Richard: I hesitate to rerun the old arguments but given that you tried to claim that the financial services bit of Cameron's deal was better than you expected when, as was pointed out by several on us here, it was worse than what the UK had prior to the "deal", I'd be wary about claiming that the Remainers had the better arguments.
It wasn't 'pointed out' that it was worse, it was claimed by some posters including you that it was worse, for reasons which looked wrong to me and to many others whose judgement I respect (and which still look wrong to me).
For some reason, though, some Leavers (not you) got very emotional about this, and in particular impugned the integrity of anyone who didn't agree with them. In fact some are still at it (see remarks on Carney and Osborne, for example). It's a very odd phenomenon.
On a wider note, the EU is fundamentally unstable. It's going to fall to pieces, sooner or later. But those at the top see only the one route: more 'Europe'. More integration. Sod national differences. To heal with regional variations. One currency. One interest rate. One banking union. One army. One fiscal policy.
@SeanT I remain bitterly disappointed that the vote was won by pandering to xenophobia. It will be a lasting moral stain on the country that will disfigure it for many years to come.
But the dolorous blow has been struck. We must now mop up the blood, bury the bodies and seek to heal the devastated kingdoms as best we can.
Trying to forge a single European identity is bullshit, especially when the same (mostly leftwing) ideologues engaging in federalist fundamentalism are so open to multi-culturalism when it comes to external cultures.
You can't make artificial countries, and you can't magic away identities people feel. Scotland (or Yorkshire, for that matter) have very strong identities despite being part of the UK (and England, for the latter). Both also consent to being in the UK.
When we had the first referendum in the 1970s, it was about economics, not politics. We were promised a referendum on Lisbon (the Constitution with a new font) and never got one. When we finally got asked about the political EU in which we found ourselves entangled, the electorate voted to leave.
And that was against the weight of almost the entire political class and broadcast media (print media was split but mostly for Leave).
On a wider note, the EU is fundamentally unstable. It's going to fall to pieces, sooner or later. But those at the top see only the one route: more 'Europe'. More integration. Sod national differences. To heal with regional variations. One currency. One interest rate. One banking union. One army. One fiscal policy.
And if the voters get it wrong? Make them vote again.
The cultural, demographic and economic differences are ignored in favour of blind ideology. It's a battle of faith against reality, and the more measures the faithful take the sharper the discord between the two. I'd be surprised (assuming I live to the average age) if the EU outlasts my lifetime.
[I do apologise for the wall of text].
All fine, Morris, but you do seem to be the sort of person that would have said exactly the same about Mercia or Northumbria in olden times.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
In that case, try focusing instead on claims that were made seriously here, rather than ones that weren't.
You mean, like the claim that we'd end up in an EEA deal? I seem to recall getting a lot of stick for pointing out that that was the worst of both worlds, and politically a non-starter.
Richard: I hesitate to rerun the old arguments but given that you tried to claim that the financial services bit of Cameron's deal was better than you expected when, as was pointed out by several on us here, it was worse than what the UK had prior to the "deal", I'd be wary about claiming that the Remainers had the better arguments. Some of them may have but the voters are not like a judge in a court of law. This decision - like most decisions in fact - are done for emotional reasons rather more than for rational ones.
And even if they did the de haut en bas way in which they were communicated, the failure to listen to the voters and their concerns, not just during the campaign but in the weeks, months, years beforehand was fatal to even the best argument.
If you want to persuade, first of all, indeed above all, you need to listen.
No-one listened, really listened, to the voters.
Until politicians learn to shut up and listen they are doomed to failure.
Indeed that the establishment of three parties of govt (assuming Corbyn isn't a leave double agent) spanning back years can have got the Zeitgeist quite so hopelessly wrong on this is pretty dreadful. Leave didn't happen for one reason. Yes immigration gave it a push over the line, but the fact is it had solid foundations to build on. The Euro disaster being prime, the years of daft "carrot shape regulations", the disdain for democracy from Brussels (how many times have they lost a referendum and refused to divert course?). Yet mainstream Lib, Lab , and Con just did not seem to want to engage, over the years on this. I had hoped Cameron would really push for real reform, but it was just another "essay crisis" to get out of the way pronto for him, sadly.
@SeanT I remain bitterly disappointed that the vote was won by pandering to xenophobia. It will be a lasting moral stain on the country that will disfigure it for many years to come.
But the dolorous blow has been struck. We must now mop up the blood, bury the bodies and seek to heal the devastated kingdoms as best we can.
The campaign methods are yesterdays chip wrappers (well before the EU banned use of newspapers in fast food packaging in favour of less environmentally friendly polystyrene) - an unimportant historical detail.
I did write yesterday that Corbyn's complete inability to lead, unify and collaborate would become clearer to more and more of his supporters. But I wasn't thinking the shadow defence minister just a day later.
To be fair to Jezza, I don't think this was his doing. Apparently Corbyn was "overruled" by Seamus Milne, who enforced the last minute changes.
I genuinely don't understand what leverage Milne has over Corbyn and Co, such that they keep him on. It's not like he's any good as a media man. He's rubbish. Terrible.
They could surely find some mad lefty journalist who is actually halfway competent at communications.
Most odd.
Not really. Corbyn cannot lead, so he lets other people do it for him. Didn't you once say he is Chauncey Gardener?
But Milne is simply and provably shit at media management. I'm not talking about the politics, just basic competence. He can't do it. He hasn't got a clue. He's a posh dilettante Guardian Taitinger Trotskyite columnist who is WAY out of his depth.
Corbyn may be simple and slow but people around him, from McDonnell to Red Len are not stupid, they are sharp and ruthless. So I don't understand why they don't pension off the useless Milne and get some commie tabloid bruiser to do the job properly.
Either Milne has some weird hold over them, or there is literally no one else who can or will do the job. I don't believe the latter.
Well his contract is supposedly up in a month. There were some rumours that a former music teacher suffering a serious midlife crisis might take over.
When I signed up for the Leave campaign I virtually had to beg for leaflets to deliver. When they came I found that I had seriously underestimated the number I would need for my large village. When I asked for more I was told that I would have to buy them from the Leave online shop. (Which I did). As someone mentioned above they were far more interested in organising stalls. Or to be more precise they were interested in organising stalls which could be photographed and put on social media.
I was probably always going to vote LEAVE but Nabavi and Meeks by themselves were enough to shunt me heavily towards OUT.
That lofty yet weary tone of voice. Like bored teachers dealing with special needs kids. And that faux-neutrality at the beginning. Ridiculous and laughable. What a couple of plonkers.
It was certainly very hard to avoid that tone, when people were taking seriously claims such as that was an imminent risk of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers turning up in the UK, or that huge numbers of refugees would be given German nationality and come here, or that Turkey was about to join the EU, or that the UK was about to be forced into joining some EU army, or that there was a huge pot of gold available for the NHS if we left the EU, or that we'd have a strong bargaining position in negotiations with the EU, or that trade deals could be signed with the US easily, or (and this one made it almost impossible to believe that I wasn't arguing with half-wits) that academic economists around the world, the IMF, the OECD, the BIS, the CBI, the TUC, most leading businessmen, virtually all bank analysts, President Obama and Mark Carney were either in the pay of the EU or for some other nefarious reason were not telling the truth as they saw it.
Some people seem to base their votes on emotions rather than facts.
Don't we all though? We might process "the facts" as we see them, but we'll always put our own spin on them in our head. One person's investment is another's borrowing. Freedom fighter/terrorist etc
Indeed. Facts go through the wet chemistry of the brain. Fear is processed faster than rationality, we use heuristics for things which are too complex for rational analysis, our personality plays a large part in where we stand on the risk aversion spectrum, and then everything is filtered through the coloured lens of our worldview.
This highly processed 'reality' explains why honest people can so genuinely disagree on a given set of facts, and even not understand why the other party does not view the facts the same way.
BREXIT COULD DESTROY WESTERN POLITICAL CIVILISATION
Compared to hysteria like that the NHS guff from LEAVE was positively minuscule, and trivial, and hardly worth mentioning.
The truth is that campaigners for Remain, yourself amongst them, acted like a bunch of spoilt and screaming toddlers, and you got rightly beaten for your pains.
You don't seem to be able to get your head round the idea that I didn't have anything to do with the Remain campaign. I take responsibility for what I say, not for what Donald Tusk or anyone else says.
As I repeatedly pointed out, I wasn't on either side. I was a persuadee, not a persuader. The main thing I was interested in was trying to figure out if there was a coherent economic plan for Brexit. The fact that there wasn't soon became very obvious. What's interesting is that we are now beginning to have the debate on this which the Leave side refused to engage in before the referendum. It would have been better to have developed a plan before choosing it, but we are where we are.
The fact is that some Leavers don't care what problems arise from any Brexit plan. Their hatred of the EU is such that leaving the EU is the only goal. One assumes that they are comfortably set for a wild ride.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Interesting comment from Mr Flashman's disembodied soul about Henry VIII. I do think our modern veneer of liberal civilisation hides the true nature of Englishness - we are Tudors reborn. It is a new Tudor age - we are all merry Englanders in the style of Falstaff. Brexit hasn't taken us back to the 1940s - more like the 1490s.
I jest...well, if I do, I'll need a funny cap and some bells.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
I'm not entirely convinced that the Lisbon Treaty holds quite the same force as the Acts of Union... but, of course, YMMV.
That's irrelevant to the point. The EU is as much the UK as it is any other member state, and arguably more than most of them.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Indeed.
Yet Sydney, Christchurch, Capetown, NY or even New Dehli sometimes you often have to remind yourself that you are not in a British City.
Not to say that places like Brussels are not pleasant (other than the silly EU park with the big atom thing where someone seems to have towed Norway into the atlantic and sunk it) but they are just so different.
I did write yesterday that Corbyn's complete inability to lead, unify and collaborate would become clearer to more and more of his supporters. But I wasn't thinking the shadow defence minister just a day later.
To be fair to Jezza, I don't think this was his doing. Apparently Corbyn was "overruled" by Seamus Milne, who enforced the last minute changes.
I genuinely don't understand what leverage Milne has over Corbyn and Co, such that they keep him on. It's not like he's any good as a media man. He's rubbish. Terrible.
They could surely find some mad lefty journalist who is actually halfway competent at communications.
Most odd.
Not really. Corbyn cannot lead, so he lets other people do it for him. Didn't you once say he is Chauncey Gardener?
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Silly me. Took a while to get it. My attention was focused on Hillary standing on that silly little box in front of that silly area of little posters. Didn't immediately see everyone had their backs to her.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Assuming the EU falls, I wouldn't be surprised if BeNeLux were to become a single, very federal, country.
You might see something similar between Estonia, Latvia and Lithiania: a Baltic proto-state, to help defend against the inevitable pressures from Mother Russia.
''The fact is that some Leavers don't care what problems arise from any Brexit plan. Their hatred of the EU is such that leaving the EU is the only goal. One assumes that they are comfortably set for a wild ride.''
Whereas of course inside the EU, everything is a model of calm, stability, decorum and prosperity. Ahem...
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
@nickeardleybbc: Corbyn says he's confident a Scottish seat on Labour's NEC will be passed tomorrow and he's happy for rep to be appointed by @kezdugdale
@SeanT And conversely I have come to the conclusion that the manner of Leave's victory will ensure that the country becomes poorer, meaner, less important and more fractured. The likely consequences outside Britain are equally unpleasant, as the idea of nations working together falls out of fashion and every man looks for himself.
Brexit is part of an inflexion point, part of the revolt by the developed world's lower middle classes against globalisation. It will no more stop globalisation than it will stop the world spinning on its axis. But it will probably hasten the relative decline of Britain as the benefits of that globalisation that would otherwise have reached Britain will now be felt elsewhere and as trade barriers start to be re-erected.
Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Except that the number of independent countries has gone up by just under a factor of 10 in 200 years.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Except that the number of independent countries has gone up by just under a factor of 10 in 200 years.
How are you counting the various German statelets? Or the Hanseatic League ports?
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
@Gardenwalker You can't compare Leavers and Remainers to Roundheads and Cavaliers.
Leavers are wrong and repulsive.
Well, you and I voted the same way.
But Leavers are 52pc of the population, & can hardly be "repulsive". We have to think harder about why Brexit prospered, and our side failed.
Simples . Brexit prospered because of too much and fear of yet more immigration.
It was fear of forriners, especially from south east europe, for the few and fear of ever increasing asset prices for houses etc. and ever more difficulty getting a doctors appointment, decent as opposed to crap job and getting a school place for the many.
It is not racist to say - we are full - we cant take anymore from wherever - unless it is one in one out.
It is also not racist in most peoples eyes to say where we do take people in, give priority to those who have useful skills, will integrate well, share many aspects of our culture and whos ancestors come from these isles. However in the eyes of many progressives that is racist hence some of the current interesting political events on both sides of the Atlantic.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Except that the number of independent countries has gone up by just under a factor of 10 in 200 years.
How are you counting the various German statelets? Or the Hanseatic League ports?
Yes, the definition of independent state is tricky. I would agree there was consolidation, but more recently the trend has been independence.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Switzerland. And to a lesser extent, Canada.
Don't most Swiss speak both though?
If you are in Basle, you will find German speakers and English speakers. And if you're in Geneva, it will be French and English.
@Gardenwalker You can't compare Leavers and Remainers to Roundheads and Cavaliers.
Leavers are wrong and repulsive.
A bald moralising judgement of the kind that also frequently emanates from the Far Left. Their sense of total moral superiority means that they are incapable of regarding their opponents as anything other than stupid or evil.
If you proceed from the standpoint that those not sharing your convictions are either thick, racist trailer trash who need to be lectured, shamed and browbeaten into submission, or crazed fascists who can simply be written off, then one would venture to suggest that an event such as an election or referendum is less likely to produce the outcome that you desire.
People can usually tell when somebody regards them as beneath contempt, and are liable to return the favour.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
So how many Labour MPs have resigned the Whip today?
Thought so.
Not sure what I'm going to do with all this surplus popcorn.
Depends when your bed time is. The battle to be the most incompetent candidate for POTUS in history is being joined tonight and promises to be hilarious in a black humour kind of way but I for one will be tucked up in bed.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Except that the number of independent countries has gone up by just under a factor of 10 in 200 years.
How are you counting the various German statelets? Or the Hanseatic League ports?
Yes, the definition of independent state is tricky. I would agree there was consolidation, but more recently the trend has been independence.
With the minor challenge that most of these new independent statelets are extraordinarily keen to join the EU
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
In 200 years it's more likely that the UK will be part of some huge English-speaking Federation than the EU as it is presently constituted.
But more likely than either is that the world will be transformed in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's starting right now. The next wave of the digital/AI revolution.
@SeanT And conversely I have come to the conclusion that the manner of Leave's victory will ensure that the country becomes poorer, meaner, less important and more fractured. The likely consequences outside Britain are equally unpleasant, as the idea of nations working together falls out of fashion and every man looks for himself.
Brexit is part of an inflexion point, part of the revolt by the developed world's lower middle classes against globalisation. It will no more stop globalisation than it will stop the world spinning on its axis. But it will probably hasten the relative decline of Britain as the benefits of that globalisation that would otherwise have reached Britain will now be felt elsewhere and as trade barriers start to be re-erected.
Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
In 200 years it's more likely that the UK will be part of some huge English-speaking Federation than the EU as it is presently constituted.
In 200 years, if the EU is a federal superstate, which language do you think its leaders will use?
You don't even need to project that far into the future.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
In 200 years it's more likely that the UK will be part of some huge English-speaking Federation than the EU as it is presently constituted.
In 200 years, if the EU is a federal superstate, which language do you think its leaders will use?
You don't even need to project that far into the future.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Do you know much about history?
I have a degree from Cambridge in it and have read a lot of books since. Otherwise, nothing.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
Like they have for the last millennium, you mean? The Balkans show that they are quite happy to add to the number, too.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
Over the last Millenium - the UK replaces four, Italy is created from many, Germany created from even more, the bits of Spain come together...slow aggregation is the overriding theme of the last 1000 years.
Except that the number of independent countries has gone up by just under a factor of 10 in 200 years.
How are you counting the various German statelets? Or the Hanseatic League ports?
Yes, the definition of independent state is tricky. I would agree there was consolidation, but more recently the trend has been independence.
With the minor challenge that most of these new independent statelets are extraordinarily keen to join the EU
Most of the recent independent countries aren't in Europe.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
In 200 years it's more likely that the UK will be part of some huge English-speaking Federation than the EU as it is presently constituted.
In 200 years, if the EU is a federal superstate, which language do you think its leaders will use?
You don't even need to project that far into the future.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Do you know much about history?
I have a degree from Cambridge in it and have read a lot of books since. Otherwise, nothing.
Good for you. Try not to be so condescending in future.
''Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.''
I don;t see anything in Britain as ugly and stupid as having nearly half of your young people sitting around doing nothing for the sake of a broken ideal.
And that's what gets me about many remainers. Their complete inability to comprehend the EU's huge flaws, and how unreformable it is.
@SeanT And conversely I have come to the conclusion that the manner of Leave's victory will ensure that the country becomes poorer, meaner, less important and more fractured. The likely consequences outside Britain are equally unpleasant, as the idea of nations working together falls out of fashion and every man looks for himself.
Brexit is part of an inflexion point, part of the revolt by the developed world's lower middle classes against globalisation. It will no more stop globalisation than it will stop the world spinning on its axis. But it will probably hasten the relative decline of Britain as the benefits of that globalisation that would otherwise have reached Britain will now be felt elsewhere and as trade barriers start to be re-erected.
Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
I must go work in a minute, but I had the same thought while in Puno airport in Bolivia last week.
There was a long boring queue for the flight to La Paz, at least half of it was westerners - Aussies and Swedes, Germans and Spaniards, Yanks and Brits.
All the English speakers - especially the Aussies and Brits - naturally gravitated to each other. Sharing the same jokes. Sharing the same culture.
A Martian observing this would have presumed the Brits were in a close political union with the Australians, and maybe the Americans - certainly not the Germans French or Nordics.
This is no slight to our close friends and delightful neighbours on the continent. It's simply the case that, even after 5 decades of EU membership, we have loads more in common with Aussies and Kiwis than we do with Austrians and Portuguese. Brexit is a symptom and outcome of that.
Aussies and Kiwis, for certain. Not so sure about the Americans. They are very different to us. I'd also throw in the English-speaking Canadians in the maritime states as being pretty close to the Brits. I spent three weeks there in the summer and was very surprised at how similar things were. Reminded very much of NZ.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
In 200 years it's more likely that the UK will be part of some huge English-speaking Federation than the EU as it is presently constituted.
But more likely than either is that the world will be transformed in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's starting right now. The next wave of the digital/AI revolution.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Do you know much about history?
I have a degree from Cambridge in it and have read a lot of books since. Otherwise, nothing.
Good for you. Try not to be so condescending in future.
All advice is welcome. Your assertion that the nation states of today would survive the next three thousand years almost unchanged was an interesting challenge in that regard.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Switzerland. And to a lesser extent, Canada.
Don't most Swiss speak both though?
If you are in Basle, you will find German speakers and English speakers. And if you're in Geneva, it will be French and English.
I was in Ticino for a week, recently, and everyone spoke Italian, German, English and French. It was seriously impressive. Even dauntingly so.
Ticino just voted to make it harder for foreigners to work in the canton. Apparently foreigners (largely from Nth Italy) comprise 25% of the workforce.
I did write yesterday that Corbyn's complete inability to lead, unify and collaborate would become clearer to more and more of his supporters. But I wasn't thinking the shadow defence minister just a day later.
To be fair to Jezza, I don't think this was his doing. Apparently Corbyn was "overruled" by Seamus Milne, who enforced the last minute changes.
I genuinely don't understand what leverage Milne has over Corbyn and Co, such that they keep him on. It's not like he's any good as a media man. He's rubbish. Terrible.
They could surely find some mad lefty journalist who is actually halfway competent at communications.
Most odd.
Not really. Corbyn cannot lead, so he lets other people do it for him. Didn't you once say he is Chauncey Gardener?
But Milne is simply and provably shit at media management. I'm not talking about the politics, just basic competence. He can't do it. He hasn't got a clue. He's a posh dilettante Guardian Taitinger Trotskyite columnist who is WAY out of his depth.
Corbyn may be simple and slow but people around him, from McDonnell to Red Len are not stupid, they are sharp and ruthless. So I don't understand why they don't pension off the useless Milne and get some commie tabloid bruiser to do the job properly.
Either Milne has some weird hold over them, or there is literally no one else who can or will do the job. I don't believe the latter.
He's shit ion your terms, shit on my terms. But maybe there are different terms. Remember, Corbyn is not interested in winning elections, just in winning power in Labour. IN some way Milne may help with that. He is also, like Corbyn , a big fan of Putin.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Switzerland. And to a lesser extent, Canada.
Don't most Swiss speak both though?
If you are in Basle, you will find German speakers and English speakers. And if you're in Geneva, it will be French and English.
I was in Ticino for a week, recently, and everyone spoke Italian, German, English and French. It was seriously impressive. Even dauntingly so.
The difference is, with the possible exception of parts of Holland, it is as a second language, not the language they think in and very few will speak it well enough to pick up the subtle nuances and things like sarcasm.
A bit like when you post here but without any emoticons (although there is obviously face to face contact).
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Do you know much about history?
I have a degree from Cambridge in it and have read a lot of books since. Otherwise, nothing.
Good for you. Try not to be so condescending in future.
All advice is welcome. Your assertion that the nation states of today would survive the next three thousand years almost unchanged was an interesting challenge in that regard.
Mr. D, I think that's an incredible argument. Even had it not been eclipsed in media terms by the infamous 'back of the queue' remark, the idea that ceding ever more sovereignty to a foreign body somehow enhances our power is not intuitively correct.
Both campaigns made a great many mistakes and said a lot of silly things.
Brussels is no more a foreign body to the UK than Westminster is to Scotland.
Brussels is not a British city. Its inhabitants aren't my fellow citizens. The proportion of people who think of themselves as European citizens in this country is vanishingly small.
Also, Brussels is not an English-speaking city. Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language. Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans. It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Switzerland. And to a lesser extent, Canada.
Don't most Swiss speak both though?
You mean English as well as their mother tongue?
In my experience the Swiss are like the Dutch, in that they all speak at least three or four (or five!) languages fluently. Annoyingly so sometimes!
''Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.''
I don;t see anything in Britain as ugly and stupid as having nearly half of your young people sitting around doing nothing for the sake of a broken ideal.
And that's what gets me about many remainers. Their complete inability to comprehend the EU's huge flaws, and how unreformable it is.
You can still believe the EU is flawed, and believe that on balance, the U.K. is better off in.
Our membership or otherwise doesn't help unemployed Italians (except perhaps by offering them a better life in the UK).
England is over a thousand years old as a concept, France likewise. Once the Dark Ages settled down there was a lot of churn elsewhere as the likes of Burgundy and Brandenburg rose and fell, splintered and coalesced.
The only people who succeeded in a prolonged, successful European empire were the Romans. Charlemagne's was a fraction of theirs and fell to pieces by the time of his grandchildren. Napoleon's little empire was the work of a decade or two.
The approach today is bureaucratic, and the rise of empire is less bloody, but its demise has plenty of potential for civil disorder or even warfare.
Mr. B2, the 9th century isn't really 'olden times'. But you're quite right that I would've opposed the Viking invasion or 'pooling of geography' as the pro-Danelaw types would've described it.
You are used to thinking in Roman Empire type timescales. Do you really think that in two or three hundred years time Europe will still be dicking about with all these little countries and lots of borders?
One can never be certain, but I would anticipate that Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Greece will be States in 2-300 years' time, even if their boundaries have changed.
Over that timescale, just the briefest glance back into history over the same period of time is enough to be sure that you are talking complete BS.
Do you know much about history?
I have a degree from Cambridge in it and have read a lot of books since. Otherwise, nothing.
Good for you. Try not to be so condescending in future.
All advice is welcome. Your assertion that the nation states of today would survive the next three thousand years almost unchanged was an interesting challenge in that regard.
You said "2-300 years" not "2-3000 years."
Yes, you are right, he did. My mistake; thrown by my earlier discussion with MD about the dark ages. Nevertheless most of the current European nations didn't exist 300 years ago, indeed the UK was only just about. Given the continuous change in Europe over both the past few centuries and our own lifetimes, it is simply fatuous to assert that the current state of affairs will last hundreds of years into the future.
Just catching up. Seems like it has been a popcorn-tastic day in Liverpool. Surely Clive Lewis could read out what he wanted to say or ad-lib and forget the autocue?
The interesting thing about this is that the latest tally is that one southern Labour 2015 candidate has now joined the Tories, one the LibDems, one called for a new alternative party, and one made no further comment as far as I know. Thus, whilst a lot of southern Labour candidates appear to be deserting the party, there is no sign of the co-ordination that was rumoured on Twitter this time yesterday.
Seeing the momentum to Trump I just looked for value on thinly traded individual States markets on Betfair and think New Mexico and Colorado offer value for Trump backers though Johnson is the complicating factor in New Mexico.
Australia is the most British place I know, outside Britain. It feels even more British than Dublin. Or Gibraltar.
It is basically a part of Britain, with better weather. I hear NZ is very similar.
Canada is not quite so British, America much less so (but still culturally closer than most European nations, bar maybe the Dutch or Nordics, maybe)
A loose Federation of the old Commonwealth English speaking states does make a lot of sense. I believe it will happen tacitly anyway, because of changing technology.
The biggest barrier to such an entity would be Westminster's inability to reform itself in any meaningful way. We need a constitutional convention much more urgently than we need to trigger Article 50.
Australia is the most British place I know, outside Britain. It feels even more British than Dublin. Or Gibraltar.
It is basically a part of Britain, with better weather. I hear NZ is very similar.
Canada is not quite so British, America much less so (but still culturally closer than most European nations, bar maybe the Dutch or Nordics, maybe)
A loose Federation of the old Commonwealth English speaking states does make a lot of sense. I believe it will happen tacitly anyway, because of changing technology.
The biggest barrier to such an entity would be Westminster's inability to reform itself in any meaningful way. We need a constitutional convention much more urgently than we need to trigger Article 50.
Yes - it's the number one topic in pubs up and down the country - constitutional conventions.
''A loose Federation of the old Commonwealth English speaking states does make a lot of sense. I believe it will happen tacitly anyway, because of changing technology. ''
To make it work, it has to be more than 'loose' in my opinion. We have to be able to protect each other from intimidation by large blocks.
Basically, our Navy needs to treble in size. At least.
Australia is the most British place I know, outside Britain. It feels even more British than Dublin. Or Gibraltar.
It is basically a part of Britain, with better weather. I hear NZ is very similar.
Canada is not quite so British, America much less so (but still culturally closer than most European nations, bar maybe the Dutch or Nordics, maybe)
A loose Federation of the old Commonwealth English speaking states does make a lot of sense. I believe it will happen tacitly anyway, because of changing technology.
The biggest barrier to such an entity would be Westminster's inability to reform itself in any meaningful way. We need a constitutional convention much more urgently than we need to trigger Article 50.
Yes - it's the number one topic in pubs up and down the country - constitutional conventions.
Because that's always a good guide as to what should dominate our leaders' attentions... What's Theresa May's policy on Bake Off?
@BethRigby: Lab source tells @SkyNews that Corbyn described the @labourlewis speech spat as a 'f*ing shambles' > didn't he know about last min change?
Couldn't organize a piss up...oh wait no can't have that, thats all sexist...couldn't organize a coffee club in a Starb.....no they are a load of corporate overlord tax dodgers...
The interesting thing about this is that the latest tally is that one southern Labour 2015 candidate has now joined the Tories, one the LibDems, one called for a new alternative party, and one made no further comment as far as I know. Thus, whilst a lot of southern Labour candidates appear to be deserting the party, there is no sign of the co-ordination that was rumoured on Twitter this time yesterday.
It's certainly a damn squib so far, compared to all the rumours going around early this morning about potentially dozens of MPs quitting the party. Still no MPs quitting though, maybe there's a couple to come later in the week or maybe the Tories have one for next week, but it isn't the organised defection of dozens.
@SeanT And conversely I have come to the conclusion that the manner of Leave's victory will ensure that the country becomes poorer, meaner, less important and more fractured. The likely consequences outside Britain are equally unpleasant, as the idea of nations working together falls out of fashion and every man looks for himself.
Brexit is part of an inflexion point, part of the revolt by the developed world's lower middle classes against globalisation. It will no more stop globalisation than it will stop the world spinning on its axis. But it will probably hasten the relative decline of Britain as the benefits of that globalisation that would otherwise have reached Britain will now be felt elsewhere and as trade barriers start to be re-erected.
Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.
No Alistair. Ugly and stupid Britain is represented almost every day on here - by you.
Comments
For some reason, though, some Leavers (not you) got very emotional about this, and in particular impugned the integrity of anyone who didn't agree with them. In fact some are still at it (see remarks on Carney and Osborne, for example). It's a very odd phenomenon.
damn you I shall have to go now and re-read the whole book.
But the dolorous blow has been struck. We must now mop up the blood, bury the bodies and seek to heal the devastated kingdoms as best we can.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/09/debatable.html
This highly processed 'reality' explains why honest people can so genuinely disagree on a given set of facts, and even not understand why the other party does not view the facts the same way.
But Leavers are 52pc of the population, & can hardly be "repulsive". We have to think harder about why Brexit prospered, and our side failed.
Language is really important. Really, really important. I know it’s possible to learn to speak another language, but most British people just don’t; certainly not to the extent where they are equally at home in a foreign-speaking city. I know the UK isn’t completely monoglot, but the number of non-English speakers is pretty small, and the largest body of them (Welsh-as-a-first-language speakers – probably?) tend to vote for a separatist party – showing that they’re perhaps not entirely at home in a country which speaks a different language.
Language is how we know what our rulers, and our fellow citizens, are saying and doing – rather than what an interpreter says they’re saying and doing. We may not, in England, have our fingers fully on the pulse of Scottish politics, and of what the Scots as a nation think, but we understand Scottish politics - and the Scots - far more than we understand, say, French politics and the French, or German politics and the Germans, or even EU politics and the mainland Europeans.
It’s really hard to forge a functioning democracy without a common language.
Interesting comment from Mr Flashman's disembodied soul about Henry VIII. I do think our modern veneer of liberal civilisation hides the true nature of Englishness - we are Tudors reborn. It is a new Tudor age - we are all merry Englanders in the style of Falstaff. Brexit hasn't taken us back to the 1940s - more like the 1490s.
I jest...well, if I do, I'll need a funny cap and some bells.
And to a lesser extent, Canada.
Yet Sydney, Christchurch, Capetown, NY or even New Dehli sometimes you often have to remind yourself that you are not in a British City.
Not to say that places like Brussels are not pleasant (other than the silly EU park with the big atom thing where someone seems to have towed Norway into the atlantic and sunk it) but they are just so different.
(and yes, I know that some of the Balkans are not EU states)
You might see something similar between Estonia, Latvia and Lithiania: a Baltic proto-state, to help defend against the inevitable pressures from Mother Russia.
I blame a long term failure to engage in Europe + collapsing trust in political elites + collapsing trust in media + stagnating incomes.
Immigration just the trigger point.
Whereas of course inside the EU, everything is a model of calm, stability, decorum and prosperity. Ahem...
Thought so.
Brexit is part of an inflexion point, part of the revolt by the developed world's lower middle classes against globalisation. It will no more stop globalisation than it will stop the world spinning on its axis. But it will probably hasten the relative decline of Britain as the benefits of that globalisation that would otherwise have reached Britain will now be felt elsewhere and as trade barriers start to be re-erected.
Ugly stupid Britain won. Britain is set to get uglier and stupider.
It is not racist to say - we are full - we cant take anymore from wherever - unless it is one in one out.
It is also not racist in most peoples eyes to say where we do take people in, give priority to those who have useful skills, will integrate well, share many aspects of our culture and whos ancestors come from these isles. However in the eyes of many progressives that is racist hence some of the current interesting political events on both sides of the Atlantic.
And if you're in Geneva, it will be French and English.
If you proceed from the standpoint that those not sharing your convictions are either thick, racist trailer trash who need to be lectured, shamed and browbeaten into submission, or crazed fascists who can simply be written off, then one would venture to suggest that an event such as an election or referendum is less likely to produce the outcome that you desire.
People can usually tell when somebody regards them as beneath contempt, and are liable to return the favour.
You don't even need to project that far into the future.
I don;t see anything in Britain as ugly and stupid as having nearly half of your young people sitting around doing nothing for the sake of a broken ideal.
And that's what gets me about many remainers. Their complete inability to comprehend the EU's huge flaws, and how unreformable it is.
SNP 50%
Con 21%
Lab 16%
LD 5%
Green 4%
UKIP 4%
twitter.com/britainelects/status/780138759241203718
Compared to general election:
SNP nc
Con +6%
Lab -8%
LD -2%
Green +3%
UKIP +2%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results/scotland
A bit like when you post here but without any emoticons (although there is obviously face to face contact).
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/barrow/Barrow-borough-councillor-calls-for-new-parliamentary-party-after-he-quits-as-Labour-member-dc501d3b-e528-42ef-8842-c37d7d4f2121-ds
http://www.pembrokeshire-herald.com/28434/another-labour-councillor-quits-the-party-whip/
Our membership or otherwise doesn't help unemployed Italians (except perhaps by offering them a better life in the UK).
England is over a thousand years old as a concept, France likewise. Once the Dark Ages settled down there was a lot of churn elsewhere as the likes of Burgundy and Brandenburg rose and fell, splintered and coalesced.
The only people who succeeded in a prolonged, successful European empire were the Romans. Charlemagne's was a fraction of theirs and fell to pieces by the time of his grandchildren. Napoleon's little empire was the work of a decade or two.
The approach today is bureaucratic, and the rise of empire is less bloody, but its demise has plenty of potential for civil disorder or even warfare.
Apologies for the slow reply, I was AFK.
Incidentally, this piece I wrote is still relevant, as it's on states' longevity:
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/how-long-can-state-survive.html
To make it work, it has to be more than 'loose' in my opinion. We have to be able to protect each other from intimidation by large blocks.
Basically, our Navy needs to treble in size. At least.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/26/labour-left-traitor-mps-deselections-jeremy-corbyn/
What to do with all the spare popcorn?