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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Democrats take small lead in Special Pennsylvania Congressiona

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited March 2018 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Democrats take small lead in Special Pennsylvania Congressional election in district won by Trump at WH2016 by 20%

What’s getting a lot of coverage in the US media at the moment is a big battle going on in the outskirts of Pittsburgh in a Special Congressional election caused by the resignation of the Republican incumbent over a sex scandal. It is said that millions of dollars has been spent and the Democrats are hoping they can take the district in an area that was natural Trump territory at WH2016. His margin was 20%

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    First :)
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    Second, like Hilary (not Benn). Trump's tariffs raises difficult questions about UK trade post SEM.....those steel tariffs will hurt hard.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited March 2018
    Interesting way of asking the question - it’s resulted in “Don’t knows” of only 8% - or perhaps Americans are always this decisive?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Sounds like it could be rather close in Pennsylvania.

    Betfair do have a market up but there’s not a lot of liquidity. The Republican can be backed at 1.71.

    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/event/28557456/market?marketId=1.139233341
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Nigelb said:
    tbh I'm close to giving up on following these negotiations. I'm not convinced anything said in public is particularly reliable on what either side is really negotiating.

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Start the game already!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Nigelb said:
    "Mutual recognition of standards" cuts both ways. They don't recognise ours. We don't recognise theirs.

    Remind me what the balance of trade is.....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited March 2018
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
    Absolutely. Recall the weeks before the first round of negotiations concluded in November when politicians on both sides were throwing bricks at each other in the media, while the adults in the room were getting on with it in private.

    Unfortunately the media love this stuff, even though 90% of their audience has tuned out by now.

    Yes, the minutiae of trade talks are by their nature dry and detailed, the Irish border provides a good soundbite. Trump being an idiot over trade undoubtedly does help, both sides will want to see the likes of Apple and Google paying a lot more tax.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,669
    Bellwether
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
    Absolutely. Recall the weeks before the first round of negotiations concluded in November when politicians on both sides were throwing bricks at each other in the media, while the adults in the room were getting on with it in private.

    Unfortunately the media love this stuff, even though 90% of their audience has tuned out by now.

    Yes, the minutiae of trade talks are by their nature dry and detailed, the Irish border provides a good soundbite. Trump being an idiot over trade undoubtedly does help, both sides will want to see the likes of Apple and Google paying a lot more tax.
    Correct. We will have months of drama prior to the October or possibly December European Council deal. Then some more drama until it passes the EU Parliament and Westminster.

    And then some more drama in 2019/2020 as the full deal is agreed.

    But, it will be done because both sides need it and want it.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    You couldn’t find someone with a better track record ........
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21


    The same David Cameron that all the head-melted Leavers were screaming to evict from Downing Street during the referendum campaign. It shows just how low their ambitions have fallen when reports of his return behind the scenes are treated as a triumph.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    It is becoming clearer by the day that Theresa May is leading the country towards a Brexit that she does not truly believe is in the national interest, even though she sees it as her duty to implement it. This is an extraordinary position for a prime minister to be in, psychologically as well as politically.

    There is no precedent for a leader consciously embarking on a course that they know will make their people poorer and less safe. No wonder Mrs May seems so tortured by her role in No 10. She is like one of the silhouettes of First World War soldiers that are being installed around the country: There But Not There, a shadow leader who commemorates past battles without having any substance herself.

    Asked last week whether she thought that leaving the EU would be worth it in the end, Mrs May could not in all honesty say “yes”. Instead, her reply was that “the British people voted for Brexit and I think it’s incumbent on their politicians to deliver on the decision that we asked them to take”. It was the answer to a completely different question but the uneasy smile betrayed her real feelings.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/pm-is-torn-between-duty-and-brexit-reality-rlmbzlc3l
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited March 2018
    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited March 2018
    Scott_P said:

    It is becoming clearer by the day that Theresa May is leading the country towards a Brexit that she does not truly believe is in the national interest, even though she sees it as her duty to implement it. This is an extraordinary position for a prime minister to be in, psychologically as well as politically.

    There is no precedent for a leader consciously embarking on a course that they know will make their people poorer and less safe. No wonder Mrs May seems so tortured by her role in No 10. She is like one of the silhouettes of First World War soldiers that are being installed around the country: There But Not There, a shadow leader who commemorates past battles without having any substance herself.

    I can think of a precedent. The Greek pm when he backed down to creditors a few years ago after calling a referendum on not doing so. There's a clip of him in the Greek parliament saying he doesn't agree with the measures he then proposed, he didn't think they would help, but that they had to implement them.

    Of course in that case he'd gained democratic mandate to not do what he did, but had merely been bluffing.
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,340
    Sandpit said:

    Sounds like it could be rather close in Pennsylvania.

    Betfair do have a market up but there’s not a lot of liquidity. The Republican can be backed at 1.71.

    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/event/28557456/market?marketId=1.139233341

    The MOE on that polli is +/-4.7%. So there is about a 70-80% chance the Dem is actually ahead
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    Oh I don’t know. If the morons are now desperate enough to rehabilitate David Cameron, previously public enemy number one, they can move on in time from pathetic three letter acronyms to appreciating George Osborne’s virtues.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,282
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive
    But here we have the problem - the easiest way to achieve all this is for the UK to be in the EU - not allowed due to the referendum result. The second easiest is EEA, EFTA type deal, and the third, which is eminently more difficult, is some kind of bespoke associate arrangement that ties the UK to the EU in areas where divergence creates more problems than it's worth, which is what the government want to pursue. It's not just tax, It's regulation. The problem with this is that It's detrimental to the interests of the EU to give Britain this type of deal because it flouts the integrity of the single market - and it stores up problems for later when a future UK government may unilaterally decide to diverge further but dispute losing access. If we want to maintain as close ties economically, you simply have to have equivalent regulation or the EU (and the UK for that matter, say under a Corbyn govt) runs the risk of being undercut. As a result, any deal of this type will result in the EU demanding a veto or a mechanism that ties the UK to EU rules in key sectors unless both sides come to a new agreement. The extent of this will probably be unacceptable to Tory Brexiteers, as it will limit our ability to do trade deals, and largely thwart the reason they wanted Brexit - the chance to be let loose ideologically (the same reason the hard left favour Brexit too, funnily enough).

    It won't, however, particularly affect those who backed Brexit for reasons of immigration. Which is why I increasingly think the way out for May will be to sacrifice Britain's position in drawing up rules within the EU for the ability to massively restrict migration. It'll diminish Britain, but that Will largely be the fault of the fantasists who pretended talk of nasty trade-offs was scaremongering.
  • Bellwether

    Not so sure, like twinter it's not a word used literally nowadays. Supposedly it was a wether with a bell around its neck and was used to locate the grazing group. Alternatively it was the natural born leader of the group and could be relied on to have the other sheep nearby. For this reason the bell was put around its neck. I would prefer the form Belwether myself.

    I am assuming we know what wethers are. Like gimmer, hogg, tup, ram and shot the word is still fully used.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Interesting way of asking the question - it’s resulted in “Don’t knows” of only 8% - or perhaps Americans are always this decisive?

    Brutal "likely voter" screens is probably one of the reasons.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:
    All he is saying is that membership of the Single Market requires a single rule book not mutual recognition

    The UK is leaving the SM
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sounds like it could be rather close in Pennsylvania.

    Betfair do have a market up but there’s not a lot of liquidity. The Republican can be backed at 1.71.

    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/event/28557456/market?marketId=1.139233341

    The MOE on that polli is +/-4.7%. So there is about a 70-80% chance the Dem is actually ahead
    I’d quite like to bet on the Democrat here, but sadly no-one has put any cash up on that side yet. Maybe this thread will kick start the market.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    Oh I don’t know. If the morons are now desperate enough to rehabilitate David Cameron, previously public enemy number one, they can move on in time from pathetic three letter acronyms to appreciating George Osborne’s virtues.
    Which are?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:
    All he is saying is that membership of the Single Market requires a single rule book not mutual recognition

    The UK is leaving the SM
    No, that wasn't all that he was saying - for example:
    He added that EU rules were clear that the European court of justice could intervene at any point to declare that mutual recognition of standards was undermining the single market’s integrity....

    Whether this means anything for the actual negotiations is for now moot, but it does fit in with the European stance having been consistently and deliberately obstructive.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    alex. said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    Oh I don’t know. If the morons are now desperate enough to rehabilitate David Cameron, previously public enemy number one, they can move on in time from pathetic three letter acronyms to appreciating George Osborne’s virtues.
    Which are?
    We're discussing people who can see virtues in Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Calibrate accordingly.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    MJW said:



    But here we have the problem - the easiest way to achieve all this is for the UK to be in the EU - not allowed due to the referendum result. The second easiest is EEA, EFTA type deal, and the third, which is eminently more difficult, is some kind of bespoke associate arrangement that ties the UK to the EU in areas where divergence creates more problems than it's worth, which is what the government want to pursue. It's not just tax, It's regulation. The problem with this is that It's detrimental to the interests of the EU to give Britain this type of deal because it flouts the integrity of the single market - and it stores up problems for later when a future UK government may unilaterally decide to diverge further but dispute losing access. If we want to maintain as close ties economically, you simply have to have equivalent regulation or the EU (and the UK for that matter, say under a Corbyn govt) runs the risk of being undercut. As a result, any deal of this type will result in the EU demanding a veto or a mechanism that ties the UK to EU rules in key sectors unless both sides come to a new agreement. The extent of this will probably be unacceptable to Tory Brexiteers, as it will limit our ability to do trade deals, and largely thwart the reason they wanted Brexit - the chance to be let loose ideologically (the same reason the hard left favour Brexit too, funnily enough).

    It won't, however, particularly affect those who backed Brexit for reasons of immigration. Which is why I increasingly think the way out for May will be to sacrifice Britain's position in drawing up rules within the EU for the ability to massively restrict migration. It'll diminish Britain, but that Will largely be the fault of the fantasists who pretended talk of nasty trade-offs was scaremongering.

    Sounds reasonable.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
  • PClippPClipp Posts: 2,138

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    You couldn’t find someone with a better track record ........
    Blind leading the blind.
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    Scott_P said:

    It is becoming clearer by the day that Theresa May is leading the country towards a Brexit that she does not truly believe is in the national interest, even though she sees it as her duty to implement it. This is an extraordinary position for a prime minister to be in, psychologically as well as politically.

    There is no precedent for a leader consciously embarking on a course that they know will make their people poorer and less safe. No wonder Mrs May seems so tortured by her role in No 10. She is like one of the silhouettes of First World War soldiers that are being installed around the country: There But Not There, a shadow leader who commemorates past battles without having any substance herself.

    Asked last week whether she thought that leaving the EU would be worth it in the end, Mrs May could not in all honesty say “yes”. Instead, her reply was that “the British people voted for Brexit and I think it’s incumbent on their politicians to deliver on the decision that we asked them to take”. It was the answer to a completely different question but the uneasy smile betrayed her real feelings.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/pm-is-torn-between-duty-and-brexit-reality-rlmbzlc3l

    You can taste the salty tears of sulking butthurt leaping out of the page. Ms Sylvester should take a leaf out of Dave Cameron’s book and move on.



  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    alex. said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    Oh I don’t know. If the morons are now desperate enough to rehabilitate David Cameron, previously public enemy number one, they can move on in time from pathetic three letter acronyms to appreciating George Osborne’s virtues.
    Which are?
    To be fair to the man at least he remained loyal up to the point he was sacked, which is not the case with half the cabinet now it sometimes seems.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    edited March 2018

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
    £39bn seems a long way from Eu100bn to me.

    https://www.ft.com/content/cc7eed42-2f49-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    "The EU has raised its opening demand for Britain’s Brexit bill to an upfront gross payment of up to €100bn, according to Financial Times analysis of new stricter demands driven by France and Germany."

    But maybe you use a different calibration. Or a different Google.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,060
    I see the Pittsburgh Special election is 13th March, but am interested in tha apparant swing. What could cause America's steel city to swing to the Democrats in the week where Trump was talking steel tarrifs (coincidence?).

    It does seem as if access to medical care in the opiod epidemic is a key issue, and one that the Republican was rather flat footed.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/pennsylvania-special-election-candidates-clash-over-how-combat-opioid-crisis-n853301
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
    Charles said that some French mates of his said that the EU were gobsmacked at how little DC asked for, because they were prepared to agree to stacks more for the sake of avoiding brexit. Sounds credible to me, because if someone has actually got the maximum out of a negotiation you'd expect it to be acrimonious, and some of your demands not to be met - it only goes through on the nod if you're not asking enough.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    edited March 2018
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
    I agree, the Withdrawal Agreement is largely settled, apart from technicalities and the intractable Irish border issue. However the border issue is about identity, not customs or tax. Such is why it's intractable. The border is an idea, not simply a demarcation of unit territories. The border defines Northern Ireland as a safe space for protestant unionists, but is an anathema to those living on either side of it, who are mostly catholic and Irish Republicans.

    The Good Friday Agreement made the border ambiguous. You could notice if it's important important to you. A harder border is OK from a unionist perspective. Controls at the Irish Sea are identity issues for them too. The risk for them, as supported by polling, is that a hard border drives Northern Ireland to union with the Republic. Sinn Fein for its part won't put any effort into softening Brexit. They think it's doing more for their cause than decades of bombing and shooting.

    Interesting article on this theme in yesterday's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/irish-border-brexiters-good-friday-agreement

    PS it's clear Theresa May doesn't get any of this, which is concerning.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    I feel a little sorry for Cameron over the negotiation. He's more pro-EU than the average Briton, and had that even more skewed by the sopping wet mandarins.

    F1: Test 2 - Test Harder, is underway. Live feed here:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/formula1/43287915

    On-topic: glad I didn't dip my toe into the market, as I have/had no idea how they'll go.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
    Charles said that some French mates of his said that the EU were gobsmacked at how little DC asked for, because they were prepared to agree to stacks more for the sake of avoiding brexit. Sounds credible to me, because if someone has actually got the maximum out of a negotiation you'd expect it to be acrimonious, and some of your demands not to be met - it only goes through on the nod if you're not asking enough.
    Sounds reasonable. How much more Cameron might have got is of course a matter of conjecture - Charles' French mates notwithstanding - but even his greatest supporters were underwhelmed by the deal.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679
    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
    Overpromising, underdelivering and working to an unrealistically tight timescale has been the way Brexit has been done so far. It is almost as if somebody somewhere wants to discredit the whole idea.

    In the meantime back in the real world another example of how the UK will do worse outside the EU than in it.

    https://www.ft.com/content/9461157c-1f97-11e8-9efc-0cd3483b8b80

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Foxy said:

    I see the Pittsburgh Special election is 13th March, but am interested in tha apparant swing. What could cause America's steel city to swing to the Democrats in the week where Trump was talking steel tarrifs (coincidence?).

    It does seem as if access to medical care in the opiod epidemic is a key issue, and one that the Republican was rather flat footed.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/pennsylvania-special-election-candidates-clash-over-how-combat-opioid-crisis-n853301

    There are just not that many people employed in steel making anymore,
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,060

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
    £39bn seems a long way from Eu100bn to me.

    https://www.ft.com/content/cc7eed42-2f49-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    "The EU has raised its opening demand for Britain’s Brexit bill to an upfront gross payment of up to €100bn, according to Financial Times analysis of new stricter demands driven by France and Germany."

    But maybe you use a different calibration. Or a different Google.
    Partly the difference between gross and net. What happened to" not a penny"?

    The truth is that we dance to the EU tune. The Withdrawal agreement produced by the EU last week will not significantly change.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Groundhog day. What happened to the idea of a Brexit free day?
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    DavidL said:

    Groundhog day. What happened to the idea of a Brexit free day?

    I am having one

    Au revior
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
    £39bn seems a long way from Eu100bn to me.

    https://www.ft.com/content/cc7eed42-2f49-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    "The EU has raised its opening demand for Britain’s Brexit bill to an upfront gross payment of up to €100bn, according to Financial Times analysis of new stricter demands driven by France and Germany."

    But maybe you use a different calibration. Or a different Google.
    September, sweetheart.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-davis-brexit-bill-eu-conservative-party-tory-cabinet-civil-war-theresa-may-boris-johnson-a7963936.html

    I haven't looked but I expect I could find a quote from you from the time confidently stating that the EU would get nothing like that figure.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21


    The same David Cameron that all the head-melted Leavers were screaming to evict from Downing Street during the referendum campaign. It shows just how low their ambitions have fallen when reports of his return behind the scenes are treated as a triumph.
    I don’t see anyone treating it as a triumph. But it’s a perfectly sensible thing to do
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    edited March 2018
    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    MJW said:


    But here we have the problem - the easiest way to achieve all this is for the UK to be in the EU - not allowed due to the referendum result. The second easiest is EEA, EFTA type deal, and the third, which is eminently more difficult, is some kind of bespoke associate arrangement that ties the UK to the EU in areas where divergence creates more problems than it's worth, which is what the government want to pursue. It's not just tax, It's regulation. The problem with this is that It's detrimental to the interests of the EU to give Britain this type of deal because it flouts the integrity of the single market - and it stores up problems for later when a future UK government may unilaterally decide to diverge further but dispute losing access. If we want to maintain as close ties economically, you simply have to have equivalent regulation or the EU (and the UK for that matter, say under a Corbyn govt) runs the risk of being undercut. As a result, any deal of this type will result in the EU demanding a veto or a mechanism that ties the UK to EU rules in key sectors unless both sides come to a new agreement. The extent of this will probably be unacceptable to Tory Brexiteers, as it will limit our ability to do trade deals, and largely thwart the reason they wanted Brexit - the chance to be let loose ideologically (the same reason the hard left favour Brexit too, funnily enough).

    It won't, however, particularly affect those who backed Brexit for reasons of immigration. Which is why I increasingly think the way out for May will be to sacrifice Britain's position in drawing up rules within the EU for the ability to massively restrict migration. It'll diminish Britain, but that Will largely be the fault of the fantasists who pretended talk of nasty trade-offs was scaremongering.

    I think so too. I would add a couple of points. I

    I don't think most Leavers care about sovereignty in practice. Perhaps counterintuitive. They are very keen on sovereignty as a concept, but have no interest in making the choices and tradeoffs that sovereignty should bring. That's much more a Remainer concern.

    I suspect UK restrictions on immigration will be part of the agreement and will be relatively modest in effect.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
    I agree, the Withdrawal Agreement is largely settled, apart from technicalities and the intractable Irish border issue. However the border issue is about identity, not customs or tax. Such is why it's intractable. The border is an idea, not simply a demarcation of unit territories. The border defines Northern Ireland as a safe space for protestant unionists, but is an anathema to those living on either side of it, who are mostly catholic and Irish Republicans.

    The Good Friday Agreement made the border ambiguous. You could notice if it's important important to you. A harder border is OK from a unionist perspective. Controls at the Irish Sea are identity issues for them too. The risk for them, as supported by polling, is that a hard border drives Northern Ireland to union with the Republic. Sinn Fein for its part won't put any effort into softening Brexit. They think it's doing more for their cause than decades of bombing and shooting.

    Interesting article on this theme in yesterday's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/irish-border-brexiters-good-friday-agreement

    PS it's clear Theresa May doesn't get any of this, which is concerning.
    Good analysis - I cannot imagine how a border can be imposed in Northern Ireland, there are massive policing, financial, security and practical issues (manning, legal issues) that make it impossible, let alone what the DUP say.....
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    edited March 2018
    Cameron's negotiation is where the referendum was lost. Bigging up an unpolished turd showed how little Cammo wanted and how stupid he considered his opponents. How to lose trust and credibility?

    Anyway, that's water under the bridge now. We're leaving.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:
    They don’t have to give us a trade deal. And we don’t have to give them a cheque.

    As @rkrkrk says above, a period of silence wouldn’t go amiss until the negotiators have actually spent the next six months, umm, negotiating.
    There is more going on behind the scenes than is generally appreciated. The - civil servant rather than politician - negotiators on both sides are pretty professional, and there are surprisingly few major areas of disagreement.

    The Irish border issue is not about technology (despite the discussions on this board): it's about Apple Retail (UK) Ltd buying iPhones from Apple Ireland, and about ways of ensuring that doesn't allow base tax erosion.

    I also suspect the Donald has accidentally managed to drive the sides closer together.
    I agree, the Withdrawal Agreement is largely settled, apart from technicalities and the intractable Irish border issue. However the border issue is about identity, not customs or tax. Such is why it's intractable. The border is an idea, not simply a demarcation of unit territories. The border defines Northern Ireland as a safe space for protestant unionists, but is an anathema to those living on either side of it, who are mostly catholic and Irish Republicans.

    The Good Friday Agreement made the border ambiguous. You could notice if it's important important to you. A harder border is OK from a unionist perspective. Controls at the Irish Sea are identity issues for them too. The risk for them, as supported by polling, is that a hard border drives Northern Ireland to union with the Republic. Sinn Fein for its part won't put any effort into softening Brexit. They think it's doing more for their cause than decades of bombing and shooting.

    Interesting article on this theme in yesterday's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/irish-border-brexiters-good-friday-agreement

    PS it's clear Theresa May doesn't get any of this, which is concerning.
    Good analysis - I cannot imagine how a border can be imposed in Northern Ireland, there are massive policing, financial, security and practical issues (manning, legal issues) that make it impossible, let alone what the DUP say.....
    How do they manage it in every other border everywhere else in the world?

    Not saying its ideal but of course it is possible.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
    £39bn seems a long way from Eu100bn to me.

    https://www.ft.com/content/cc7eed42-2f49-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    "The EU has raised its opening demand for Britain’s Brexit bill to an upfront gross payment of up to €100bn, according to Financial Times analysis of new stricter demands driven by France and Germany."

    But maybe you use a different calibration. Or a different Google.
    September, sweetheart.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-davis-brexit-bill-eu-conservative-party-tory-cabinet-civil-war-theresa-may-boris-johnson-a7963936.html

    I haven't looked but I expect I could find a quote from you from the time confidently stating that the EU would get nothing like that figure.
    If you bothered to look, you'd see me expecting the deal to be around £40 billion....
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Cameron decided to go for a quick negotiation, early referendum.
    Once you've decided that - you have essentially accepted there can be no treaty change and hugely limited your scope. It may be convenient to blame civil servants - but they were merely following through on the logic of the decision already made.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited March 2018
    CD13 said:

    Cameron's negotiation is where the referendum was lost. Bigging up an unshiny turd showed how little Cammo wanted and how stupid he considered his opponents. How to lose trust and credibility?

    Anyway, that's now water under the bridge now. We're leaving.

    Indeed so. He over promised and under delivered from his excellent Bloomberg speech, compared to what he actually negotiated - then said he’d achieved a miracle rather than the steamy turd a lot of us saw.
  • DavidL said:

    Groundhog day. What happened to the idea of a Brexit free day?

    Every day is Cake and Eat It day
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Sandpit said:

    CD13 said:

    Cameron's negotiation is where the referendum was lost. Bigging up an unshiny turd showed how little Cammo wanted and how stupid he considered his opponents. How to lose trust and credibility?

    Anyway, that's now water under the bridge now. We're leaving.

    Indeed so. He over promised and under delivered from his excellent Bloomberg speech, compared to what he actually negotiated - then said he’d achieved a miracle rather than the steamy turd a lot of us saw.
    Cameron believed his own hype. It was his undoing like virtually every PM before and since.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    I expect on current trends the Democrats will take this seat and the House on a midterm protest vote.

    Though the Republicans should keep the Senate
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    rkrkrk said:

    I am still intrigued as to how it will all come out. But at the moment it feels like watching endless pre-match analysis of a premier league match.

    Most of these pundits never seem to have even watched a game before. Still less, know anything about the rules....

    These are the same pundits who were endlessly retweeting each others opinions that we we would never reach a deal with the EU on the money. Until we reached a deal on the money.

    At the amount th EU was bruiting in September. And the Leavers, having been apoplectic in September, claimed it as a triumph in December.
    £39bn seems a long way from Eu100bn to me.

    https://www.ft.com/content/cc7eed42-2f49-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

    "The EU has raised its opening demand for Britain’s Brexit bill to an upfront gross payment of up to €100bn, according to Financial Times analysis of new stricter demands driven by France and Germany."

    But maybe you use a different calibration. Or a different Google.
    September, sweetheart.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-davis-brexit-bill-eu-conservative-party-tory-cabinet-civil-war-theresa-may-boris-johnson-a7963936.html

    I haven't looked but I expect I could find a quote from you from the time confidently stating that the EU would get nothing like that figure.
    If you bothered to look, you'd see me expecting the deal to be around £40 billion....
    If you bothered to think, you'd see this link destroys your carefully constructed fable about a negotiation where no one in December thought a deal could be done on the money and no one expected the final figure.

    The government was negotiating and educating Leavers. But it did not reckon on their ability to rewrite history in their own heads.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    CD13 said:

    Cameron's negotiation is where the referendum was lost. Bigging up an unpolished turd showed how little Cammo wanted and how stupid he considered his opponents. How to lose trust and credibility?

    Anyway, that's water under the bridge now. We're leaving.

    The key was Cameron failing to get any significant concessions on free movement which could have at least reflected the fact we could have had transition controls on free movement from the new accession countries in 2004 but they were not taken up thanks to Blair
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,340
    HYUFD said:

    I expect on current trends the Democrats will take this seat and the House on a midterm protest vote.

    Though the Republicans should keep the Senate

    The question is, who will Trump supporters blame? Trump, or Republicans for not being right-wing enough?

    I think we can guess the answer.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    A falling rate of conceptions may be advanced indicator of a recession says new research.

    "It found that fertility started to decline several quarters before the economy turned down."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/05/uh-oh-falling-birth-rate-signals-recession-ahead/
  • rawzerrawzer Posts: 189

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say

    ‘After the referendum, when Cameron met Merkel at what would be his swan song European Council, Merkel made clear there would have been no other offer forthcoming –whatever we had offered, threatened or pleaded.’

    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    A falling rate of conceptions may be advanced indicator of a recession says new research.

    "It found that fertility started to decline several quarters before the economy turned down."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/05/uh-oh-falling-birth-rate-signals-recession-ahead/

    Interesting article, as well as interesting to note that the Telegraph paywall has broken again.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say

    ‘After the referendum, when Cameron met Merkel at what would be his swan song European Council, Merkel made clear there would have been no other offer forthcoming –whatever we had offered, threatened or pleaded.’

    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Borough, an interesting suggestion. Male birth rates (ahem) rise during times of conflict, so there may be a few things that can, perhaps unexpectedly, alter rates of birth and the gender split.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Jonathan, the UK's position has undoubtedly been undermined by civil servants and politicians who are unswervingly pro-EU.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Jonathan said:

    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say

    ‘After the referendum, when Cameron met Merkel at what would be his swan song European Council, Merkel made clear there would have been no other offer forthcoming –whatever we had offered, threatened or pleaded.’

    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
    Germany was always going to dominate the EU, the UK could either play second tier alongside France or leave it, it ultimately chose the latter
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
    Charles said that some French mates of his said that the EU were gobsmacked at how little DC asked for, because they were prepared to agree to stacks more for the sake of avoiding brexit. Sounds credible to me, because if someone has actually got the maximum out of a negotiation you'd expect it to be acrimonious, and some of your demands not to be met - it only goes through on the nod if you're not asking enough.
    Sounds reasonable. How much more Cameron might have got is of course a matter of conjecture - Charles' French mates notwithstanding - but even his greatest supporters were underwhelmed by the deal.
    It was more the fact that he walked out after 2 days saying the negotiation was over. They had expected it to take 18 months. I suppose you could infer from that he wasn’t asking for much.

    (My source was eavesdropping on a conversation between the French foreign minister, the French EU Commisionner and the German ambassador to Paris)
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Jonathan said:

    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.

    :lol:

    Will Jeremy be the No.1 boys name in a few months time?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    I expect on current trends the Democrats will take this seat and the House on a midterm protest vote.

    Though the Republicans should keep the Senate

    The question is, who will Trump supporters blame? Trump, or Republicans for not being right-wing enough?

    I think we can guess the answer.
    Paul Ryan and the GOP leadership of course, as I have said before a Trump presidency will be bad for the Republican Party but losing Congress will not necessarily stop him being re elected as Clinton and Obama discovered
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    Probably beats spending 18 months having a internal debate about what we even want, let alone how much of it to ask for, while allowing our interlocutors to develop an increasingly tough stance.

    I completely agree that Cameron over promised and under delivered (and ought not to have set himself so strict a deadline), but compared to the current lot, it was a masterful negotiation.
    Charles said that some French mates of his said that the EU were gobsmacked at how little DC asked for, because they were prepared to agree to stacks more for the sake of avoiding brexit. Sounds credible to me, because if someone has actually got the maximum out of a negotiation you'd expect it to be acrimonious, and some of your demands not to be met - it only goes through on the nod if you're not asking enough.
    Charles said that the French were expecting negotiations to last a year and a half while Cameron wanted them concluded in a day and a half.

    So the French were expecting Nick Palmer's timeline of - initial talks, faffing about, recriminations, crisis, recriminations, further talks, late night compromise.

    While all that happened were what should have been the initial talks and then an agreement which changed nothing.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    The Communist Party of GB has announced it will not put up candidates against the Labour Party and will work 'full tilt' to make Corbyn PM

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/970934877750284288
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Jonathan said:
    It would have better if they’d used 2nd not 3rd (too obvious) but overall I agree
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    F1: McLaren has broken down. These things happen in testing but I imagine their fans are a bit perturbed.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted or forgiven by one side or the other to help out if he can, which I'm not certain he could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say

    ‘After the referendum, when Cameron met Merkel at what would be his swan song European Council, Merkel made clear there would have been no other offer forthcoming –whatever we had offered, threatened or pleaded.’

    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Merkel also said she wouldn't accept unlimited refugees.

    And then changed her mind when put under a bit of pressure.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    HYUFD said:

    The Communist Party of GB has announced it will not put up candidates against the Labour Party and will work 'full tilt' to make Corbyn PM

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/970934877750284288

    Generally been the case that smaller parties don’t put up candidates against larger ones where they agree. UKIP didn’t put anyone up against Priti Patel, for example.although interestingly they did against Boris Johnson. Perhaps they didn’t trrust him!
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Jonathan said:

    Sandpit said:

    CD13 said:

    Cameron's negotiation is where the referendum was lost. Bigging up an unshiny turd showed how little Cammo wanted and how stupid he considered his opponents. How to lose trust and credibility?

    Anyway, that's now water under the bridge now. We're leaving.

    Indeed so. He over promised and under delivered from his excellent Bloomberg speech, compared to what he actually negotiated - then said he’d achieved a miracle rather than the steamy turd a lot of us saw.
    Cameron believed his own hype. It was his undoing like virtually every PM before and since.
    The job attracts people who believe their own hype.

    And even if they don't they're surrounded by fan boys and arselickers who tell them its true.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    HYUFD said:

    The Communist Party of GB has announced it will not put up candidates against the Labour Party and will work 'full tilt' to make Corbyn PM

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/970934877750284288

    If only Tony Blair had had that kind of support and a clear run, he might have made it to number ten.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    edited March 2018

    FF43 said:


    I agree, the Withdrawal Agreement is largely settled, apart from technicalities and the intractable Irish border issue. However the border issue is about identity, not customs or tax. Such is why it's intractable. The border is an idea, not simply a demarcation of unit territories. The border defines Northern Ireland as a safe space for protestant unionists, but is an anathema to those living on either side of it, who are mostly catholic and Irish Republicans.

    The Good Friday Agreement made the border ambiguous. You could notice if it's important important to you. A harder border is OK from a unionist perspective. Controls at the Irish Sea are identity issues for them too. The risk for them, as supported by polling, is that a hard border drives Northern Ireland to union with the Republic. Sinn Fein for its part won't put any effort into softening Brexit. They think it's doing more for their cause than decades of bombing and shooting.

    Interesting article on this theme in yesterday's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/irish-border-brexiters-good-friday-agreement

    PS it's clear Theresa May doesn't get any of this, which is concerning.

    Good analysis - I cannot imagine how a border can be imposed in Northern Ireland, there are massive policing, financial, security and practical issues (manning, legal issues) that make it impossible, let alone what the DUP say.....
    How do they manage it in every other border everywhere else in the world?

    Not saying its ideal but of course it is possible.
    Every ethnic dispute has its own circumstances. Nevertheless the Irish border is conceptually closer to the Israel Palestine Wall than to the Swiss French border. No one would claim that wall was there because of concerns about tax and customs.

    Theresa May is interested in technical solutions and how they manage the USA Canada border. But those technical solutions only get you across the divide faster. The problem is the divide itself, which Brexit makes much bigger.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393

    Jonathan said:

    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.

    :lol:

    Will Jeremy be the No.1 boys name in a few months time?
    Keir
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Jonathan said:

    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:


    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....

    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say

    ‘After the referendum, when Cameron met Merkel at what would be his swan song European Council, Merkel made clear there would have been no other offer forthcoming –whatever we had offered, threatened or pleaded.’

    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
    As long as I can remember I've heard that 'Germany wants the UK as an ally in the EU against France' and 'France wants the UK as an ally in the EU against Germany'.

    In reality Germany wanted the UK as an ally when it benefited Germany and France wanted the UK as an ally when it benefited France.

    But neither Germany nor France wanted the UK as an ally if it would benefit the UK.

    Still it kept stroking the egos of various British ministers and diplomats.
  • JonathanDJonathanD Posts: 2,400
    HYUFD said:

    Jonathan said:

    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    TGOHF said:

    Sun suggests one half of the DC/GO team has got over it....

    ttps://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/970916945804525568?s=21

    Interesting. I guess DC wants to see Brexit become a success, as it’s going to be his legacy. He’s also a good man who will do whatever he can to serve his country.

    Also a sharp contrast to Messrs Blair and Major in the last few weeks. No comment about TCO, he has no bridges left to burn.
    I generally favoured camerons style and his Gov was ok, which is about all we can expect, so it was and is a shame he won't be trusted could.
    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....
    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say



    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
    Germany was always going to dominate the EU, the UK could either play second tier alongside France or leave it, it ultimately chose the latter
    Such a lack of belief in your own country.

    Imagine an alternate future: Cameron won the referendum and by 2018, you'd have a weak Markel, an inexperienced Macron and stalemate in Italy. The UK would have been in the driving seat.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Jonathan said:

    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.

    :lol:

    Will Jeremy be the No.1 boys name in a few months time?
    Keir
    I bet there is a tattooed and track suited individual out there in the Ramsgate, Rotheram, Hartlepool golden triangle who has called their fetal alcohol disordered child 'Brexit'.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    JonathanD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Jonathan said:

    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:


    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....

    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say



    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
    Germany was always going to dominate the EU, the UK could either play second tier alongside France or leave it, it ultimately chose the latter
    Such a lack of belief in your own country.

    Imagine an alternate future: Cameron won the referendum and by 2018, you'd have a weak Markel, an inexperienced Macron and stalemate in Italy. The UK would have been in the driving seat.
    But without the keys.
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    One of those stamps is funny - the archer one.

    But sums up the Soubry approach - memes and snides vs the reality of the referendum result which she was asking all and sundry to accept right up until the result was announced.

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited March 2018

    Jonathan said:

    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.

    :lol:

    Will Jeremy be the No.1 boys name in a few months time?
    Keir
    Deleted
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Morning all :)

    Strange not to see a bit more coverage for the Prime Minister's speech on housing yesterday.

    This is a huge and complex issue with many facets as I've argued here before. The problem manifests itself in many ways - it's not just a question of availability and affordability, it's about the provision of a range of housing options suited to different areas and needs.

    In Newham over 40% of the population lives in private rented accommodation. This is actually controlled by a few private landlords who own large numbers (up to 90 in one case) of houses which they have constantly divided and sub-divided, added accommodation in the loft space, sometimes dwellings in the garden but are in fact new slums with 20 or more living in a 3-bedroom house and many of them migrants from Eastern Europe.

    There's nothing wrong with renting and we need a strong, well-regulated private rented sector. The Conservative obsession with home ownership is part political - home owners tend, so it is believed, to be Conservative voters - but there does of course need to be an adequate supply (demand is no problem) of houses coming onto the market.

    I've long argued Government and property developers have colluded to keep the price of land high - the planning process works to restrict the amount of land available and therefore the supply side of the housing market is restricted keeping prices up. Government has plenty of land it wants to sell (as do Councils) and the drip feed of this land maximises its value.

    Housing isn't just about family homes - housing and communities have to be mixed with flats and suitable accommodation for older people mixed - too much recent development has been ghetto-style with all flats or all family houses or all accommodation for older people.

    It's obviously welcome to see the Prime Minister going after the land banking developers (who have their defenders on here) but fine words butter no parsnips and we need to see Sajid Javid taking firm action to compel the likes of Persimmon to start developing their land banked areas.

    Building places to live needs however to go hand in hand with the supporting infrastructure - roads, transport links, public services such as GP practices. Adding to the population by sub dividing a house only puts pressure on the infrastructure - perhaps we should be looking at forcing owners of multi-inhabited dwellings to pay an additional levy to support the infrastructure used by their tenants.
  • JonathanDJonathanD Posts: 2,400

    JonathanD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Jonathan said:

    rawzer said:

    rkrkrk said:

    rkrkrk said:


    There's an argument to be made that his EU negotiation was actually quite impressive.
    It obviously massively disappointed leavers, and underwhelmed given the expectations he had built up, but arguably he did manage to persuade the EU to cross red lines on a tight timescale....

    Read All Out War, and you will see that he followed the advice of a couple of Whitehalll mandarins who sucked air through teeth and said "Oh, we can't ask for that, Prime Minister" - when many in Europe were expecting us to be far more ambitious in our ask. And would have moved further.....
    I've read it - and that's not the impression I was left with.
    Then re-read Chapter 8.

    "One of Cameron's team said "We decided to go for what we could get and get it. That was George and Dave's decision. That was our first big error."

    and

    "In 2015 Cameron did not seem inclined to ask even for what he had publicly suggested he would demand."

    and

    "We were too beholden to Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers", one Cameron advisor said. "They were status quo. They were happy to take "no" for an answer, happy to believe things weren't possible when they could be possible."
    Just finished reading it, illuminating stuff. It does also say



    But promising high and delivering low is never a good look
    Has the UK been played? I would not be surprised if certain folk are enjoying the prospect of unchallenged dominance of Europe and a weakened UK.
    Germany was always going to dominate the EU, the UK could either play second tier alongside France or leave it, it ultimately chose the latter
    Such a lack of belief in your own country.

    Imagine an alternate future: Cameron won the referendum and by 2018, you'd have a weak Markel, an inexperienced Macron and stalemate in Italy. The UK would have been in the driving seat.
    But without the keys.
    The ideal solution for a country that didn't want the EU to go any further.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    JonathanD said:

    Such a lack of belief in your own country.

    Imagine an alternate future: Cameron won the referendum and by 2018, you'd have a weak Markel, an inexperienced Macron and stalemate in Italy. The UK would have been in the driving seat.

    No the UK could never be in the driving seat without being in the Single Currency. Even had Cameron won the referendum it wouldn't have changed that simple fact that we would perpetually be the outsiders of Europe.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    Jonathan said:

    We're about to see an increase in the birth rate of socialists, much as we saw a peak in the birth rate of conservatives nine months from May 2015.

    :lol:

    Will Jeremy be the No.1 boys name in a few months time?
    Keir
    Deleted
    Is that what you've done to a comment or what you're predicting a popular name will be ?
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723
    Jonathan said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Communist Party of GB has announced it will not put up candidates against the Labour Party and will work 'full tilt' to make Corbyn PM

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/970934877750284288

    If only Tony Blair had had that kind of support and a clear run, he might have made it to number ten.
    And if only he hadnt invaded Iraq he would have had a legacy that wasn't being a War Criminal.
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