that "Scotland will have the right to choose".

The first minister also said the Scottish government would set out its response and "next steps" before the end of the month, and that the devolved Scottish Parliament would again be asked to "back Scotland's right to choose our own future".

Scottish voters backed remaining in the UK by 55% to 45% in the referendum in 2014.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51106796

[Jimbuna]

Labour leadership: Candidates seek union backing in next phase of contest.

Labour leadership candidates are seeking the backing of unions and local parties as the next stage of the contest gets under way.

The five candidates have to get the support of 5% of local parties or at least three affiliates - two of which must be unions - by 14 February to make it on to the final ballot.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it would be backing Lisa Nandy.

The general secretary said the Wigan MP could take the party back into power.

Chris Kitchen said she was able to "regain the trust of the voters we've lost".

The UK's largest union, Unison, has already thrown its weight behind Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary.

Other unions, such as Unite and the GMB, have yet to make up their minds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51118975

[Jimbuna]

Angela Merkel warns EU: ‘Brexit is a wake-up call’

https://www.ft.com/content/a6785028-35f1-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4

[Jimbuna]

STARMER REMAINS ODDS ON

https://i.postimg.cc/J0DZpS2r/Leadership-Starmer4.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Odds have predictably shortened on a Long-Bailey victory following Survation's recent poll and Momentum's official endorsement. Keir Starmer remains odds on, albeit having drifted somewhat. Jess Phillips' odds have drifted way out, despite beating Lisa Nandy in the Survation poll. However, whereas Nandy is expected to proceed to the ballot without hiccup, Phillips may struggle.

Latest leadership odds (Ladbrokes)

Keir Starmer 4/6
Rebecca Long-Bailey 9/4
Lisa Nandy 6/1
Jess Phillips 50/1
Emily Thornberry 100/1

[Jimbuna]

PIDCOCK'S SWIFT RETURN

https://i.postimg.cc/g0ghmY9c/Leadership-Starmer4.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Pidcock was earmarked as a 'future Labour leader' by her hard left admirers, but last month saw her 8,792 majority evaporate. She spent little more than two years on the Westminster gravy train before her Leave-voting constituents kicked her out and turned North West Durham blue for the first time in its 134 year history. Totally out of her depth and completely discredited she will be right at home in daft Dickie Burgon's camp.

North West Durham 2019 general election

Richard Holden (Con) 19,990 (41.9%) +7.5%
Laura Pidcock (Lab) 18,846 (39.5%) -13.3%
John Wolstenholme (Brexit) 3,193 (6.7%) New
Michael Peacock (Lib Dem) 2,831 (5.9%) -1.2%
Watts Stelling (Ind) 1,216 (2.6%) New
David Sewell (Green) 1,173 (2.5%) +1.4%
David Lindsay (Ind) 414 (0.9%) New

In other news Momentum have now officially endorsed Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner. This comes as no surprise considering they were the only names on the online ballot of members!

[Jimbuna]

LONG-BAILEY LEADS IN NEW POLL
Survation have carried out a leadership poll of Labour members and given Rebecca Long-Bailey a 5 point lead over Keir Starmer, with a 2 point lead in the run-off. The poll of 3,835 members was conducted between 8-13 January, with first preference votes as follows.

Rebecca Long-Bailey 42%
Keir Starmer 37%
Jess Phillips 9%
Lisa Nandy 7%
Emily Thornberry 1%

Don't know/did not answer 4%

The same poll has Long-Bailey leading Starmer 51% to 49% in the final run-off. This differs markedly from the last poll, conducted by YouGov last month. In that poll Starmer had a huge lead over Long-Bailey in the final run-off - 61% to 39% - although the sample size of 1,059 was much smaller.

The Survation poll will be a huge boost to Long-Bailey and the hard left, having watched as Starmer becomes increasingly seen as the runaway favourite. Meanwhile, a 'team photo' emerged this afternoon showing Long-Bailey and her pal Angela Rayner. She doesn't look very leader-like, while Rayner looks like she's off out on the razzle in this bizarre graphic posted by Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle.

https://i.postimg.cc/44mM951w/Leadership-Starmer4.jpg (https://postimages.org/)


Long-Bailey had begged Momentum to back Rayner for the deputy's position and the organisation has now written to its members making such a recommendation. Long-Bailey clearly has some clout with Lansman and co, although many Corbynistas will be supporting hard left loon Richard Burgon in the deputy leadership contest.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/pXqY2Nwd/82214952-2546960355558765-8464968060346826752-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Down to the nitty gritty business.

Labour members are grilling the five MPs standing to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as party leader for the first time at an event in Liverpool.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, Emily Thornberry, Sir Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips are all making their pitch to the party faithful.

The hustings is the first in a series of events across the country before the next leader is elected on 4 April.

Those running to be deputy leader will also face party members.

Candidates Rosena Allin-Khan, Dawn Butler, Richard Burgon, Ian Murray and Angela Rayner will answer questions in a separate hustings later on Saturday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51159376

[Jimbuna]

Not long since the general election and the emails have started arriving again.

https://i.postimg.cc/RFBsQn5g/Untitled.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
https://i.postimg.cc/qRxmmMp4/Untitled2.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Sir Keir Starmer is the first Labour leadership candidate to pass the final hurdle to get onto the ballot.

The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) says it is backing the shadow Brexit secretary.

This gives Sir Keir the support required - that of three unions and affiliate groups representing 5% of the membership - to get to the final stage.

Usdaw has also given its support to shadow education secretary Angela Rayner for deputy leader.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51183581

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/QM4SB7FR/14-01-20-Christian-Adams-Evening-Std.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Jess Phillips is set to pull out of the race to be the next Labour leader.

The Birmingham Yardley MP is expected to release a statement later amid speculation she will announce she is withdrawing from the contest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51195059

[Catfish]

It seems to be no bigger challenge in England than making Big Ben ring to "celebrate brexit". :roll:

[Jimbuna]

It seems to be no bigger challenge in England than making Big Ben ring to "celebrate brexit". :roll:

As far as I'm aware the decision has already been taken that it will not happen.

[Jimbuna]

Lisa Nandy is the second Labour leadership hopeful to get onto the final ballot, after Chinese for Labour announced it was supporting her.

The Wigan MP joins shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, having already got backing from the GMB union and the National Union of Mineworkers.

To progress, hopefuls need the support of three unions and affiliate groups representing 5% of the membership.

Emily Thornberry and Rebecca Long-Bailey are yet to reach the threshold.

Jess Phillips quit the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51204554

[Catfish]

re the bonging of Big Ben :03:
As far as I'm aware the decision has already been taken that it will not happen.
Ok, i saw Farage with his awful hate speech in the tv the day before yesterday and could not quite believe it.
On one hand I fail to see what would be so expensive in making the bells ring a few times, on the other hand i wonder why this should be celebrated.

On a third hand if Farage wants his celebration so much (for him of course), you could invite Guy Fawkes uh Verhofstadt for the fireworks :O:

[Jimbuna]

I know one person who certainly won't be celebrating :haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u72hBkK9pFE

[Catfish]

^ Who did it? :hmmm:


https://i.imgur.com/kwZ568Wl.jpg

[Jimbuna]

The EU has warned Boris Johnson of “sanctions” if his government fails to implement goods checks in the Irish Sea after Brexit. Brussels will “not tolerate backsliding”, warned an adviser to EU negotiator Michel Barnier.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-news-live-brexit-deal-eu-trade-labour-leadership-latest-a9298056.html

I was wondering how long it would take for acrimony to rear it's ugly head.

[Catfish]

I was wondering how long it would take for acrimony to rear it's ugly head.
"Without our EU budget contributions, we could give everyone a 60 per cent council tax cut.” Daniel Hannan, September 2015
Yeah i'm waiting for that :haha:

"You’ve seen quite a large of people coming in from the EU – 580 million population – able to treat the UK as though it’s basically part of their own country.” Boris Johnson and his "War cabinet"

"Brexit was a war. We won." Arron Banks

This may sound a bit harsh, my opinion at this moment:
I could post a hundred more hostile statements. No one in Europe will forget that. All this war talk along with xenophobic propaganda by Farage, Cummings and other leading Britons makes every one here think the EU is much too reluctant.
Johnson does not want a deal, and there will be no deal. It is not the EU's problem or task to solve England's problem with Ireland.

[Jimbuna]

The heads of the European Commission and Council - Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel - have signed the Withdrawal Agreement, ahead of the UK's exit from the EU on 31 January.

The Queen approved it on Thursday, and next Wednesday the European Parliament is expected to vote for it too.

The UK has agreed to abide by EU rules during a transition period until the end of the year. By 2021 the UK aims to have agreed a deal on future ties.

Brexit ends 46 years in the EU club.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51234625

[Jimbuna]

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 23.01.20
Four local by-elections last night, three in London and one in Scotland. In London there were four seats up for grabs in three Brent Council wards. The Labour vote plummeted in all three and they lost a seat to the Lib Dems. In Scotland the Tories held easily in Dumfries & Galloway with more votes than the other three parties combined. Labour's local election woes look set to continue.

Alperton, Brent Council

Lib Dem: 1,699 (39.7%) +29.5%
Lab: 1,304 (30.5%) -25.6%
Con: 900 (21.0%) -2.5%
Green: 373 (8.7%) -1.4%

Lib Dem GAIN from Lab

Barnhill, Brent Council (two seats)

Lab: 1,194 & 1,152 (45.5%) -18.3%
Con: 1,082 & 1,018 (41.2%) +16.1%
Green: 231 & 171 (8.8%) New
Lib Dem: 118 & 76 (4.5%) -3.2%

Lab HOLD (both seats)

Wembley Central, Brent Council

Lab: 1,945 (54.5%) -11.8%
Con: 1,090 (30.6%) +14.7%
Lib Dem: 378 (10.6%) (-0.6%
Green: 154 (4.3%) -2.3%

Lab HOLD

Mid Galloway & Wigtown West, Dumfries & Galloway Council

Con: 2,177 (61.8%) +22.3%
SNP: 898 (25.5%) +1.9%
Green: 225 (6.4%) +4.2%
Lab: 220 (6.3%) -0.6%

Con HOLD

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/Vk1r9z5Y/83325430-2552594568328677-4589869843716505600-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

^ No, not a traitor but after almost a quarter of a century as a card carrying member I now sit firmly in the disenfranchised section of a growing number of former party members who feel bitter at the way Corbyn and his loony left have taken control of the party thereby denying the working class in the UK of deserved representation and exposing them to right wing Tory control.

[Jimbuna]

Rebecca Long-Bailey has won the backing of the Unite trade union in her bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

The shadow business secretary now needs just one more union or affiliate group to endorse her to confirm her place on the members' ballot.

Unite's general secretary, Len McCluskey, said Mrs Long-Bailey had the "brains and the brilliance" to take on PM Boris Johnson.

The union will also back Richard Burgon for the vacant deputy leader post.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51235025

[Catfish]

Jim, sorry i thought i had immediately deleted it :oops:
I agree it must be difficult to see standards and beliefs be thrown overboard, especially when a man becomes the labour "leader" (word still has a bad taste) who you do not like for various reasons.
He does not enough to make the anti-Israel fraction in the party shut up, and he sympathised with the IRA, so there's that.

but
feel bitter at the way Corbyn and his loony left have taken control of the party thereby denying the working class in the UK of deserved representation and exposing them to right wing Tory control
So voting for the Tories or Farage because Labour disappointed you?

Labour itself was never right-wing. Also, Corbyn was/is the only one actor on the political stage who does not support the conservative government's austerity policies.
To the Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Fox News and all those right wing media by those media with their own agenda Corbyn is painted as a dangerous socialist because he would move "the needle" to the left when it has been steadily moving right for decades.

In Thatcher view he is certainly a socialist. So is he really? Maybe not quite as left wing as the usual Daily Mail, Sun or Express want you to believe. (Although i do not know if you even read this, but you quote them often enough - or is it for laughs?)

Corbyn's target is to get unemployment numbers down. Not such a bad thing? And unemployment is expensive for the state.
He does not advocate a state-run economy, no one does that anymore. But certain parts, yes, and that makes sense.

Free market and "trickle down economics" have shown some obvious truths:

When the consumer can decide what to buy from different competing suppliers, the free market works. But it does not work with certain parts like medical services, public transport or energy supplies. I would add that certain parts of telecommunication should not be privatised for several reasons, or the state-network should at least have its own independent system to control and fend off cyber attacks, and certainly in case of war.

Rural areas suffer from straight economic cost benefit analyses. The privatisation of public services e.g. in the midlands does not save money, on the contrary.
Like in England, the privatisation of public transport has desroyed much of the infrastructure that has been built up by public taxes before. This is nothing else than expropriation! And when it has all been rendered defunct - like in England and Germany - it is being socialised again and repaired by fresh tax money because the companies never intended to maintain or invest.

And "trickle down" economics.. less taxes for the real rich, or supporting/pushing big corporations withdraw money from circulation, it is taken out of the overall economy. It has never worked in the last 40 years.
Privatise profit, socialise losses. And people still fall for that. We need something better.

As i see it Corbyn’s last manifesto is not so bad. Compared to real common sense and another time long lost it is classic mixed economy, and centre-left.
He is of course clumsy and not a media man, but to call him a terrorist and rabidly left?

[Jimbuna]

Jim, sorry i thought i had immediately deleted it

I am able to read deletions Kai but I'm honestly not offended, we all have a right to an opinion.

So voting for the Tories or Farage because Labour disappointed you?

I've never voted for either.

We need something better.

On that we can both most definitely agree :yep:

but to call him a terrorist and rabidly left?

No, not a terrorist but certainly someone who has sympathies with so many who are and he is by his own admission a left wing socialist.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/fLg2w19d/13-01-20-Patrick-Blower-Telegraph.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

A commemorative 50p coin marking the UK's departure from the EU has been unveiled by Chancellor Sajid Javid.

The coins bear the inscription "Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations" and the date of 31 January.

Mr Javid had first ordered production of the coins in advance of the UK's original 31 October departure date.

But the Brexit delay meant about a million coins had to be melted down and the metal put aside until a new exit date was confirmed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51250753

As the saying goes....If at first you don't succeed :)

[JU_88]

@Catfish, My Mother knew Jerry Corbyn persoanlly, and had quite a few interactions with him in the late 90's (connected with a crossrail project forcing the closure of the school she worked at)
and he is 100% a self confessed marxist/socialist, Its not a right-wing tabloid conspiricy he has been very vocal about it.

and although hes a pretty nice guy, he is not really well read up on anything else besides that ideology, so he is rather naive. (he also isn't the humourous type and doesnt really understand jokes)
As to how/what he would have (or tried to) implemented policywise if he became PM, its really any bodies guess. But there is little reason to suspect he would have had any more of success than those before him.

Anyway, while many still side with Labour on ecomonics over the tories, they do not side with them on culture -which is the bigger issue right now.
The stance of being interationalist to the point of be anti-nationalist against the nation you hope to lead is obviously political suicide.
It wasnt even so much a Right/ left wing issue, it was that Labour effectivley bet Against the nation while the tories bet ON it.
The Nations of the world have all survived centuries for a reason, shared values and some level of self proctionism.
An endless lecture on how Britain has sinned and how we must repent, only goes down well with a very left leaning progressive minority. Now while some of it might be true -its still unhelpful as it still just a platform of negativity which is a natural repellant.

'Everything you've built up to this point is terrible and we are all inherently bad - but vote for us to fix it all ....and fix you.' not a good message.

[Jimbuna]

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has suggested the EU will be the "stronger team" in post-Brexit trade talks with the UK.

Comparing negotiations to a football match, he suggested the EU would be at an advantage due to its larger population and market.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51260282

Leo, you may not still be around after February eighth so I'd respectfully suggest you keep your powder dry till after that.

[Catfish]

@Ju88 Thank you for taking the time, since i am not so fluent with party internals in England this is really good information, especially about Corbyn's personality :hmmm:
[...] Anyway, while many still side with Labour on ecomonics over the tories, they do not side with them on culture -which is the bigger issue right now.
The stance of being interationalist to the point of be anti-nationalist against the nation you hope to lead is obviously political suicide.
The first part i can understand, austerity degrading infrastructure and having to close down all kinds of facilities due to lack of money is - apart from reducing debt as a side-effect - not very popular. So Labour promised to change it all out of the blue, and in an unconvincing way.

But against culture? Your english culture? Anti nationalist, against the nation, is that true for Labour? Or is it historical facts trickling down are beginning to gnaw on the superiority and glory of the Empire? Is it not only against the recent right-wing shift and populist crying that some mistake for patriotism? What about Cummings? This man is a maniac, a pathological case.
I'll give you that the left is usually less patriotic than the right, but what about this right-shift everywhere. Wouldn't some neutral stance do? Would the people really appreciate a hard right like in the US, or didn't they maybe fall for the century-old trap of the rich and their spin-doctors? You read some of "The Sun" or the "Express" and then have to helplessly accept that lots of people really read and believe that.
[...] The Nations of the world have all survived centuries for a reason, shared values and some level of self proctionism.
Ye olde argument for isolation. I guess it is as old as mankind, however you could argue that tribes are now better off and fared quite well in working together, i think.

I understand why Labour lost so much, but for me, what is going on in England since 2016, is completely beyond of what i thought of England and its inhabitants before. Let me only say this was "not a positive experience". It has not much to do with the left or the right either.

This https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-i-learnt-to-loathe-england is a dutch essay and not exactly my opinion (being german and all that), but i agree to most points and admit my perception of England has also changed. I have this change seen in a lot of people recently, not only because of the brexiter xenophobic war talk, but because of real (if most verbal) attacks following the referendum in England, in London.

What has been said by a lot of brexiters left and right is completely unacceptable, from sheer lies, not only about the EU, to racism. This will reverberate, changing the general attitude of some. Maybe the tiniest bit of repentance and less war talk would be helpful.


edit: and now i have turned the Labour party discussion into an anti-brexit rant - i'm sorry. I am still interested in Labour and what it was and is supposed to be now, to become electable again in your eyes.

[Jimbuna]

The Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade unleashed the first ever female Palestinian suicide bomber - 28-year-old divorcee Wafa Idris. She detonated a 22-pound bomb outside a shoe store in the centre of Jerusalem, killing an 81-year-old man and injuring more than 100 others.

Idris had been a volunteer for the Palestine Red Crescent, a humanitarian group. She had no known previous links to militant groups, but the suicide attack turned her into a cult hero across the Arab world. A football tournament in the West Bank was later named after her. Following her death, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs unleashed three more female suicide bombers in the same year.

The elderly man killed in Idris's attack was Pinhas Tokatli, an amateur painter who was on his way home after buying paints. He left a wife and four children.

Two years after Mr Tokatli's murder, a backbench Labour MP praised Al-Aqsa leader Marwan Barghouti as an "ambassador for peace". That same year Barghouti was tried and sentenced to five life terms in Israel for various terrorist offences. That backbench MP was Jeremy Corbyn. In the years following Barghouti's arrest and incarceration Corbyn supported at least five early day motions in the House of Commons calling for his release. On his website he referred to Barghouti as an "iconic figure".

Just saying :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

Britain needs a radical redistribution of wealth and opportunity and an end to the "monopoly of power" in Westminster, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

Ahead of a speech, the Labour leadership candidate argued that goal could be reached with a system "built on the principle of federalism".

Returning to campaigning after a week's break, he also promised to address the "underlying causes" of Brexit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51257432

https://i.postimg.cc/BQ1t56mX/83292431-2555019891419478-2360374040012521472-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Catfish]

^^ re post 12341: http://theconversation.com/palestine-and-britain-forgotten-legacy-of-world-war-i-that-devastated-the-middle-east-106408

edit: Apart from Corbyn's peronality and his political leaning along with some of the party, things are much more complex. Of course you can look at an assassination and no one will deny that this is awful and causes innocent civilians' casualties. But this is seeing it as an isolated moment in history without context to what happened before. There are some underlying reasons, even if some want to forget it.

Those suicidal attacks are awful and idiotic, and they are also an act of despair. Israel just builds its settlements everywhere, especially in disputed areas, and thus creates a status quo that cannot be changed anymore.

Did i ever say "read 'The little drummer girl' by LeCarrée", less than ten times i mean.
There is guilt to be found everywhere, but all just go on killing and denying, and never sit down together to find a solution. This will all get more bitter, and more of such things happening.

[JU_88]

Catfish, the the shifts and swings in culure over the past 50-60 years in the Anglosphere (English speaking nations) have been a little different to those of continental Europe.
It is indeed easier to understand how we reached this point if you live here.
the shift to a more pro nationalist (but thankfully still quite liberal) postion is a reaction to a reaction to a reaction.. you have have to really trace it all back over the best part of a century because its not surface level.
Everything from the Church, the hippies, the punks, Thatcherism /Regansim, globalism, civil rights movements, feminsm, mass-immigration, middle class expansion, 2008 crash & Austerity the econimic switch from industry to services and rise of technology (gasps for breath) all plays a part.

None of this current shift is particuarlly suprising, ultimatley one set of values collapes when it has failed too many people -and another swoops in.
The more socialist/interationalist progressives types hung them selves by over preaching morality though the lense of intersectionality and increasingly condemmed anyone who didnt tow the line.

It translated in to a situation where a successful accademic cosmopolitian middle class now had the means to berate and brow beat a less educated working class majority and appear moraly superior while doing it :)

E.g Your culture and values are horrible, tear down the borders' toxic masculinity this, white privilige that, and if you love the nation or ANY non progressive values we are going to insinuate that you are far right' etc.
Try 10-20 years of that^ being thrown about through Academia, social media, pop culture and politics on a regular basis -and presented as the only truley acceptable world view to hold, ....what did we think what going come of that? progressive utopia? Its no way to get people on your side.

It muddied the waters between nationalists, old skool liberals and conservatives and pretty much drove them in to an unholy alliance.
I dont think its strictly a right/left divide in the most traditonal sense, its something that evolved (or devolved) from that. but its something a little bit different. Unironic comparisons with Nazis and Soviets doesnt really apply.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/WbLVHDxZ/19-01-20-Matt-Pritchett-Telegraph.png (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

A review into how the government could introduce a "points-based" immigration system will be published later.

Home Secretary Priti Patel asked the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to look into the best practice for the policy back in September 2019.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51278298

We should have had this much fairer system in place years ago had we been allowed.

[Skybird]

^Yes. And Germany should adopt one, too.

Instead, meanwhile a leaked EU document shows that the EU still seems to nt hav eunderstood what time it is. In the paper some of the negotiation goals of the EU were outlined, amongst them far-reaching rights of the EU court in case of conflicts, end enforcment of EU standards in certain labour-, tax- and production areas where the eU wants to prevent the UK to become competitive and challenging the eU by offering better offers and stanards in competition for talents, investors, and producers.

I hope Johnson plays all this as tough as he has claimed, because what is despertaely needed is that the continent is pushed out of its tyrannical and oppressive complecancy. However, I think that the clash with Trump'S America will be a hard one, and the UK has the weaker cards here. Americna negotiators so far have left no doubt that they demand far-reaching access to the health sector. The most likely scenario is that Us investors will leave the maintenance and running costs to the tax payers, and shave off as much of the crema as possible. This only can be acchieved by letting patients die and suffer. - When I still held stocks, I had an eye on that never any health-service providing company was amongst them, for i consider it to be deeply immoral. To please investors, profits need to be generated, and thta can only be had at eithe reducing services while keeping the price, which kills and lets people suffer, or by keeping the service and raising the costs, which lets people die and suffering, or by investing on the basis of making debts and leave the paying back of these to the tax payer, which lets the public footing the bill. Business with the uS is a strong pillar of the UK economy, and Trump is not known for playing fair, balanced, or having a moral character. The dependency on the US will cost the UK dearly here.

The Yanks are n ot your friends, dear Brits! They will formdiably abuse your dependency on getting a deal done with you. You know what they say: when it comes to money, all friendship soon ends. Take the conflict over gas from Russia as an example. Hypocrisy and economy-political brutality at its finest.

[JU_88]

Thats what every deal is-

You gets new job, you try to get abit more than what you think you're worth, but your boss tries to give you a bit less than what they think you're worth.
Not displaying charity doesnt nessicarily mean they are not your friend in every sense of the word. I see no reason why the US or anyone should be expected to put our intreasts before their own. And if we feel abused, we can always say no, (not that we ever do say no to America really)

But its not like we will all be starving to death if we are just trading with the US on WTO terms for a prolonged period.
Anyway of all the things going on at present I cant say this one worries me too much.

[mapuc]

I know the future of EU, Europe and UK.

There is two problems

Getting everything down in writing(all I have in my head)
Getting you to believe it.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/9fwBF53w/24-01-20-Peter-Brookes-The-Times.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

MPs have attacked the government's decision to allow Huawei technology to be used in the UK's 5G mobile networks.

Some called for an outright ban during a debate in the Commons, arguing even limited access put UK security at risk.

But Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the decision followed a "rigorous" review by security experts and "tight restrictions" would be in place.

They include a ban on using the Chinese firm's technology in so-called "core" parts of the network.

The firm's kit will also only be allowed to account for up to 35% of the network's peripheral equipment.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51278305

What on earth are this government doing? :nope:

[Moonlight]

It's got the China syndrome written all over Boris again, I remember Bozo the Brain Dead making some dubious business deals with Chinese businesses when he was mayor of London, never trust a Tory when they have the scent of money in their nostrils. :har::har::har:

Big questions for Boris over billion dollar property deal
https://www.channel4.com/news/boris-johnson-london-propery-deal-china-albert-dock

[Skybird]

What on earth are this government doing? :nope:
It did nothing, it just bowed to tremendous Chinese threats, pressure and intimdiation, and after Brexit it cannot afford to piss the Chinese as a trade partner and business market. China is slowly taking over major parts of Europe. No longer they act cautiously. The satin gloves have been taken off. They feel they now can afford to kick in doors instead of just endlessly knocking. And looking at how dependent European companies are on the Chinese market, they probably are right.

Europe since the 80s allowed to dance with the devil. l But iof you dance with the devil, you do not makle the devil dancing to your tune. the devil forces you to dance to his.

The EU has eyed the British decision-forming on this carefully - and immediately reiterated that they too do not want to ban Huawei completely. Its also as one of those increadibly precious and incredibly important symbolic acts to piss the US, if not in substance so then at least in - well, in symbolic nonsense.

And Germany officially still pays China formal developement aid. :doh: No joke, no hook, no irony - its really so.

[Buddahaid]

When I was in China in 2008, all the taxi cabs were Volkswagons.

[Catfish]

When I was in China in 2008, all the taxi cabs were Volkswagons.
Friday they will all magically turn into Austins

https://i.imgur.com/wPY8Fhwl.jpg

[Jimbuna]

The Labour party has emailed its defeated general election candidates, six weeks after the poll, to officially commiserate with them and send advice about where to seek help if they are experiencing stress or other problems.

One defeated candidate told the Guardian the tone and timing of the message amounted to “a p***take”, saying it should have been sent immediately after the 12 December election.

The email, addressed “Dear 2019 General Election Candidate”, deals in part with post-election administration, including spending returns, and taking part in a consultation about lessons to be learned from the defeat.

“As candidates you were at the very heart of the campaign as the people who were speaking to voters day in, day out,” says the email sent from Labour’s election support team. “The lessons you learned from your campaigns locally will be invaluable to the party going forward.”
Noting that many candidates left jobs to stand for parliament, the message goes on: “Elections are stressful and being a candidate in a general election can bring even greater pressure on you and your family. There are a number of services available free of charge that can help if you are still experiencing any symptoms of stress.”

At the end of the email, suggestions of places to seek help include the candidate’s GP, the Samaritans, Citizens Advice, and the mental health charity Mind. It adds: “If you feel you are at risk of immediate harm please contact 999 in the first instance”, saying that people could also attend an A&E or call NHS 111.

The defeated candidate said the loss had had a “profound impact” on many of those who lost.

“For some, they were so sure they were going to win, adjusting is hard,” they said. “Others had to give up their jobs. Whether you invested emotional energy, time, resources, whatever – we all gave so much, as did those around us.

“An, ‘Oh, by the way, we’ve just remembered to check in with you losers’ email is insulting, so late in the day.”

Complaints from defeated candidates echo those from losing Labour MPs who received emails of commiseration at least a week after the general election.

Liz McInnes, the former shadow minister whose seat in Heywood and Middleton in Greater Manchester was won by a Conservative for the first time, received a personal email from Jeremy Corbyn after publicly complaining that the Labour leader had failed to contact her.

Corbyn wrote on 19 December: “I am writing to say how very sorry I am that you did not retain your seat.”

“Sadly this election was not our moment but I remain proud of running a campaign that offered genuine hope over fear and division. We offered a popular policy platform and we won over 10 million votes.”

The following day, McInnes responded with a letter outlining her dismay at Corbyn’s response to the defeat.

“I was disappointed not to hear from you sooner. Many members of the shadow cabinet took the time to contact me the weekend after the dreadful election results and I’m afraid that the lack of any contact from you was very noticeable and quite hurtful.

“We warned that with an unresolved Brexit we would lose seats in leave-voting areas like the north and the Midlands and that has indeed come to pass. We also appear to have willingly cast aside our Scottish Labour MPs, bar one notable exception,” she wrote.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/labour-sends-insulting-email-to-defeated-candidates/ar-BBZpApo?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

It will be a decade or more before the scars heal.

[Catfish]

JU88 wrote:
Catfish, the the shifts and swings in culure over the past 50-60 years in the Anglosphere (English speaking nations) have been a little different to those of continental Europe. [...]
If you want to set e.g. England = USA .. but i'd say that the US is taking a different way, not only because of a lacking monarchy. The basic idea there is that people are free, about equality, schools, and there is no class divide as it is in England. Australia, India, lots of other "anglosphere" countries with other mindsets. What i think is that England has a problem with itself.

So you say some who voted for brexit perceive it in the way you describe it like that:

"a situation where a successful accademic cosmopolitian middle class now had the means to berate and brow beat a less educated working class majority and appear moraly superior while doing it"

But honestly, what some "perceive" or "think is happening" does not have to do much with reality.

England lived quite well with the raised eyebrows and suppression of your upper classes for centuries without complaining too much or really challenging that, and now you accuse exactly who?

"The more socialist/interationalist progressives types hung them selves by over preaching morality though the lense of intersectionality and increasingly condemmed anyone who didnt tow the line"

Well if you see it that way, i do not. What you wrote here is in a way the enlightenment that has been missing in England. But not in the US, or Australia, or even India. In the other "anglosphere" as you described non-Europe, there is a lot more "internationalism" than you seem to think.

Maybe saying this aloud and supporting international cooperation is not wanted in England? Indeed, when i look at the types of Farage, Cummings or Rees-Mogg there is indeed another part which does not want "internationalism". But how would you describe those other than right-wing?

"I dont think its strictly a right/left divide in the most traditonal sense, its something that evolved (or devolved) from that. but its something a little bit different."

Different, in a negative sense, yes.

"Unironic comparisons with Nazis and Soviets doesnt really apply."

Whatever you mean with that :hmmm:



edit: question, why does this editor always include lots of empty lines between paragraphs? :doh: I have to re-edit every longer post to compress the text to a readable form.

[Skybird]

On the Huawei deal, maybe relevant for Britain as well: Spiegel reports the German government was given evidence by US intel services that the Germans rate as "smoking gun"-quality evidence that HUAWEI closely cooperates with the Chinese intelligence services. This was always put into doubt by those wanting the deal with the Chinese. The German document is confidential, but in the interior ministry is seen as a basis for internally now stating that any basis of a trusting cooperation with Huawei in building the German G5 net must be seen as completely unfounded and is non-existing.

https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fnetzpo litik%2Fhuawei-bundesregierung-soll-beleg-fuer-kooperation-mit-chinas-sicherheitsbehoerden-haben-a-10e4e3fe-a1a6-4ada-bcc4-8c725398d4e0

I wonder whether the british govenrment was given this information as well, and ignored it, or has been excluded from getting access to it (then one asks why Washington refused to share it with its close friends, the special-relation-Britons), or whether the German government has been lied to by forged evidence, and fell for a trap.

Personally I tend to think that the Chinese of course use their tech companies as extended tools for their spying and potential sabitage ambitions. OF COURSE. Thats why they should not been given access to critical infrastructure (and that is difficult to define in case of G5, I learned months ago, many decision-makers seem to not have understood it correctly, and even hardware specilaists knowing G5 well have no shared consensus on what goes and what not).I am convinced of this like I am convinced of that American tech and software companies serve the US demand for intel services producing industrial and military and political espionage results as well by creating backdoors, surveillance, and manipulation and remote access options. . We should not trust Huawei and other Chinese tech giants. But we should not trust Microsoft, Apple, Google, HP, Dell and the likes as well.

[Skybird]

^ Even limited access can be used as a tool for widening the beachhead later on, or as an opportunity to conduct blackmailing due to the dependency on Chinese exertise for maintaining those partsopf the G5 network they were allowed to provide.

Considering the high importance of G5, which is hard to be overestimated, we should not allow raising unneeded risks just for the purpose of being seen as "polite". No Chinese participation, that means. There are two companies that could fill the gap, although they are a bit more expensive and not yet as technically advanced as Huawei's 5G components, and both have the charm to not be Chinese but also not being American: Sweden's Ericsson, and Finland's Nokia

Its a no-brainer, I think. The British government's decision is a big mistake, imo.

[Skybird]

This Friday will be the day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51287430

"We will always love you." When the president of the EU Commission says that, it sounds like a threat.

[Catfish]

What will the EU only do without Farage? The only serious and competent man in whole Europe. So constructive and selfless. But even worse, what will Farage do now? :)
In one thing in his 'speech' he is right, it was populism against globalism, and populism has won. I would not take this as a compliment but hey, i don't have to live there.

[Skybird]

Brexit 2.0: Escape from the Scottish Embrace :D

I do not rate globalism over populism. Both are not good, and globalism has way more local loosers than state media usually admit. All in all I see the total balance of gobalisation negative if watching at the bigger, complete picture. Changing of human societies and civilzation has not kept up with it, and maybe never can keep up with it.

So its running to specs-heavy software on too old hardware, so to speak. Does not work well, can never work well. Must stutter.

Maybe its like with upper limits in size that can be reached by biological organisms when growng. Too long neurons slowing down body coordination. Too much mass that needs to be moved by too small muscle. Too high calory demands. And so fiorth.

[Catfish]

^ i tend to agree, maybe the Anspruch is too high for us humans. But to say that the project was too ambitious is again sooo elitist :O:

Hear hear! Britain will be free! No slave of the tyrant EU anymore!! Rejoice!!! On to glorious times!!!!
So lets give the EU a good thrashing and back home for eggs and bacon, stiff upper lip and all that what? Egad! Godspeed! Ye foul mustachio'd purple hued maltworms, brazen palsied Flapdragons!! For King and country Chaps, Land of Hope and Glory, We few, we happy few.....once more unto the breach ... follow your spirit; and upon this charge, cry 'God for Farage! England! and Saint George!'

edit2 i regret nothing :O:

How can you argue or negotiate with a "John Bull who is fond of having his own way, till you let him have it"?

Seriously, there was no problem with the EU in 2015 until it was somehow invented out of the blue by the likes of Farage. "Brexit" was a non-theme before 2016, when right wingers and like-minded media tycoons decided to change that. No one would have spent a second thought about it without this pushing behind the curtains, and outspoken populism.

There were problems, but nothing compared to what was lied and made of it, from swinging plastic-packed cods to banana's curvatures.
I wonder what the next pushed "big thing" will be :hmmm:

[JU_88]

"Seriously, there was no problem with the EU in 2015 until it was somehow invented out of the blue by the likes of Farage."


Are you joking?! Seriously, I'd urge you to research that one a bit deeper mate. Or just cast you mind back to 2008 & 2012 and thats just for starters. just because you didnt see/read/acknowlege it in your own media diet at the time - doesnt mean it didnt exist.
2015 is when it maybe came to ahead, but Euro skeptism was bubbling away for many, many years before that.

[Skybird]

If only the EU would have stayed to be a EEC, a shared market place, a free trade zone.

But as always when these kinds of state-like thigns raise their ugly heads, they inevitably turn for higher and higher ambitions to claim more and more powers. Everything and everyone is always eager to run and reach beyond his original mandate.

As many lies Farange et. al may have told - the EU tells as many lies if not more. It cheats and brakes its own rules, it villates its own laws and ignores its own treaties.Brakes its own laws, treaties, promises, claims.



To hell with them all.

[JU_88]

Yeah
Started as trading bloc - went on to indroduce its own currency and bank, court, laws parliment, now it wants a military. Not sure how clued up people were on its intentions 20-30 years ago. The EU ever deliberately mislead anyone on its intent to create a super state - That is what the project was always intended to do (over time.) but when something is implemented slowly (creeping, peice by peice,) and wrapped up in lengthy jargon, people will more likley of sleepwalk into accepting it -and not read the small print. -Especially if there is some short term gain.
Classic case of 'I didnt read the terms & conditions because it was too long and boring'


Anyway soem good news for the UK is that we wont be implimenting the EU's horrible Article 13 post brexit, whatever happens - at least we dodged that bullet:P
Few care about that now, but come June 2021 when the reality hits - people will be shouting from the roof tops about it i expect.

[Skybird]

"Sleepwalking" is a fitting term here.

And maybe its no coincidencen that a famous book about the dawning of WWI also was entitled "The Sleepwalkers". Then, Stefan Zweig described the attitude and Zeitgeist of Austrians before WW1 also as that of sleepwalkers. The EU must not necessariyl end up in a WWIII, and I doubt it will, but both the EU and the ECB by now create far more of the opposite of what they ambitiously claims they want, and what they accheive. And what they acchieve is plenty of alienation, groweing separation, polarization, and nationalistc sentiments as a reaction of self-defence against the coup d'etat that is conducted by Brussel in timelapse.

How could it be any different. The eU always has been no project of desire and hearft by the people, but an intellectual hobby by self-proclaimed elites and "progressive" "intellectuals". In Eastern Eruoppe and in Russia both people and plticians understand clearer the corrosive effect of this on the people'S felt and historticlly grown self-identity. And haviugn escaped oen Soviet Union, they are not to eager to submit to a second Sovjit Union, this time enforced not by Moscow, but Brussels. And once again it is "the cadres against the people."

A goiant soplcial engineering expeirment. Like gender nutheads think there is no biloigcal gender and nos coial gender, Brussels thinks there is no such thing like a cultural self-identity, at leats not one that can not be replaced at will with an testtube creation of a party-wanted identity.

In principle it is the same kind of thing like China does, just run with less obvious brutla violence, but neverthegless poiszuhed with as adamant merciless determination: to secure powers for the party establishement by reedcuating the masses and forming the kind of legitimising voters that are wanted by the fat cats in politics and industry. Econimic factors must be kept at certain comfort levelös to oprevent ther pleby going nuts and risking an uprise, but that means for maintaining such economic conditions anything goes, and culture and identoity play no role.

There is no bioliogcal gender. There is no cultural own history. There is no own identity. We are all the same! Who would dare to object to this flowery phrasing? Aren't you for "human rights", arent you in favour of "social justice" and "equality"...? Tz tz tz, naughty boy you are, I dont speak with you any more, you are bad! I only talk with good people!


Sleepwalkers are all over the place. Fridays for future, Pro EU, Merkel's moral claqueurs, migrant activists, energy turnaround, kickjumping out of nuclear power, the shabby status of the Bundeswehr (that a latest report describes as at being at the level of 2018 again, which was the worst years of its quality measuring era), Berlin repürpoting operational readiness of batallions and briugades to NATO HQ that do not even exist, human rights in China, solving the Palestinian question, gender nutheads, fascismo feminists, language Gleichschaltung... the list could be extended.



California has the San Adreas trench. Europe has its progressives. Its not yet clear which of the two potentially holds greater destructive power.

[Catfish]

While i do not really disagree, what is 'culture' for you?
Isn't culture what you learn, discover and come to believe, instead of being a genetic thing?
Every living thing on this earth is, while having some pre-generated features (like being a human instead of a worm, though there may be similarities in some), being formed by environment and learning. Do you think a french farmer or an english or whoever is being born with a national identity, or some belief that cannot be changed by external influence?

[Jimbuna]

If only the EU would have stayed to be a EEC, a shared market place, a free trade zone.



My sentiments entirely :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Juncker: Boris Johnson is 'a tough guy' but I like him
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been "very open, very frank" in the Brexit negotiations, the former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said.

"There is no theatre around the positions he has taken both in his negotiations with the Commission or in his talks with the European Council," he told Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur.

Mr Juncker said the prime minister had been "using some lies" in the run up to the Brexit vote in 2016.

"I didn't like him during the referendum campaign, but I liked him as a prime minister," he said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-51312858/juncker-boris-johnson-is-a-tough-guy-but-i-like-him

High praise indeed, especially as he appeared sober at the time.

[mapuc]

Here, depending which company who have made those polls, the resistans against EU goes up and down.

In some the Pro-EU voters are in lead and in some the Anti-EU is in lead.

However and here comes the interesting thing.

99 % of those who's against EU put they vote on Parties or politicians who are more or less against EU.

There's no Party in the Danish Parliament who have a wish of pulling Denmark out of EU.

The same goes for Sweden.

Markus

[STEED]

Friend i know will be in London celebrating brexit tomorrow night. I will not be wasting my time or money on this crass event.

[JU_88]

Friend i know will be in London celebrating brexit tomorrow night. I will not be wasting my time or money on this crass event.


Agreed, i wouldn't celebrate something when I dont yet know the outcome.

[Skybird]

While i do not really disagree, what is 'culture' for you?
Isn't culture what you learn, discover and come to believe, instead of being a genetic thing?
Every living thing on this earth is, while having some pre-generated features (like being a human instead of a worm, though there may be similarities in some), being formed by environment and learning. Do you think a french farmer or an english or whoever is being born with a national identity, or some belief that cannot be changed by external influence?
Culture is a collective biography forming tradtions and ways of life and attitudes and values that are unique for this and no other biography. It is as unique as a fingerprint. And since you mentioned egentic, where have I said somethign of egnetics? Your childhood memories are not genetically encoded already, still they make you the man you are today. And no way you could ever be like me or somebody else - except on a theatre stage for the duration of a play.


Lack of own sense of identity, can even be of clinical-psychiatric relevance, both on the individual as well as the collective level.

[Skybird]

Today'S the day. A rough ride is to be expected in the imminent and medium future, but this has been about the longterm perspective from beginning on, and herein lie the chances. Just your polticians shall not mess up things and make wrong decisions now, for you have no margin for error left.

Good luck, Britain!

To leave a block where one had an economy as strong as the 18 weakest economies of the block together, but still having only the same say on things than each and every single one of these dwarf economies individually, is no shame, but an act of reason.


P.S.
https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/gastbeitrag-von-gabor-steingart-nicht-die-briten-koennten-einen-hohen-preis-fuer-den-brexit-zahlen-sondern-wir_id_11612918.html
Google Translator is down over here currently, so try your luck yourself.



Wir müssen den Austritt der Briten nicht feiern, aber verstehen. Der Verbleib Großbritanniens in der EU entsprach unseren Interessen, aber zuletzt nicht mehr den ihren. Die deutschen Medien sollten sich besinnen: Sie haben der Wahrheitsfindung zu dienen, nicht der Verhandlungsposition der EU-Kommission.

[Catfish]

^ what i mean is that a farmer from France will have difficulties to decide whether he stands on a french or a german or wherever field, still he is proud of "his" ground he thinks he is on.
Humans are formed by their surroundings, so man can of course also change attitude, his understanding and perception of culture.

No you did not mention genetics, i just used this to explain a difference between the "hard wiring" and what can be changed by surroundings. (b.t.w. new research shows that genetics can react to surroundings a lot more and faster than it was supposed before - but this has nothing to do with this thread).

If someone stands on his field and is proud of his country, this attitude can change. It is not hard-wired. I doubt there is a natural-born englishman.

[Jimbuna]

Today'S the day. A rough ride is to be expected in the imminent and medium future, but this has been about the longterm perspective from beginning on, and herein lie the chances. Just your polticians shall not mess up things and make wrong decisions now, for you have no margin for error left.

Good luck, Britain!

To leave a block where one had an economy as strong as the 18 weakest economies of the block together, but still having only the same say on things than each and every single one of these dwarf economies individually, is no shame, but an act of reason.




Only time will tell Sky but fingers crossed it will all pan out well in the future.

[Catfish]

German papers are not quite convinced of a success (and not all share Skybird's view, who would have thunk). Some thoughtful articles, not quite as loud or pompous.
bad translations courtesy of Google

Die Zeit:
Today self-righteousness rules (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2F 2020-01%2Fgrossbritannien-brexit-entfremdung-eu-austritt)

Der Spiegel:
The promise from the thriving counties (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland %2Fbrexit-die-hoffnung-auf-den-brexit-boom-a-057f6741-2911-40ae-b149-2acef815773e)

[Jimbuna]

I think I know one person who will definitely be celebrating :)

https://i.postimg.cc/xTD1k4sm/83477995-2557000854554715-1360973100564348928-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Catfish]

Give him a slap on the back, shake his hand, smile for the camera. And then, finally, watch him leave. There's a silver lining on every dark cloud.


As usual the comments say it all :haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbMzJgVCyt4

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxVdQNLX-pc

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIgmfpHBiDw

[Skybird]

Google Translator still does not process links currently, at least over here, but the text could be entered itself again. Here is the piece I linked on the page before.


----------------------------------------------------------------------




With great regularity, two myths about Brexit are cultivated in the German media that are at war with reality.



Myth 1: Boris Johnson is a madman, so to speak the industrial accident in British history.

The fact is: Boris Johnson is not the exception, but the rule in British history. If Winston Churchill were still alive, he would be in the Johnson camp today. At midnight, when the island empire solemnly leaves the EU, he hovers as a brother over Downing Street No. 10th

In his legendary speech to the University of Zurich in 1946, Churchill urged the Europeans to join forces:

"We must build a kind of United States of Europe."

But he exempted one country from this construction: his own. If you listened closely at that time, you were presented with exactly that view of continental Europe that is still valid today:

"Great Britain, the mighty America and, I hope, Soviet Russia must be friends and promoters of the new Europe."

Friends and supporters, not relatives. And Churchill had already laid down his definition of a global but sovereign country in 1930:

“The country has its own dreams and tasks. We do not belong to a single continent, but to everyone. ”

He stayed with it. In 1951 he said to his German counterpart Konrad Adenauer:

"You can rest assured that Great Britain will always stand by Europe."

Adenauer, a chancellor who understood the nuance, recognized the distance:

"Prime Minister, I'm a little disappointed. England is part of Europe. "

Britain is regaining its independence tonight. After 47 years in the European Union, London celebrates the event with a big firework display.


Myth 2: Britain would pay for this insubordination by losing jobs and wealth. There is currently no evidence of this, on the contrary:

► The investors in the City of London are euphoric. They hope for a country freed from the Brussels bureaucracy and thus for a regulatory arbitrage. The Bundesbank's Executive Board, Joachim Wuermeling, understood that. He warns the EU of a "kind of offshore financial center in Europe".

► New bilateral trade agreements with the USA, Canada or Australia are intended to give new impetus to the British economy, which in 2019 was already growing almost twice as fast as the German economy. "I am incredibly confident about the next five years," said James Hanbury, portfolio manager at Odey Asset Management.

► Great Britain is not as dependent on the internal market as Germany. Although the country does half of its foreign trade with the European Union, the trade balance shows a loss-making business. In 2018, the deficit was 107.4 billion euros against the EU.



Most valuable British company sees the Brexit calmly

► Great Britain - freed from a politicized EU foreign trade policy - can now devote itself to doing business with difficult countries such as Iran and China. Johnson's decision to involve the Chinese communications group Huawei in building the 5G network was the first weather light.

► The most valuable British company, the banking multi HSBC, sees the Brexit calmly. The most important market beyond the home country is Asia. The bank is represented in the EU with HSBC France and Trinkaus & Burkhardt in Düsseldorf. From the manager's point of view, Europe doesn't have to be more.

► US President Trump wants to help the British with a "robust" trade agreement. Johnson is banking on an economic expansion of the “special relationship”.

Conclusion: We do not have to celebrate the exit of the British, but we have to understand it. Great Britain's stay in the EU was in our interests, but ultimately no longer theirs. The German media should remember: they have to serve to find the truth, not the negotiating position of the EU Commission.

(...)

The British may not be paying a high price for Brexit, but us

Brexit tears a gap of up to ten billion euros on the EU's revenue side. Barley demands that all EU members must pay for the future British contribution:

“The contribution from all member states should increase. We have to make up for it. It's clear to everyone. "

Germany as the largest contributor is likely to be particularly challenged. History can be so ironic: it is perhaps not the British who pay a high price for Brexit, but us.




https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/gastbeitrag-von-gabor-steingart-nicht-die-briten-koennten-einen-hohen-preis-fuer-den-brexit-zahlen-sondern-wir_id_11612918.html

[Skybird]

And another opinion piece in the same newspaper, Focus. Again I agree with the author obviously.


---------------------------------------------------------




The Brexit is coming. The uncertainty of the past three and a half years has turned into certainty. In line with Boris Johnson's slogan, the German economy is now getting brexit done. The economist Dr. explains which changes Germany should adjust to. Daniel Stelter.

First of all: I am not a friend of Brexit. I think Brexit is very unfortunate - especially from a German perspective. Nevertheless, the most important finding is to be accepted, namely that Brexit is of great importance for Germany and will probably not lead the British to disaster in the long term. With all concerns, there are also many signs that Brexit can become a successful model for Great Britain.

The super state in Brussels is perceived as not only democratic on the British island. With Brexit, London can set itself apart in regulatory terms. The economic outlook is not too bad: Britain's economy has grown faster in recent years than Germany's, for example. Great Britain benefits from the fact that it is home to the world language and is therefore attractive to qualified immigrants. Great Britain also has excellent universities and outstanding schools, especially in the private sector. London has a very lively start-up scene. Combined with simple rules for setting up a company, less bureaucracy and competitive tax rates, the Brexit can be a relief. Certainly not in the short term, but in the long term it is.
Germany has a lot to lose

Against this background, the countries of the European Union, especially Germany, have a lot to lose. This is especially true if it is not possible to sign a contract in good time for future relations between the EU and Great Britain. Boris Johnson has a clear idea of ​​when this free trade agreement will be closed by the end of 2020. His negotiating position is stronger than most mainland citizens believe. I am convinced that there must be a contract between the EU and the UK.

Great Britain is a large sales market and if this sales market ceases to exist, the EU will be hit very hard and Germany will be hit particularly hard. We Germans alone export goods worth 85 billion euros to the UK. The German automotive industry plays a large part in this, as it has to fight hard for its supremacy after the diesel scandal and overslept electromobility. British tariffs would be another fiasco for German car manufacturers. After all, Great Britain is the second largest export market in the world for them. But not only Germany would suffer damage without a contract. Britain's economic power is just as great as that of the 20 smallest EU countries. Hardly any country can do without this partner, issues relating to fishing rights, trade and the exchange of services are far too elementary.

It is time for Germany to show its colors. Within the EU, Germany has often been hiding behind Britain in recent decades, in the expectation that the British will stop making unpleasant decisions. Contrary to its tradition, Germany must now clearly and clearly stand up for its own interests. The Lisbon Treaty establishes quorums so that neither the northerners nor the southerners have a majority. With the UK's exit, it will be possible for France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to prevail against the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden. We will already experience the new balance of power in the forthcoming EU budget negotiations.
Boris Johnson could quickly face a hard Brexit

The withdrawal agreement for the island nation initially provides for a transition phase of one year, but can be extended again from December 31, 2020 to December 31, 2022. Boris Johnson should not want this. He is more likely to face a hard Brexit than a scenario to make concessions in the negotiations. The short deadline is packed with important points, because by the end of the transition phase it is important to agree on a trade agreement, regulate long-term relationships and avoid customs duties wherever possible.



There is a lot for Europe: According to an analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the United Kingdom could impose significant tariffs on goods imported from the EU without a free trade agreement. According to the latest calculations, this would be 49 billion euros for 2018. There would then be no secure framework conditions for services. In particular, financial services could no longer be offered to one another. On the other hand, Brussels would only receive EUR 6.7 billion in taxation of British imports. Such a situation would have a clear winner and that would not be the European Union.
The EU is tough on its interests

The EU is tough on its interests, as Ms. von der Leyen said recently. In a lecture at the London Stock Exchange in London, she said: “But the truth is that our partnership cannot and will not be the same as before. And it cannot and will not be as narrow as it used to be - because every decision has consequences. With every decision comes a compromise. Without the free movement of people, there can be no free movement of capital, goods and services. Without a level playing field in the areas of environment, labor, taxes and state aid, you cannot have high quality access to the largest single market in the world. The more differences there are, the further the partnership must be. And without extending the transition period beyond 2020, you can't expect to agree on every aspect of our new partnership. We will have to set priorities. The objectives of the European Union in the negotiations are clear. We will work for solutions that preserve the integrity of the EU, its internal market and its customs union. There can be no compromises here. "

French EU negotiator Michel Barnier said right at the beginning of the year: “Nobody, nobody should doubt the Commission's determination and my determination to continue to defend the interests of EU27 citizens and businesses and to defend the integrity of the internal market. (...) ".

From the UK's perspective, there can be no interest in accepting all the EU rules, as the President of the Commission envisages, because then you could have stayed in the EU. For the British, above all for Boris Johnson, the attraction lies in the fact that they differ positively: different and less regulation, autonomy with immigration, cheaper taxes etc. Boris Johnson will continue the successful strategy of the past few months. He strengthens his negotiating position and now has a large majority in parliament. His threat of a hard Brexit is therefore realistic.

Still, we should be grateful to the British for warning us. It is time for reform. The worst thing that can happen is that the EU continues as before. Britain shows that there are alternatives. Let’s switch from shock to action mode. We will experience a highly volatile year: with a rollercoaster ride on stock exchanges and foreign exchange markets, depending on which news is coming from the negotiation rooms. In the end there will be a deal. I am convinced of this, even if it is one in which certain things are specified afterwards.


https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/experten/gastbeitrag-von-daniel-stelter-der-brexit-ist-eine-chance-fuer-die-briten-und-die-eu_id_11612773.html


------------------------------------------------------


For I hope it breaks the European complecancy and megalomania and severly disrupts the march into the planned economy regime and growing tax slavery: I hope the Brits give plenty of headaches to Brussels. Plenty of headaches, and then much more of the same, please! :yeah:

[Skybird]

And this is a nice piec eon the to-be-expected collison of the low tax coun try UK and the high tax - not to say: maximum tax - country Germany. Anothe rreason why I welcome the raise of a low tax oasis right offshore the eU's coastline:


https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.welt.de%2Fwirtschaft%2Farticle 205481851%2FBrexit-Deutschland-zittert-vor-Johnsons-Steuerpolitik.html

[mapuc]

I call those of my friends who live outside UK and who use to talk to our members from UK.

You have to establish a continues phone line with them(From 2400 British time and until 0600 British time).

This in case if UK sink down into a sinkhole, during the night.

If this should happen, and according to those doomsday predictor it will, we need to create a rescue team.

Markus

[Skybird]

The net paying members of the EU tonight loose the blocking majority (due to the prionciple of double majority) in the EU minister council and can no longer block decisions made by the net receiving majority wanting a money transfer from the first to the latter.

So who is in a sinkhole here? :03:

[Skybird]

German CSU-politician Manffred Weber, rival to Super-Uschi for becoming EU president before Macronman shot him down, had a moment of bright brilliance today when summing it up shortly what it all is about. He said: "Wird der Brexit gefühlt ein Erfolg, ist das der Anfang vom Ende der EU." - "If Brexit is felt to be a success, it is the beginning of the end of the EU."

The "negotiations" will be led accordingly: to prevent Brexit becoming a success. A successful UK is not in the interest of the EU - a crashing UK is. The more miserable the UK does, the better for the EU. I think Johnson knows this. And will not play ball.

[Skybird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=f2zJ8vaB5jo&feature=emb_logo




At least this he got right: "this new political experiment that we originally thought was a common market and that we now know is a political union". And: "Brexit is a victory of ordinary people against the establishment."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuZ0qMYS-Z0

[Catfish]

And: "Brexit is a victory of ordinary people against the establishment."
You forgot what he said next, directly after this, and his face speaks volumes. He clearly despises them. I also have difficulties to imagine Mr. Murdoch as the "non-establishment" :03:

[Skybird]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/30/boris-johnson-hails-dawn-new-era-celebrates-brexit-day-tax-cut/

No idea to what level his speech describes the future reality, but what I like is that tremendous difference in attitude between this British speaker, and a German speaker in his place: here a focus on optimism, energy, success, potential and high self-esteem, brought forward in high spirit and cheerful atttiude of departure, there a focus on concerns, moral lecturing, worrying, self-minimising, braking, hesitating, and being konformal and marching in line, told in a low, slow, insisting, heavy-weighing tone and temper.

Even if there would not be rational arguments and reasons why I support Brexit from beginning on, this difference nevertheless would have made the British side so much more sympathetic to me. I am so tired of this endless German self-inflicted agonising and self-tormenting. I just pisses me off.

[Jimbuna]

The net paying members of the EU tonight loose the blocking majority (due to the prionciple of double majority) in the EU minister council and can no longer block decisions made by the net receiving majority wanting a money transfer from the first to the latter.

So who is in a sinkhole here? :03:

I honestly wasn't aware of that.

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/d1sFGjJv/83918423-10157897181849605-5834192959666388992-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Skybird]

I honestly wasn't aware of that.
Thats not a compliment for me, for over the past two years I must have mentioned it five, six times or more often. For the power structure inside the EU, this is a real bummer. The balance between net payers and receivers was bitterly fought over at Lisbon.

The EU's double majority principle, laid down in the dictate of Lisbon. 55% of the states must represent 65% of the total population in order for a decision becoming valid, usually meaning a suggestion of the EU central committee becoming valid law. The important thing is what this means for blocking decisions: 45% of the states representing 35% of the total population can block any such decision. For the net paying countries, this was and is of utmost importance. With Britian now leaving - errr: having left - the net paying side, the net payers are currently defenceless against any decision forming that demands more wealth redistribution and socialisation of national debts and social inssurance claims on behalf of the benfit of the net receivers and at the one-sided costs of the net payers. This year will see according decisions, I am sure. Regarding the mandate of the eCB, regarding continental unemployment insurrances, regarding deposit inssurances, regarding EU taxes, regarding EU budget.

If you have not noticed it before, for Germany as the biggest total paymaster, this is a situation that potentially threatens to cost us additional dozens of billions. PER YEAR. Compared to that the financial losses that the uK will need to expect in the forseeable future before things turn for the better, are peanuts. Add to the German disadvanatge that we are the most heavily taxed population worldwide, and that no other nation bears so heavy accountabilities for other nations' debts, than Germany does (Target-2 saldi), currently counting for roughly two and a half of our yearly national GDPs. We are beign accountable for debts of others worth the economic total performance of our country of two and a half years.

Sedated Merkelland can not be expected to dare to step forward and unleash conflict about renegotiating this mechanism. My hope is on Austria's Alexander Kurz who is less shy to cause conflict.

[Jimbuna]

The stark reality for Germans will become evident when they wake up to the realisation of the financial burden that has been put on her next generation and possibly the one after that.

[Skybird]

The stark reality for Germans will become evident when they wake up to the realisation of the financial burden that has been put on her next generation and possibly the one after that.
How true! But the collapse of the Euro in the next and upcoming finance breakdown will probably precede that. With interest rates at zero and below, centrela banls hjave no space anymore to "react" to the next wave of symptoms for the cancer in the fiscal system. The options of 2007 to lower interest rates and flood the market with new printed money (devalueing it that way, what many still overlook), are not really available anymore. It already is game over, but ev erybody still smiles and has a toast. Its unreal.

That day at the latest we will learn to envy the UK. The UK'S national debts equal 82% of the national GDP in 2019, and Germany's debts level was 61% of its GDP in 2019, that seems like an advantage for Germany, but the UK does not even closely share similiar accountabilities for other countries' debts like Germany, it is these foreign debts that will break our necks, and since we cannot serve them, our stupid agreeing to share other peoples' burden will be a major cause for the next fiscal collapse. A nice example of how "meaning it well" leads to "utmost desaster". And an illustration of why I flatten my ears and show my teeth when I hear people saying something as stupid as "I only meant it well". "Meaning it well" is not the same like "doing it well".

The real British independence day, btw, is not today, but will be in one year. Until then the UK still pays into the EU and follows all its rules and orders.

"Not yet, comrades, not yet - but soon, and certainly!"

[Jimbuna]

This Italian MEP's speech is a bit of an eye opener :)

ITALIAN MEP Antonio Maria Rinaldi issued a stunning EU Parliament speech in support of Brexit, putting the Brussels bloc on alert as other member states threaten to follow the UK's lead.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1236580/Brussels-news-EU-latest-Italian-MEP-Brexit-speech-EU-Parliament-update-video

[Skybird]

I agree with all in that ^.




Referring to Ms von der Leyen’s vision for the UK’s trade relationship with the EU, Brexit firebrand now-former Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe told Express.co.uk: “We do not want a level playing field. It is the ability to compete. And that, of course, is what they are so scared of.”

[Jimbuna]

A FRENCH protester called for France to follow Britain's example and leave the European Union during the Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square last night.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1236610/Brexit-EU-news-France-leave-EU-Parliament-Square-protest-Frexit-latest-video

Highly unlikely but could this be the start of something?

[Skybird]

Highly unlikely but could this be the start of something?
Guy Verhofstadt wrote a comment for a german newspaper that shows that he has understood nothing. Brexit is terrible, the British arguments are misled, Britain'S future is gloomy and sad, and the EU must reform itself - to become even more EU and thus be able to convince renegades more forcefully. This is the same Guy Verhofstadt that Super-Uschi named as head of a new project that calls for just another two years babbling with citizens across Europe so that the EU can learn what citizens want. Like it wanted to learn in the early 00-years with a similiar babbling project that got ignored in results completely. Like it ignored the referendums in Fance and Holland and Ireland on the EU constitution just to reshuffle the same content, put the critical items in complex appendices and enforced the same constitution behind closed doors nevertheless. Super-Uschi's central committee at the last minute deleted a passage in the founding paper for this new two years babbling project that would have allowed to alter the European treaties, the fundament of the EU today, if people in Europe would demand that. That shows how much the EU cares for what people think: not at all. The people can babble as long as they want - but at the end they are demanded to come to the conclusions that the central committee demands and expects of them. That is an understanding of freedom and democracy that matches the one that was to be seen for exmaple in the GDR, and that Merkel also ticks by. Reminds me of the EU clowns wanting to give the Eu auhtpority to judge and allow what critcism of the EU is justified and is allowed, and what criticism is not adequate and not jutsiofied and thus should be persecuted by law enforcement. Sorry - but am I really in the right film...?



So, I surely hope at least that it would be "the start of something!" I say since many years that I see no willingness and ability in the eU to reform itself to become somethign less again. But nothign less I demand of it, if I should support the idea of a European trade union. Instead, I get Guy Verhofstadt from all beginning on again, a guy whose patented only reply to every problem with the EU is "We need more of the same EU".



Politicians will not reform the EU. The streets have to overthrow it. The GDR tyranny did not fall by itself, it was brought down by the streets, in great fear and great personal risk to those marching in the streets, organising the protests and resistance. This must be done again. And the German example shows that it can be done peacefully - if only the other side does not give order to use weapons. And that the central committee in Brussels would will to commit massacres to protect its own existence is something that not even I easly can imagine.

A start of something? Well, green lights from me! :yeah:

[Mr Quatro]

https://i.postimg.cc/d1sFGjJv/83918423-10157897181849605-5834192959666388992-n.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Congratulations England so you finally did it :up:

Did everyone get drunk or what? :D

[MGR1]

We'll see how the the SNP tackle the new reality:

Scottish independence: Sturgeon is trapped in a constitutional stalemate (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51328562)

Interpreting Nicola Sturgeon's subtle speech (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51332591)

Apparently there had to be a very heavy police presence in central Glasgow last night in order to keep the pro-EU and pro-Brexit demonstrations apart.:o

My main concern now is if anything nasty happens in Northern Ireland and whether or not it overspills into the Clyde Valley. There are a lot of cultural links between the two areas.:hmmm:

Mike.

[mapuc]

First of all Sorry for my last comment.

I tried to be funny-based on all those doomsday and negative comment I had read on Danish and Swedish news page.

From what I understand it's not decided yet how much more Denmark and Sweden shall pay to EU, after UK have left EU.

As mentioned some pages back I know the Future of EU and France will be one of the solid member in a shrink version of EU.

In the year 2065 Europe are divided into a Blue fraction(a free cooperation between some forme EU-members and others state)

This fraction count:
UK(incl. Skotland*)Holland, Spain, Norway, Poland, Hungary, Baltic states(two of them), and some more-There will be 13 or 14 countries in this Blue fraction group

The Red Fraction count older and some new EU-states.
and count:

Germany, France, Sweden, Romania, Italy, one of the baltic states and some more.
It will be around 10-12 countries in this group.

* Scotland
Scotland will get their independent in 2028, but after 20 years of total economical failure and a total economical meltdown Bank(bankruptcy) the Scottish Parliament decide after the Scottish People in a second referendum have said yes with 78 % majority, to dissolve the State and be fully part of UK.

Markus

[MGR1]

* Scotland
Scotland will get their independent in 2028, but after 20 years of total economical failure and a total economical meltdown Bank(bankruptcy) the Scottish Parliament decide after the Scottish People in a second referendum have said yes with 78 % majority, to dissolve the State and be fully part of UK.

Markus

Something I don't get - even if tongue in cheek, what is it about Scotland that makes people think it couldn't survive if it did vote to become independent?

If it's viewed as such an economic basket case, what does that say about how it's economy has been run whilst it's still a part of the UK?

Genuine questions.

Mike.

[Skybird]

Something I don't get - even if tongue in cheek, what is it about Scotland that makes people think it couldn't survive if it did vote to become independent?

If it's viewed as such an economic basket case, what does that say about how it's economy has been run whilst it's still a part of the UK?


In 2014, the two major b ranches of the Scottish eco09nomy were oil andf finance sector.

Oil is in decline as an economy b ranch. With the CO2 debate raging, the fast liquidation of fossile-based assets has started already some tiem ago. Production is high, price is low, Scottish gaisn from it would be lower than before 2014. Also, oil in the Northsea area is not exactly becoming more. Norway sholuld serve as an exmaple for both above points. - The market price for gas has almost collapsed, after the heavy investments of the US into fracking they now see thewir investment in dangers due to the price fall. Which is the rela reason why the Americnas attack germany and the eU over thoese two pipeline projects: is not about freeodm gas and Russian suppoliars, its about that they want to sell their won gas and Russia out of the way. So here too you have an exmaplke why the scottish cannot endlessly rely on fossile fuels as a basis for their eocnomic independence. In 2014, before hte referum, oil and gas made up for 13% of the Scottish income.

Finances are worse, the balance ottal of the Scottish banks iun 2014 was 12 times as high as the Scottish rela economy balance. In other words: it was hopelkessly overblown. The Scottish would be extrenely vulnerable for any financial not even earthquakes, but even just early symptoms of it.

So you have limited oil, fossile fuel debate, and a vulnerable bankling sector as fundaments for - independence? I think it would be a very short-libved drwema only - and then the EU would be expected to step in and vbial them ouzt. And the EU payers are - well, you koinow the mantry.

No, I do not see as a vlauavle and contirbuting future member of the eU. Soloner or later they owuld lose theirt independence again - on the dayx they must ask others to pay theirt bills. If oyu depend on others,m you are not independent, but dependent. Thats why I want London to keep the role of the paymaster.

As a libertarian I say they have the right to go their own way, if that is what they want. I said this for any other independence movement in Europe. I just refuse to pay for their bills now or in the future. I do not see somebody asking for EU membership automatically having the right to demand that his request must being acceptedm then it would not be a question or request anymore, but a command. I would reject it, this candidate is not stabile enough, and a risk. I doubt they can afford independence in the long run. Idf they accept this and are ready to go all alone, so be it then. Buzt let them be wanred.

Of course I am not the EU, the EU would love to pay for them and bring them in as soon as possible - just to piss England and show the world how rewarding it is to be a EU member.

Even Tony Blair in an interview with a German newspaper yesterday said that he recommends Johnson does not allow just another referendum. However, that is a fo9rmnalöity, like i Spain, and like I do to accept the Sonaish self-gioven rule that Madrid has the right to own other people and reject their call for independence, I think the same right cannot be accpeted in case of London. Both nations do not have the right to claim ownberhsip of other people. Where they cliam such a right, constitution or not, it is a violation of basic and profound human rights.

But again: independence as a nation you need to be able to afford. Dont expect others to pay your bills. Because then you are not dependent at all. THAT IS A NO-BRAINER, ISN'T IT...?

[JU_88]

Fair points Skybird,
I agree that the bigest flaw with any system of government or collectivisation, the larger it is the less people it truley represents under that blanket. Scotland and Catalunya should have the right to go it alone if they wish.
Buts its murky, As with Brexit its very much divided in both those places. There is never an easy way to reconcile that as there is no go between or compromise when it comes to breaking away, its all or nothing at all.

Whats worrying now is that 'tyranny of the majority' is a phrase being tossed around by the losers of western democracies, unfortunatley that's just reality of any democracy even if the government formed is a representative one (like a coalition) and the only alternative is tyranny of the minority which is ultimatley dictatorship.


In the case of brexit i think most who voted remain have come round to the idea that this is where we are going for now and that regretfully they must accept it as we can only go forwards in time and not back.
As for where the hardline remainers & Labour /Libdems chewed off their own leg; (and the U.S democrats seem to be heading for the same trap in 2020)
openess and tolerance are possitive and sensible values to hold, but if you take them to their radical extremes you end up worshiping the foriegner and resenting the national - you cannot forge a national identity out of the rejection of national identity, oxymoron.

[Skybird]

I am the last to claim that the majority principle is the holy grail - it clearly is not, for it only makes sense if the electorate is qualified and educated. Voting campaigns before generla elections time and again show that the elctorate clearly is not qualified at all. Such a herd of cattle should not be given powers of any kind. I am in full with the criticism as voiced by Stanford politologist Jason brennan, whom I have repeatedly referred to. His diagnosis is 100% correct, like is Herrmann Hoppe's, I only have doubts about both men's recommended altenrative remedies. Brewnnan at least is honest enogh to admit that his alternative is so far a thought experiment whose validity still must be proven.

Meanwhile the EU already has started to conspire again against the UK, stirring the pot behind its back and showing an innocent face at the same time. I know why I meet this scum with such contempt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51342714

"We dont pull the cat's tail, we just hold it tight." Thats what they do, all the time, everywhere, and not just over Brexit. The EU can never be trusted. Never. In the end, it not even lives up to its own treaties and laws.

[Catfish]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/12/31/lettersexperienced-amateurs-could-offer-added-protection-channel/

[MGR1]

In 2014, the two major b ranches of the Scottish eco09nomy were oil andf finance sector.

----SNIP----

But again: independence as a nation you need to be able to afford. Dont expect others to pay your bills. Because then you are not dependent at all. THAT IS A NO-BRAINER, ISN'T IT...?

Sorry, Sky - had to do that rather than clog up the post!:03:

As Ju_88 wrote, all very good points and all perfectly valid - but it just underlines the problem:

WHY is Scotland's economy so massively unbalanced? WHY the need for the Barnett formula subsidies?

I've posted this before but my own opinion is that the pro-UK side have NO interest in Scotland becoming a net contributer to the UK exchequer. If it was it would invalidate all their arguments that the Union is beneficial to Scotland - viewed on purely economic grounds it isn't fair to either Scotland or England. A Scotland that was a net-contributer would have as much need for the UK on economic grounds as England and thus would be more likely to vote for independence and hence a threat to their positions.

The Conservative commentator Henry Hill has posted a very good analysis here:

The state of the unionists (https://thecritic.co.uk/the-state-of-the-unionists/)

As for the SNP's pro-EU position - I have my own take.

Scottish political leaders sacrificed Scotland's status as a separate nation in 1707 for both personal and national economic advantage, why wouldn't the current set do so again?

Which "Empire" serves Scotland's interests best?

Mike.:hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

Scotland's largest trade union has backed calls for a second independence referendum.

A meeting of Unison's Scottish council has voted in favour of indyref2 at a time to be determined by the Scottish Parliament.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51340598

[Jimbuna]

Former European Council president Donald Tusk says Brussels feels "empathy" towards an independent Scotland joining the European Union.

Nicola Sturgeon has said an independent Scotland would seek full EU membership.

When asked if this would be looked upon favourably, Mr Tusk said there would be enthusiasm but he warned the country would not be automatically accepted.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned the comments could encourage "separatist tendencies" in the EU.

They were "rather un-European and rather irresponsible," he added.

"I'm not sure European leaders, let alone here in the UK, would actually welcome that comment," he said.

Mr Tusk, who served as European Council president for five years until November last year, told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show that he feels "very Scottish, especially after Brexit".

When asked about the prospect of an independent Scotland joining the EU, the Polish politician said he had to "respect the internal debate in the United Kingdom" and it was not his role to intervene.

But when pressed on the level of support in the EU towards an independent Scotland joining the union, he said: "Emotionally I have no doubt that everyone will be enthusiastic here in Brussels, and more generally in Europe.

"If you ask me about our emotions, you will witness I think always empathy."

However he warned that any future entry bid on the part of an independent Scotland would not be automatically accepted - "formalities" and treaty agreements would still need to be adhered to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51342714

[MGR1]

Interesting piece by Professor David Starkey:

The UK’s four nations can be reinvented and flourish (https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/february-2020/the-uks-four-nations-can-be-reinvented-and-flourish/)

Although there's an interesting caveat at the end:

But the results of the Brexit referendum and the recent general election suggests a more optimistic outcome. Perhaps that core Anglo-British belief in national self-government survives. Perhaps it can be the foundation, with or without Scotland, of a new, multi-national Britain/England, that, enriched with its immigrant talent, will forge its own unique way in the world, just as the old United Kingdom once did.Bold mine.

The article also touched on what I think is a very good point: for the UK to survive, perhaps the best way would be to "kill" the four separate national identities. No English, no Scottish, no Welsh, no Northern Irish, only British. However that would entail a degree of cultural genocide that is very un-British.

Mike.

[Skybird]

Former European Council president Donald Tusk says Brussels feels "empathy" towards an independent Scotland joining the European Union.

Nicola Sturgeon has said an independent Scotland would seek full EU membership.

When asked if this would be looked upon favourably, Mr Tusk said there would be enthusiasm but he warned the country would not be automatically accepted.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned the comments could encourage "separatist tendencies" in the EU.

They were "rather un-European and rather irresponsible," he added.

"I'm not sure European leaders, let alone here in the UK, would actually welcome that comment," he said.

Mr Tusk, who served as European Council president for five years until November last year, told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show that he feels "very Scottish, especially after Brexit".

When asked about the prospect of an independent Scotland joining the EU, the Polish politician said he had to "respect the internal debate in the United Kingdom" and it was not his role to intervene.

But when pressed on the level of support in the EU towards an independent Scotland joining the union, he said: "Emotionally I have no doubt that everyone will be enthusiastic here in Brussels, and more generally in Europe.

"If you ask me about our emotions, you will witness I think always empathy."

However he warned that any future entry bid on the part of an independent Scotland would not be automatically accepted - "formalities" and treaty agreements would still need to be adhered to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51342714


https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2647422&postcount=12407


:D

[Skybird]

Meanwhile, the EU continues to deny the point of Brexit and what it really is about:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51345776


Dominic Raab argued agreeing to stick strongly with EU regulations would "defeat the point of Brexit".
(...)
EU chiefs want the UK to continue to follow EU rules on standards and state subsidies - while accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in any trade disputes.The PM is expected to say that he will accept no alignment and no jurisdiction of the European courts when talks start in March.
He is also preparing to say he would rule out relaxing rules on workers' rights, food hygiene standards and environmental protections.
(...)
Mr Raab said the UK would enter trade talks "with a spirit of goodwill" but added "the legislative alignment - it just ain't happening".
I think what the EU fears more than anything is that the high tax regimes by which the net payers finance the EU show could be undermined by a Britain challenging them on it with a low tax regime. But I hope right that is what Johnson will do. Super-Uschi's staff has threatened the world with raising penalty taxes for products imported by Europe that are not produced in accordance with the "Green Deal" madness. By this the EU wants to force the rest of the world to comply with the demands of that European hubris. But I just said it: it is hubris, and I want it to be shattered to pieces.

[Jimbuna]

^ I'm of the opinion the EU is petrified of a competitor right on their doorstep.

[Jimbuna]

Meanwhile, Operation Doom and Gloom gathers momentum.

Hedgehogs, dragonflies and bees are among wildlife at risk due to big gaps in environmental protections following the UK’s departure from the EU, according to a new report.

Commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and WWF, the study claims the UK faces losing regulations preventing hedgerows being cut during the nesting season and vital buffer strips from being ploughed or sprayed with pesticides.

Other regulations currently based in EU law, which safeguard ponds and protect carbon-locking bare soils from draining or blowing away, could also be lost, according to the report by the Institute of European Environmental Policy (IEEP).
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/uk-wildlife-at-risk-due-to-regulatory-gaps-created-by-brexit-says-report/ar-BBZAwYB?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

[MGR1]

A piece by Michelle Ballantyne MSP, Jackson Carlaw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Carlaw)'s competitor for leadership of the Scottish Conservatives:

Michelle Ballantyne: Why I’m standing to lead the Scottish Conservatives (https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/02/michelle-ballantyne-why-im-standing-to-lead-the-scottish-conservatives.html#idc-cover)

She stood for the leadership position to prevent Carlaw being "coronated" as SCon Leader. If that had happened it would have undercut any attack on Sturgeon, after all she had her own "coronation" as SNP leader.

Unfortunately, unless anything dramatic happens, she's unlikely to beat Carlaw but hopefully her presence will give the SCon membership something to think about.

Many of the rank and file of the party membership in Scotland want devolution scrapped altogether, rather than think constructively as to how to make it work.

Mike.:hmmm:

[Skybird]

A piece by Michael Sommer in the Swiss Schweizer Sonntagszeitung:


"
Singapore on the Thames - dawn of a new era

What some had never believed in has now come true: Great Britain is leaving the European Union, and it is probably the most significant historical event since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Europe, especially the EU, will have to reinvent itself. Little remains of the euphoria that struck our continent in 1989, namely the West and the East. The United States of Europe - because this goal seemed to be within reach at the beginning of the 1990s - did not happen so quickly. Business as usual still prevails.

Most politicians, journalists, and some business leaders are not aware of the scope of this brave British referendum. They assume that the EU just continues to exist, they think that the UK is primarily affected by its decision, they think that times have hardly changed - apart from the fact that there is something rumbling on the edges of the political spectrum, squeaks and rumbles. Barbarians crawl around and riot, climate youths skip school and talk cheekily, otherwise nothing new in the West. You are wrong. They overlook the dawn of a new era.


Nuclear power with an intact army

Great Britain is the second largest economy in Europe, at the same time recently the most important trading partner for the EU outside the confederation of states. The country is also a nuclear power and has one of the few serious, still ready-to-use armies. Without Great Britain, EU politicians know that any European attempt to emancipate itself from the United States in terms of security policy has the charm of a joke.

London is also one of the most important financial centers in the world. According to the Global Financial Centers Index, only New York is of greater importance, Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam, even Zurich, and a city outside the EU are far behind, is more important than the EU financial centers. Zurich in little Switzerland is in 6th place - ahead of Frankfurt in big Germany. Hardly any European company can get past London when it is looking for financing. After all, Great Britain has seven of the forty best universities in the world, while the EU has none, and Switzerland has two.

So if the EU Commission imagines that the negotiations with the British have led it from a position of strength, while the islanders must be happy that they want to do business with them at all, then they are wrong. The Commission should also not underestimate Boris Johnson. The British prime minister, whom one long laughed at as a clown, although one knew better, has just achieved a majority on a scale that none of the current heads of government in the EU will ever experience


Merkel, an exhausted ghost

The German Angela Merkel walks through the hallways of her office like an exhausted ghost, a chancellor who has long survived her political death; Emmanuel Macron, the French, will soon be replaced by Marine Le Pen, the right-wing populist, unless he quickly implements reforms like Napoleon Bonaparte's last. It looks bad.

Years of self-deception. What has the British been ridiculed for, and their democracy, one of the oldest in the world, declared dead, how great was the anticipation of the debacle that was supposed to threaten their economy: all wrong. After all, one or two journalists woke up. The Frankfurter Allgemeine writes: “The catastrophe prophets about the Brexit vote three and a half years ago that predicted an economic downturn were wrong. On the contrary: unemployment fell, a million new jobs were created. “It should get even better

One hears that "Singapore on the Thames" means the nightmare of the Eurocrats, that is, the idea that Britain will free itself from all EU regulations that have proven to be of little use to create wealth. The competition of the systems, we as Swiss know this only too well, the commissioners in Brussels shy away from the holy water like the devil. Nobody should notice how miserable they govern. Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, has just emphasized this: you can never allow London to indulge yourself in applying other, that is, more business-friendly, regulations. Like the Catholic Church, you can never leave the EU, even if you have left it.
"



----


What gets overlooked once again, is the excellently efficient data-collectors of the British intel services. Maybe the most efficient of their likes in Europe, before the French. But two day ago somebody at Brussel predicted fall and horror in case the British cannot easily access Europol for counter-terror anymore. I think, the bigger problem lies in Europol no longer beign able to adress British, if it gets that far. Again, the continent has more to lose here than the islanders.

The new proposals by Barnier show that reality denial still dominates in Brussels. He has just suffered a total defeat with his former negotiation style and tactic, but already acts again as if he were the dominant elephant in the room.

I agree with the author, me too has a bit underestimated Johnson. So far he does better than I expected.

[Jimbuna]

^ I liked that, so much so I've tweaked it a little for posting elsewhere :03:

[Skybird]

Now this had me bursting in tears, laughing.

Headline in Die Zeit:

"Three pages from Boris Johnson, 33 pages from Michael Barnier". :har:

Brussels still has not understood anything. :haha: But we run jokes on the British still crying over their lost Empire...? :har:

[Skybird]

^ I liked that, so much so I've tweaked it a little for posting elsewhere :03:
If that is so, you maybe want the original source as well:
https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/europa/singapur-an-der-themse/story/13664885


I got the man's name wrong in my post, sorry. Not Michael Sommer, but Markus Somm.

[Jimbuna]

If that is so, you maybe want the original source as well:
https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/europa/singapur-an-der-themse/story/13664885


I got the man's name wrong in my post, sorry. Not Michael Sommer, but Markus Somm.

Too late now but not a problem either :03:

[Jimbuna]

‘Thanks, goodbye and good riddance’ — EU’s parting words to UK

The EU’s final words to the UK as it departed the union after nearly half a century were “thank you, goodbye, and good riddance”.

The misspoken farewell, spoken by the Croatian ambassador to her UK counterpart Tim Barrow last week, perhaps sums up 47 years of the Britons being lost in translation in Brussels.

Irena Andrassy, the Croatian ambassador, was chairing the UK’s final meeting of EU envoys as a member state because her country holds the six-month EU presidency. She assumed “good riddance” was akin to “good luck”, said diplomats present in the room.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/thanks-goodbye-and-good-riddance-%e2%80%94-eus-parting-words-to-uk/ar-BBZCJ43?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

You simply couldn't make this up :har:

[Catfish]

Rather fitting i think.

Maybe it was not so unintentional :03:

[Skybird]

As good as the 3-versus-33 pages thing. :har:

[Catfish]

Wow



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lanvQdGnOY

[MGR1]

A piece by Michelle Ballantyne MSP, Jackson Carlaw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Carlaw)'s competitor for leadership of the Scottish Conservatives:

Michelle Ballantyne: Why I’m standing to lead the Scottish Conservatives (https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/02/michelle-ballantyne-why-im-standing-to-lead-the-scottish-conservatives.html#idc-cover)


Now Carlaw makes his case for SCon leadership:

Jackson Carlaw: Why I’m standing to lead the Scottish Conservatives (https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/02/jackson-carlaw-why-im-standing-to-lead-the-scottish-conservatives.html)

Not much substance, TBH. The commentators seem to feel the same way.:hmmm:

Although I'm not so sure how this posters proposal would go down in England, let alone Scotland:

So little is being done to challenge the SNP. We need action. Where are the pro UK campaigns? Where is action to stop the SNP misusing the civil service for their party propaganda? As someone that supports Brexit, i hate to say it but we need to look at Brussels and learn a few lessons on how they have over many years attempted to build up their european identity and unity. We need to replicate some of the things they have done and do it in a more effective way.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is going to replace EU structural funds. A great idea, but implementation matters. The UK Gov needs to control what projects get the funding, it needs to make sure the UK takes credit for the spending, including making sure its visibly recognised via UK flag if its a public building or at least display that it was funded by UK.

We need UK wide educational and cultural changes. We need the House of Commons and UK Government to reach out to every school across the UK, especially in Scotland. Imagine if every secondary school kid had a UK Gov funded trip to London to visit Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other key sites. We need far more ministerial visits and events across Scotland. Funding for Cadet forces across the country.. We need a UK national day and heavy promotion of British identity. And much much more.

This really is not complicated. The separatist threat facing this country could be crushed if the government, and our unionist politicians put a bit of effort into it.
My main observation about the current state of Union that is the UK of GB and NI is that it reminds me of the last decades of the Indian Raj. Even those who are governing are starting to question the legitimacy of it's existance.

Mike.:hmmm:

[Moonlight]

I've wondered about that too, do you think that the UK government are hoping that the SNP dig such a bloody big hole for themselves that the UK government will be seen as saviours when they come to rescue Scotland in their hour of need.

^ Reads and sounds like an unlikely scenario doesn't it but, we're talking devious, government bastards here who will do almost anything to save the union, aren't we.....

[Skybird]

Wow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lanvQdGnOY
The problem is not Europe. The problem is the EU - it claims what it empirially demands to be, and the bad government it provides.



And both are not only not the same. Both are antagonists.


WWII, its veterans and NATO did not and do not stand for the EU-project. They stand for Europe. A Europe that is being hijacked and abused by the EU to turn it into a planned economy tyranny with a radically left-leaning society model and an all-dominant superior Sovjet overseeing it all and ordering it what to do and what to think and what to want and what to say.



Britain's turn-away is not a defeat of liberty. Its a reminder of what liberty originally once was meant to be. The EU leaves you only one liberty: the liberty to be compliant with the EU'S wanted collectivistic totalitarianism, and the EU'S upper hand on all and evertyhing. That is not liberty, but the betrayal of liberty.



Being a veteran of WWII, does not save you from misunderstanding things in the present. The attempt to appease Hitler - was born out of the wish to never have something like WW1 again, and prove that reasoncan prevail. People had good intentions when hoping this course woudl succeed. But they were sleepwalking into the abyss, and made it all a self-fulfilling prophecy. They believed in unrealistic, in wrong truths. These veterans in the video may mean it well. This does not turn them into experts on the present, or the EU. Their merits are refering to what they did in the past - not necessarily to what they think in the present.



Thats why this clip to me is just a populist attempt by a group of activists to manipulate sentiments.

[MGR1]

I've wondered about that too, do you think that the UK government are hoping that the SNP dig such a bloody big hole for themselves that the UK government will be seen as saviours when they come to rescue Scotland in their hour of need.

^ Reads and sounds like an unlikely scenario doesn't it but, we're talking devious, government bastards here who will do almost anything to save the union, aren't we.....

I don't think they're that devious. I think it has more to do with ignorance and lazy stereotyping about Scotland (particularly by the English Right) rather than actually trying to understand the reason WHY it acts the way it does.

Look for the root cause, rather than trying to fight a symptom which the existance of the SNP is. That means studying and understanding the nitty gritty of Scotland's history post-1707, particularly the conduct of it's ruling and mercantile/industrial classes.:hmmm:

Mike.

[Jimbuna]

The problem is not Europe. The problem is the EU - it claims what it empirially demands to be, and the bad government it provides.



And both are not only not the same. Both are antagonists.


WWII, its veterans and NATO did not and do not stand for the EU-project. They stand for Europe. A Europe that is being hijacked and abused by the EU to turn it into a planned economy tyranny with a radically left-leaning society model and an all-dominant superior Sovjet overseeing it all and ordering it what to do and what to think and what to want and what to say.



Britain's turn-away is not a defeat of liberty. Its a reminder of what liberty originally once was meant to be. The EU leaves you only one liberty: the liberty to be compliant with the EU'S wanted collectivistic totalitarianism, and the EU'S upper hand on all and evertyhing. That is not liberty, but the betrayal of liberty.



Being a veteran of WWII, does not save you from misunderstanding things in the present. The attempt to appease Hitler - was born out of the wish to never have something like WW1 again, and prove that reasoncan prevail. People had good intentions when hoping this course woudl succeed. But they were sleepwalking into the abyss, and made it all a self-fulfilling prophecy. They believed in unrealistic, in wrong truths. These veterans in the video may mean it well. This does not turn them into experts on the present, or the EU. Their merits are refering to what they did in the past - not necessarily to what they think in the present.



Thats why this clip to me is just a populist attempt by a group of activists to manipulate sentiments.

Couldn't have put it better myself :up:

[Jimbuna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMWBq1KTcnw

[Catfish]

A lot of british veterans are not confused and "misunderstanding" elder people, it was also not them who "appeased Hitler". They fought out what others had decided, and they were no "sleepwalkers". Most of them are not for a brexit, and they have said that loud and clear.
If anyone happened to read Cecil Lewis' "Sagittarius Rising" he will know what i mean, Lewis exactly described a united Europe, by trade and without frontiers; all those men were and are not for this "brexit".

Of course Britain's turn-away is not a "defeat of liberty", who said that? It is about leaving a trade union. But it is not about winning a war either and celebrating it, like Cummings, BoJo, Rees-Mogg and Farage want it to present. Although they said it all of the time it never was meant for the common people, and they will experience that soon enough.

[...]Thats why this clip to me is just a populist attempt by a group of activists to manipulate sentiments.
Then it is very good that the brexiters are no populists and never tried to manipulate sentiments, while their reasons are all so scientific and well-based [/stark sarcasm] :haha:

"The first lie was austerity.

The second lie had two components, and together they led to the Conservatives’ victory in the 2015 general election. The first was that the Labour government had been profligate before the crisis. A simple look at the data shows this to be untrue.

The third lie was that immigration, rather than austerity, was responsible for those falling wages and reduced access to public services."
"The biggest and most damaging lie of all. The right-wing press groomed its readers with countless stories of “Brussels bureaucrats” that were mostly untrue. As a result of this misinformation, the public questioned the economic impact of Brexit, but believed limiting immigration would improve their access to public services.
Where did these falsehoods come from and why were they not challenged?"

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-lies-austerity-conservatives-immigration-financial-crisis-racism-neoliberalism-a8929986.html

One of a hundred texts about it, you really have to wear blinkers to ignore it all.


Skybird: A Europe that is being hijacked and abused by the EU to turn it into a planned economy tyranny with a radically left-leaning society model and an all-dominant superior Sovjet overseeing it all and ordering it what to do and what to think and what to want and what to say.Repeating the slobbering hate of Murdochs media. There may be all kinds of problems and corruption but this is ridiculous, and propaganda of the lowest kind.

[Catfish]

Good article :hmmm:

https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-01/boris-johnson-great-britain-brexit-nationalism

I know it is not aggravating enough, too little hate speech, and criticising nationalism. How could i, the defender of your colonial overlord (read: EU), dare to quote this.

[Skybird]

:06: Your life maybe would be easier if you would not always spend so much effort into wanting to misunderstand or wanting to misquote what I actually have said, Catfish.

[Jimbuna]

Seven things Brexit will change and seven it won't.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51194363

[Catfish]

^ only during the transition period.
Whatever happens after that.. alone this driving license §$%&!! after the transition would be enough to cause headaches, thinking of truck drivers delivering goods. Do i need a visum to visit the UK after the transition? All back to the 60ies then.

[Jimbuna]

That is why all efforts must be made to agree a mutually beneficial deal surely?

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/tRW13xwf/84825658-2562227997365334-3234200804424417280-o.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Skybird]

That is why all efforts must be made to agree a mutually beneficial deal surely?
Both sides' positions are irreconcilable. A UK accepting the EU's demands would render brexit pointless. Whether the EU will bow or not, I dare not to predict. I think not.

Its the one point that was the elephant in the room from all beginning on, and one can dance and weasel around it as long as one wants, it does not go awy: sovereignty can only be claimed back by breaking ties and then restarting from scratch as tweo totally independent and different entities settling their future relations on basis of right this: being independent and different entities.

The EU raises claim for the UK. And it will not give this claim up and will ty to bully and to press and to threaten and intimidiate it, like it does with Switzerland and its banking sector. After all, the self-understanding of the EU is imperial, technically seen. It certainly is not the strongest of empires, and most likely it is set to not live long, but imperial its self-understanding now is, there can be no doubt about it. With the continental interpretation of "liberty", and the anglosaxon tradition of "liberty", two civilizations collide that are very far apart. Not at all we all are united over this term.


Like I wrote one or two pages earlier: that when on Monday Johnson and Barnier both revealed their plans to the public, Johnson came with 3 pages and Barnier with 33 pages, is more than just symbolic. Its quite revealing.

I assume Johnson knows that a complete break-up is unavoidable and desirable. Barnier seems to think that although he suffered total defeat with his Brexit negotiation strategy, he still has the upper hand and can get the EU's will - or he just poses and his shown confidence is just the whisteling of a lonely one who walks alone the forest. I think the no-deal brexit will become clear early: already in summer when Johnson will reject for the last time to accept a negotiation extension. So far the paperwork says that such an externsion must be agreed on in summer at the latest. The EU wants the extension, to bind the UK into the current status quo for longer than just this one year. This is not in the UK's interest, but in coimp0lete violation of its interest. Johnson has ruled it out, and I predict he will not change his stand on that. Not if he means his Brexit project serious.

[Jimbuna]

I agree with you as far as Boris is concerned....there will be no extension and a clean break should no agreement be reached.

[Skybird]

The eU operetta parliament has raised even more punishing demands and requests for a final treaty with the UK, than the central committee before. While for the monment it has agreed to Barnier's amdate, any deal (if there would be any) would need to be agreed to by the parliament, so its even more pounishign dewmands are anything butr off the table just becasue they gave Barnier grennloght for the moment.



I think it is a relatively safe bet now that there will be no deal at all. Not because of Johnson saying No , or Barnier and Super-Uschi being stubborn, but because of the EU parliament being the highest hurdle. They really topped it all with their latest demands.

[mapuc]

Here in Denmark some parties,not yet a majority of them, want to create a law which makes it impossible for the Danish people to vote in a future referendum whether they want to stay or leave EU.

This law should, as I understand it, be a part of the Danish Constitution.

Markus

[Skybird]

How revealing that is.


Politicians wanting a law that prohibites people from voting for their freedom and sovereignty. Telltaling.
Of course such a law always is a violation of most profound basic rights, thus it is always invalid, nill and void. it justifies every selfdefence needed to defeat it. Man is not born as slave property of the eu.

[Jimbuna]

Raab in Australia at start of trade mission.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51399215

[STEED]

The old me would have gone off like a nuclear bomb but those days are over.

Labour leadership: Rebecca Long-Bailey vows to give workers right to turn off phones out of hours

Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey has promised to give employees the right not to be contacted outside of working hours.

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-leadership-rebecca-long-bailey-vows-to-give-workers-right-to-turn-off-phones-out-of-hours-11928114



This shows how.....:haha: :haha: :haha:

I own a mobile phone its my phone and if I choose to turn it off I have that right too. If it upsets my works, tough I am not a slave. :) :03:


Please Rebecca keep the laughs coming. :up: :har:

[Jimbuna]

Jeremy Corbyn is to snub a formal inquest into Labour’s disastrous performance in the general election.

The Labour leader is not taking part in the probe into what went wrong at the polls, The Independent understands, which is due to examine the root causes behind the party’s worst electoral defeat since before the Second World War.

Headed up by former leader Ed Miliband, the inquiry is expected to report that Labour was hopelessly outmatched by the Tories in its digital campaign, while activists on the ground were repeatedly confronted with concern about Mr Corbyn, insiders said.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/jeremy-corbyn-to-snub-labour-inquiry-into-disastrous-election-defeat/ar-BBZM1wB?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

Now why am I not surprised!

[Jimbuna]

Counting has started in the Irish general election as an exit poll puts the three main political parties tied in first preference votes.

Ballot boxes from across the 39 constituencies were opened at 09:00 local time.

Indications from the exit poll suggest there is little difference in percentage terms between Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51432660

Leo Varadkar isn't acting so cocky now but he's probably got a guarantee from his EU masters of a comfy job in Brussels if needs be.

[ET2SN]

It just dawned on me, the UK could sell their half of the Chunnel to Taiwan. :har:

[Jimbuna]

London Bridge springs to mind :03:

https://londonist.com/2013/04/londonbridge

[Reece]

Off subject but does anyone know the significance of the Japanese symbols at the top left of the forum pages? :hmmm:

[Moonlight]

Off subject but does anyone know the significance of the Japanese symbols at the top left of the forum pages? :hmmm:
No Idea, and that's the best I could come up with. :haha:

Robert Buckland, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor.
Why every MP must unite to show evil terrorists they will never win.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10924144/mps-unite-terrorists-never-win/

Wow, that's really getting tough with the terrorists isn't it Mr Buckland?
WTF has uniting the MPs got to do with solving this problem I ask myself.
These are the usual sound bites from an out of touch hierarchy who haven't got a clue about what's happening on the streets of the UK or how to deal with it.

Bloody Hell I almost pissed myself with laughter at this pillocks ineptitude, this nonsense Robert Buckland is spouting tells me everything I need to know about this governments failures on immigration and terrorism.

I can help you out a bit on those 2 points old boy, the first one is to stop using the Royal Navy as an immigration ferry service and to also give those clowns in charge of Border Force a much needed incentive, as in their job.

The second one is to give us a legally binding referendum on terrorism and the support of it, I don't need to state what its about as you already know, no need to get your governments hands dirty as the citizens will sort this one out for you. :yep:

[Skybird]

Here in Denmark some parties,not yet a majority of them, want to create a law which makes it impossible for the Danish people to vote in a future referendum whether they want to stay or leave EU.

This law should, as I understand it, be a part of the Danish Constitution.

Markus

On that ^ matter.


The European Prison. Guy Verhofstadt's lesson of Brexit.


It's over. The British are gone. At least officially. Because not much changes by the end of the year. Only then will the loss of the partner who is the most solvent with Germany and, along with a few other countries, most committed to democracy, become noticeable. Now the tough struggle for the future relationship between Great Britain and the European Union begins. And both sides try to get themselves into an advantageous starting position with strong saber rattles. There is no question, however, that they will pull themselves together. Nobody is interested in a broken relationship between the newly divorced spouses, who have to work 47 years together and have to build a new life of their own. Vengeance is just as bad a guide as retreating into the pout. Meanwhile, the European Union has already made it clear what consequences it intends to draw from the failed marriage: remaining and future partners should subordinate themselves even more strongly to the leading wife in Brussels, preferably they should also be given a ban on going out. At least that's what Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt demands. The chief negotiator of the European Parliament called for the possibility of leaving the EU to be prevented in the future. Although he is correct in his assessment that Brexit marks the ***8220;failure of the Union***8221;, he draws the unmasking conclusion that the EU must be transformed into a closed club in which almost 450 million people from 27 countries with different preferences, Traditions and cultures are forced to marry.


The fear of imitators of Brexit is too great, because voices are calling not only in Poland, calling for an exit

The means of choice seem to be compulsory, after a self-referential political caste far from the citizen for decades has not been able to inspire the people of the continent for a union that celebrates itself in Sunday speeches as a major European project, but in everyday life comes along as a democratic collection of power-hungry apparatus , Now the European federal state - which the majority of Europe's citizens reject, that is, in the form of a European prison - is to include lifelong imprisonment. Once in it, you can***8217;t get out. The fear of imitators of Brexit is too great, because strong voices are already being heard in Poland, calling for an exit. One wants to pull the reins quickly now to avoid new grueling exit debates. While Brussels has announced a full-fledged ***8220;Conference on the Future of Europe***8221;, which should give EU citizens the opportunity to articulate their criticism in roundtables for two years from May, the first option was to change the European Treaties based on the collective wishes of the citizens: it got deleted again at the last minute. It cannot be more clearly documented that you see yourself as a central committee that stands above democracy. The fear of losing power is palpable. And also before the job loss. For most of the obscenely high-paying EU grandees, it would hardly be possible to find a place anywhere else. This also applies to Guy Verhofstadt, for whom a new post had to be found after the Brexit. He will - tataa! - become Chairman of the "Citizens' Conference". [He is the right crook for a rigged alibi stage play; Skybird]

The abolition of the accession option for individual states means that membership will only be possible through annexation

And so it is already clear what will be in the final report in 2022, which should form the basis for the future shape of the European Union. Verhofstadt made it clear: The EU had to be transformed into a real Union "without the possibility of leaving, of accession, without discounts, without exceptions". He has already taken a look beyond the European state. Because the abolition of the accession option for individual states, which he propagated, means that membership will then only be possible through annexation. Anyone wishing to join the large empire controlled from Brussels must henceforth be prepared to fully merge into the state. It is this perspective - disclosed by Verhofstadt - that reaffirms the critics of an increasingly independent European power elite and makes it clear how dangerous the Brussels apparatus is. Because the considerations inevitably lead to the lack of freedom. However, Europe's powerful have learned their lessons from failed attempts by previous regimes: citizens will not go hungry. You will have access to every conceivable consumption, if necessary with state support. They may also continue to travel. Unattractive border walls that prevent people from fleeing will be replaced by less threatening exit barriers for formerly sovereign states. Only the disappearance of democratic participation and freedom of expression marks the change of system. Socialism has prepared its return thoroughly. The British, on the other hand, just barely managed to escape the wall.

https://peymani.de/das-europaeische-gefaengnis-guy-verhofstadts-lehren-aus-dem-brexit/


I know all too well why I dispise this hidden fascist so intensely. He and his gang probably are amongst the kost dangeorus gangster haunting Europoe currently. They must be stopped at any means.


Why is it so often a francophile, also Belgium-stemming "elite" that wants to force and control the whole continent by totalitarian means - with the power centre amassed in Belgium's Brussel and exceuted by Francophone political elites...? :hmmm: :03: I give a hint. France. I give a second hint. Money industry. Its not as if Belgium is an real-economic giant.



I aoso wonder whether after the event sin Thurinigia now Supoer-Uschi will step down form the contral committee'S chair. After all she too was voted into office with the votes b "right populists", like it happened in Thuringia, and many of her own faction in the European parliament denied her their vote.



On the author of the quoted essay:



Ramin Peymani (born August 3, 1968 in Tehran, Iran) is a German author and publicist of Iranian descent.

After studying business informatics, Peymani initially worked for Citibank and Goldman Sachs. From 2002, he worked for the German Football Association for six years, initially as a financial controller, later as office manager of Theo Zwanziger.

He is the author of several books and publishes articles in the Axis of Good, the debate magazine TheEuropean, the online magazine Novo] and the monthly periodically free. Until the German edition was discontinued, he also wrote for the Huffington Post.

He is also a guest lecturer with a series of seminars on corporate social responsibility and a speaker on the sovereign debt crisis. Peymani lives in Kelkheim.

Ramin Peymani is a FDP member. He holds several party functions and is a member of the district council in the Main-Taunus district. The author and publicist is also a member of the Friedrich August von Hayek Society.


German Wikipedia

[Jimbuna]

Off subject but does anyone know the significance of the Japanese symbols at the top left of the forum pages? :hmmm:

I've absolutely no idea but it might be worthwhile sending Neal a PM of enquiry.

[Jimbuna]

Former Commons Speaker John Bercow has said there is a "conspiracy" to keep him out of the House of Lords.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51434470

I'm not so sure because my sources inform me the opposition against him is justifiable.

[Moonlight]

Has there been any incriminating evidence such as letters, emails or videos to substantiate these bullying allegations against Bercow.
If there is, then he will be damned for it, if there isn't then he will be exonerated of all accusations won't he, I'm no Bercow fan, but I think Boris Johnson and his cabinet are in it up to their neck in this investigation. :yep:

[mapuc]

I've absolutely no idea but it might be worthwhile sending Neal a PM of enquiry.

My guess is it has something to do with this Corona Virus and China.

Markus

[Eisenwurst]

Off subject but does anyone know the significance of the Japanese symbols at the top left of the forum pages? :hmmm:

Chinese actually.

He's honouring the brave late doctor.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2648083&postcount=175

[MGR1]

Boris really wants to build that bridge, does he:

Work 'under way' into Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge feasibility (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51443191)

1: Not everyone in Scotland wants to be attached to Northern Ireland.

2: What about all those munitions and other materials that were dumped in Beaufort's Dyke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort%27s_Dyke) after WW2?

3: What about the cost? The UK does not have a good track record with major infrastructure projects.

4: They do remember that Ireland, both North and South, has a rail gauge of 5ft 3in not 4ft 8 1/2in as in the UK mainland?

5: Boris himself doesn't have a good track record when it come to bridges. His Garden Bridge proposal when he was London Mayor was cancelled due to excessive costs after he left office.

Mike.:nope:

[Skybird]

Everything Johnson currently does, EVERYTHING, imho only is distraction from the no-deal brexit he plans to let happen, and probably always had the intetion. He does not want media and the public focussing on it, concentrating on it, reporting on it talking about it. I think everything he currently does and triggers in conflict with the media, must be seen in light of this intention. Cabinet members are gagged from talking to certain media or give interviews in certain program formats. The bridge project currently is such a manouver of distraction as well.

[Jimbuna]

Everything Johnson currently does, EVERYTHING, imho only is distraction from the no-deal brexit he plans to let happen, and probably always had the intetion. He does not want media and the public focussing on it, concentrating on it, reporting on it talking about it. I think everything he currently does and triggers in conflict with the media, must be seen in light of this intention. Cabinet members are gagged from talking to certain media or give interviews in certain program formats. The bridge project currently is such a manouver of distraction as well.

What matters atm is he has a big enough majority to act as he pleases and that might yet turn out to be rather worrying.

[Moonlight]

Bozo has got some major problems hurtling his way and its probably going to split his MPs down the middle, damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. :haha:
HS2 and Huawei (pronounced Wah Way) are the stuff of nightmares for him at the moment, he's going to need a very thick skin and even broader shoulders before he puts these 2 to bed, good luck Boris you're going to need it. :D:D

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10924242/boris-johnson-comes-under-fire-from-his-own-mps-over-hs2-huawei-decisions/

[Skybird]

The Huawei decision is a mistake, and a critical one. Huawei makes some excellent consumer devices with very good bang for the buck ratios (I just bought my second, a mediapad M5 8.4, and own a P9 lite), but it is insane to offer the Chinese military a breachhead into the countrys critical IT infrastructure. The technological implications are complex, and it seemd that opportunists easily overlook the risks, helped by their desire to not need to see risks, and further pushed by massive Chinese threats and intimidation, while depending on Bejings good will for future deals. But China is neither a friend nor an ally.


Nokia and Ericsson. European companies, not American or korean or Chinese. More expensive and not as leading as Huawei, but sufficiently potent to build G5 network nevertheless. The Chinese sell under value to get their foot into the door. its a trap.


Johnson is hopelessly wrong here.

[Jimbuna]

Bozo has got some major problems hurtling his way and its probably going to split his MPs down the middle, damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. :haha:
HS2 and Huawei (pronounced Wah Way) are the stuff of nightmares for him at the moment, he's going to need a very thick skin and even broader shoulders before he puts these 2 to bed, good luck Boris you're going to need it. :D:D

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10924242/boris-johnson-comes-under-fire-from-his-own-mps-over-hs2-huawei-decisions/

The Huawei decision is a mistake, and a critical one. Huawei makes some excellent consumer devices with very good bang for the buck ratios (I just bought my second, a mediapad M5 8.4, and own a P9 lite), but it is insane to offer the Chinese military a breachhead into the countrys critical IT infrastructure. The technological implications are complex, and it seemd that opportunists easily overlook the risks, helped by their desire to not need to see risks, and further pushed by massive Chinese threats and intimidation, while depending on Bejings good will for future deals. But China is neither a friend nor an ally.


Nokia and Ericsson. European companies, not American or korean or Chinese. More expensive and not as leading as Huawei, but sufficiently potent to build G5 network nevertheless. The Chinese sell under value to get their foot into the door. its a trap.


Johnson is hopelessly wrong here.

Agreed :yep:

[Jimbuna]

The PM's Senior Adviser, Dominic Cummings, has said superhero team PJ Masks would be better than the current Cabinet.

"PJ Masks will do a greater job than all of them put together," he told a reporter outside his home.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-51460501/cummings-we-need-pj-masks-on-the-job

:har:

[Jimbuna]

Jeremy Corbyn has launched a personal attack on Boris Johnson as the two clashed in Parliament over the deportation of foreign offenders.

The Home Office has said the criminals deported had combined jail sentences of at least 75 years, including two convicted of rape, one of whom was sentenced to 11 years in jail and the other to four years and six months.

They included one persistent offender who had 24 convictions for 33 offences, another jailed for nine years for conspiracy to rob and possession of a firearm and another given a seven-year sentence for intent to supply class A drugs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51474170

I really don't see a problem here and I doubt the Brit public will either.

Steptoe has no idea about this issue.

[Moonlight]

All foreign national offenders should be deported from the country and those with dual nationality should be stripped of there british citizenship as well. :up:

[mapuc]

We have the same discussion here in Denmark and in Sweden.

The answer people get is

We can't deport foreigners who have commit crime in our country, if they have a Danish/Swedish passport, due to these conventions such as Geneva convention or UN convention.

Markus

[Catfish]

^ Self-evident. If anyone has a danish passport, he should be subject to danish law. End of discussion.

Why he/she has initially received it (dual citizenship?) is another question.. and maybe reason for discussion or change.

But even a person without any citizenship and no passort at all is subject to international law, and humanitarian concerns. If you think this is wrong you should read one or two novels by Eric Ambler :)

[STEED]

Sajid Javid has resigned as chancellor as Boris Johnson carries out a post-Brexit cabinet reshuffle.https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51491662

Shortest Chancellor in history, not a good thing with the budget four weeks away.

[Catfish]

"Mr Javid rejected an order to fire his team of aides, saying "no self-respecting minister" could accept such a condition."

I am sure "The Sun" or "Express UK" will use a different description.


"His resignation follows rumours of tensions between Mr Javid and the prime minister's senior adviser Dominic Cummings."

Could it be someone has a rest of reason, and self respect.

[Moonlight]

Dominic Cummings is pulling all the strings here and poor old Bozo Johnson is having to dance to his tunes whether he likes it or not.

I'm pleased Dominic has axed Julian Smith, he approved prosecuting ex British soldiers in N Ireland. :up:
Housing Minister Esther McVey has bit the dust again, can't that bleeding woman hold a job down?. :haha:
Sajid Javid, with a name like that he needed sacking, but he jumped before he was pushed, he never even had a budget so we didn't know if he was going to be any good as a chancellor, obviously Dominic thought not.

If these two keep carrying on like this no one will want to be promoted to the cabinet, beware the Ides of March Bozo. :D

[MGR1]

If you peruse the blog post over on Conservative Home you'll find that quite a few of it's commentators don't like what they're seeing:

RESHUFFLE LIVE BLOG (https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/02/reshuffle-live-blog-sharma-and-dowden-lead-the-promotions-in-modest-changes-trevelyan-up-for-dfid-secretary.html)

We'll, they did vote BoJo in as leader. My heart bleeds. NOT....:O:

Profile of the new UK Chancellor:

Profile: Rishi Sunak, rising star of the Johnson project (https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2020/02/profile-rishi-sunak-rising-star-of-the-johnson-project-2.html)

Mike.

[Skybird]

Steptoe has no idea about this issue.
Oh, he has. He sees that he is loosing another one of his most natural allies.

[STEED]

Psycho Dominic is the puppet master.:03: :yep:

[Jimbuna]

"Mr Javid rejected an order to fire his team of aides, saying "no self-respecting minister" could accept such a condition."

I am sure "The Sun" or "Express UK" will use a different description.


"His resignation follows rumours of tensions between Mr Javid and the prime minister's senior adviser Dominic Cummings."

Could it be someone has a rest of reason, and self respect.

Quite concerning overall but he does appear to have an abundance of self respect.

[Jimbuna]

Dominic Cummings is pulling all the strings here and poor old Bozo Johnson is having to dance to his tunes whether he likes it or not.



On the contrary, he is the front man for Boris, who is obviously delighted takes all the flack for everything.

Boris has long wanted to have more direct influence on a number of government departments and the treasury is the latest.

[Jimbuna]

Cabinet reshuffle: Who is in Boris Johnson's new cabinet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49043973

[Jimbuna]

Scottish Conservatives: Jackson Carlaw succeeds Ruth Davidson as leader

Jackson Carlaw has been confirmed as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives after winning a vote of party members.

Mr Carlaw had been the party's interim leader since Ruth Davidson quit the role in August.

He has now won the job full time after defeating fellow MSP Michelle Ballantyne by 4,917 votes to 1,581.

Mr Carlaw had been the clear favourite in the contest, and was backed by most of the party's MPs and MSPs.

He said he was now "ready to hit the ground running and win" in next year's Scottish Parliament election by attracting voters from "middle Scotland".

The new leader has already promised a full review of the party's policies and a "new, reinvigorated" frontbench team at Holyrood.

An interesting time to take over the reins.

[STEED]

This will need to be confirmed as I heard this on the radio.

The Jewish Council of England is backing Lisa Nandy to be the next leader or the labour party.

[Jimbuna]

Labour leadership: Who are the party's affiliate groups backing?

Jewish Labour Movement
Established: 1903 (known as Poale Zion until 2004)
Estimated membership: 4,000

Aims: The group lists among its goals promoting Labour or "socialist Zionism" as the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people within the state of Israel, working for democratic socialism in the UK and Israel, maintaining Jewish identity and supporting the rights of Jews everywhere, and applying "Jewish ethical principles to create a society based on social justices".

It also says it aims "to fight anti-Semitism, racism and all forms of discrimination and racial hatred, to oppose the activities of fascist, racist and anti-Semitic groups," and "to promote the centrality of Israel in Jewish life." Recently, the movement has been critical of the Labour leadership's handling of anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn. They balloted their membership on which candidates to back.

Which candidates are they backing?

Leader: Lisa Nandy

Deputy: Ian Murray

[STEED]

Labour leadership: Emily Thornberry eliminated from racehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51505547

Rebecca is one step closser today. :eek:

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/DZBpFd66/labourpartymeme01.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[Jimbuna]

Now this is a good read if you're interested in finding out what makes Dominic Cummings tick.

Dominic Cummings and the battle for Downing Street.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/09jpSjVUpQ/dominic_cummings_battle_for_downing_street

[Catfish]

Interesting, yes. Not convinced of his overwhelming intelligence though, more like a spoilt child.
If his "beliefs" expressed in this article are correct he is in the wrong party.

"Take (back) control" seems to fit also for himself. It somehow looks as if he has not found a real belief yet.

[Jimbuna]

A bit more about Mr Cummings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49101464

[Catfish]

Whatever - the english people have been thorougly un-political, and i guess this will now change after they saw which consequences a second of disinterest can have. England and the UK are divided as never before.

edit: just read this article above, and some others. Cummings probably even means well (at least what he thinks is "well"), he is also a crazy egomanic and a stick-in-the-mud nationalist. What does he think a strictly english ARPA (http://theconversation.com/arpa-what-is-it-and-why-does-dominic-cummings-want-one-in-the-uk-130975) could provide that would not work tenfold better together with the european union.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/dominic-cummings-should-think-again-about-a-british-arpa/

England is out now (or in a year ok..) and maybe the scientific international community will go on exchanging like before, but after this toxic brexit show and people like Johnson and Cummings there might be a bit of reservation.
This is all so backwards.

[Moonlight]

Dominic Cummings is making too many enemies in high places to stay as a Downing Street special adviser for too long. What concerns me most however is how much damage will he do while he still has this svengali like power over Bozo Johnson.
Spend, spend, spend Bozo must not be allowed to squander the nation’s wealth on vainglorious projects that will be obsolete before they are even built and, just who is going to benefit from this HS2 debacle I ask? ah yes the London commuters that's who.
£106 billion just so some commuters can save 20 minutes on their bleeding train journey, I have a radical idea for you Bozo and that's scrap this white elephant and tell those bloody commuters to catch an earlier train, there you go, I've just saved you all that cash which can be used for regenerating the North.
Can I have a job Bozo? I have lots of ideas on how to save money, cut waste and even to increase the chancellors revenue as well, that Cummings pillock is just playing at being a useful idiot whereas I'm the real deal old boy. :haha:

[Jimbuna]

https://i.postimg.cc/P52QzKch/Nugee-Statement.jpg (https://postimg.cc/zyHhqw8P)

[Jimbuna]

‘Fighting like ferrets in a bag’ as EU tries to plug Brexit cash hole

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/fighting-like-ferrets-in-a-bag-as-eu-tries-to-plug-brexit-cash-hole/ar-BB102MSc?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

Sky, have you read this?

[Moonlight]

However these talks are finally decided between “the Frugals” and the “Friends of Cohesion” its going to have long lasting repercussions for both sides.
There should have been a framework of 15 to 20 years put in place for each country who joined the EU to get their houses financially organised and that way every member would have reaped the benefits. As it stands now the few are paying for the many which is unsustainable and it will lead to division and strife and may even cause the breakup of the union. :yep:

[STEED]

I have no faith in the UK & EU talks which as I see it as it stands no deal. The EU will have it hands full plugging the money hole, today's politicians are just a shower unfit to shovel poop in a zoo which they will screw up.

[Moonlight]

The UK now has a former Goldman Sachs man as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I don't want a former hedge fund manager as a Chancellor as those bankers have caused enough damage in the UK, any notion that this will end well for the man in the street is deeply misplaced.

Let's have a quick look behind that smug gits mush shall we.
Rishi Sunak.
Educated at Winchester Private boys school, then on to Oxford University and then Stanford University, former hedge fund manager at Morgan Stanley and married to a billionairess.

Ooooooh Bozo, he ticks all the right boxes doesn't he, privileged, entitled, ethnic minority and now a fully paid up member of the establishment, how can he convince the working class people of the UK that he cares about them whilst he's making plans to bleed them dry?

Bozo Johnson has frozen controversial plans to slap expensive homes with a 'mansion tax' amid fears of a Tory backbench revolt. The tax on high-value properties was due to be rolled out in next month's Budget to help fund the Prime Minister's promise to 'level-up' parts of the country starved of investment.

So once again the rich exert their influence. How the hell does Johnson plan to finance all these mega-infrastructure plans he's promised the electorate? Surely he doesn't intend making the working class pay with higher taxes or simply break his election promises, we'll know after the budget.

Same old Tory bollocks as usual....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc

[Skybird]

Sky, have you read this?
Well, now I have. Nothing really new.



There is another conflict: CO" emission cuts. Britian has positively contributed to the total net balance of EU's wanna-be-grerener-than-green ambitions. With it now leaving, the EU balance on thse tings is ruined, and the climate goals just bitterly fought over and formulated, cannot be reached. And this while Super-Uschi wants her new green-socialist planned economy deal!



When you Brits decide to spoil the EU's brew, you're really going after it, eh? :D

[Jimbuna]

The UK "must have the ability to set laws that suit us," the PM's chief Brexit negotiator will say in a speech in Brussels.

David Frost is expected to set out the UK's stance ahead of post-Brexit trade negotiations, due to start next month.

He will dismiss the idea an EU court would have a role in future trade disputes, saying: "We only want what other independent countries have."

It comes as France warns Britain to expect a bruising battle during talks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51538491

Battle lines are being drawn up and Macron will relish the opportunity to divert his peoples attention away from his own failed policies.

[Jimbuna]

When you Brits decide to spoil the EU's brew, you're really going after it, eh? :D

With a majority of over 80 seats it will soon be evident if the UK still has the fighting spirit it was once so famous for.

[Moonlight]

Weather where I live is cloudy and sunny with no flooding, meanwhile in the rest of the UK its a different story. Bozo, I think you need to get your skates on, or should that be wellies, oh yeh and you'll need some canoes as well. :doh:

Give it some welly
THE Prime Minister is in danger of misjudging the public mood.
Whole communities are under water for the second time in months. But Boris Johnson is nowhere to be seen.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10984576/boris-put-your-wellies-on-and-go-see-people-in-flooded-areas-who-elected-you/

WHERE THE FLOODY HELL IS BORIS? Angry residents blast Boris Johnson for refusing to visit flooded communities ravaged by Storm Dennis
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10983995/boris-johnson-slammed-not-visiting-flood-victims/

BRITAIN is facing a "national emergency" as ten "danger to life" flood warnings are put out after Storm Dennis - with four inches of rain set to batter already sodden areas.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10985155/britain-national-emergency-flood-warnings-storm-dennis/

Bozo you couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. :haha:

[STEED]

I am with Psycho Dominic on this one, I agree scrap the bloody BBC BLACKMAIL FEE.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings ‘split over scrapping BBC licence fee

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/culture/arts/news/109978/boris-johnson-and-dominic-cummings-‘split-over-scrapping-bbc

Bojo is a coward and probably get on all fours begging the BBC for mercy and will back the blackmail fee.

[Catfish]

^ similar situation here, the "publicly legal" broadcasters are under attack because they are financed by a certain broadcast tax not all are willing to pay.
But i do not agree with you here.

In the age of netflix and fox news and more private broadcasters created out of nowhere being financed by advertisements or paid-for bias (propaganda serving some certain rich tycoons) people prefer the media circus, not well-researched reports.

The public tax-fed broadcasters are independent, and that is what is sorely missing meanwhile, everywhere.
Certain broadcasters rather create hate than news. I say screw them.

[Jimbuna]

^ similar situation here, the "publicly legal" broadcasters are under attack because they are financed by a certain broadcast tax not all are willing to pay.
But i do not agree with you here.

In the age of netflix and fox news and more private broadcasters created out of nowhere being financed by advertisements or paid-for bias (propaganda serving some certain rich tycoons) people prefer the media circus, not well-researched reports.

The public tax-fed broadcasters are independent, and that is what is sorely missing meanwhile, everywhere.
Certain broadcasters rather create hate than news. I say screw them.

In most cases, yes.