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  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    SunnyJim said:

    I still don't understand what is stopping May from repeatedly bringing back the deal with subtle changes to be re-voted on.

    Bercow.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    Agreed, a thousand times over.

    A few years ago I worked with someone who had a kid and was back in the office when their child was nine months old. A senior manager. She was absent half the time (due to child illness, or being let down by caregivers), left early most days, spent most of the time she was in the office sick with worry, and spent most of her pay (if not quite all of it) on various different childminding services. And the poor kid wondering where her mum is.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    Liverpool can afford to lose one more game out of their next 16. So far they've only lost one in 22 - to Man City. Who they don't play again.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    kyf_100 said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    Agreed, a thousand times over.

    A few years ago I worked with someone who had a kid and was back in the office when their child was nine months old. A senior manager. She was absent half the time (due to child illness, or being let down by caregivers), left early most days, spent most of the time she was in the office sick with worry, and spent most of her pay (if not quite all of it) on various different childminding services. And the poor kid wondering where her mum is.
    Your senior manager was a goat?!!
  • ralphmalphralphmalph Posts: 2,201
    rcs1000 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    This is also an excellent video on the subject : https://youtu.be/AyahEuxvBUk
    Apologies, I should have thought of that first.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
  • RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    It's almost like the UK has sovereignty over its own laws and legislation (and sometimes doesn't use it wisely).
  • AmpfieldAndyAmpfieldAndy Posts: 1,445


    Your case is nowhere near as convincing as you seem to think it is. We gain influence if, and only if, we pack a bigger punch as an individual country than we do as part of a larger grouping. We might do in some cases, but it won't necessarily always apply. And it is just as likely to diminish as increase the sway we hold. It also doesn't take into account that we do have many common interests with our neighbours, so often we'll be voting the same way individually as we do collectively. And we will also not be able to benefit to the same extent from having expertise on our side, as we'll inevitably have a smaller pool of people to draw from to represent us.

    I think the case that leaving the EU diminishes the UK's standing in the world is pretty solid.

    Once out we can choose to support those changes that suit us, not the 'collective will' of the 28. Oh and if we really don't like something then, unlike being in the EU, we don't have t accept it. There is no QMV at an international level outside the EU.
    You keep saying this. You seem to have convinced yourself that a) the EU was/is a foreign power - even a hostile foreign power, and that b) the U.K. lacked any influence inside the EU.

    I find these claims mystifying.

    I suppose, if I am charitable (a) could be true if (b) was true, ie that our influence was so bad that the EU was a de facto foreign power.
    It was. The only real influence we had was the petty one of withholding money and even that was never a great influence. Our influence within the EU was, at best, equivalent to one of 28 and, with the advent of the Euro area, actually even worse than that.
    Depends. If we were on message like Blair was with EU enlargement, we had influence. If we weren’t, like Blair with CAP reform or Cameron with EU budget reform, we were simply laughed at. May’s deal, amongst its other faults, denies us freedom to influence over our own affairs outside the EU, which is why it deserves to be voted down.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    Chris said:


    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?

    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    The new customs system detailed in the report is currently being implemented/tested.

    HMRC have stated 22 Nov 2018 that in no deal scenario the UK will have functioning customs system, but that it will not be optimal and that will take another 2 years.

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-customs-system-will-take-two-years-to-set-up-if-no-deal-37553682.html
    You've now given me a newspaper report of the chief executive of HMRC giving evidence to a select committee last November saying, among other things:
    “It is plausible that there would be delays at the border,” he said. “It’s very difficult to answer your question because we have a known unknown.
    “If you are going to go from Dover to Calais, you cannot know exactly how the French authorities would react when your lorry arrives there.”

    What I'm asking for is an authoritative study of what's actually going to happen if we leave without a deal the month after next. Not a report of one of the key officials saying he doesn't know what's going to happen. That's not reassuring.
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    Clearly a father cannot do everything a mother can in the first few weeks/months, but on a longer-term basis there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be either parent.

    Without wishing to go full Leadsom, it shouldn’t be a surprise that stay at home parents get so little support when so many of our politicians have no children or choose to substantially outsource their upbringing to professionals.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
  • Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    Brexit, or the lack of Brexit which is sadly becoming more realistic , s bound to continue to be hugely divisive.


    Small wonder that Remainers who hold democracy in contempt like Grieve, Soubry, Greening etc are being allowed to stop Brexit in its tracks.

    You know nothing, utterly nothing, of what drives Remainers.
    Fear of change drives Remainers. But older people are more used to not being in the EU and so don't fear reverting back to being outside the EU.
    Wrong. Crazily wrong.

    Remainers tend be younger, better educated and more liberal. All are classic proxies for openness to change.
    There's at least a note of caution in the Remain view. I think you'd really struggle to find anyone that viewed the EU as some great blossoming opportunity.

    The young are better educated and more liberal, so you're just saying Remainers tend to be young.

    Personally I think older people don't like the promised land turning out to be full of unpromising souls such as Juncker - we don't need the EU for that, we're world leaders in produce our own dross.

    Not sure therefore there was anything crazy.
    No, sorry.

    Remainers were better educated, even allowing for the age effect.

    This partly helps explains why they were able to see through the fake claims of Leave.
    Broadly speaking, professional people in the Provinces favoured Leave. In Greater London, and centres of government and academia, they favoured Remain.
    Voters working in more globalised industries tended to support Remain. Those globalised industries tend to cluster in London, and the larger provincial cities.

    The economically and intellectually inactive tended to support Leave.

    So 52% of the UK is economically and intellectually inactive.

    We are doomed, doomed I tell ya.
    My comment was flippant but not unfounded.

    Actually, one of the big problems with this country is that so much of it is “left behind”. And those left behind tended to vote for Brexit.
    The problem is those between the left behind and the right behind.
    Two cheeks of the same arse, you mean?
    A***holes I mean.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    Agreed, a thousand times over.

    A few years ago I worked with someone who had a kid and was back in the office when their child was nine months old. A senior manager. She was absent half the time (due to child illness, or being let down by caregivers), left early most days, spent most of the time she was in the office sick with worry, and spent most of her pay (if not quite all of it) on various different childminding services. And the poor kid wondering where her mum is.
    Your senior manager was a goat?!!
    Well given that she left at 4pm every day and I left some time between 7 and 9, she certainly wasn't much of a manager.

    You might say it really got my goat...
  • Floater said:

    kinabalu said:

    Not sure that is true of Remainers. They just want to be part of a different nation state don’t they - a United States of Europe. That’s why so many Remainers were proclaiming that they were European not British in the referendum campaign.

    That is foamy. Support for a federal Europe is a minority sport in this country.

    Remainers want the USE is as false a generality as Leavers are racist thickos.
    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.
    Plus the euro army is coming - we were told that was just a leave lie
    The Euro army is more fake views.
    There is agreement to collaborate more - largely in the interests of defence procurement - but no Euro army.

    A Euro army implies that Juncker has his finger on some button, or several divisions at his control. This is not the case.
    The thing is, I just don't want to be part of an EU state. Trade agreements, accord on justice, defence, immigration, workers rights, consumer safety and the like is all possible without 2 massive parliaments, elected MEPs, a shit flag and an even shitter anthem. I reckon the vast majority of the UK population would have happily gone along with all that. It's too late now. We're stuck with this clusterfuck and a nation that isn't going to heal itself in a long time.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    As Richard T says, we share a real concern for animal welfare, and I do know people who voted Leave because of it.

    Objectively, being outside the EU gives us greater power in this and many other areas to be different - for better or for worse. However, there are two snags. First, any improvements are in our country alone, and liable to be undercut by others not following suit. For instance, we could insist on abolishing intensive farming, and I hope one day we will. But extensive farming does tend to cost more, and if we do it on our own then we risk our farmers being undercut. Getting an agreement across Europe (as on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals) takes much longer, but is more likely to work and to benefit twenty times more animals.

    The other problem is simply that the tendency of government and civil service is to revert to the default of whatever the neighbours are doing anyway. For example, animal welfare supporter would like to ban live exports, but apparently by accident the Withdrawal Agreement contains a sentence that appears to make it impossible, because we promise not to impose any quantitative limits on trade (and a ban is such, since zero is a limit).

    Ultimately these things come down to governments having a will to be different (and for that will to turn out to have a positive outcome!), and, without that, it doesn't actually make much difference whether we're formally out or not.
  • AmpfieldAndyAmpfieldAndy Posts: 1,445
    edited January 2019
    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679


    Your case is nowhere near as convincing as you seem to think it is. We gain influence if, and only if, we pack a bigger punch as an individual country than we do as part of a larger grouping. We might do in some cases, but it won't necessarily always apply. And it is just as likely to diminish as increase the sway we hold. It also doesn't take into account that we do have many common interests with our neighbours, so often we'll be voting the same way individually as we do collectively. And we will also not be able to benefit to the same extent from having expertise on our side, as we'll inevitably have a smaller pool of people to draw from to represent us.

    I think the case that leaving the EU diminishes the UK's standing in the world is pretty solid.

    Nope. As part of the EU our influence was effectively zero. All we could do was smile politely whilst the rest of the EU made decisions that suited them irrespective of whether or not they suited us.

    Once out we can choose to support those changes that suit us, not the 'collective will' of the 28. Oh and if we really don't like something then, unlike being in the EU, we don't have t accept it. There is no QMV at an international level outside the EU.
    So your point relies on your assertion that we have no influence in the EU. If I thought it were the case that we were without any say in the EU I'd certainly be a leaver. But is manifestly not so.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Floater said:

    kinabalu said:

    Not sure that is true of Remainers. They just want to be part of a different nation state don’t they - a United States of Europe. That’s why so many Remainers were proclaiming that they were European not British in the referendum campaign.

    That is foamy. Support for a federal Europe is a minority sport in this country.

    Remainers want the USE is as false a generality as Leavers are racist thickos.
    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.
    Plus the euro army is coming - we were told that was just a leave lie
    The Euro army is more fake views.
    There is agreement to collaborate more - largely in the interests of defence procurement - but no Euro army.

    A Euro army implies that Juncker has his finger on some button, or several divisions at his control. This is not the case.
    The thing is, I just don't want to be part of an EU state. Trade agreements, accord on justice, defence, immigration, workers rights, consumer safety and the like is all possible without 2 massive parliaments, elected MEPs, a shit flag and an even shitter anthem. I reckon the vast majority of the UK population would have happily gone along with all that. It's too late now. We're stuck with this clusterfuck and a nation that isn't going to heal itself in a long time.
    I thought we all agreed to like Beethoven on this forum.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    https://twitter.com/tribunemagazine/status/1084058529005268993

    Democratic control of industry and services?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Walker, context is key.

    Ode to Joy is acceptable in Die Hard, greatest of all Christmas films.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    SunnyJim said:

    I still don't understand what is stopping May from repeatedly bringing back the deal with subtle changes to be re-voted on.

    I get that there will be fury from remainers that parliamentary process is being abused but in reality the anger would be that she isn't giving them Ref2, revocation or a GE.

    Whoever forces one of the latter 3 options is going to face a storm which is why somebody is going to have to stick their head above the parapet.

    If I was May i'd be asking why I should be doing the bidding that remainer MP's are too frightened to do themselves.

    Very true. If Theresa May proceeds from the following assumptions:

    1. We need to leave the European Union because it is what was demanded in the 2016 referendum - and we shouldn't keep asking people to vote repeatedly on the subject
    2. The Withdrawal Agreement is the best way to obey this instruction, whilst maintaining as close a relationship as possible with the European Union
    3. The European Union says that negotiations have concluded and there is nothing else on offer

    Then why shouldn't she just say "I believe in this deal, there is no other deal on the table, take it or leave it?"

    Parliament can demand that the PM come up with a completely different plan, in just the same way that it could demand that she make the sky turn green. It doesn't follow that she would be either willing or able to do such a thing.

    If Theresa May is completely convinced that her Withdrawal Agreement is better than all of the possible alternatives then she's not just being stubborn in refusing to budge, she's also acting correctly. It's not her job to take ownership of implementing an alternative solution, at the behest of Parliament, that she does not believe in and thinks wrong.

    In our constitution, the executive is that which can command the confidence of a majority in the legislature. It is not a puppet of the legislature. If Theresa May won't do what the majority in the legislature wants, then it is incumbent on the legislature to decide: do we give up and let this woman have her way, or do we throw her out and install someone more to our collective taste?

    If Parliament wants to cancel Brexit itself, or to throw the decision back at the people, and if Theresa May won't offer these options, then it should remove her from office. If, on the other hand, there is a majority in Parliament that thinks May profoundly wrong, yet it will not act decisively against her, then that implies that what you say is correct: MPs are too cowardly to take responsibility for the course of action that they want to take, and are trying to use Theresa May as their human shield. If true, more power to her in resisting this.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    rcs1000 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    This is also an excellent video on the subject : https://youtu.be/AyahEuxvBUk
    I'm really looking for something authoritative - something from an academic institution or similar, or some government-sponsored research - rather than a video someone has posted to YouTube.

    Surely there must be something?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    As Richard T says, we share a real concern for animal welfare, and I do know people who voted Leave because of it.

    Objectively, being outside the EU gives us greater power in this and many other areas to be different - for better or for worse. However, there are two snags. First, any improvements are in our country alone, and liable to be undercut by others not following suit. For instance, we could insist on abolishing intensive farming, and I hope one day we will. But extensive farming does tend to cost more, and if we do it on our own then we risk our farmers being undercut. Getting an agreement across Europe (as on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals) takes much longer, but is more likely to work and to benefit twenty times more animals.

    The other problem is simply that the tendency of government and civil service is to revert to the default of whatever the neighbours are doing anyway. For example, animal welfare supporter would like to ban live exports, but apparently by accident the Withdrawal Agreement contains a sentence that appears to make it impossible, because we promise not to impose any quantitative limits on trade (and a ban is such, since zero is a limit).

    Ultimately these things come down to governments having a will to be different (and for that will to turn out to have a positive outcome!), and, without that, it doesn't actually make much difference whether we're formally out or not.


    Instead of objectively, I think you mean theoretically - because you go on to undercut it when you say, “Getting an agreement across Europe (as on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals) takes much longer, but is more likely to work and to benefit twenty times more animals.”
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    https://twitter.com/tribunemagazine/status/1084058529005268993

    Democratic control of industry and services?

    Given that every Labour government has ended with unemployment higher than when they took over, we can be pretty certain that they will succeed in maximising "the leisure time of workers".

  • ralphmalphralphmalph Posts: 2,201
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:


    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?

    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    The new customs system detailed in the report is currently being implemented/tested.

    HMRC have stated 22 Nov 2018 that in no deal scenario the UK will have functioning customs system, but that it will not be optimal and that will take another 2 years.

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-customs-system-will-take-two-years-to-set-up-if-no-deal-37553682.html
    You've now given me a newspaper report of the chief executive of HMRC giving evidence to a select committee last November saying, among other things:
    “It is plausible that there would be delays at the border,” he said. “It’s very difficult to answer your question because we have a known unknown.
    “If you are going to go from Dover to Calais, you cannot know exactly how the French authorities would react when your lorry arrives there.”

    What I'm asking for is an authoritative study of what's actually going to happen if we leave without a deal the month after next. Not a report of one of the key officials saying he doesn't know what's going to happen. That's not reassuring.
    If nobody can know how the French will react then you can not have a authoritative study, can you? Known unknowns. The only thing you can have is "expert" input and a range of possible scenarios.
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    can't customs checks be done on the boat. they have to sit on there for the best part of an hour anyway.
    Can they? Can't they? I'm asking if anyone knows of an authoritative study that has considered these questions.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    But it would prove mis-placed optimism. Three weeks later, his Govt. having lost a vote of no confidence because he could not buy off the DUP, he was on his way to meet with Her Majesty to call a general election. A general election in which the polls were telling him his party would achieve just 24% of the votes....

    A very valid critique, but if I may be pedantic about one thing. Yes, the Tories are down to 24%, Leavers are hopping mad, BUT the Saj will not be facing the country on account of the DUP. The DUP are overjoyed with Remain. Irish Sea is fully intact.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    Mr. Walker, context is key.

    Ode to Joy is acceptable in Die Hard, greatest of all Christmas films.

    and Beethoven is acceptable in Beethoven, greatest of all St Bernard films.
  • Today we have people vote marches, GE marches, pro Brexit marches, France in protest chaos and Trump not paying state employeees

    Add into that Italy and Poland have entered an alliance to change the EU and Italy are advising the French yellow vest protestors

    China GDP heading for 2% and the Chinese rejecting home built jaguar land rovers as they want British built on them. China and the far east moving over to android smart phones and apple in a nose dive that looks irrecoverable

    We have a HOC that is a disaster and temperatures rising on both sides, each not taking any prisoners

    How did we arrive at this state of chaos.

    For me the HOC should accept TM deal for all its faults and move on. However I suspect next week the remainers, well led by Dominic Grieve, to use all kinds of obscure parliamentary procedures to tilt the UK to remain

    If they are successful I fear for the forceable future, as leavers will not just go away

    My hope is we at least leave on something the HOC can agree on and then it will be perfectly reasonable for remainers to commence a rejoin campaign

  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    can't customs checks be done on the boat. they have to sit on there for the best part of an hour anyway.
    Can they? Can't they? I'm asking if anyone knows of an authoritative study that has considered these questions.
    well I would check it on the boat. not stop it halfway up the M6 and close the whole carriageway for hours.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    Chris said:


    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?

    The new customs system detailed in the report is currently being implemented/tested.

    HMRC have stated 22 Nov 2018 that in no deal scenario the UK will have functioning customs system, but that it will not be optimal and that will take another 2 years.

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-customs-system-will-take-two-years-to-set-up-if-no-deal-37553682.html
    You've now given me a newspaper report of the chief executive of HMRC giving evidence to a select committee last November saying, among other things:
    “It is plausible that there would be delays at the border,” he said. “It’s very difficult to answer your question because we have a known unknown.
    “If you are going to go from Dover to Calais, you cannot know exactly how the French authorities would react when your lorry arrives there.”

    What I'm asking for is an authoritative study of what's actually going to happen if we leave without a deal the month after next. Not a report of one of the key officials saying he doesn't know what's going to happen. That's not reassuring.
    If nobody can know how the French will react then you can not have a authoritative study, can you? Known unknowns. The only thing you can have is "expert" input and a range of possible scenarios.
    So you reckon we can't know what will happen?

    That was my assumption. The reason I asked the question is that some people are claiming they do know. They know that there's not going to be any significant disruption. It's all "Project Fear".
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,749



    So 52% of the UK is economically and intellectually inactive.

    We are doomed, doomed I tell ya.
    Unusually lazy comment from you, David.

    "Instead, we find that fundamental characteristics of the voting population were key drivers of the Vote Leave share, in particular their education profiles, their historical dependence on manufacturing employment as well as low income and high unemployment. At the much finer level of wards within cities, we find that areas with deprivation in terms of education, income and employment were more likely to vote Leave."

    Economic Policy, Volume 32, Issue 92, 1 October 2017, Pages 601–650, https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eix012

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
  • AmpfieldAndyAmpfieldAndy Posts: 1,445

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    The mistake that many make, including parents of very young children, is thinking that it is only the early years when parents need to spend time at home with their children.

    It is very much harder to work and devote time to parenting when your children are teenagers, very much harder, believe me. The years from 10/11 onwards or later are some of the most challenging, for both children and parents. If you need time out with your teenagers then employers tend to be mystified as to why and there aren't often many other working women at the same stage (at my employers, within my department, I was the only woman with teenagers at the 15-17 age range) which can leave you feeling very isolated and lonely in terms of sharing experiences and methods of coping.

    And it is also hard finding helpful nannies / other support.

    One piece of advice I would give to anyone with a young family is to think about how you're going to manage working life when your lovely babies are teenagers.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    can't customs checks be done on the boat. they have to sit on there for the best part of an hour anyway.
    Can they? Can't they? I'm asking if anyone knows of an authoritative study that has considered these questions.
    well I would check it on the boat. not stop it halfway up the M6 and close the whole carriageway for hours.
    I see. And where did you get the idea customs checks were going to be done halfway up the M6 ;-)
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    The mistake that many make, including parents of very young children, is thinking that it is only the early years when parents need to spend time at home with their children.

    It is very much harder to work and devote time to parenting when your children are teenagers, very much harder, believe me. The years from 10/11 onwards or later are some of the most challenging, for both children and parents. If you need time out with your teenagers then employers tend to be mystified as to why and there aren't often many other working women at the same stage (at my employers, within my department, I was the only woman with teenagers at the 15-17 age range) which can leave you feeling very isolated and lonely in terms of sharing experiences and methods of coping.

    And it is also hard finding helpful nannies / other support.

    One piece of advice I would give to anyone with a young family is to think about how you're going to manage working life when your lovely babies are teenagers.
    Thankyou @Cyclefree. I often find there is a taboo in our culture around how challenging parenthood can often be.
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,749
    Cyclefree said:

    The problem with Brexit is the following:-

    1. Leavers are very good at identifying all the things which are wrong with the EU and there are many of them.

    2. Leavers are utterly hopeless at coming up with a plan for (a) how to Brexit and (b) a post-Brexit future which is coherent, realistic and workable.

    3. Remainers are very good at pointing to how difficult it is to Brexit and all the difficulties of coming up with alternatives to the advantages which Britain has from being in the EU.

    4. Remainers are very bad at selling the EU plans for its future and its advantages for Britain.

    In short, both are good at explaining the negatives of the other side's position and utterly hopeless at having / let alone selling their own positive vision.

    It's like a Brexit version of the diligent/stupid/lazy/intelligent categories for soldiers.

    If only there were a way of combining the best of what both Leavers and Remainers have to offer.

    On point 1, misidentifying or misapplying grievances to the EU were also important - all the way from banning bananas to conflating the EU and ECJ with the completely separate ECHR.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
  • AmpfieldAndyAmpfieldAndy Posts: 1,445
    edited January 2019

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    I really hope it doesn't happen this way, but the quickest way to reform a national consensus is leaving with no deal and with no referendum.

    I would still ask for evidence that or transport and distribution infrastructure could continue operating in those circumstances, rather than breaking down completely.

    Given that the slightest disruption in "normal" circumstances can lead to major problems. Such as large numbers of people being stranded in snowbound trains in adverse weather conditions, or even larger numbers of people not being able to buy anything owing to relatively minor software glitches.

    Capitalism is a great mechanism for optimising things in normal circumstances, but there's very little incentive for it to produce robustness against extreme circumstances.
    Is anyone aware of any kind of authoritative study of how things would play out in the event of No Deal, in terms of vital supplies being affected? An academic study, or a government-sponsored study in the public domain?

    Surely there must have been some research carried out?
    https://www.britishports.org.uk/system/files/documents/prospects_for_trade_and_britains_maritime_ports.pdf
    Thanks, but that gives the impression of having been written some time ago (I can't see a date) and seems to deal with the potential problems in very general terms.

    Such as:
    "However the majority of the UK’s trade with the EU is via Roll on Roll off (ro-ro) ferry services where lorries carry freight through ports such as Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth. For these operations any additional checks could potentially mean friction and delays. The UK Government has proposed an IT solution as an option to overcome the challenge."

    I can't tell from that report whether this "option" has actually been put into effect and is fully tested and ready for use on 29 March. I haven't heard of such a thing. I strongly suspect none of this has been done.

    Can anyone reassure me with something more substantial?
    can't customs checks be done on the boat. they have to sit on there for the best part of an hour anyway.
    Can they? Can't they? I'm asking if anyone knows of an authoritative study that has considered these questions.
    well I would check it on the boat. not stop it halfway up the M6 and close the whole carriageway for hours.
    I see. And where did you get the idea customs checks were going to be done halfway up the M6 ;-)
    that's where the queue for dover starts.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    SunnyJim said:

    I

    Very true. If Theresa May proceeds from the following assumptions:

    1. We need to leave the European Union because it is what was demanded in the 2016 referendum - and we shouldn't keep asking people to vote repeatedly on the subject
    2. The Withdrawal Agreement is the best way to obey this instruction, whilst maintaining as close a relationship as possible with the European Union
    3. The European Union says that negotiations have concluded and there is nothing else on offer

    Then why shouldn't she just say "I believe in this deal, there is no other deal on the table, take it or leave it?"

    Parliament can demand that the PM come up with a completely different plan, in just the same way that it could demand that she make the sky turn green. It doesn't follow that she would be either willing or able to do such a thing.

    If Theresa May is completely convinced that her Withdrawal Agreement is better than all of the possible alternatives then she's not just being stubborn in refusing to budge, she's also acting correctly. It's not her job to take ownership of implementing an alternative solution, at the behest of Parliament, that she does not believe in and thinks wrong.

    In our constitution, the executive is that which can command the confidence of a majority in the legislature. It is not a puppet of the legislature. If Theresa May won't do what the majority in the legislature wants, then it is incumbent on the legislature to decide: do we give up and let this woman have her way, or do we throw her out and install someone more to our collective taste?

    If Parliament wants to cancel Brexit itself, or to throw the decision back at the people, and if Theresa May won't offer these options, then it should remove her from office. If, on the other hand, there is a majority in Parliament that thinks May profoundly wrong, yet it will not act decisively against her, then that implies that what you say is correct: MPs are too cowardly to take responsibility for the course of action that they want to take, and are trying to use Theresa May as their human shield. If true, more power to her in resisting this.
    This is the problem in a nutshell: that such a significant decision should be turned into a battle of wills between Mrs May and Parliament which Mrs May "must" win. Why? She can't even persuade her own government. If she can't persuade Parliament she has failed at her task.

    She certainly shouldn't be allowed repeatedly to bully Parliament. That's hardly democratic or Parliamentary.

    One of the leavers' criticisms of the EU was that they made people keep on voting to get the "right" decision. Why then should it be OK for May to do the same thing to Parliament?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    It's funny, because I had assumed people on both sides of any argument here tended to be well informed.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    "There are more people who don't benefit from EU membership than do" is a rather bold statement. You may believe that, but it doesn't make it correct.
  • AmpfieldAndyAmpfieldAndy Posts: 1,445

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    Since when has trade liberalisation and reducing barriers required political integration.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    Cyclefree said:

    SunnyJim said:

    I

    Very true. If Theresa May proceeds from the following assumptions:

    1. We need to leave the European Union because it is what was demanded in the 2016 referendum - and we shouldn't keep asking people to vote repeatedly on the subject
    2. The Withdrawal Agreement is the best way to obey this instruction, whilst maintaining as close a relationship as possible with the European Union
    3. The European Union says that negotiations have concluded and there is nothing else on offer

    Then why shouldn't she just say "I believe in this deal, there is no other deal on the table, take it or leave it?"

    Parliament can demand that the PM come up with a completely different plan, in just the same way that it could demand that she make the sky turn green. It doesn't follow that she would be either willing or able to do such a thing.

    If Theresa May is completely convinced that her Withdrawal Agreement is better than all of the possible alternatives then she's not just being stubborn in refusing to budge, she's also acting correctly. It's not her job to take ownership of implementing an alternative solution, at the behest of Parliament, that she does not believe in and thinks wrong.

    In our constitution, the executive is that which can command the confidence of a majority in the legislature. It is not a puppet of the legislature. If Theresa May won't do what the majority in the legislature wants, then it is incumbent on the legislature to decide: do we give up and let this woman have her way, or do we throw her out and install someone more to our collective taste?

    If Parliament wants to cancel Brexit itself, or to throw the decision back at the people, and if Theresa May won't offer these options, then it should remove her from office. If, on the other hand, there is a majority in Parliament that thinks May profoundly wrong, yet it will not act decisively against her, then that implies that what you say is correct: MPs are too cowardly to take responsibility for the course of action that they want to take, and are trying to use Theresa May as their human shield. If true, more power to her in resisting this.
    This is the problem in a nutshell: that such a significant decision should be turned into a battle of wills between Mrs May and Parliament which Mrs May "must" win. Why? She can't even persuade her own government. If she can't persuade Parliament she has failed at her task.

    She certainly shouldn't be allowed repeatedly to bully Parliament. That's hardly democratic or Parliamentary.

    One of the leavers' criticisms of the EU was that they made people keep on voting to get the "right" decision. Why then should it be OK for May to do the same thing to Parliament?
    Irony.....
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:


    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    The mistake that many make, including parents of very young children, is thinking that it is only the early years when parents need to spend time at home with their children.

    It is very much harder to work and devote time to parenting when your children are teenagers, very much harder, believe me. The years from 10/11 onwards or later are some of the most challenging, for both children and parents. If you need time out with your teenagers then employers tend to be mystified as to why and there aren't often many other working women at the same stage (at my employers, within my department, I was the only woman with teenagers at the 15-17 age range) which can leave you feeling very isolated and lonely in terms of sharing experiences and methods of coping.

    And it is also hard finding helpful nannies / other support.

    One piece of advice I would give to anyone with a young family is to think about how you're going to manage working life when your lovely babies are teenagers.
    Thankyou @Cyclefree. I often find there is a taboo in our culture around how challenging parenthood can often be.
    Indeed. I have spend quite a lot of time in despair and even though mine are past the teenage years I still worry about them - and have reasons to do so.

    But nonetheless congratulations to you and your wife.
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959

    Today we have people vote marches, GE marches, pro Brexit marches, France in protest chaos and Trump not paying state employeees

    Add into that Italy and Poland have entered an alliance to change the EU and Italy are advising the French yellow vest protestors

    China GDP heading for 2% and the Chinese rejecting home built jaguar land rovers as they want British built on them. China and the far east moving over to android smart phones and apple in a nose dive that looks irrecoverable

    We have a HOC that is a disaster and temperatures rising on both sides, each not taking any prisoners

    How did we arrive at this state of chaos.

    For me the HOC should accept TM deal for all its faults and move on. However I suspect next week the remainers, well led by Dominic Grieve, to use all kinds of obscure parliamentary procedures to tilt the UK to remain

    If they are successful I fear for the forceable future, as leavers will not just go away

    My hope is we at least leave on something the HOC can agree on and then it will be perfectly reasonable for remainers to commence a rejoin campaign

    If we vote to Remain, Italy and Poland will find they just got 17.4m new helpers in their efforts to destabilise the EU.....
  • VerulamiusVerulamius Posts: 1,429
    The sound track to the Channel 4 Brexit The Uncivil War was Beethoven; mostly Symphony no. 9 but also some Egmont Overture.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    You can. But at a cost.

    The question is whether a country's population is willing to bear that cost.

    What is certainly true is that you can't fight globalisation while enjoying all its advantages.
  • Chris_AChris_A Posts: 1,237
    And another example proving that David Cameron was the stupidest and most destructive PM we've ever had.
  • HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,004
    edited January 2019
    Chris_A said:

    And another example proving that David Cameron was the stupidest and most destructive PM we've ever had.

    I think you should add the 498 mps who voted to serve A50 not realising that no deal is default if we do not do a deal. Absolutely daft
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited January 2019

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
  • sarissa said:


    So 52% of the UK is economically and intellectually inactive.

    We are doomed, doomed I tell ya.
    Unusually lazy comment from you, David.

    "Instead, we find that fundamental characteristics of the voting population were key drivers of the Vote Leave share, in particular their education profiles, their historical dependence on manufacturing employment as well as low income and high unemployment. At the much finer level of wards within cities, we find that areas with deprivation in terms of education, income and employment were more likely to vote Leave."

    Economic Policy, Volume 32, Issue 92, 1 October 2017, Pages 601–650, https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eix012



    Sarissa - Are you American?

    See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46846467
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Chris_A said:
    I agree with the letter writer.

    One of the reasons I don’t like the FTPA is that it makes everything far too complicated, especially for laypeople, to understand. That doesn’t strike me as very democratic.

    It needs amending or chucking out.

    Clegg’s constitutional legacy was actually quite pisspoor:
    - AV probably the worst form of PR, rightly failed
    - Lord’s reform went nowhere
    - Boundaries are now very out of date to the point of gerrymander
    - The abomination of the FTPA.

    At the same time, very little was really done about local devolution. Indeed, scrapping the regional authorities - probably the right thing to do - set back the devolutionary cause by 5 years.

    Time in power was squandered, and that’s without talking about tuition fees.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited January 2019
    Cyclefree said:

    If Parliament wants to cancel Brexit itself, or to throw the decision back at the people, and if Theresa May won't offer these options, then it should remove her from office. If, on the other hand, there is a majority in Parliament that thinks May profoundly wrong, yet it will not act decisively against her, then that implies that what you say is correct: MPs are too cowardly to take responsibility for the course of action that they want to take, and are trying to use Theresa May as their human shield. If true, more power to her in resisting this.

    This is the problem in a nutshell: that such a significant decision should be turned into a battle of wills between Mrs May and Parliament which Mrs May "must" win. Why? She can't even persuade her own government. If she can't persuade Parliament she has failed at her task.

    She certainly shouldn't be allowed repeatedly to bully Parliament. That's hardly democratic or Parliamentary.

    One of the leavers' criticisms of the EU was that they made people keep on voting to get the "right" decision. Why then should it be OK for May to do the same thing to Parliament?
    I follow the criticism - and, if she sees her agreement defeated so heavily on Tuesday that she thinks there's no realistic chance of her salvaging it, then perhaps she should resign?

    On the other hand, will this necessarily get us very far? The major parties are both in a minority in Parliament and internally split, so it will be somewhere between very hard and impossible for either Jeremy Corbyn or a Tory successor to assemble a majority for any course of action from amongst their own supporters and potential allies. Perhaps the only good that would come out of this would be if Corbyn were put into bat, and the unicorn renegotiation strategy (all the benefits of in and out, all in one neat and tidy package) were exposed for the complete fantasy that it obviously is?

    But then we're back to the same place we were under May. There would appear to be a majority in Parliament for either an Andrex Soft Brexit (which it may or may not be possible to achieve if we throw ourselves on the mercy of the EU,) or for staying in - but if neither the Conservative nor Labour leaderships will give Parliament what it wants then MPs will have to work across party lines and form a National Unity Government to enforce their will. Either that or they do nothing and we leave automatically on March 29th. All else is noise.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    But ever closer union is at the heart of everything the EU does. The latest wheeze is for members to give up their vetos on tax to harmonise tax. Remainers who genuinely don’t want a United States of Europe are kidding themselves.

    Ever closer union is an aspirational process with a goal - political union - that can never be achieved in any time-frame that is short enough for me to be concerned with.

    And, yes, time will tell if I am kidding myself.
    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.
    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    You can. But at a cost.

    The question is whether a country's population is willing to bear that cost.

    What is certainly true is that you can't fight globalisation while enjoying all its advantages.
    A wealthy country has that option. There's nothing unreasonable about opting to grow richer at a slightly reduced rate in return for a greater degree of sovereignty.

  • Cyclefree said:



    This is the problem in a nutshell: that such a significant decision should be turned into a battle of wills between Mrs May and Parliament which Mrs May "must" win. Why? She can't even persuade her own government. If she can't persuade Parliament she has failed at her task.

    She certainly shouldn't be allowed repeatedly to bully Parliament. That's hardly democratic or Parliamentary.

    One of the leavers' criticisms of the EU was that they made people keep on voting to get the "right" decision. Why then should it be OK for May to do the same thing to Parliament?

    I agree with you to some extent and certainly the analogy with EU repeat questions is a good one to some extent.

    But the problem is not that May keeps asking a question it is that Parliament will not give an answer. When the people say no in an EU referendum they are giving the only answer they can give if they do not like the proposal. Parliament has a whole range of proposals which cover all eventualities but it refuses to give an answer. Just saying no to something when you have no power to put another option on the table is reasonable. Just saying no to every option but still expecting a solution is not.

    So, if May truly believes that she must enact Brexit in some form her choices are very limited. In fact she has no other option. She must keep bringing back this deal at every opportunity until 29th March when the decision will be made for her - and for Parliament.
  • BBC reporting:

    Pro-Brexit activist James Goddard has been arrested in connection with incidents outside Parliament on Monday.

    Police said a man in his 30s was arrested outside St James's Park Tube station in London just before midday.

    He is being held on suspicion of a public order offence.

    Mr Goddard was involved in a protest in Westminster earlier this week during which Remain-supporting Conservative MP Anna Soubry was called a Nazi.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959

    Chris_A said:
    I agree with the letter writer.

    One of the reasons I don’t like the FTPA is that it makes everything far too complicated, especially for laypeople, to understand. That doesn’t strike me as very democratic.

    It needs amending or chucking out.

    Clegg’s constitutional legacy was actually quite pisspoor:
    - AV probably the worst form of PR, rightly failed
    - Lord’s reform went nowhere
    - Boundaries are now very out of date to the point of gerrymander
    - The abomination of the FTPA.

    At the same time, very little was really done about local devolution. Indeed, scrapping the regional authorities - probably the right thing to do - set back the devolutionary cause by 5 years.

    Time in power was squandered, and that’s without talking about tuition fees.
    Cleggs legacy also includes Brexit. If he and Cameron had gone to the country on a Referendum in 2011 say, well before the big rise in UKIP, they would probably have got it through 60:40. Bu by Clegg refusing to allow any discussion of it......
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043

    Chris_A said:
    I agree with the letter writer.

    One of the reasons I don’t like the FTPA is that it makes everything far too complicated, especially for laypeople, to understand. That doesn’t strike me as very democratic.

    It needs amending or chucking out.

    Clegg’s constitutional legacy was actually quite pisspoor:
    - AV probably the worst form of PR, rightly failed
    - Lord’s reform went nowhere
    - Boundaries are now very out of date to the point of gerrymander
    - The abomination of the FTPA.

    At the same time, very little was really done about local devolution. Indeed, scrapping the regional authorities - probably the right thing to do - set back the devolutionary cause by 5 years.

    Time in power was squandered, and that’s without talking about tuition fees.
    Letter of the week?

    That is letter of the year, if not the decade! As I have said time and time again on PB (and probably become a bore about this) - the FPTA is an abomination as Jay writes.

    A GE is the safety valve of our democracy and May can't use it now.
  • RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    You may or may not be right about timescale but the intent is there. That lack of concern about what won’t affect you rather typifies why Remain lost in my view. There are more people who don’t benefit from EU membership than do and Remainers are desperate for Brexit to be cancelled so that their gravy train can continue - and don’t really care about those who don’t.

    It will not affect me, nor will it affect you. Or your kids, or your grand-kids. Because there is no prospect of political union being realized this side of the sun. The countries of Europe will not be merging into a single federation, a la the USA. It is their unicorn and our bogeyman.

    So, no, I do not see the dreaded USE looming. What I do see is a project - with flaws, of course, but everything of scale has flaws - to make commerce and travel as easy as possible across a continent, and to make war between nation states on that continent almost unthinkable. There is nothing sinister about that, in my book. Quite the opposite.

    Still, no point re-fighting the referendum, is there. The vote was to leave. I accept it.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
    That income won't even buy you a property in London let alone pay for a child and a non-working partner.
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
    That income won't even buy you a property in London let alone pay for a child and a non-working partner.
    It will, but not a very nice one.
  • As Richard T says, we share a real concern for animal welfare, and I do know people who voted Leave because of it.

    Objectively, being outside the EU gives us greater power in this and many other areas to be different - for better or for worse. However, there are two snags. First, any improvements are in our country alone, and liable to be undercut by others not following suit. For instance, we could insist on abolishing intensive farming, and I hope one day we will. But extensive farming does tend to cost more, and if we do it on our own then we risk our farmers being undercut. Getting an agreement across Europe (as on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals) takes much longer, but is more likely to work and to benefit twenty times more animals.

    The other problem is simply that the tendency of government and civil service is to revert to the default of whatever the neighbours are doing anyway. For example, animal welfare supporter would like to ban live exports, but apparently by accident the Withdrawal Agreement contains a sentence that appears to make it impossible, because we promise not to impose any quantitative limits on trade (and a ban is such, since zero is a limit).

    Ultimately these things come down to governments having a will to be different (and for that will to turn out to have a positive outcome!), and, without that, it doesn't actually make much difference whether we're formally out or not.


    Instead of objectively, I think you mean theoretically - because you go on to undercut it when you say, “Getting an agreement across Europe (as on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals) takes much longer, but is more likely to work and to benefit twenty times more animals.”
    But if it doesn't work (as with for example live animal exports) it benefits no animals at all. Whereas at least if we had control of it ourselves as Nick says, we could impose that ban and benefit the animals in our country if no other.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Sean_F said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    You can. But at a cost.

    The question is whether a country's population is willing to bear that cost.

    What is certainly true is that you can't fight globalisation while enjoying all its advantages.
    A wealthy country has that option. There's nothing unreasonable about opting to grow richer at a slightly reduced rate in return for a greater degree of sovereignty.

    Agree. Nothing unreasonable about this at all. But Brexit was not sold like this - as a trade off. It was sold as "you will get all the advantages of now, but with this added control to stop all the bits you don't like"
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    You can. But at a cost.

    The question is whether a country's population is willing to bear that cost.

    What is certainly true is that you can't fight globalisation while enjoying all its advantages.
    A wealthy country has that option. There's nothing unreasonable about opting to grow richer at a slightly reduced rate in return for a greater degree of sovereignty.

    Agree. Nothing unreasonable about this at all. But Brexit was not sold like this - as a trade off. It was sold as "you will get all the advantages of now, but with this added control to stop all the bits you don't like"
    Interestingly, I heard this argument very frequently from Leave voters on the doorstep. Usually a variation on “It’ll be rough for a few years, but worth it in the long-term”. I fully agree it wasn’t prominent in the ‘air war’ of the campaign.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:



    This is the problem in a nutshell: that such a significant decision should be turned into a battle of wills between Mrs May and Parliament which Mrs May "must" win. Why? She can't even persuade her own government. If she can't persuade Parliament she has failed at her task.

    She certainly shouldn't be allowed repeatedly to bully Parliament. That's hardly democratic or Parliamentary.

    One of the leavers' criticisms of the EU was that they made people keep on voting to get the "right" decision. Why then should it be OK for May to do the same thing to Parliament?

    I agree with you to some extent and certainly the analogy with EU repeat questions is a good one to some extent.

    But the problem is not that May keeps asking a question it is that Parliament will not give an answer. When the people say no in an EU referendum they are giving the only answer they can give if they do not like the proposal. Parliament has a whole range of proposals which cover all eventualities but it refuses to give an answer. Just saying no to something when you have no power to put another option on the table is reasonable. Just saying no to every option but still expecting a solution is not.

    So, if May truly believes that she must enact Brexit in some form her choices are very limited. In fact she has no other option. She must keep bringing back this deal at every opportunity until 29th March when the decision will be made for her - and for Parliament.
    I don't think a PM should be allowed to bully Parliament, no matter what he or she "truly believes".

    Brexit - what it is and how to achieve it - should be about more than marking Mrs May's homework. It has been turned into May's personal obsession - it's all about Mrs May's deal and will Mrs May win the vote etc. I'm sorry but I don't give a toss about her. If she can't get her own government and party behind her she should be off.

    And the reason Parliament hasn't - so far - given an answer is because May has stopped them voting. We could have had an answer on her deal in mid December. She ran away from this, has wasted time and is trying to use the even less time available to bully MPs into accepting something sub-optimal so she can get a gold sticker for her achievement.

    Bollocks to that, frankly.

    You and I don't always agree but on May's general authoritarianism and utter uselessness, I think we are as one.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
    You old softy.
    Thankyou for your kind words.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    RoyalBlue said:

    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
    That income won't even buy you a property in London let alone pay for a child and a non-working partner.
    It will, but not a very nice one.
    On the assumption of a £150K mortgage, a flat, probably one-bedroomed, maybe two on the outskirts, with little if any outside space. Not really the sort of space to allow a family to be raised. You could manage it - our parents and grandparents generation brought up families in much more cramped accommodation. But it is not the sort of lifestyle that most would associate with being "in the top 10% of earners".
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
    Absolutely! Our secret Brexit plans for the reconquest of India require as many as possible...
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Borough, aye. I've also said that the Fixed Term Parliament Act not having a sunset clause was bloody stupid.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
    That income won't even buy you a property in London let alone pay for a child and a non-working partner.
    Most of the country does not live in London and even most Londoners move out to the Home Counties if they want to buy a family property.

    Of course the cut off only starts at £50k most working Londoners affected will be earning well above that anyway, including many on 6 figures
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    HYUFD said:

    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.
    It is depressing that Britain is the only country in Europe that does not provide any kind of financial support to stay at home parents. Clearly forcing women or men with caring responsibilities out of the workforce is unacceptable, but providing no support to those who want to live in a more traditional way seems very unfair.
    There is child benefit in the UK
    Not if you are paid more than the government limit.
    Which is £50,000 a year or more, although you can pay a tax charge instead.

    If one partner is paid that much they will be in the top 10% of earners and should be able to support the other partner staying at home anyway
    That income won't even buy you a property in London let alone pay for a child and a non-working partner.
    Most of the country does not live in London and even most Londoners move out to the Home Counties if they want to buy a family property.

    Of course the cut off only starts at £50k most working Londoners affected will be earning well above that anyway, including many on 6 figures
    I don't mean to be rude. But I do sometimes wonder what world you are living in.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Mr. Borough, aye. I've also said that the Fixed Term Parliament Act not having a sunset clause was bloody stupid.

    This apparently evil Act did not stop Mrs May having an election to crush the saboteurs, though, did it? So it's not the Act really which is the problem but the fact that she does not have support.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    RoyalBlue said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    CUT
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
    Absolutely! Our secret Brexit plans for the reconquest of India require as many as possible...
    Surely a re-inveigling-into-a-position-that-looks-much-like-conquest.

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Mr. Borough, aye. I've also said that the Fixed Term Parliament Act not having a sunset clause was bloody stupid.

    Alas the nation did not listen
  • RoyalBlueRoyalBlue Posts: 3,223
    Omnium said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    CUT
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
    Absolutely! Our secret Brexit plans for the reconquest of India require as many as possible...
    Surely a re-inveigling-into-a-position-that-looks-much-like-conquest.

    That’ll be difficult to fit on a leaflet. Will have to revisit.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    By gravy train you mean “the economy”.

    I assume you live a life of complete self-sufficiency, recycling your own turds etc.

    I have been following the Europe debate for 25 years. For all that time I have been warned about a European superstate.

    It hasn’t happened.

    Remainers are Leavers who got mugged by reality.
    Your language amply demonstrates the lie that Remainers tend to be better educated than Leavers. If you have following the Europe debate for 25 years, as you claim, it’s a shame you haven’t learnt anything.

    The UK economy is 80% domestic so if I had meant the economy I would have said so. Shame your oafish insults don’t really contain any basis in fact.
    Like I said, there is no superstate.
    You can’t prove there is one, and a reduced to jibes about gravy trains.

    Get a grip. Haven’t you got a composting toilet system to muck out our something?
    You seem to be the site janitor as your comments amply demonstrate - and the fact that there isn’t an EU superstate now was not the point. It’s what the EU are clearly working towards - as anyone who isn’t excessively concerned about excrement can see.
    You say that like its a bad thing.
    Can’t fight globalisation.
    You can. But at a cost.

    The question is whether a country's population is willing to bear that cost.

    What is certainly true is that you can't fight globalisation while enjoying all its advantages.
    A wealthy country has that option. There's nothing unreasonable about opting to grow richer at a slightly reduced rate in return for a greater degree of sovereignty.

    Agree. Nothing unreasonable about this at all. But Brexit was not sold like this - as a trade off. It was sold as "you will get all the advantages of now, but with this added control to stop all the bits you don't like"
    IMHO, a good example is an FTA with the US. It would provide an economic benefit, but the loss of sovereignty (eg over animal welfare) would be unacceptable
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263


    But if it doesn't work (as with for example live animal exports) it benefits no animals at all. Whereas at least if we had control of it ourselves as Nick says, we could impose that ban and benefit the animals in our country if no other.

    Yes, you're right. In my day job I'm strictly neutral about Brexit as well as politics, but I do think that if we're going to have Brexit it needs to have a degree of genuine independence in it, so we can do things like that. If we find that we've agreed to be in a sort of outer orbit, where we promise not to do our own thing but also can't influence what the others do, it seems to me to be a bit pointless, unless one takes the view that it's a process rather than a single act, and we can in time negotiate greater separation.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787

    Mr. Borough, aye. I've also said that the Fixed Term Parliament Act not having a sunset clause was bloody stupid.

    Alas the nation did not listen
    How could it though? It extinguished a royal prerogative and once extinguished these cannot be revived.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Smithson, alas, indeed!
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812


    But if it doesn't work (as with for example live animal exports) it benefits no animals at all. Whereas at least if we had control of it ourselves as Nick says, we could impose that ban and benefit the animals in our country if no other.

    Yes, you're right. In my day job I'm strictly neutral about Brexit as well as politics, but I do think that if we're going to have Brexit it needs to have a degree of genuine independence in it, so we can do things like that. If we find that we've agreed to be in a sort of outer orbit, where we promise not to do our own thing but also can't influence what the others do, it seems to me to be a bit pointless, unless one takes the view that it's a process rather than a single act, and we can in time negotiate greater separation.
    Which is why permanent customs union membership is so awful. But Labour seem to be all for it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    ...

    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    I agree strongly that the government doesn’t support families nearly enough.

    However five years is too long. I have seen research from I think Sweden that suggests that 18 months is optimal, and that for example girls strongly benefit from having working mothers.

    In my own case, my wife returned to work after just six months, but we were lucky to have the means for a superb nanny and my daughter - now 4 - is very happy and well adjusted. My wife is now pregnant again, and we are considering 12 to 18 months but to be honest, more for her benefit that our child’s.
    The mistake that many make, including parents of very young children, is thinking that it is only the early years when parents need to spend time at home with their children.

    It is very much harder to work and devote time to parenting when your children are teenagers, very much harder, believe me. The years from 10/11 onwards or later are some of the most challenging, for both children and parents. If you need time out with your teenagers then employers tend to be mystified as to why and there aren't often many other working women at the same stage (at my employers, within my department, I was the only woman with teenagers at the 15-17 age range) which can leave you feeling very isolated and lonely in terms of sharing experiences and methods of coping....
    I think that perhaps depends on both work patterns, and the character of your children.
    FWIW, I think we did a pretty good job with our children in their teens, whereas their early years were immensely stressful at times (though that did included two years of relentless sleep deprivation).
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    RoyalBlue said:

    Omnium said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    RoyalBlue said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    We have a 220k new build in Newcastle on a combined salary of 60k. First time buyers. 3 bedroom with garage, decent size south-facing garden.

    That sounds about right. And congrats on your home!

    Though call me old fashioned if you will, but if I were raising kids with someone, I wouldn't want the mother to go back to work until all the children were in primary school at least. Which means a minimum of five years of being on one income before mum can go back to work.
    You're old fashioned
    I also know what it's like to grow up with absent / distant parents who chose career over care, so forgive me if I'm old fashioned and proud about it when I say that I believe being a mother, certainly for the first few years of childhood, *is* a full time job.

    Sometimes it is not a choice. Sometimes the mother is the one earning the regular / higher salary.

    Indeed. I am quite old fashioned, but if I were to settle down with a woman on a much higher salary than me I would be quite happy to be a stay-at-home dad for five years. I'm not *that* old fashioned - I just believe one or the other parent should be with the child for the first few years of its life.
    CUT
    Congratulations to you and your wife; all the best :smile:
    Thankyou! We are blessed.
    But I describe fatherhood as like growing a clunky third limb in the middle of your chest.

    It gets in the way, stops you from going out, makes sleeping uncomfortable, and even the most routine of tasks challenging.

    But woe betide any f***er that tries to harm the new limb...
    Sounds like being a regular poster on PB :)

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.
    Absolutely! Our secret Brexit plans for the reconquest of India require as many as possible...
    Surely a re-inveigling-into-a-position-that-looks-much-like-conquest.

    That’ll be difficult to fit on a leaflet. Will have to revisit.
    I recall the Natural Law party's manifesto of (I guess) 1997. Their leaflet was fantastic! I doubt anyone ever worked out if the tensor maths (I kid you not) was right.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    RoyalBlue said:

    But congratulations old chap (who I suspect is younger than me by a good deal). Great to see more little ones coming into the world.

    Absolutely! Our secret Brexit plans for the reconquest of India require as many as possible...
    Shhhh! It's Jamaica you fool, to replace Spain as a retirement destination.

    Could word to engage is the name of the country, and the response 'F*** yeah!'
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    A wealthy country has that option. There's nothing unreasonable about opting to grow richer at a slightly reduced rate in return for a greater degree of sovereignty.

    Agree. Nothing unreasonable about this at all. But Brexit was not sold like this - as a trade off. It was sold as "you will get all the advantages of now, but with this added control to stop all the bits you don't like"
    This is the "nobody voted to become poorer" argument. The problem is that it's difficult to pick apart the motivations for voting in that referendum - on both sides - and it's entirely possible that we underestimate the resolution and appetite for risk of the British voter. How many people voted for Brexit in the expectation that it actually would make them poorer, because they had other priorities - or, for that matter, believed that Brexit might make them poorer in the near-term, but deliver greater prosperity over many years?

    Well-to-do socialists and social democrats - if they are being honest with themselves about what they believe in - vote to be poorer at every General Election, because they should embrace the opportunity to pay more Scandinavian levels of personal taxation in exchange for better public services. If there were a party without Labour's baggage that offered to clobber me with higher taxes in exchange for more investment in education and housing, for example, then I might feel sufficiently motivated to suppress my cynicism about voting and go out and support it.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    Right, evening all. Off to the pub. Last time I went there was a minor altercation with another table over the dreaded 'B' word.

    Will England ever be tranquil again?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Borough, if it can be tranquil after the 14th century, it can certainly be tranquil in the future.

    Take a few decades, mind.
This discussion has been closed.