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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Longstanding Brexiteer, Peter Oborne, says now is not the time

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited April 2019 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Longstanding Brexiteer, Peter Oborne, says now is not the time to leave the EU

The prominent right wing commentator and strong Brexiter, Peter Oborne, has published an article raising doubts and some powerfil arguments over whether now is the right time to leave.

Read the full story here


«134

Comments

  • notme2notme2 Posts: 1,006
    edited April 2019
    First. Please can brexit end soon?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    I can only admire your optimism.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    It will never be the time. Now it is a question of if we limp our way out unsatisfyingly and acrimoniously, or wimp our way to not leaving, also acrimoniously.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    I read his article with interest, but I don't think the economic doom that was predicted has in fact materialised. Nor has Brexit provided a boost to Scottish nationalism.

    The points about hyperbolic language and the GFA are reasonable ones.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Great article
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    It's a thoughtful article, but are Oborne's thoughts worth more than any other man in this nation on Brexit though ?
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    Sadly true. It shall poison us all for so very long, and we shall never escape it.

    Night all.
  • notme2notme2 Posts: 1,006
    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    And there comes a point in which you both compromise on a position that leaves you with the negatives and removes the positives.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    notme2 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    And there comes a point in which you both compromise on a position that leaves you with the negatives and removes the positives.
    It's that or we never move on.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837
    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    I fear that will be doubly the case if some kind of "draw" is declared. Soft Brexit with loooooong transition.
    Or maybe the majority will shake hands and call it quits, leaving the nutters to fulminate?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Pulpstar said:

    notme2 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    And there comes a point in which you both compromise on a position that leaves you with the negatives and removes the positives.
    It's that or we never move on.
    We're still at a stage where compromise is for you to do, not for me to do.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited April 2019
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    And that is not going to happen in the next week, even if such a thing is possible.

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited April 2019
    If it pisses off Private Francois and Steve Baker then I’m all in favour of it.

    That’s where my Brexit head is at the moment.

    Petty I know but the ERG have tested my patience.

    They had a Brexit that honours the referendum and they shat all over it.

    As Gove says No Deal doesn’t honour the referendum we’re in for a long extension or I can’t believe it’s not a/the customs union.

    Leavers need to ask themselves why Ken Clarke has done more to deliver Brexit than the ERG.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    Indeed. Which is why it is in everybody's interest if we play for the draw. Hence the deal.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Pulpstar said:

    It's a thoughtful article, but are Oborne's thoughts worth more than any other man in this nation on Brexit though ?

    Perhaps not, but they are well expressed, and I suspect shared by a significant number of men and women.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    edited April 2019
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    Sadly, I don't think the middle ground is that large. 35% want to revoke, and 26% demand a No Deal Brexit, and the leaders of each group claim to speak for the majority of the population.
  • We should call it ‘the long term economic customs plan.’
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    You don't seem to have moved on since June 23rd, 2016.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Reality bites, but once bitten we’re able to shape the future. Cheer up.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    I think these are the correct projected national share figures for the 2015 local elections:

    Con 35%
    Lab 29%
    UKIP 13%
    LD 11%
    Others 12%

    https://electionsetc.com/2016/05/04/calculating-the-local-elections-projected-national-share-pns-in-2015-and-2016/
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    I am tempted to say, we bloody told you so. Repeatedly.

    But he is saved from my wrath by the line "When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned"

  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    Or we could aim to find the bREXIt for the 2/3 in the middle. Let's go for "REXI".

    That's what we want - and so I have ruled. (Latin translation of I have ruled is REXI).
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    not much evidence of progress in that direction over the last 1000 days!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043

    If it pisses off Private Francois and Steve Baker then I’m all in favour of it.

    That’s where my Brexit head is at the moment.

    Petty I know but the ERG have tested my patience.

    They had a Brexit that honours the referendum and they shat all over it.

    As Gove says No Deal doesn’t honour the referendum we’re in for a long extension or I can’t believe it’s not a/the customs union.

    Leavers need to ask themselves why Ken Clarke has done more to deliver Brexit than the ERG.

    Because all they wanted from this whole process was to be able to shout 'Brexit was betrayed' in the market place with a placard for the rest of their sad lives.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Warren polling third in her home state, with Buttigieg in double figures for the first time:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/437770-warren-places-third-in-2020-poll-of-massachusetts
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    Oborne also wrote this a few days ago.

    https://twitter.com/OborneTweets/status/1113700476539817984
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited April 2019
    I think Peter Oborne is right to argue it's better to stay in the EU than leave with a bad deal. We can always try for a better deal in a few years' time.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    I am tempted to say, we bloody told you so. Repeatedly.

    But he is saved from my wrath by the line "When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned"

    There are some pretty strange bedfellows on the other side of the argument. Sinn Fein are rarely on the same side as the major banks.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    The big question is whether Peter Oborne has expressed what lots of Brexiteers are thinking. It's very hard to admit you were seriously, dangerously wrong.
  • notme2notme2 Posts: 1,006

    If it pisses off Private Francois and Steve Baker then I’m all in favour of it.

    That’s where my Brexit head is at the moment.

    Petty I know but the ERG have tested my patience.

    They had a Brexit that honours the referendum and they shat all over it.

    As Gove says No Deal doesn’t honour the referendum we’re in for a long extension or I can’t believe it’s not a/the customs union.

    Leavers need to ask themselves why Ken Clarke has done more to deliver Brexit than the ERG.

    I am so angry at the ERG. The DUP are the DUP, they are the scorpion sitting on the frog crossing the river. They sting because it is what they do. It is in their nature. The ERG seems utter poison, they have their fifteen minutes of fame. They’ve so debased the WA that even if they wanted to they face humiliation for supporting it. They are vile cancer in the Tory party. May tried to reason with them, tried to do to compromise with them and it’s cost her everything. It’s also horrible damaged the party.

    They don’t realise when the waves of change come, they take all with them. Andrea Jenkyns won’t be saved in a Tory wipeout because she held off a 95% brexit because it wasn’t pure enough.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    You don't seem to have moved on since June 23rd, 2016.
    Why should he? Robert has long been the moderate voice in the middle with extremists like you and the ERG on the fringes.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    HYUFD said:
    So that's only of the 30% counted? Why didn't they finish counting before tweeting the figures?

    Interesting that Chuka's party is nowhere to be seen.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    rcs1000 said:

    Floater said:

    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Neither side will let this rest if the other side "wins"
    That's why we have to find the Brexit for the 70% in the middle.
    You don't seem to have moved on since June 23rd, 2016.
    Why should he? Robert has long been the moderate voice in the middle with extremists like you and the ERG on the fringes.
    Robert thought we should have started building border infrastructure in Northern Ireland after the referendum. That's not moderate; it's reckless.
  • _Anazina__Anazina_ Posts: 1,810
    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    @Sean_F

    The Heinlein book in which the female protagonist avidly practices incest within her family is "To Sail Beyond The Sunset". The one under discussion is "Job: A Comedy of Justice", in which a man, tormented by being frequently moved between alternate universes, is drawn into Heaven during the Rapture but moves to Hell in order to be with his Odinist wife. Much amusement is drawn from the quirks of each universe and his counterintuitive description of Hell as merely a hypercapitalist society: not so much a torture room, more a place of struggle and competition. Like much of Heinlein's later books, it consist of characters who talk like Heinlein arguing with other characters who talk like Heinlein trying to talk like somebody else and failing. It's readable but it is, and he was, very strange.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited April 2019
    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it?'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    Maybe we could work out a compromise along the lines of Spitting Image's sketch about David Steel and David Owen deciding who was going to be leader by taking one word from each of their names.

    So from the Remainer side we could take "Remaining In" and from the Leaver side we could take "the European Union". Can't say fairer than that.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Sean_F said:

    I read his article with interest, but I don't think the economic doom that was predicted has in fact materialised. Nor has Brexit provided a boost to Scottish nationalism.

    The points about hyperbolic language and the GFA are reasonable ones.

    Although the wording is odd: "Like almost everybody else I underestimated the importance of the Good Friday Agreement." I don't know anyone who doesn't think the GFA was important - it's not every day that you end a war that's lasted on and off for centuries. Perhaps he means "the importance of the GFA in relation to Brexit", though.

    A fundamental difficulty in Mrs May's approach is that she's so apparently secretive about it. It's difficult for her most loyal supporters to argue the case for her new plan when they don't know what it is. All my less political friends have pretty much given up trying to follow it, and are just waiting to see what happens.

    The other possibility is that she doesn't know either, and is just working from day to day, hoping something will turn up.

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    HYUFD said:
    Overall, the Conservatives are contesting about 90%, Labour 70%, Lib Dems 50%.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    edited April 2019
    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    AndyJS said:

    I think Peter Oborne is right to argue it's better to stay in the EU than leave with a bad deal. We can always try for a better deal in a few years' time.

    That will never happen. The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it. If we do not now leave then Britain will soon be a failed state with all the consequences that brings and the reason will be that some people thought a European ideology was more important than democracy.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    AndyJS said:

    I think Peter Oborne is right to argue it's better to stay in the EU than leave with a bad deal. We can always try for a better deal in a few years' time.

    We will not, and you know it. If we stay in, we are in for a very long time, don't insult people by pretending otherwise. It's the best option we have, but let's not kid ourselves.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Nigelb said:

    Warren polling third in her home state, with Buttigieg in double figures for the first time:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/437770-warren-places-third-in-2020-poll-of-massachusetts

    Sanders leads in Massachusetts on 26%, Biden second on 23%
  • viewcode said:

    @Sean_F

    The Heinlein book in which the female protagonist avidly practices incest within her family is "To Sail Beyond The Sunset". The one under discussion is "Job: A Comedy of Justice", in which a man, tormented by being frequently moved between alternate universes, is drawn into Heaven during the Rapture but moves to Hell in order to be with his Odinist wife. Much amusement is drawn from the quirks of each universe and his counterintuitive description of Hell as merely a hypercapitalist society: not so much a torture room, more a place of struggle and competition. Like much of Heinlein's later books, it consist of characters who talk like Heinlein arguing with other characters who talk like Heinlein trying to talk like somebody else and failing. It's readable but it is, and he was, very strange.

    Yes. To Sail Beyond The Sunset was a very strange book too.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    notme2 said:

    If it pisses off Private Francois and Steve Baker then I’m all in favour of it.

    That’s where my Brexit head is at the moment.

    Petty I know but the ERG have tested my patience.

    They had a Brexit that honours the referendum and they shat all over it.

    As Gove says No Deal doesn’t honour the referendum we’re in for a long extension or I can’t believe it’s not a/the customs union.

    Leavers need to ask themselves why Ken Clarke has done more to deliver Brexit than the ERG.

    I am so angry at the ERG. The DUP are the DUP, they are the scorpion sitting on the frog crossing the river. They sting because it is what they do. It is in their nature. The ERG seems utter poison, they have their fifteen minutes of fame. They’ve so debased the WA that even if they wanted to they face humiliation for supporting it. They are vile cancer in the Tory party. May tried to reason with them, tried to do to compromise with them and it’s cost her everything. It’s also horrible damaged the party.

    They don’t realise when the waves of change come, they take all with them. Andrea Jenkyns won’t be saved in a Tory wipeout because she held off a 95% brexit because it wasn’t pure enough.
    Hard to see a Tory wipeout as long as Corbyn remains leader, as the current polls show even with YouGov having the Tories falling to 2001 levels they are still ahead of Labour as Corbyn has taken them back to 2015 levels. Both parties are losing support to minor parties
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Warren polling third in her home state, with Buttigieg in double figures for the first time:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/437770-warren-places-third-in-2020-poll-of-massachusetts

    Sanders leads in Massachusetts on 26%, Biden second on 23%
    That is a top poll for young Mayor Pete.

    Wow.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Warren polling third in her home state, with Buttigieg in double figures for the first time:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/437770-warren-places-third-in-2020-poll-of-massachusetts

    Sanders leads in Massachusetts on 26%, Biden second on 23%
    That is a top poll for young Mayor Pete.

    Wow.
    Still less than half the level of Sanders
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it?'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    The economic arguments for or against EU membership are fairly small beer. They're arguments over the rate at which we get richer.
  • OblitusSumMeOblitusSumMe Posts: 9,143

    The big question is whether Peter Oborne has expressed what lots of Brexiteers are thinking. It's very hard to admit you were seriously, dangerously wrong.

    I think what helps to admit to a change of mind in such a situation is something simple that you can blame someone else for - for example, with the Iraq War lots of people emphasise Tony Blair's lie about the 45 minutes, glossing over that this was contradicted at the time.

    I don't see such a simple excuse in Oborne's argument. So for that reason I do not think it will ease the way for large numbers of Leavers to follow him in changing their mind.
  • notme2notme2 Posts: 1,006
    kle4 said:

    AndyJS said:

    I think Peter Oborne is right to argue it's better to stay in the EU than leave with a bad deal. We can always try for a better deal in a few years' time.

    We will not, and you know it. If we stay in, we are in for a very long time, don't insult people by pretending otherwise. It's the best option we have, but let's not kid ourselves.
    It’s the equivalent of “we’ll see”.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    The big question is whether Peter Oborne has expressed what lots of Brexiteers are thinking. It's very hard to admit you were seriously, dangerously wrong.

    I think what helps to admit to a change of mind in such a situation is something simple that you can blame someone else for - for example, with the Iraq War lots of people emphasise Tony Blair's lie about the 45 minutes, glossing over that this was contradicted at the time.

    I don't see such a simple excuse in Oborne's argument. So for that reason I do not think it will ease the way for large numbers of Leavers to follow him in changing their mind.
    They don't have to admit they were wrong, they can just forget they ever voted brexit.
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777

    Sean_F said:

    I read his article with interest, but I don't think the economic doom that was predicted has in fact materialised. Nor has Brexit provided a boost to Scottish nationalism.

    The points about hyperbolic language and the GFA are reasonable ones.

    Although the wording is odd: "Like almost everybody else I underestimated the importance of the Good Friday Agreement." I don't know anyone who doesn't think the GFA was important - it's not every day that you end a war that's lasted on and off for centuries. Perhaps he means "the importance of the GFA in relation to Brexit", though.

    A fundamental difficulty in Mrs May's approach is that she's so apparently secretive about it. It's difficult for her most loyal supporters to argue the case for her new plan when they don't know what it is. All my less political friends have pretty much given up trying to follow it, and are just waiting to see what happens.

    The other possibility is that she doesn't know either, and is just working from day to day, hoping something will turn up.

    Nick. I think your second possibility is right. I think she doesn't know and/or doesn't have a plan.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Warren polling third in her home state, with Buttigieg in double figures for the first time:
    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/437770-warren-places-third-in-2020-poll-of-massachusetts

    Sanders leads in Massachusetts on 26%, Biden second on 23%
    That is a top poll for young Mayor Pete.

    Wow.
    Still less than half the level of Sanders
    Indeed. But Sanders is, at least in Dem voters circle, a household name.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    If Sanders faces Trump then it another term for the orange one.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    edited April 2019
    @foxy fpt

    Regarding the discussion about movies with dubious premises, may I submit "The Breakfast Club", in which a beautiful proto-Goth (it was the 80's, they were American, one makes allowances) is forced thru peer pressure to dress like a normal person in order to be accepted by the local jock. As opposed to kicking him in the nuts and telling them to fuck off, the bastards. Ally Sheedy. It was that, then "War Games", then a string of forgettable stuff. Oh, no ironic reappraisal, no Tarantino cameo, just a guest spot on "X-Men: Apocalypse" gawdelpus.

    Fifteen years later, they pulled off the same stupidity with "The Faculty". Seriously! This was a thing in American movies. Grrrr!

    And don't get me started on "Pretty in Pink". Nice poor girl ignores her poor best friend in favour of first one, then the other local rich kid whilst the poor best friend is left alone. Seriously, was it rewritten after previews? The ending doesn't match the rest of the film! Besides, Ducky should have gotten off with Annie Potts, then they could have gone to New York and temp'd for the Ghostbusters. I would have watched the shit out of that film. But oh no, she had to go with James Fucking Spader: hello, I have floppy hair and Daddy bought me a Beemer. Well he's old and fat and bald now, so fuck him. Aaargh!

    Pause.

    Anyhoo, back with the betting. Brexit, huh? What's that about, eh?

    (I think I got away with it: nobody noticed, what a relief... :) )
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Yet we're still waiting for that immediate year long recession Remainers claimed would follow a Leave vote.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited April 2019

    If Sanders faces Trump then it another term for the orange one.

    Currently Sanders polls better against Trump than any other candidate bar Biden. I suspect Trump will be re elected now anyway given the allegations against Biden, his most dangerous opponent, may have forced him out.

    Buttigieg for all the hype is Mayor of a city that has had a Democratic Mayor since 1972, I fail to see how that shows how he beats Trump in the rustbelt swing states
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.
    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    _Anazina_ said:

    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.

    I suspect Cameron's memoirs will be devastating for Gove's reputation.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it?'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    The economic arguments for or against EU membership are fairly small beer. They're arguments over the rate at which we get richer.
    That depends, if we stay in the single market and Customs Union then Brexit is doable without much damage to the economy. Even May's Deal minimised the damage.

    If we leave the EU and single market and Customs Union without a transition deal or free trade agreement then both the City and even more manufacturing in the UK will suffer significant damage to its growth prospects if not fall into outright recession.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.
    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232

    viewcode said:

    @Sean_F

    The Heinlein book in which the female protagonist avidly practices incest within her family is "To Sail Beyond The Sunset". The one under discussion is "Job: A Comedy of Justice", in which a man, tormented by being frequently moved between alternate universes, is drawn into Heaven during the Rapture but moves to Hell in order to be with his Odinist wife. Much amusement is drawn from the quirks of each universe and his counterintuitive description of Hell as merely a hypercapitalist society: not so much a torture room, more a place of struggle and competition. Like much of Heinlein's later books, it consist of characters who talk like Heinlein arguing with other characters who talk like Heinlein trying to talk like somebody else and failing. It's readable but it is, and he was, very strange.

    Yes. To Sail Beyond The Sunset was a very strange book too.
    Indeed. I'm having a bit of a clear out of books: I have five sets of bookshelves, I'll have to buy a sixth, and I'm running out of floorspace. It's forcing me to make choices I don't want to. One of them is whether to get rid of the Heinleins. He's very readable but the paperbacks are decades old and falling apart, and it's not possible to throw them into a bag and read them on the train any more. I can get rid of the Pratchetts because he'll always be in print and in the library, but I don't think that's the case with Heinlein.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.
    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    It's implausible to argue that economic growth would have jumped to 3% p.a., had we voted to Remain.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting Oborne says the main beneficiaries from Brexit will be financial speculators and the far left and the biggest losers working class people in manufacturing areas, while also pointing out the threat to the Union.


    'Indirectly we will all be disadvantaged. The biggest and immediate losers, however, will be working-class people from England’s north-east, who are widely said to support Brexit. Some of them currently enjoy relatively well-paid and secure jobs thanks to foreign investment. A lot of those jobs will slowly vanish

    I can’t help noticing that those most vocal in advocating Brexit are two opposing camps. On the one hand traders in financial assets – in particular hedge-fund managers – relish the speculative opportunities created by Brexit volatility. The city state of Singapore is held up as one economic model. The United States is another. I cannot see that there is any popular desire for us to follow the business and employment cultures of such countries.

    On the other side we have the far Left, which wants out of the European Union for the exact opposite reason. The Left sees the EU as a capitalist conspiracy because of the protections it offers for private property and the restraints against centralised economic power, in particular state aid. A very substantial faction around Jeremy Corbyn, including former members of the Communist Party, is looking forward to British departure from the EU because they rightly see that the EU prevents the imposition of socialism.

    When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.

    If Brexiteers are clear-eyed about the economic consequences of Brexit, a further question arises. Do they really think that the economic disruption that lies ahead – along with the serious threat to our own union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – is worth it?'

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/i-was-strong-brexiteer-now-we-must-swallow-our-pride-and-think-again/

    The economic arguments for or against EU membership are fairly small beer. They're arguments over the rate at which we get richer.
    Unfortunately, the "we" in question is unspecified... :(
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967


    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.

    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    That's strange my money, of which I have more, doesn't buy me 20% less at the supermarket.

    Meanwhile my pensions and investments have grown appreciably in value as has the value of my house.

    But that's real world isn't it.

    Rather than hypothetical bollox or the predictions of certain year long recession which Remainers pedaled before the Refererendum.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
    Sounds like a tailor made job description for Boris
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Sean_F said:


    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.

    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    It's implausible to argue that economic growth would have jumped to 3% p.a., had we voted to Remain.
    Its rather amazing that they can make such claims when much of Europe is struggling economically.

    And any such level of growth in the UK would likely have seen an inflationary bubble, balance of payments crisis and significant interest rate rises.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232

    _Anazina_ said:

    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.

    I suspect Cameron's memoirs will be devastating for Gove's reputation.
    Not really. We know they fell out and Sam Cam won't have him in the house. We know the beats: Cameron assumes Gove is onside because mate. Gove knows politics doesn't work like that. Referendum, argument, Cameron holds back, Gove goes full on, Cameron realises too late, loses, and flounces off because "I don't see why I should do the hard shit".
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    Sean_F said:


    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.

    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    It's implausible to argue that economic growth would have jumped to 3% p.a., had we voted to Remain.
    Its rather amazing that they can make such claims when much of Europe is struggling economically.

    And any such level of growth in the UK would likely have seen an inflationary bubble, balance of payments crisis and significant interest rate rises.
    I suspect there has been a hit to growth but much smaller than is being claimed. From July 2016 to December 2018, the economy grew 4.2%, whereas the Bank of England had forecast 5%, prior to the referendum vote.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:


    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.

    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    It's implausible to argue that economic growth would have jumped to 3% p.a., had we voted to Remain.
    Its rather amazing that they can make such claims when much of Europe is struggling economically.

    And any such level of growth in the UK would likely have seen an inflationary bubble, balance of payments crisis and significant interest rate rises.
    I suspect there has been a hit to growth but much smaller than is being claimed. From July 2016 to December 2018, the economy grew 4.2%, whereas the Bank of England had forecast 5%, prior to the referendum vote.
    I rather suspect other European countries have likewise failed to meet growth predictions.

    Meanwhile we have managed to see some economic rebalancing in the UK and that is far more important than a little more debt fueled consumption or rising house prices led growth.
  • NormNorm Posts: 1,251
    Oborne is a rather idiosyncratic kind of Tory. I wonder if the journalists he refers to include fellow Daily Mail maverick Peter Hitchens who actually espouses the EEA as a better route to leaving the EU. Reading between the lines Oborne would like an EEA reset given the stronger part of his argument relates to economic matters. The rest of it is the usual recycled tosh borrowed from the ultra remainer hymn book..
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232
    Hmm. While Oborne has a point on this occasion, this is the man who predicted that Ming Campbell's leadership of the Lib Dems would prove 'lethal' to the Tories. And some of his subsequent pronouncements on other matters have been equally - if not more so - bizarre. Is he actually a credible commentator these days?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,697
    edited April 2019
    Theresa May:

    "People often ask me what the hell's happening with Brexit luv? And I tell them the truth is I don't have the first ******* idea"

    :D
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    notme2 said:

    First. Please can brexit end soon?

    Santa Brexit. He makes a list of those who are naughty. Then he makes a list of those who are nice. Then he comes down the chimney, voms, falls over, and shits on the carpet. Bad Santa Brexit!

    [the unreleased "Santa Brexit" episode of the "Mr Men" series. Followed by "Extreme Measures" with Trevor Eve, Friday at 9, BBC1]

  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited April 2019

    Hmm. While Oborne has a point on this occasion, this is the man who predicted that Ming Campbell's leadership of the Lib Dems would prove 'lethal' to the Tories. And some of his subsequent pronouncements on other matters have been equally - if not more so - bizarre. Is he actually a credible commentator these days?

    He's interesting and thoughtful, if often wrong. Incidentally, I remember he made a very interesting documentary about Zimbabwe about 10 years ago.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    GIN1138 said:

    Theresa May:

    "People often ask me what the hell's happening with Brexit luv? And I tell them the truth is I don't have the first ******* idea"

    :D

    May has one mission, to fulfil Brexit.
  • notme2notme2 Posts: 1,006

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
    Strong leader = Trump

    May has all the instincts of a strong leader, but combined with no majority, poor judgement and chronic indecisiveness it’s not her.

    Britain might just have their Trump very soon.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    AndyJS said:

    I think these are the correct projected national share figures for the 2015 local elections:

    Con 35%
    Lab 29%
    UKIP 13%
    LD 11%
    Others 12%

    https://electionsetc.com/2016/05/04/calculating-the-local-elections-projected-national-share-pns-in-2015-and-2016/

    Thank you.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.

    I suspect Cameron's memoirs will be devastating for Gove's reputation.
    I think Mrs Gove may have a few mentions too
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:


    One wonders where the hell Oborne has been all these years frankly. This stuff seems 101 to me, like, e.g., my god, I had no idea, but it seems the workers of the NE will lose out.

    And that's why you've been expecting imminent economic disaster for the last 33 months.

    Yet the real world hasn't obliged.
    The economy's 3% smaller than it would have been and your money is worth 20% less, and it hasn't even happened yet.
    It's implausible to argue that economic growth would have jumped to 3% p.a., had we voted to Remain.
    Its rather amazing that they can make such claims when much of Europe is struggling economically.

    And any such level of growth in the UK would likely have seen an inflationary bubble, balance of payments crisis and significant interest rate rises.
    I suspect there has been a hit to growth but much smaller than is being claimed. From July 2016 to December 2018, the economy grew 4.2%, whereas the Bank of England had forecast 5%, prior to the referendum vote.
    I rather suspect other European countries have likewise failed to meet growth predictions.

    Meanwhile we have managed to see some economic rebalancing in the UK and that is far more important than a little more debt fueled consumption or rising house prices led growth.
    The 3% number isn't based on comparing actual performance to an earlier prediction. What they did was to make a basket of other economies that had collectively tracked what the UK did previously, and compare what it did to what that basket of economies did. A big chunk of this is the US and Canada, which have been growing crazy fast.

    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/price-of-brexit-66-billion-recession-2019-4-1028090841
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
    Even if this is true, and you're right that it's the fault of remainer MPs and nothing to do with the parliamentary brexit enthusiasts who consider your preferred form of brexit a betrayal and a non-brexit, how would that stop you doing brexit under your hypothetical strong leader?
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300

    _Anazina_ said:

    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.

    I suspect Cameron's memoirs will be devastating for Gove's reputation.
    I think Mrs Gove may have a few mentions too
    I doubt we will ever see Cameron's memoirs. He doesn't need the money and it cannot be much fun writing about how everything went bad.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232
    I hate to bring this up what with Brexit and whatnot, but this is a thing:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/07/britain-have-toughest-internet-laws-world-government-backs-duty/
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    viewcode said:

    I hate to bring this up what with Brexit and whatnot, but this is a thing:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/07/britain-have-toughest-internet-laws-world-government-backs-duty/

    Britain was in danger of getting out-retarded by the EU there for a second, obviously they couldn't let that happen.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
    Even if this is true, and you're right that it's the fault of remainer MPs and nothing to do with the parliamentary brexit enthusiasts who consider your preferred form of brexit a betrayal and a non-brexit, how would that stop you doing brexit under your hypothetical strong leader?
    Richard wanted parliament to scorn the views of the public and impose his preferred form of Brexit. There's no chance of a hypothetical strong leader doing that.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Peter Oborne won’t influence many. But what this will do is continue the fraying of the support for Brexit. Oddly the recent fiascos have if anything halted that fraying as angry Leavers have decided that Brexit is being done badly rather than seeing it as a mistake (the two can both be true of course).

    But the awkward question that Leavers have no answer for is what is Brexit improving? Because it certainly isn’t helping build a united country, civic structures or improve the nation’s standing.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Pulpstar said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Theresa May:

    "People often ask me what the hell's happening with Brexit luv? And I tell them the truth is I don't have the first ******* idea"

    :D

    May has one mission, to fulfil Brexit.
    Miserable though the current situation is, with local elections looming Mrs May's strategy does at least have the advantage that almost everyone can hold onto some hope that the final outcome might move in their direction, and even revokers and no dealers can pretend they are still in with a chance.

    When the thing is actually decided, there are going to be howls of disappointment (quite possibly from everyone, as is May's forte) and we could see some quite dramatic poll swings and a hit on Tory ratings for the elections.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    The Remainers will have very successfully poisoned the well so that even when the EU proves to be the nightmare we have claimed, the memory of this last 3 years will stop anyone wanting to repeat it.

    Unbelievable. It's like the Iraq War. They never, ever take responsibility for anything. Brexit is a massive shitshow full of bullshit and internal contradictions, and it's somehow the fault of the people who predicted this for somehow "poisoning the well".
    Nope it is very believable. Look at the poll on the front page of tomorrow's Times. 54% of respondents would now prefer a 'strong leader who breaks the rules' over our current Parliamentary democracy. As I have warned all along, if Parliamentarians scorn the views and votes of the public then eventually the public will decide they are no longer fit for purpose. My only surprise is how quickly it has hsppened. By trying to thwart Brexit, Parliament have broken democracy.
    Even if this is true, and you're right that it's the fault of remainer MPs and nothing to do with the parliamentary brexit enthusiasts who consider your preferred form of brexit a betrayal and a non-brexit, how would that stop you doing brexit under your hypothetical strong leader?
    Richard wanted parliament to scorn the views of the public and impose his preferred form of Brexit. There's no chance of a hypothetical strong leader doing that.
    The strong leader we need is someone who does what Oborne has done and tells us we are making a huge mistake.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    _Anazina_ said:

    I suspect Michael Gove is one of the MPs Oborne knows have changed their minds.

    I suspect Cameron's memoirs will be devastating for Gove's reputation.
    I think Mrs Gove may have a few mentions too
    I doubt we will ever see Cameron's memoirs. He doesn't need the money and it cannot be much fun writing about how everything went bad.
    The last page does rather spoil the story. At least with Thatcher and Blair there are significant legacies to look back on in the narrative and the struggle to achieve them offers a potentially interesting read, even as we see the poll tax and Iraq respectively starting to loom.

    What does Cameron have as a legacy? Apart from the obvious. The only potentially interesting thing about his book would be his inside track on making the coalition work.
  • But the awkward question that Leavers have no answer for is what is Brexit improving? Because it certainly isn’t helping build a united country, civic structures or improve the nation’s standing.

    Hmm, The *process* of Brexit is certainly doing none of those things but I think you are conflating the process with the result. It was always going to be difficult actually to leave the EU even if the vote had been more decisive. So much of the running of the country is bound up in the reality of EU membership (and I don't mean by that the EU was "running the country", just that EU membership and what that entails was a constant factor in many areas of life), that the process of unravelling that was going to take time and be painful. It was also going to meet fierce opposition both from principled opposition and from vested interests who stand to lose (or at the least have to make disruptive adjustments to current practice), all of which has made leaving more difficult than Leavers would have liked (or anticipated).

    If we ever do leave then, whatever form that takes, companies, institutions and citizens will adapt to the new reality with varying degrees of speed but the inherent advantages and problems that Britain possess will still be there. From a Leaver's perspective, I would say that we would then be in a position respectively to maximise and tackle those on a national level which is, in my view the best and most democratic way of doing so (though I recognise that other regard multilateralism as the best way).

    In short, Leavers take the long view. The long view of remaining, especially after trying unsuccessfully to leave does not seem rosy to me, either internally (given the bitterness it will cause among frustrated leavers) nor externally (our national standing will be much more damaged both within and without the EU if we back down now).

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