So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
Off topic, the Italian result looks messy even by their usual chaotic standards. The simplest way to a majority is for the two wallflowers, Five Star Movement and Lega, to get together, but could they work together in practice?
They'll be fine. As long as one of them hasn't pledged to cut student fees.....
The problem is that M5S has said: (a) it won't get into bed with Forza Italia, and (b) it won't play second fiddle in a coaliton.
So, the way it would have to work is for Lega Nord to ditch their pre-election partners, Forza Italia, and embrace M5S. Which would - of course - be a massive scandal, as many of those FPTP seats were only delivered to Lega Nord by dint of their Forza Italia coalition.
All this being said, Italy has never been bettered governed than when it hasn't had a government, so this could be a blessing in disguise for them.
As Charles eloquently put it "Politicians say what they say."
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre right coalition has "won" but come up short of a majority, 5* are the largest single party but are well short of a majority, the centre left coalition has been given a battering, though the main party is second on a single party basis.
Within that Forza Italia has not had a good night, they got beaten quite badly by Lega. Salvini has one hand on the premiership.
Finally, Salvini's fear that Berlusconi would go into coalition with PD after the election will come to naught since even with FI plus the centre left, there's no majority.
Like Germany, Italy has become ungovernable without including the populist upstart(s).
Overall it's probably the messiest election that Europe has seen for a while.
Oh I don't know, we had a good try in June 2017... ..
Nothing a billion quid couldn' sort out. (None of which has yet been drawn down - bargain!)
Amazing that there’s a billion reasons waiting on the table to have Stormont reconvened, yet they still haven’t been able to do it.
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
Edited extra bit: F1: from BBC gossip column: "British energy drinks group Rich Energy is set to announce the £200m acquisition of the Force India F1 team, which could come as early as this week."
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre-left is the biggest loser. It lost more than 6 points compared to 2013. It's even worse compared to the last European elections (-17 points) and considering that since 2013 the pro-Europe centrist coalition of Monti (more than 10% in 2013) has disappeared. It only stays strong in some urban areas and in the traditional red provinces (Toscana, Marche, Umbria). Renzi's career seems finished and Gentiloni's hope to stay on seems doomed by the terrible PD score.
The centre-right did much better than in 2013, with a gain of 8 points. However the internal balance of the coalition has totally changed: the Lega was almost dead in 2013 with 4% but is now the third largest single party in the country with 18%. Neo-fascist Fratelli d'Italia doubled its score from 2 to 4%. Opposingly, Berlusconi's Forza Italia lost 8 points. In terms of geography the League swept the North as expected but did actually quite well even in Central Italy. The problem for the coalition is that Berlusconi's party was not able to be competitive against the M5S in the South, as the left collapsed.
The M5S progressed a bit less (+6.5 points) but is now by far the biggest single party, built on a vgood performance in the North and Centre (20/25%) and a landslide in the South. One point of interest to me is that the extremely high scores of M5S in Napoli, Sicily and Calabria seem to indicate that traditional local powers have assented to their victory. It will be interesting to see how their inexeperienced MPs resist (or not) the inevitable pressures of organized crime.
Very useful summary, thanks! Wha about a 5* plus FI coalition? There is no affection between Berlusconi and Salvini. Main problem would be abandoning the right to Salvini. Alernatively a 5* minority government could suit everyone, but I hink they're rare in Italy?
Theresa May has suggested Britain’s future migration system will be a matter for negotiation with the EU, undermining previous promises to take back control.
The prime minister is already consulting an independent body, the Migration Advisory Council (MAC), on how the post-Brexit immigration system will work and has repeatedly delayed the immigration white paper and bill.
Some cabinet ministers are uneasy that the system will feel little different to present arrangements under EU free movement rules. Yesterday Mrs May suggested that the EU would get a say in the UK’s new system, in discussions likely to take place before the MAC issues its final report in September.
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
Edited extra bit: F1: from BBC gossip column: "British energy drinks group We used to be Rich Energy is set to announce the £200m acquisition of the Force India F1 team, which could come as early as this week."
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
Admitting that the EU is basically a prison, or a Hotel California, would be very funny to watch - and not just in the UK either.
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
There are three reasons for Italy's dramatic underperformance:
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
More Fake News from the ardent leavers.
The only bit of Brexit that is difficult is keeping the promises the Brexiteers made to the people who voted for it.
An easy Brexit has
a hard border in Ireland no £350m for the NHS increased food prices loss of manufacturing industry
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
And the same people who lied and lied about how deeply the EU was becoming embedded in our laws making Parliament and our elections increasingly less important. If politicians in this country had been more honest about their enthusiasm for the project since Maastricht and made some sort of an effort to bring the country with them the result of the referendum might have been different. New Labour tried briefly when Blair was in his heart of Europe phase but quickly backed off.
Firstly there is unlikely to be a second referendum under a Tory PM, it would never get through her backbenchers. Second, even if there was there is unlikely to be a photo ID requirememt
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre right coalition has "won" but come up short of a majority, 5* are the largest single party but are well short of a majority, the centre left coalition has been given a battering, though the main party is second on a single party basis.
Within that Forza Italia has not had a good night, they got beaten quite badly by Lega. Salvini has one hand on the premiership.
Finally, Salvini's fear that Berlusconi would go into coalition with PD after the election will come to naught since even with FI plus the centre left, there's no majority.
Like Germany, Italy has become ungovernable without including the populist upstart(s).
Overall it's probably the messiest election that Europe has seen for a while.
Excellent summary.
You only missed out "And Brussels is going "oh bugger...."
Well it seems as though parties in favour of the EU are on about 35%, parties against are on about 35% and 5* are on about 30% but they are on the sceptic side of the fence, but fall short of calling for withdrawal or a referendum.
As far as the EU goes, it's not a good night when the two out and out pro EU parties have scored 21% between them (PD and +E). Every other party has various levels scepiticsm, none are what we would think of as pro-EU.
I think that's right.
The issue Italy has though, and the reason it's unlikely to end up pushing towards an Eurozone exit (even though that would probably be the right choice for them), is demographics.
Old people have savings and fixed incomes. A devaluation means reducing the value of fixed incomes and savings.
Of course, the whole economy would benefit from a devaluation (and a return to the old Italian growth model). But a pitch that involves telling someone living on €800/month, that they will now have Lira worth €600/month isn't going to fly.
In Greece, it was the oldies that prevented Grexit. Italy is an even more elderly society than Greece, and its pensioners are more dependent on their own savings. I can't see them voting for a rebalancing towards the young.
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
There are three reasons for Italy's dramatic underperformance:
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
And now they have elected parties committed to yet more public spending and debt accumulation. Maybe they needed some of that immigration after all.
Edited extra bit: F1: from BBC gossip column: "British energy drinks group Rich Energy is set to announce the £200m acquisition of the Force India F1 team, which could come as early as this week."
Joe Saward had this story about 10 days ago, he’s done a fair bit of digging but can’t see how they have the money. It could be a decoy to try and smoke out a genuine bidder who wants the team but is trying to take advantage of the Indians’ desperation to sell.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
I'm struggling to find anything on the BBC website on the Italian election.
It's just wall-to-wall luvvie Oscars sanctimony.
It was lead item for a bit last night but dare I say big gains for Eurosceptic parties in the Eurozone's third biggest economy is not something the BBC or even OGH are that keen to dwell too much on hence after the Oscars and the Italian general election we have this morning's rather odd thread header
This is Mike Smithson suggesting a way to rig any second referendum, which puts Remain in a bad light. I hope he's joking. I'm Remain but his suggestion is out of order for the reasons he points out.
Given the closeness of the first result I'd say there is a mandate for the softest possible Brexit for England and a much bigger one for Remain in Scotland where I live.
It would make more sense to include voters down to age 16 as this would be a decision we would all be living with for a long time to come, unlike General Elections, but that boat has probably sailed too.
Would such a referendum be Remain/Negotiated Brexit, or Negotiated Brexit/WTO or would it have more than two options?
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
There are three reasons for Italy's dramatic underperformance:
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
They need to come by some more young people from somewhere?
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
And the same people who lied and lied about how deeply the EU was becoming embedded in our laws making Parliament and our elections increasingly less important. If politicians in this country had been more honest about their enthusiasm for the project since Maastricht and made some sort of an effort to bring the country with them the result of the referendum might have been different. New Labour tried briefly when Blair was in his heart of Europe phase but quickly backed off.
It's telling that Blair saw what Cameron couldn't - that selling the EU to the British was in the "too difficult to do" box.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
I guess we now wait for everyone to throw away their manifesto and stitch up a government among themselves, as usually happens with proportional voting systems that don’t deliver a clear verdict.
The problem is that the M5S could become identified as the party of the South, thus excluding any deal with the Lega that is still considered anti-South by many southern Italians.
The other problem is that all EU leaders wanted a deal between the centre-left and the most reasonable part of the right (PD, Forza Italia, +Europa, Noi con Italia) and they won't get nearly enough seats.
M5S have said they will not be junior partners in any coalition, so it's not clear what government is possible.
Given Lega came ahead of Forza Italia Salvini would have first claim to be PM of the centre right coalition rather than a Forza Italia figure which Berlusconi would have hoped for.
It is not impossible therefore that Berlusconi could back Di Maio instead
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
There are three reasons for Italy's dramatic underperformance:
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
And now they have elected parties committed to yet more public spending and debt accumulation. Maybe they needed some of that immigration after all.
Almost everyone else in the Eurozone has taken their medicine: the Spanish, Portuguese, and the Greeks structurally lowered the level of public sector spending, sorted out their banks, increased retirement ages, and liberalised their labour markets. Even the French are making progress on labour market reform.
But Italy, poor Italy, has done none of what's required.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
I'm struggling to find anything on the BBC website on the Italian election.
It's just wall-to-wall luvvie Oscars sanctimony.
It was lead item for a bit last night but dare I say big gains for Eurosceptic parties in the Eurozone's third biggest economy is not something the BBC or even OGH are that keen to dwell too much on hence after the Oscars and the Italian general election we have this morning's rather odd thread header
It's referenced in the top item. And the story is on the front page. Not sure what CR is going on about . Oscars and Wiggins are bigger stories than an inconclusive Italian election.
It also shows the other prisoners elsewhere in Europe that it is indeed a jail and not a holiday resort. The clank of the iron door may concentrate a few minds.
Another reason the EU cannot give favourable terms. The history of this entanglement and the lies successive governments told may bear examining. How about a government committee to look into this?
The issue Italy has though, and the reason it's unlikely to end up pushing towards an Eurozone exit (even though that would probably be the right choice for them), is demographics.
Old people have savings and fixed incomes. A devaluation means reducing the value of fixed incomes and savings.
Of course, the whole economy would benefit from a devaluation (and a return to the old Italian growth model). But a pitch that involves telling someone living on €800/month, that they will now have Lira worth €600/month isn't going to fly.
In Greece, it was the oldies that prevented Grexit. Italy is an even more elderly society than Greece, and its pensioners are more dependent on their own savings. I can't see them voting for a rebalancing towards the young.
Italy, like Greece, has a huge brain drain issue. If you're young and talented in Italy there is nothing for you, especially in the south. My best friend's wife is Italian, she left Italy when she was 18 and went to uni in London. She has never thought about going back to Italy and after Brexit her first action was to sort out her British citizenship to ensure there was no chance of being sent back to Italy.
Italy's demographic issues are as much to do with its low birthrate as it is with young Italians leaving for places where they can get decent jobs. The only way to get them back for reasons other than retirement or holidays is to create a new and more dynamic economy. I don't see how they achieve that within the Euro. As you rightly point out, the oldies aren't going to vote to leave it. I'm genuinely stumped as to where Italy heads now. It's such a beautiful country with amazing culture, it deserves better than what FI and PD have delivered over the last 20 years.
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre-left is the biggest loser. It lost more than 6 points compared to 2013. It's even worse compared to the last European elections (-17 points) and considering that since 2013 the pro-Europe centrist coalition of Monti (more than 10% in 2013) has disappeared. It only stays strong in some urban areas and in the traditional red provinces (Toscana, Marche, Umbria). Renzi's career seems finished and Gentiloni's hope to stay on seems doomed by the terrible PD score.
The centre-right did much better than in 2013, with a gain of 8 points. However the internal balance of the coalition has totally changed: the Lega was almost dead in 2013 with 4% but is now the third largest single party in the country with 18%. Neo-fascist Fratelli d'Italia doubled its score from 2 to 4%. Opposingly, Berlusconi's Forza Italia lost 8 points. In terms of geography the League swept the North as expected but did actually quite well even in Central Italy. The problem for the coalition is that Berlusconi's party was not able to be competitive against the M5S in the South, as the left collapsed.
The M5S progressed a bit less (+6.5 points) but is now by far the biggest single party, built on a vgood performance in the North and Centre (20/25%) and a landslide in the South. One point of interest to me is that the extremely high scores of M5S in Napoli, Sicily and Calabria seem to indicate that traditional local powers have assented to their victory. It will be interesting to see how their inexeperienced MPs resist (or not) the inevitable pressures of organized crime.
Very useful summary, thanks! Wha about a 5* plus FI coalition? There is no affection between Berlusconi and Salvini. Main problem would be abandoning the right to Salvini. Alernatively a 5* minority government could suit everyone, but I hink they're rare in Italy?
Berlusconi said tonight that the centre-right has won, and that Italians have chosen not to endorse the other alternative to the left i.e. M5S. Everything is always possible with Berlusconi... but I think His party will have to let Salvini have a go at forming a majority. He won't be able to do that but the centre-right will will still have more MPs and Senators than M5S and could try to govern as a minority government.
There were quite a few minority governments during the PR era (1946/94) but they would typically only last a few months. As far as I know, all governements since 1994 had a majority (excluding "technical governments")
Mr. Royale, be fair. Imagine you're a left, pro-EU, metropolitan. What's nicer to write about? Some right-on luvvies, or the Italians voting for sceptical parties?
Mr. Mark, shade unfair. Blair had two landslides and a large win. he never had to face the rising tide of scepticism, but he and Brown were, in significant part, responsible for said tide due to the dishonesty over Lisbon.
I guess we now wait for everyone to throw away their manifesto and stitch up a government among themselves, as usually happens with proportional voting systems that don’t deliver a clear verdict.
The problem is that the M5S could become identified as the party of the South, thus excluding any deal with the Lega that is still considered anti-South by many southern Italians.
The other problem is that all EU leaders wanted a deal between the centre-left and the most reasonable part of the right (PD, Forza Italia, +Europa, Noi con Italia) and they won't get nearly enough seats.
M5S have said they will not be junior partners in any coalition, so it's not clear what government is possible.
Given Lega came ahead of Forza Italia Salvini would have first claim to be PM of the centre right coalition rather than a Forza Italia figure which Berlusconi would have hoped for.
It is not impossible therefore that Berlusconi could back Di Maio instead
The issue is that FI and LN had a formal coalition. They stepped down in the FPTP constituencies in favour of each other. If I were a FI voter who could only vote for LN in my constituency, and knew they were in coalition together... and then saw the man I backed putting the M5S in power, I might be a bit pissed.
Italy's economic performance since the crash has been truly abysmal. Even now their economy is more than 5% smaller than it was in 2008. They have gone from having an economy broadly on a par with the UK and France to one nearly 20% smaller. Unemployment has been rife and many young Italians have voted with their feet and left the country to better prospects elsewhere.
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
There are three reasons for Italy's dramatic underperformance:
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
They need to come by some more young people from somewhere?
They need to stop losing the ones they have, at least.
This is Mike Smithson suggesting a way to rig any second referendum, which puts Remain in a bad light. I hope he's joking. I'm Remain but his suggestion is out of order for the reasons he points out.
Given the closeness of the first result I'd say there is a mandate for the softest possible Brexit for England and a much bigger one for Remain in Scotland where I live.
It would make more sense to include voters down to age 16 as this would be a decision we would all be living with for a long time to come, unlike General Elections, but that boat has probably sailed too.
Would such a referendum be Remain/Negotiated Brexit, or Negotiated Brexit/WTO or would it have more than two options?
Negotiated Brexit/WTO. Any alternative would be a reward for failure. Remain had their chance and blew it.
But it won't happen. David Herdson's excellent piece from a few weeks back suggested the timeline for a second referendum was extremely tight even then. Since then, May has made it clear she is a) pressing on with doing a deal and b) will not hold a second referendum that derails Brexit. Just on practical politics, I don't see where the pressure comes from to push a second referendum. Especially as the Tory rebels seem to be fracturing.
It also shows the other prisoners elsewhere in Europe that it is indeed a jail and not a holiday resort. The clank of the iron door may concentrate a few minds.
Another reason the EU cannot give favourable terms. The history of this entanglement and the lies successive governments told may bear examining. How about a government committee to look into this?
Truth and Reconciliation Commission? But if you think the Remainers will ever be reconciled....
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre-left is the biggest loser. It lost more than 6 points compared to 2013. It's even worse compared to the last European elections (-17 points) and considering that since 2013 the pro-Europe centrist coalition of Monti (more than 10% in 2013) has disappeared. It only stays strong in some urban areas and in the traditional red provinces (Toscana, Marche, Umbria). Renzi's career seems finished and Gentiloni's hope to stay on seems doomed by the terrible PD score.
The centre-right did much better than in 2013, with a gain of 8 points. However the internal balance of the coalition has totally changed: the Lega was almost dead in 2013 with 4% but is now the third largest single party in the country with 18%. Neo-fascist Fratelli d'Italia doubled its score from 2 to 4%. Opposingly, Berlusconi's Forza Italia lost 8 points. In terms of geography the League swept the North as expected but did actually quite well even in Central Italy. The problem for the coalition is that Berlusconi's party was not able to be competitive against the M5S in the South, as the left collapsed.
The M5S progressed a bit less (+6.5 points) but is now by far the biggest single party, built on a vgood performance in the North and Centre (20/25%) and a landslide in the South. One point of interest to me is that the extremely high scores of M5S in Napoli, Sicily and Calabria seem to indicate that traditional local powers have assented to their victory. It will be interesting to see how their inexeperienced MPs resist (or not) the inevitable pressures of organized crime.
Very useful summary, thanks! Wha about a 5* plus FI coalition? There is no affection between Berlusconi and Salvini. Main problem would be abandoning the right to Salvini. Alernatively a 5* minority government could suit everyone, but I hink they're rare in Italy?
Berlusconi said tonight that the centre-right has won, and that Italians have chosen not to endorse the other alternative to the left i.e. M5S. Everything is always possible with Berlusconi... but I think His party will have to let Salvini have a go at forming a majority. He won't be able to do that but the centre-right will will still have more MPs and Senators than M5S and could try to govern as a minority government.
There were quite a few minority governments during the PR era (1946/94) but they would typically only last a few months. As far as I know, all governements since 1994 had a majority (excluding "technical governments")
LN + FI is a long way short of a majority, so it would likely be extremely short lived.
Quite frankly I think this article is a disgraceful and appalling attitude from somebody who (I presume) would claim to believe in democracy. Most people would agree that it is acceptable to change the voting rules to prevent fraud but you appear to believe it is acceptable to change it for purely partisan advantage.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
The only bad habit it seems I have made this morning is giving you some credit for there being some thought process behind what you wrote.
"Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting."
So that leaves the following options, or why on earth would you have brought it up:
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Leaving aside your inviolate loyalty to the US investment banking sector British people, it is not a very nice view to take of your fellow travellers.
Off topic, the Italian result looks messy even by their usual chaotic standards. The simplest way to a majority is for the two wallflowers, Five Star Movement and Lega, to get together, but could they work together in practice?
They'll be fine. As long as one of them hasn't pledged to cut student fees.....
The problem is that M5S has said: (a) it won't get into bed with Forza Italia, and (b) it won't play second fiddle in a coaliton.
So, the way it would have to work is for Lega Nord to ditch their pre-election partners, Forza Italia, and embrace M5S. Which would - of course - be a massive scandal, as many of those FPTP seats were only delivered to Lega Nord by dint of their Forza Italia coalition.
All this being said, Italy has never been bettered governed than when it hasn't had a government, so this could be a blessing in disguise for them.
As Charles eloquently put it "Politicians say what they say."
Quite frankly I think this article is a disgraceful and appalling attitude from somebody who (I presume) would claim to believe in democracy. Most people would agree that it is acceptable to change the voting rules to prevent fraud but you appear to believe it is acceptable to change it for purely partisan advantage.
Though I think Fraser may be over-interpreting a bit - the 'enhanced perks' may have been in the works and were not necessarily Selmayr's doing - the Commissioners' silence more out of 'not rocking the boat' rather than 'reward for dosh' - or am I being naive and is this an even a bigger scandal than first appears?
Has anyone got a good summary of what has happened in Italy? Even by its own feeble standards the BBC is uninformative and somewhat out of date.
The centre right coalition has "won" but come up short of a majority, 5* are the largest single party but are well short of a majority, the centre left coalition has been given a battering, though the main party is second on a single party basis.
Within that Forza Italia has not had a good night, they got beaten quite badly by Lega. Salvini has one hand on the premiership.
Finally, Salvini's fear that Berlusconi would go into coalition with PD after the election will come to naught since even with FI plus the centre left, there's no majority.
Like Germany, Italy has become ungovernable without including the populist upstart(s).
Overall it's probably the messiest election that Europe has seen for a while.
Oh I don't know, we had a good try in June 2017... ..
Nothing a billion quid couldn't sort out. (None of which has yet been drawn down - bargain!)
How is the Magic Money Tree doing these days? It's fruit in a future harvest seems to be being promised to all and sundry these days....
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
The Lady Diana of Brexitry.
Diana Spencer?
Yep. The People’s Princess.
No, just a sense of responsibility. It’s the nature of the Squirearchy.
Off topic, the Italian result looks messy even by their usual chaotic standards. The simplest way to a majority is for the two wallflowers, Five Star Movement and Lega, to get together, but could they work together in practice?
They'll be fine. As long as one of them hasn't pledged to cut student fees.....
The problem is that M5S has said: (a) it won't get into bed with Forza Italia, and (b) it won't play second fiddle in a coaliton.
So, the way it would have to work is for Lega Nord to ditch their pre-election partners, Forza Italia, and embrace M5S. Which would - of course - be a massive scandal, as many of those FPTP seats were only delivered to Lega Nord by dint of their Forza Italia coalition.
All this being said, Italy has never been bettered governed than when it hasn't had a government, so this could be a blessing in disguise for them.
As Charles eloquently put it "Politicians say what they say."
Off topic, the Italian result looks messy even by their usual chaotic standards. The simplest way to a majority is for the two wallflowers, Five Star Movement and Lega, to get together, but could they work together in practice?
They'll be fine. As long as one of them hasn't pledged to cut student fees.....
The problem is that M5S has said: (a) it won't get into bed with Forza Italia, and (b) it won't play second fiddle in a coaliton.
So, the way it would have to work is for Lega Nord to ditch their pre-election partners, Forza Italia, and embrace M5S. Which would - of course - be a massive scandal, as many of those FPTP seats were only delivered to Lega Nord by dint of their Forza Italia coalition.
All this being said, Italy has never been bettered governed than when it hasn't had a government, so this could be a blessing in disguise for them.
As Charles eloquently put it "Politicians say what they say."
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
It would also be fun to see the argument "But Brexit's too difficult to do!" being made by people who have for decades, er, quietly beavered away to make Brexit too difficult to do.
"Too difficult to do" is a straw man. Leaving my well paid and interesting job is "too difficult to do". Leaving my loving wife and family is "too difficult to do". Especially when they have all for decades, quietly beavered away to make it "too difficult to do".
Leavers’ squirming when confronted with their leaders’ dishonesty and stupidity is quite something. If Elon Musk could harness it, he could send a rocket to Alpha Centauri.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Same applies to Remain voters too.
And as we're decades away from knowing whether 'Brexit was a good idea' or not, I suspect we'll never know.
Meanwhile the people who lost the argument on economics continue to press their case on....economics.....
It also shows the other prisoners elsewhere in Europe that it is indeed a jail and not a holiday resort. The clank of the iron door may concentrate a few minds.
Another reason the EU cannot give favourable terms. The history of this entanglement and the lies successive governments told may bear examining. How about a government committee to look into this?
I don't think Brexit is especially difficult to do. Lots of countries manage just fine outside the EU. The difficulty is doing it in 2 years flat. An 8-10 year detailed plan could get us out with minimal disruption.
Any odds up yet on a second election in Italy this year? Must be a reasonable chance, given the history and the result yesterday.
Sadly none that I know of; has to be a better than evens chance, doesn't it?
I was going to suggest that evens would probably be value. They’ve had more short-lived governments than almost anywhere else in Europe, and the result looks pretty deadlocked with the three large groupings - none of whom seem particularly interested in working with either of the others. Something will probably be cobbled together which will come unstuck at the first difficult decision that needs making, but there’s no majority that doesn’t involve 5* other than a grand coalition of left and right.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Same applies to Remain voters too.
And as we're decades away from knowing whether 'Brexit was a good idea' or not, I suspect we'll never know.
Meanwhile the people who lost the argument on economics continue to press their case on....economics.....
Yes true, but I didn't imply that politicians are expected to lie, and that it was up to Remain voters to do their own homework to find the truth.
And as to economics, despite our Lady of Stifel willingly giving up his second footman on their behalf, it is economics that helps the poorest and most needy in our society to improve their lives.
The charts in the header look disturbingly medical; I thought they were going to prove that Leave voters are more likely to harbour TB bacteria.
Can we not repurpose those polling card things which say You don't have to bring this to vote, so that they say You do have to bring this to vote (and give them numbers so they aren't easily faked), and only demand ID from people who have lost them?
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting. (Remain told plenty of lies as well.)
But fixing the system to favour one side (on which Remain have form - such as the tax payer funded advert that the government sent to every house) is simply wrong. Almost as bad as politicians giving away powers to a third party when they no right to do so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
No, We are discussing sense and lack of it. Leave is the Black Knight.
Nope. You are valuing different things. Personally I voted Leave despite the economic risks and in the knowledge I would almost certainly be poorer as s result.
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
Mr. Meeks, currently on the fourth series of Babylon 5 (watching on Pick). I'm not the Centauri would appeal to most Britons.
Though I have vague memories of the Alpha Centauri ambassador in a Doctor Who adventure (Jon Pertwee) [The Curse of Peladon, Google reveals] being a decent chap.
Which makes my plan even more cunning (if such a thing is conceivable) than it was before. Except that the current numbers may denote position in the register, and may therefore be correlated with addresses or something.
Quite frankly I think this article is a disgraceful and appalling attitude from somebody who (I presume) would claim to believe in democracy. Most people would agree that it is acceptable to change the voting rules to prevent fraud but you appear to believe it is acceptable to change it for purely partisan advantage.
You're new so didn't notice the irony. The clue was in the final sentence.
Mr. Meeks, currently on the fourth series of Babylon 5 (watching on Pick). I'm not the Centauri would appeal to most Britons.
Though I have vague memories of the Alpha Centauri ambassador in a Doctor Who adventure (Jon Pertwee) [The Curse of Peladon, Google reveals] being a decent chap.
Though I think Fraser may be over-interpreting a bit - the 'enhanced perks' may have been in the works and were not necessarily Selmayr's doing - the Commissioners' silence more out of 'not rocking the boat' rather than 'reward for dosh' - or am I being naive and is this an even a bigger scandal than first appears?
It’s a huge power grab by Drunker, to transfer the power to the bureaucracy under Selmayr, and he’s basically bribing the current Commissioners with cash and perks in order to do it. Why would a retired Commissioner need an office, a staff and a salary for five years when they no longer have a job? Remember that the Commissioner job itself is only a five year contract to begin with.
And yet they wonder why we voted to leave such an institution...
Leavers’ squirming when confronted with their leaders’ dishonesty and stupidity is quite something. If Elon Musk could harness it, he could send a rocket to Alpha Centauri.
Whereas Remainers just pretend to acknowledge all the lies on their side didn't exist. Some even continue to repeat them - largest free trade area in the world, anyone?
A nice analogy to the Brexit debate is that of a family who decide to buy a car. The adults decide to buy a mid-range saloon but the teenagers want a sports car. The parents are shown brochures of a steady saloon car by the salesman (in cahoots with the kids). The diubts of the parents grow and it's finally revealed as a sports car.
The teenagers (devious politicians) can't understand the fuss. "It's very shiny and it's progressive and it has a lot of chrome." "But it's not what we asked for." "Yes, it is." "No, it's not." "But we're stuck with it now." "No, we're not."
The Trade Description Act doesn't apply to politicians, but some on the Remain side fail to see that caveat emptor makes a poor defence to their deceit in the past.
The deceit is the issue for many. Espousing the so-called benefits again won't remove that stain. The bleats of "You should have checked," doesn't win the argument either.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
The only bad habit it seems I have made this morning is giving you some credit for there being some thought process behind what you wrote.
"Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting."
So that leaves the following options, or why on earth would you have brought it up:
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Leaving aside your inviolate loyalty to the US investment banking sector British people, it is not a very nice view to take of your fellow travellers.
Or (d) All politicians lie. Voters make their decisions based on a range of inputs.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
You are misinterpreting. In my views leavers were motivated by philosophy ; Remainers by base greed. We are clearly higher up the hierarchy of needs
You quite clearly were saying that Leavers should have done their homework and didn’t.
Your argument is simply “Leave voters are stupid”.
My view is that voters take politicians’ words as one input but cast their vote based on a range of inputs, many of which are intuitive.
You can’t say “X lied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Same applies to Remain voters too.
And as we're decades away from knowing whether 'Brexit was a good idea' or not, I suspect we'll never know.
Meanwhile the people who lost the argument on economics continue to press their case on....economics.....
Most Brexiters concede - see Charles upthread - that Brexit is economically negative. In fact, so does opinion polling.
It’s just that other factors seem to be more important.
So you don’t think Remain can win without fixing the vote? like trying to ram through votes for children?
Very telling, Mr Smithson, very telling.
And rather saddening
You should be ashamed of yourself
Leave won by telling a whole lot of lies... There are many people I know who voted leave who now complain they didn't realise the enormity of it.
Politicians say what they so.
Not a very charitable view of your fellow Leavers, Charles; too stupid to do the appropriate due diligence (whether because they couldn’t or wouldn’t) to check whether the politicians were lying to them or not.
Ys
t.
Yied. Therefore the result is invalid”. Because you can’t prove that X impacted the outcome
Stop wriggling. You said it was up to Voters to discern whether politicians were lying via due diligence which Leave voters had not done. It wasn’t me who said they were stupid, it was you.
I didn’t say Leavers hadn’t done their diligence, I said it was their responsibility to do it rather than just taking politicians at face value.
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
The only bad habit it seems I have made this morning is giving you some credit for there being some thought process behind what you wrote.
"Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting."
So that leaves the following options, or why on earth would you have brought it up:
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Leaving aside your inviolate loyalty to the US investment banking sector British people, it is not a very nice view to take of your fellow travellers.
Or (d) All politicians lie. Voters make their decisions based on a range of inputs.
First, all politicians don't lie. That is a facile comment on a par with @DavidL berating the European parliament while admitting that he didn't know the identity of, and nor had he engaged with his MEP.
Second, of course voters make decisions on a range of inputs. I was just saddened that you had such a low view of your fellow Leavers.
A nice analogy to the Brexit debate is that of a family who decide to buy a car. The adults decide to buy a mid-range saloon but the teenagers want a sports car. The parents are shown brochures of a steady saloon car by the salesman (in cahoots with the kids). The diubts of the parents grow and it's finally revealed as a sports car.
The teenagers (devious politicians) can't understand the fuss. "It's very shiny and it's progressive and it has a lot of chrome." "But it's not what we asked for." "Yes, it is." "No, it's not." "But we're stuck with it now." "No, we're not."
The Trade Description Act doesn't apply to politicians, but some on the Remain side fail to see that caveat emptor makes a poor defence to their deceit in the past.
The deceit is the issue for many. Espousing the so-called benefits again won't remove that stain. The bleats of "You should have checked," doesn't win the argument either.
Brexit is like trading a seventh generation BMW 530d for a mid 90s TVR Griffith. It's theoretically more exciting but, in reality, no faster and is so badly built it's not capable of completing a journey under its own power.
Not surprising you trounced Leave so thoroughly in the referendum then, Scottie; all that knocking on doors by you personally certainly paid off. Unseemly to gloat, though.
Mr. Meeks, currently on the fourth series of Babylon 5 (watching on Pick). I'm not the Centauri would appeal to most Britons.
Though I have vague memories of the Alpha Centauri ambassador in a Doctor Who adventure (Jon Pertwee) [The Curse of Peladon, Google reveals] being a decent chap.
I bought myself the boxed set as a retirement gift and look forward to binge watching in after the end of March
I guess we now wait for everyone to throw away their manifesto and stitch up a government among themselves, as usually happens with proportional voting systems that don’t deliver a clear verdict.
The problem is that the M5S could become identified as the party of the South, thus excluding any deal with the Lega that is still considered anti-South by many southern Italians.
The other problem is that all EU leaders wanted a deal between the centre-left and the most reasonable part of the right (PD, Forza Italia, +Europa, Noi con Italia) and they won't get nearly enough seats.
M5S have said they will not be junior partners in any coalition, so it's not clear what government is possible.
Given Lega came ahead of Forza Italia Salvini would have first claim to be PM of the centre right coalition rather than a Forza Italia figure which Berlusconi would have hoped for.
It is not impossible therefore that Berlusconi could back Di Maio instead
The issue is that FI and LN had a formal coalition. They stepped down in the FPTP constituencies in favour of each other. If I were a FI voter who could only vote for LN in my constituency, and knew they were in coalition together... and then saw the man I backed putting the M5S in power, I might be a bit pissed.
Salvini is the most likely next PM certainly as the centre right coalition won most seats but if that does not work out Di Maio as leader of the largest single party will fancy his chances
Like Germany, Italy has become ungovernable without including the populist upstart(s).
Like Germany???
A last ditch grand coalition which is going to decimate the SPD and see AfD become the official opposition and probably come second at the next election.
To your predictable glee.
No glee at all, I think the CDU should have dumped Merkel and gone back to the public, then a Union+FDP coalition would probably have just about been enough. Merkel is the problem, AfD are just a symptom of her awful policies.
Who do you think the CDU could have picked who would have been more popular than Merkel?
Or (d) All politicians lie. Voters make their decisions based on a range of inputs.
That's probably unfair for the majority. They present the facts most favourable to their case, and omit the unfavourable ones.
But this idea that one side was a rayful of knaves, the other a flight of angels does rather illustrate the difficulty Remain are having in understanding any point of view but their own.
They’re all still talking to themselves about how wrong we were to vote leave, even though the vote happened 20 months ago.
They’ve still not realised that the time for convincing people of your argument is *before* they have to vote on the issue.
Leave voters in the referendum are dying off. You need new converts if Brexit is to last. Tick tock.
If in future the UK decides to rejoin the EU, that’s their prerogative and will be their decision at the time. I’ve no problem with that.
I can’t see the EU remaining as it is though, it will either go forwards towards a single state as it has so far, or take a step back towards the old Common Market. It’s possible that it may split along those lines into two organisations, in which case it’s quite probable the UK would vote to join the latter.
Comments
But the secret people had been demanding change for many years and were being ignored. In a forced choice between London and the people my loyalties lie in one place only.
Changing the terms for a second referendum would be a wonderful way of cultivating a suspicion it's being gerrymandered
Edited extra bit: F1: from BBC gossip column: "British energy drinks group Rich Energy is set to announce the £200m acquisition of the Force India F1 team, which could come as early as this week."
It is not immediately obvious why they have done so badly. Their financial sector is not particularly large and they did not have the uncontrolled housing finance booms of Iberia or Ireland. The ECB's policies of austerity without the relief of QE clearly did not help and Italy has only started to grow again since they adopted QE. But other countries which were harder hit initially, such as Spain and Portugal, have done much better since.
Public sector debt is north of 130% and a hugely destabilising force going forward sucking too much of the tax base into interest repayment. Italy used to cope with deficits by inflation and depreciation and does not seem to have adapted well to the rigours of the Euro. There is no question that over the next few years Italy is going to be a major issue for the EU.
Theresa May has suggested Britain’s future migration system will be a matter for negotiation with the EU, undermining previous promises to take back control.
The prime minister is already consulting an independent body, the Migration Advisory Council (MAC), on how the post-Brexit immigration system will work and has repeatedly delayed the immigration white paper and bill.
Some cabinet ministers are uneasy that the system will feel little different to present arrangements under EU free movement rules. Yesterday Mrs May suggested that the EU would get a say in the UK’s new system, in discussions likely to take place before the MAC issues its final report in September.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/22d1e82a-1ffe-11e8-a25c-0a92182647c9
1. Their economic model was based on an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations. When you got rid of the constant devaluations, you ended up with an inflexible economic model with a fixed exchange rate.
2. Other Eurozone countries used the crisis to clean up their banks balance sheets and reform themselves. Spain, France, Germany, etc. all sorted out their banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the crisis; Italy did not. This meant that it has been unable to efficiently allocate capital. Spain, in particular, liberalised their labour market; Italy did not.
3. Italy has appalling demographics. If you look at the ratio of retirees to people of working age, Italy looks like Japan (and has performed economically, very like them). Low birth rates plus rising life expectancy drags on economic growth.
The only bit of Brexit that is difficult is keeping the promises the Brexiteers made to the people who voted for it.
An easy Brexit has
a hard border in Ireland
no £350m for the NHS
increased food prices
loss of manufacturing industry
Simples!
The issue Italy has though, and the reason it's unlikely to end up pushing towards an Eurozone exit (even though that would probably be the right choice for them), is demographics.
Old people have savings and fixed incomes. A devaluation means reducing the value of fixed incomes and savings.
Of course, the whole economy would benefit from a devaluation (and a return to the old Italian growth model). But a pitch that involves telling someone living on €800/month, that they will now have Lira worth €600/month isn't going to fly.
In Greece, it was the oldies that prevented Grexit. Italy is an even more elderly society than Greece, and its pensioners are more dependent on their own savings. I can't see them voting for a rebalancing towards the young.
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/force-india-or-whatever-it-will-be-called-soon/
You have a bad habit of embellishing people’s quotes.
Given the closeness of the first result I'd say there is a mandate for the softest possible Brexit for England and a much bigger one for Remain in Scotland where I live.
It would make more sense to include voters down to age 16 as this would be a decision we would all be living with for a long time to come, unlike General Elections, but that boat has probably sailed too.
Would such a referendum be Remain/Negotiated Brexit, or Negotiated Brexit/WTO or would it have more than two options?
So he went about delivering it by stealth.
It is not impossible therefore that Berlusconi could back Di Maio instead
But Italy, poor Italy, has done none of what's required.
"But Brexit's too difficult to do."
It also shows the other prisoners elsewhere in Europe that it is indeed a jail and not a holiday resort. The clank of the iron door may concentrate a few minds.
Another reason the EU cannot give favourable terms. The history of this entanglement and the lies successive governments told may bear examining. How about a government committee to look into this?
Italy's demographic issues are as much to do with its low birthrate as it is with young Italians leaving for places where they can get decent jobs. The only way to get them back for reasons other than retirement or holidays is to create a new and more dynamic economy. I don't see how they achieve that within the Euro. As you rightly point out, the oldies aren't going to vote to leave it. I'm genuinely stumped as to where Italy heads now. It's such a beautiful country with amazing culture, it deserves better than what FI and PD have delivered over the last 20 years.
Berlusconi said tonight that the centre-right has won, and that Italians have chosen not to endorse the other alternative to the left i.e. M5S.
Everything is always possible with Berlusconi... but I think His party will have to let Salvini have a go at forming a majority. He won't be able to do that but the centre-right will will still have more MPs and Senators than M5S and could try to govern as a minority government.
There were quite a few minority governments during the PR era (1946/94) but they would typically only last a few months.
As far as I know, all governements since 1994 had a majority (excluding "technical governments")
Mr. Royale, be fair. Imagine you're a left, pro-EU, metropolitan. What's nicer to write about? Some right-on luvvies, or the Italians voting for sceptical parties?
Mr. Mark, shade unfair. Blair had two landslides and a large win. he never had to face the rising tide of scepticism, but he and Brown were, in significant part, responsible for said tide due to the dishonesty over Lisbon.
But it won't happen. David Herdson's excellent piece from a few weeks back suggested the timeline for a second referendum was extremely tight even then. Since then, May has made it clear she is a) pressing on with doing a deal and b) will not hold a second referendum that derails Brexit. Just on practical politics, I don't see where the pressure comes from to push a second referendum. Especially as the Tory rebels seem to be fracturing.
"Politicians say what they say. It’s incumbent on voters to do their own diligence before voting."
So that leaves the following options, or why on earth would you have brought it up:
a) Leave voters did their due diligence, and believed the Leave campaign
b) Leave voters did their due diligence, didn't believe the Leave campaign but voted to Leave
c) Leave voters didn't do their due diligence.
Leaving aside your inviolate loyalty to the
US investment banking sectorBritish people, it is not a very nice view to take of your fellow travellers.https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/970559313457672192
Though I think Fraser may be over-interpreting a bit - the 'enhanced perks' may have been in the works and were not necessarily Selmayr's doing - the Commissioners' silence more out of 'not rocking the boat' rather than 'reward for dosh' - or am I being naive and is this an even a bigger scandal than first appears?
For those unaware this piece is a counterpart to this piece on Friday.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/03/02/the-electoral-commission-attacks-the-governments-planned-voter-id-trials-as-unnecessary-and-over-bearing/
And as we're decades away from knowing whether 'Brexit was a good idea' or not, I suspect we'll never know.
Meanwhile the people who lost the argument on economics continue to press their case on....economics.....
And as to economics, despite our Lady of Stifel willingly giving up his second footman on their behalf, it is economics that helps the poorest and most needy in our society to improve their lives.
The charts in the header look disturbingly medical; I thought they were going to prove that Leave voters are more likely to harbour TB bacteria.
Can we not repurpose those polling card things which say You don't have to bring this to vote, so that they say You do have to bring this to vote (and give them numbers so they aren't easily faked), and only demand ID from people who have lost them?
Though I have vague memories of the Alpha Centauri ambassador in a Doctor Who adventure (Jon Pertwee) [The Curse of Peladon, Google reveals] being a decent chap.
After KEXIT she has taken back contol!!!
Their planet is much closer to Earth.
And yet they wonder why we voted to leave such an institution...
Let's not get our billionaires mixed up: Breakthrough Starshot is Yuri Milner, not Elon Musk.
Nevertheless, thanks for the correction. Your dictator for life suggestions, now I come to think of it, remind me of Cartagia
I’m more like Valen.
The teenagers (devious politicians) can't understand the fuss. "It's very shiny and it's progressive and it has a lot of chrome."
"But it's not what we asked for."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it's not."
"But we're stuck with it now."
"No, we're not."
The Trade Description Act doesn't apply to politicians, but some on the Remain side fail to see that caveat emptor makes a poor defence to their deceit in the past.
The deceit is the issue for many. Espousing the so-called benefits again won't remove that stain. The bleats of "You should have checked," doesn't win the argument either.
They’ve still not realised that the time for convincing people of your argument is *before* they have to vote on the issue.
In fact, so does opinion polling.
It’s just that other factors seem to be more important.
Second, of course voters make decisions on a range of inputs. I was just saddened that you had such a low view of your fellow Leavers.
Sent you a PM
@rcs1000
Likewise
"Leave voters in the referendum are dying off."
Desperate cries to cheer up Remainers. People mature, even teenagers.
But this idea that one side was a rayful of knaves, the other a flight of angels does rather illustrate the difficulty Remain are having in understanding any point of view but their own.
I can’t see the EU remaining as it is though, it will either go forwards towards a single state as it has so far, or take a step back towards the old Common Market. It’s possible that it may split along those lines into two organisations, in which case it’s quite probable the UK would vote to join the latter.