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  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,761

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    But very typical of Corbyn. Look at free school meals, free university tuition and spending on what would have been middle class housing.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,761
    edited February 2019
    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    edited February 2019
    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    From the perspective of say Poland, the EU has played a significant role in what is one of the miracles of our lifetime; the transfer of Eastern Europe from communism to functional capitalist economies reasonably well integrated into Europe. I have been visiting Eastern Europe from the 1980s to date, and the transformation in infrastructure, housing, transport etc over the past thirty years is remarkable.

    One of the positive aspects of the EU is far greater emphasis on economic support for poor and peripheral regions than we ever see from the Uk government.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    The closest parallel is probably when we left the ERM in 1992 - it was with hindsight very good economically in the medium term, but disastrous politically for the government of the day to have lost control of events.

    What parallel do you see in terms of the practical impact of No Deal versus leaving the ERM?
    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.
    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
    Greece in 2007 had levels of consumer spending (note, I said spending, not income) that were almost exactly the same as Germany.
  • Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    "Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal ..." That's the problematic bit though, isn't it? Getting the ERG to vote for anything but Eurogeddon.
    A big overall majority. So two fingers to the ERG as well. Also some of them will have stood as independents and lost their seats.
    A big overall majority? Depends very much where Labour positions itself.
    Yes. I'm assuming that Labour will take the Corbyn line on Brexit (we're leaving with CU) and lose support to the LDs. He will also try to make it a campaign on NHS, education, jobs etc which he did successfully last time but would fail this time as Brexit is top issue.

    Tories on 42% Labour on 34% and LDs on 15% gives Tories an overall majority of 28.
    The other question is whether she could get enough votes in the House to call an election. My understanding is that most of her own MPs would oppose a GE, so she may come up short.
    She needs 417 votes. She needs about half of her MPs to vote for it. I'm sure she'd get that, particularly if they thought they could win and achieve Brexit.
    Won't argue with you, Barnesian, but it's no gimme.
  • _Anazina__Anazina_ Posts: 1,810
    Foxy said:

    Interesting to see how popular socialism is getting to be in the USA. As long as they can keep their guns I suppose.

    https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1092807628147879939?s=19

    Brilliant!
  • Foxy said:

    Interesting to see how popular socialism is getting to be in the USA. As long as they can keep their guns I suppose.

    https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1092807628147879939?s=19

    It is interesting that the US has, as a devoutly anti-socialist country, still had relatively high taxes on the wealthy. The top rate of tax was 63% from the 1920s and increased to 94% in 1944. It wasn't then reduced to 70% until 1964 and then to 50% in 1982.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    IanB2 said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    From the perspective of say Poland, the EU has played a significant role in what is one of the miracles of our lifetime; the transfer of Eastern Europe from communism to functional capitalist economies reasonably well integrated into Europe. I have been visiting Eastern Europe from the 1980s to date, and the transformation in infrastructure, housing, transport etc over the past thirty years is remarkable.

    One of the positive aspects of the EU is far greater emphasis on economic support for poor and peripheral regions than we ever see from the Uk government.
    Which is a whole lot easier to achieve when you never have to defend those fiscal transfers at the ballot box, I expect.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    ydoethur said:

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.

    When Greece joined in 1981 it brought new areas of poverty into the EEC. That's not to say areas such as Cornwall and the Highlands weren't still poor relative to the rest of the EEC but they had competition for EEC funds from rural Greece and later from Portugal and Spain.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,761
    SeanT said:

    We tend to be gloomy about all this, but on a cheerful note I turned 69 today and I've really NEVER found a more interesting time to follow politics. Interesting in the Chinese curse sense, maybe. But fascinating too, isn't it?

    Happy Birthday, old bean
    Tactless...
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Wales

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

    Greece gdppc 16,200, Anglesey 18,600.
  • Many thanks for all the good wishes, especially Morris Dancer's encouraging and esoteric note!

    Happy birthday Mr P. Hope you have had a great day.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    I don't believe for a moment that the electorate is as fixated re-Brexit as you appear to assume.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    IanB2 said:


    From the perspective of say Poland, the EU has played a significant role in what is one of the miracles of our lifetime; the transfer of Eastern Europe from communism to functional capitalist economies reasonably well integrated into Europe. I have been visiting Eastern Europe from the 1980s to date, and the transformation in infrastructure, housing, transport etc over the past thirty years is remarkable.

    One of the positive aspects of the EU is far greater emphasis on economic support for poor and peripheral regions than we ever see from the Uk government.

    Of course the former Communist countries have prospered once the dead hand of socialism was lifted but it wasn't easy for many of them to rebalance their economies away from the interdependencies of COMECON and central planning to something more recognisably market oriented.

    There was a lot of unemployment and I'd argue many former state workers who0 saw their jobs disappear and others who saw benefits slashed didn't do so well.

    Your second point is well made and I don't disagree - Cornwall, the Highlands and other areas did well from EEC funded infrastructural spending in the 80s which allowed for the construction of faster roads to enable economic growth in more remote regions.

    As the EU expanded, other countries and regions with pressing needs came forward and the areas which previously did well found funds harder to come by.
  • Foxy said:

    Interesting to see how popular socialism is getting to be in the USA. As long as they can keep their guns I suppose.

    https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1092807628147879939?s=19

    It is interesting that the US has, as a devoutly anti-socialist country, still had relatively high taxes on the wealthy. The top rate of tax was 63% from the 1920s and increased to 94% in 1944. It wasn't then reduced to 70% until 1964 and then to 50% in 1982.
    Interesting, Richard, but the effective rate of tax would be more telling, or even better the ratio of public spending to GDP. And then of course there is the way wealth is distributed, which I would think is pretty uneven in the States, but I've neither the time nor the inclination to chase up the stats!
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Wales

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

    Greece gdppc 16,200, Anglesey 18,600.
    Was this true prior to the crash 10 years ago? I thought the Greek economy was still 20% smaller than it was before the crash. Likewise, what was the GDPpc in Anglesey back then (or to be more precise, in 1981?

    I honestly don't know, these aren't rhetorical questions or meant to be argumentative.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    "Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal ..." That's the problematic bit though, isn't it? Getting the ERG to vote for anything but Eurogeddon.
    A big overall majority. So two fingers to the ERG as well. Also some of them will have stood as independents and lost their seats.
    A big overall majority? Depends very much where Labour positions itself.
    Yes. I'm assuming that Labour will take the Corbyn line on Brexit (we're leaving with CU) and lose support to the LDs. He will also try to make it a campaign on NHS, education, jobs etc which he did successfully last time but would fail this time as Brexit is top issue.

    Tories on 42% Labour on 34% and LDs on 15% gives Tories an overall majority of 28.
    It is top issue for the commentariat and political anoraks but not for the electorate at large who are even more sick of Brexit today than was the case in June 2017.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    _Anazina_ said:

    _Anazina_ said:

    Grayling is quite the most incompetent minister in a long time.

    He should have gone out of the cabinet months ago
    The railways are one part of the economy that should be nationalised, as you are running an inherently loss-making service as a cost of keeping the country connected. The entire concept of franchising is bonkers - this isn’t a banana republic, so the railways cannot be allowed to fail. That all said, Chris Failing is still shite, even given the crap hand he has been dealt.
    We agree on Grayling but not nationalisation. It sounds good but I remember British Rail and it was dire and starved of investment. Network rail is nationalised and is largely responsible for the problems

    The train companies provide huge investment and once network rail has done its job there will be significant improvements. Indeed the Welsh government have just awarded a 15 year franchise to TFW endorsing a partnership between government and the private sector

    Labour want to nationalise rail due to ideology and given a few years under thevRMT wages will be through the roof, restrictive lactices abound, and modernisation including driverless trains will be binned. As the NHS and Education needs continue investment in the railways will be starved sending them into decline as before.

    Labour in Wales have shown the way but that is not Corbyn's way
    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing
    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    Richard - DOR (Directly Operated Railways) have done a very good job when called in to mop up the mess left behind by the private sector. And, the most popular and successful railway in the UK - London Underground - is state owned.
    Network Rail is state-owned.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    "Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal ..." That's the problematic bit though, isn't it? Getting the ERG to vote for anything but Eurogeddon.
    A big overall majority. So two fingers to the ERG as well. Also some of them will have stood as independents and lost their seats.
    A big overall majority? Depends very much where Labour positions itself.
    Yes. I'm assuming that Labour will take the Corbyn line on Brexit (we're leaving with CU) and lose support to the LDs. He will also try to make it a campaign on NHS, education, jobs etc which he did successfully last time but would fail this time as Brexit is top issue.

    Tories on 42% Labour on 34% and LDs on 15% gives Tories an overall majority of 28.
    The other question is whether she could get enough votes in the House to call an election. My understanding is that most of her own MPs would oppose a GE, so she may come up short.
    She needs 417 votes. She needs about half of her MPs to vote for it. I'm sure she'd get that, particularly if they thought they could win and achieve Brexit.
    She actually needs 434 votes.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    edited February 2019

    stodge said:

    Yet the EU are far from blameless - the EEC, a community of nations bound by free trades, the EEC which aimed to bring forward the more economically backward and impoverished regions and help them, that was an organisation I could support.

    Yet the EU is the EU of the pernicious mechanism which is the Single Market which worships economic growth on the altar of cheap labour as more and more people are drawn like moths to the flame of the richer areas leaving so many areas behind.

    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.
    You mean the EU is a 1950s throwback? Let's party like it's 1959! Or 1958, even!
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited February 2019
    rcs1000 said:

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    edited February 2019
    ydoethur said:



    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.

    The inland areas of North Wales are not poor compared to parts of the Welsh Valleys.

    There are affluent little towns in the Vale of Conwy. Llandudno or Abersoch or Beaumaris are very prosperous.

    There are some towns like Blaenau Ffestiniog that look like an uncle, a little down on his luck.

    But, that is nothing compared to the real smell of desperation, hopelessness and poverty that pervades places like Ebbw Vale or Merthyr Tydfil.
  • justin124 said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    "Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal ..." That's the problematic bit though, isn't it? Getting the ERG to vote for anything but Eurogeddon.
    A big overall majority. So two fingers to the ERG as well. Also some of them will have stood as independents and lost their seats.
    A big overall majority? Depends very much where Labour positions itself.
    Yes. I'm assuming that Labour will take the Corbyn line on Brexit (we're leaving with CU) and lose support to the LDs. He will also try to make it a campaign on NHS, education, jobs etc which he did successfully last time but would fail this time as Brexit is top issue.

    Tories on 42% Labour on 34% and LDs on 15% gives Tories an overall majority of 28.
    It is top issue for the commentariat and political anoraks but not for the electorate at large who are even more sick of Brexit today than was the case in June 2017.
    And how joyful do you think that electorate will be to learn we are having another election?
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Quincel said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Wales

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

    Greece gdppc 16,200, Anglesey 18,600.
    Was this true prior to the crash 10 years ago? I thought the Greek economy was still 20% smaller than it was before the crash. Likewise, what was the GDPpc in Anglesey back then (or to be more precise, in 1981?

    I honestly don't know, these aren't rhetorical questions or meant to be argumentative.
    My knowledge is confined to what wikipedia is prepared to tell me.
  • Foxy said:

    Interesting to see how popular socialism is getting to be in the USA. As long as they can keep their guns I suppose.

    https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1092807628147879939?s=19

    It is interesting that the US has, as a devoutly anti-socialist country, still had relatively high taxes on the wealthy. The top rate of tax was 63% from the 1920s and increased to 94% in 1944. It wasn't then reduced to 70% until 1964 and then to 50% in 1982.
    Interesting, Richard, but the effective rate of tax would be more telling, or even better the ratio of public spending to GDP. And then of course there is the way wealth is distributed, which I would think is pretty uneven in the States, but I've neither the time nor the inclination to chase up the stats!
    I think you would be right that it is increasingly uneven since the 80s but I don't know (as in I genuinely don't know) about it prior to then.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    "Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal ..." That's the problematic bit though, isn't it? Getting the ERG to vote for anything but Eurogeddon.
    A big overall majority. So two fingers to the ERG as well. Also some of them will have stood as independents and lost their seats.
    A big overall majority? Depends very much where Labour positions itself.
    Yes. I'm assuming that Labour will take the Corbyn line on Brexit (we're leaving with CU) and lose support to the LDs. He will also try to make it a campaign on NHS, education, jobs etc which he did successfully last time but would fail this time as Brexit is top issue.

    Tories on 42% Labour on 34% and LDs on 15% gives Tories an overall majority of 28.
    It is top issue for the commentariat and political anoraks but not for the electorate at large who are even more sick of Brexit today than was the case in June 2017.
    And how joyful do you think that electorate will be to learn we are having another election?
    Not very joyful at all - many will share Brenda from Bristol's view as expressed in April 2017. Nevertheless if another election does befall us , I am confident that other issues will quickly come to the fore. No way will the public wish to focus on Brexit for 5/6 weeks.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,961

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    A brilliant post.
  • SeanT said:

    Roger said:

    Barnesian said:

    What are Mrs May's key characteristics?
    - Stubborn
    - Anti-free movement
    - Favours blackmail as a strategy
    - Kick the can but can pivot (GE 2017)
    - Very committed and clued up on her deal.

    My conclusion is that she will continue to try to get her deal (including backstop) over the line by "No Deal" blackmail, and when that fails, will go for an extension for a GE on her deal. She won't give up on it.

    Because she survived her VONC, she is fireproof within her own party until the end of the year.

    Her cabinet supports her deal so will probably support a GE on her deal (rather than a second referendum on her deal). It will get through parliament because Labour will support it.

    The Tories will have a clear manifesto based on her deal. Vote for this and get Brexit or stay at home and get Corbyn (the blackmail bit). Labour, on the other hand, will have a real problem with their manifesto and will probably end up with a CU Brexit losing a lot of Remainer Labourites to the LibDems and splitting the centre left vote. Tories get an overall majority and pass her deal with two fingers to the DUP. Sorted.

    In answer to the first part of your post....she's a narcissist and egocentric to an extent I can't remember in a party leader let alone a PM. It's unattractive and one of the principle reasons she got under people's skin at the last election. There's only so much ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME that voters can swallow.
    I'm no fan of the PM but, for what it is worth, I have a good friend who comes from TMay's constituency. My friend is a successful businessman, working mainly with Asia, and is ferociously Remain.

    He's met TMay many times, knows her pretty well.

    Given her determination to see Brexit through in some form, when I drank with him recently (for the first time in ages) I expected him to condemn her outright. He did not. He said she is honest, principled, clever and much admired, even liked, by her constituents. He reckoned she was and is doing her best to square the circle, and is not in it for any glory.

    He has no reason to lie. Yet why don't we ever see this side of TMay on the national or international stage? It is odd, and she is odd.
    With normal people talking normally *about non-political things* she is fine. Particularly on a 1:1.

    However, as soon as it goes political or she's talking to politicians or journalists all that goes. It's like a switch goes in her brain and she goes silent or full Maybot.

    I think it's a confidence thing and a defensive mechanism.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Let the failing parts of the country rot. They voted to sabotage the successful bits through Brexit. Let them figure out a way to recover that doesn’t involve sponging off the bits of the country that they hate.
  • Foxy said:

    Interesting to see how popular socialism is getting to be in the USA. As long as they can keep their guns I suppose.

    https://twitter.com/stevemorris__/status/1092807628147879939?s=19

    It is interesting that the US has, as a devoutly anti-socialist country, still had relatively high taxes on the wealthy. The top rate of tax was 63% from the 1920s and increased to 94% in 1944. It wasn't then reduced to 70% until 1964 and then to 50% in 1982.
    People support higher taxes on other people, but not them.

    One big reason this hasn't been an issue since the 1980s until recently is that everyone was getting richer more quickly, many people thought that could be them one day, and there was still some level of identification with those at the very top.

    With the top 0.1% sailing into the stratosphere and being rootless globalists; that's now gone.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    rcs1000 said:

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)
    How low can it go?
  • If anyone is still wondering why Project Fear isn't working with the ERG consider the change from January 2017:

    ' The chief executive of the London Stock Exchange has warned the UK's vote to leave the EU poses a risk to the global financial system and could cost the City of London up to 230,000 jobs if the Government fails to provide a clear plan for post-Brexit operations. '

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-london-city-jobs-losses-lse-boss-warning-uk-eu-a7519396.html

    to February 2019:

    ' The number of City jobs expected to move overseas in the event of a hard Brexit has fallen to just 2,000 - according to the latest survey of financial institutions. A Reuters study also suggests that investment banks are planning to increase their London headcount. '

    http://www.cityam.com/272748/fewer-city-jobs-expected-move-due-brexit-despite-deepening
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,761
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Quincel said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:


    This is hysterical nonsense. The EEC always had free movement from its founding with the Treaty of Rome. As far as I can make out, if you object to anything concrete it's really the eastern expansion of the EU.

    As usual, it seems you need a history lesson. When we (along with Eire and Denmark) joined in 1973 we brought some quite poor areas into the then EEC. Areas like Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and of course the Republic were relatively poor compared to the rest of the EEC at that time. The largesse available went to these areas - Cornwall did very well in terms of infrastructure from Objective One funding as did Wales and the Highlands.

    The admission of Greece in 1981 and later Portugal and Spain changed things. The accession of these countries changed the economic dynamic by bringing in areas which were relatively even poorer than the poorer areas of the UK so money went from the EEC to support rural Spain, Greece and Portugal and the previously well funded areas of the UK lost out.

    Fast forward to the accession of the post Communist countries and in to the EEC/EU came a raft of even more impoverished areas. The Polish economy in GDP terms in 1988 was barely a third of that of Sweden. That unbalanced and distorted the EU and led to the north and west spaying for the east and to an extent the south.

    The cynic might argue it also created a large pool of cheap labour for the richer economies to draw on but for various reasons conservatives, socialists and liberals were all in favour of expanding the EU - I wasn't. I'd have encouraged investment in the post-Communist countries and allowed a much longer transition period before full admission but that wasn't the thinking.

    Is Greece poorer than the inland areas of North Wales? Or indeed Anglesey? Serious question.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Wales

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

    Greece gdppc 16,200, Anglesey 18,600.
    Was this true prior to the crash 10 years ago? I thought the Greek economy was still 20% smaller than it was before the crash. Likewise, what was the GDPpc in Anglesey back then (or to be more precise, in 1981?

    I honestly don't know, these aren't rhetorical questions or meant to be argumentative.
    My knowledge is confined to what wikipedia is prepared to tell me.
    And Wikipedia is out by €3,000.

    https://www.dailypost.co.uk/business/business-news/anglesey-still-poorest-part-britain-14064497

    So even if we accept the Greek figure as accurate - which strikes me as a bold assumption for many reasons - Anglesey is still barely above it.
  • tpfkartpfkar Posts: 1,545
    edited February 2019
    1. Happy birthday Nick Palmer! Hope you are enjoying another candle on the cake and being spoilt rotten.

    2. I also saw the Euro programme last night. Not a lot of context - it was all who said what to who, and not why should we care, but I was also taken with how lucid and persuasive Sarkozy came across, a stature I never saw while he held the presidency.

    3. On May calling an election to secure the deal, my issue is that even if she gets a majority of 100, the support for her deal just isn't there and she'd still have no majority on that vote. And with neither her grassroots or MPs behind it, how on earth does she enforce discipline on that? One idea (admittedly a Hail Mary) invoke the queen. Make it clear before the election that the Queen's speech will INCLUDE the meaningful vote. Literally have her majesty announce it mid speech. If you vote for the Queen's speech you are voting for Mays EU deal. If you won't vote for the Queens speech, you're not standing as a Tory candidate.

    If that's too crazy, what's the sensible way of doing it?
  • ydoethur said:

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    But very typical of Corbyn. Look at free school meals, free university tuition and spending on what would have been middle class housing.
    That's why he's popular.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Not that I have strong views on it but most bus services are part of the welfare state. Except in the major cities.

    I rarely see anyone older than a teenager on them until they reach retirement age, when they get it for free.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    Ishmael_Z said:



    My knowledge is confined to what wikipedia is prepared to tell me.

    Fair. I could also be more productive if I tried to give answers not just questions. So in that vein:

    The World Bank says Greek GDP was $52.35bn (adjusted for inflation). Population was 9.73m (also according to the World Bank). That gives a GDPpc of $5,380.

    https://data.worldbank.org/country/greece

    Handily the ONS has a spreadsheet with historical GDPpc for each region, albeit only broken down to East Midlands, North, Southwest, Greater London, etc. Also it's in £s. In 1981 the lowest £/pc is Northern Ireland at £2,882.

    So it looks like Greece wasn't poorer. Except the UK average GDP is £3k-something, so either they aren't adjusting for inflation or there's some other reason that the two aren't comparable - since I find it hard to believe UK GDP was really lower than Greece's back then.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossvalueaddedgva/adhocs/005458historicalregionalgdp1968to1970and1971to1996

    So in short, I don't know either.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/
  • The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    When I suggested that I was accused of trolling.
  • SeanT said:

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Let the failing parts of the country rot. They voted to sabotage the successful bits through Brexit. Let them figure out a way to recover that doesn’t involve sponging off the bits of the country that they hate.
    Oh god, your id has returned. Take a xanax.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47055499
    If there’s any kind of social compact, which I doubt, it requires society’s losers not actively to impede society’s dynamos. To do so and then to bleat that the money is not flowing enough is a bit much for me.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    edited February 2019

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    I'm more familiar with Italy than France or Germany, but my impression is that the overheads in running a shop are less there (not least because many are family owned rather than rented), the culture of personal contact through shopping persists, and the concept of shopping online especially for things like groceries is still in its infancy. Which isn't to say that where we lead, they wont follow, but it will be the younger generation that leads the change, unlike the UK where many middle aged folk already do most of their shopping online.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Not many media opinion formers use buses in proleshire though.

    And I suspect you're wrong - the first thing a renationalised railway would do would be to give striking workers a big pay rise.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    tpfkar said:

    1. Happy birthday Nick Palmer! Hope you are enjoying another candle on the cake and being spoilt rotten.

    2. I also saw the Euro programme last night. Not a lot of context - it was all who said what to who, and not why should we care, but I was also taken with how lucid and persuasive Sarkozy came across, a stature I never saw while he held the presidency.

    3. On May calling an election to secure the deal, my issue is that even if she gets a majority of 100, the support for her deal just isn't there and she'd still have no majority on that vote. And with neither her grassroots or MPs behind it, how on earth does she enforce discipline on that? One idea (admittedly a Hail Mary) invoke the queen. Make it clear before the election that the Queen's speech will INCLUDE the meaningful vote. Literally have her majesty announce it mid speech. If you vote for the Queen's speech you are voting for Mays EU deal. If you won't vote for the Queens speech, you're not standing as a Tory candidate.

    If that's too crazy, what's the sensible way of doing it?

    Certainly given the way the Tories select candidates, the more unlikely gains they make, the more rabidly anti-Europe will be the party in Parliament.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    IanB2 said:

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)

    How low can it go?
    Who can say? The financial markets are a mysterious beast to the uninitiated (and often, it seems, to most of the initiated as well.) The only constant is that, whenever currencies or shares move up or down, somebody who's clever, lucky or both is making a quick fortune.

    For all I know the pound might not move very much at all. It seems to have stabilised despite the increasingly funereal mood music emanating from the Brexit negotiations.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Not many media opinion formers use buses in proleshire though.

    And I suspect you're wrong - the first thing a renationalised railway would do would be to give striking workers a big pay rise.
    Nah - the fare freezes would be trumpeted in the manifesto and applied immediately. Beer and sandwiches at Number 10 would follow a couple of months later.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    IanB2 said:

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)

    How low can it go?
    Who can say? The financial markets are a mysterious beast to the uninitiated (and often, it seems, to most of the initiated as well.) The only constant is that, whenever currencies or shares move up or down, somebody who's clever, lucky or both is making a quick fortune.

    For all I know the pound might not move very much at all. It seems to have stabilised despite the increasingly funereal mood music emanating from the Brexit negotiations.
    I made a nice profit on betting the £ as it rose towards the last Brexit vote in the Commons. Fortunately I took a big chunk of profit before the debate, since the £ has sunk back since. But I still believe the opportunity is on the upside, since any sort of outcome resolves the uncertainty and anything other than no deal exit (which I don't believe any PM would ever risk) should produce a significant upward bounce in £/$ and £/€.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Let the failing parts of the country rot. They voted to sabotage the successful bits through Brexit. Let them figure out a way to recover that doesn’t involve sponging off the bits of the country that they hate.
    Tough words from someone who is going to have to beg those 'failing' parts of the country for food.
  • WigeonWigeon Posts: 11

    Wigeon said:

    Wigeon said:

    Wigeon said:

    Wigeon said:

    Hello, first post. A refugee from Order-Order. The site is a joke, too many weirdos and nasty people abound.

    Welcome. I hope we've less weirdos and nasties.
    Thank you OKC. Read this blog for ages and decided, to be honest, far more interesting and sociable. The language on OrderOrder is disgraceful and I consider myself a man of the world.
    Welcome to PB - It is virtually my first place for news these days. And such varied opinions
    Cheers Big G. Where about in North Wales, I know it well, at least every inch of the A55
    Llandudno, the Queen of Welsh resorts
    I admire it every time i go sea fishing on Anglesey.
    I hope you find time to visit the town one day.
    Was there last year, picking up one of my grandsons who's car broke down and, year before, visiting the cinema at the junction
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,761
    edited February 2019
    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,961
    SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    I noticed the same in Normandy.
  • asjohnstoneasjohnstone Posts: 1,276

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Why the Irish don't abandon their failed republic and restore the queen of Ireland to her throne is beyond me, it'd solve so many problems
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Why the Irish don't abandon their failed republic and restore the queen of Ireland to her throne is beyond me, it'd solve so many problems
    The mystery to me is why we think there is any benefit whatsoever from holding onto the six counties.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Not many media opinion formers use buses in proleshire though.

    And I suspect you're wrong - the first thing a renationalised railway would do would be to give striking workers a big pay rise.
    Nah - the fare freezes would be trumpeted in the manifesto and applied immediately. Beer and sandwiches at Number 10 would follow a couple of months later.
    Rail fares aren't petrol prices - they tend to change only once a year - so you can only freeze them when it is time to increase them.

    The demand for pay rises would come immediately.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    IanB2 said:

    I'm more familiar with Italy than France or Germany, but my impression is that the overheads in running a shop are less there (not least because many are family owned rather than rented), the culture of personal contact through shopping persists, and the concept of shopping online especially for things like groceries is still in its infancy. Which isn't to say that where we lead, they wont follow, but it will be the younger generation that leads the change, unlike the UK where many middle aged folk already do most of their shopping online.

    I think our problem is a combination of the high cost of rented retail space; landlords holding onto empty retail properties waiting for new tenants who are probably never going to come; lack of funds, imagination or both on the part of local authorities in redeveloping clapped out retail areas; and, of course, the low cost and convenience of online shopping (and banking.) I also seem to recall reading somewhere that we're close to the tipping point, in urban centres at least, where ordering good quality takeaway food will be cheaper (as well as easier for time-constrained or plain lazy households) than cooking your own meals from scratch, which isn't going to help shops much either. I suspect that the nexus of home delivery and click-and-collect apps, allied to so-called dark kitchens, is behind that one.

    Clearly physical retail isn't going to decline to zero, especially in large centres and better-off and/or touristy areas, but the contraction probably has some distance left to go yet.
  • SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    And doubtless a factor in the French protests.

    But if France is suffering in the pretty tourist area then the likes of Picardy and Lorraine much be in a bad way.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    IanB2 said:

    I'm more familiar with Italy than France or Germany, but my impression is that the overheads in running a shop are less there (not least because many are family owned rather than rented), the culture of personal contact through shopping persists, and the concept of shopping online especially for things like groceries is still in its infancy. Which isn't to say that where we lead, they wont follow, but it will be the younger generation that leads the change, unlike the UK where many middle aged folk already do most of their shopping online.

    I think our problem is a combination of the high cost of rented retail space; landlords holding onto empty retail properties waiting for new tenants who are probably never going to come; lack of funds, imagination or both on the part of local authorities in redeveloping clapped out retail areas; and, of course, the low cost and convenience of online shopping (and banking.) I also seem to recall reading somewhere that we're close to the tipping point, in urban centres at least, where ordering good quality takeaway food will be cheaper (as well as easier for time-constrained or plain lazy households) than cooking your own meals from scratch, which isn't going to help shops much either. I suspect that the nexus of home delivery and click-and-collect apps, allied to so-called dark kitchens, is behind that one.

    Clearly physical retail isn't going to decline to zero, especially in large centres and better-off and/or touristy areas, but the contraction probably has some distance left to go yet.
    Town centres are destined either to become entirely residential, as have most of our villages which in bygone years contained post offices, butchers, greengrocers and the like, or reinvent themselves as meeting places with a primary focus on cafes, restaurants and other spaces for social meeting and service provision, with some ancillary retail on the side. Most councils currently are struggling with working out which of their towns are heading for either destination.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    SeanT said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Why the Irish don't abandon their failed republic and restore the queen of Ireland to her throne is beyond me, it'd solve so many problems
    The mystery to me is why we think there is any benefit whatsoever from holding onto the six counties.
    Polling shows time and again that most mainland Brits, certainly most English people, don't give a fuck about Ulster (in the nicest possible way) and would be quite content for Ireland to reunify.

    I should add that I am not one of them: I am a Brit and a Celt and I think the whole nation benefits from being four nations.

    But I have to accept most of my fellow Englishmen and women do not share my attachment.

    The Irish attitude to reunification is equally intriguing: they desire it in a spiritual, St Augustine-and-celibacy kind of way, but when asked how they feel about it happening NOW then they quail. At least that's the mood I pick up from their media, which I have been following recently

    I've also noted that the Irish still suffer a martyr complex, despite benefiting intensely from the EU, and the UK's generosity therein.
    e.g. Varadkar recently claimed that Ireland was being "victimised" by Brexit.

    You what? The UK wishes to be independent, and somehow that makes Ireland a "victim"? Fuck off.
    The northern Irish to me seem to have the attitude of expats who by some quirk of history are still living here.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773
    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
  • IanB2 said:

    SeanT said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Why the Irish don't abandon their failed republic and restore the queen of Ireland to her throne is beyond me, it'd solve so many problems
    The mystery to me is why we think there is any benefit whatsoever from holding onto the six counties.
    Polling shows time and again that most mainland Brits, certainly most English people, don't give a fuck about Ulster (in the nicest possible way) and would be quite content for Ireland to reunify.

    I should add that I am not one of them: I am a Brit and a Celt and I think the whole nation benefits from being four nations.

    But I have to accept most of my fellow Englishmen and women do not share my attachment.

    The Irish attitude to reunification is equally intriguing: they desire it in a spiritual, St Augustine-and-celibacy kind of way, but when asked how they feel about it happening NOW then they quail. At least that's the mood I pick up from their media, which I have been following recently

    I've also noted that the Irish still suffer a martyr complex, despite benefiting intensely from the EU, and the UK's generosity therein.
    e.g. Varadkar recently claimed that Ireland was being "victimised" by Brexit.

    You what? The UK wishes to be independent, and somehow that makes Ireland a "victim"? Fuck off.
    The northern Irish to me seem to have the attitude of expats who by some quirk of history are still living here.
    I expect Americans would be similar if their ancestors had neglected to exterminate the natives.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all t he defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Actually that last sentence is barely a sentence, is it? It doesn’t even make sense.
  • The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Sounds an excellent idea. It would certainly stop the DUP in their tracks. Given that it is set out as an option in the GFA, would it need Parliamentary approval or could May just call one in conjunction with the Irish Government?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Sounds an excellent idea. It would certainly stop the DUP in their tracks. Given that it is set out as an option in the GFA, would it need Parliamentary approval or could May just call one in conjunction with the Irish Government?
    Looking forward to her explaining why only the citizens of NI get to vote on the proposed outcome, now that it has become clearer.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    SeanT said:

    _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Let the failing parts of the country rot. They voted to sabotage the successful bits through Brexit. Let them figure out a way to recover that doesn’t involve sponging off the bits of the country that they hate.
    Oh god, your id has returned. Take a xanax.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47055499
    If there’s any kind of social compact, which I doubt, it requires society’s losers not actively to impede society’s dynamos. To do so and then to bleat that the money is not flowing enough is a bit much for me.
    I wonder if I can guess the initials of someone who thinks he is one of "society's dynamos".

    You sound as full of hate as Donald Trump. I am sure he thinks he is one of society's dynamos, as well.
  • IanB2 said:

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Sounds an excellent idea. It would certainly stop the DUP in their tracks. Given that it is set out as an option in the GFA, would it need Parliamentary approval or could May just call one in conjunction with the Irish Government?
    Looking forward to her explaining why only the citizens of NI get to vote on the proposed outcome, now that it has become clearer.
    They wouldn't be voting on that. They wold be voting on reunification as set out in the GFA. I am actually surprised it hasn't already been done to be honest.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Has anyone asked the Republic how keen they are on unification?

    I know some of my relatives who have reservations.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)

    How low can it go?
    Who can say? The financial markets are a mysterious beast to the uninitiated (and often, it seems, to most of the initiated as well.) The only constant is that, whenever currencies or shares move up or down, somebody who's clever, lucky or both is making a quick fortune.

    For all I know the pound might not move very much at all. It seems to have stabilised despite the increasingly funereal mood music emanating from the Brexit negotiations.
    I made a nice profit on betting the £ as it rose towards the last Brexit vote in the Commons. Fortunately I took a big chunk of profit before the debate, since the £ has sunk back since. But I still believe the opportunity is on the upside, since any sort of outcome resolves the uncertainty and anything other than no deal exit (which I don't believe any PM would ever risk) should produce a significant upward bounce in £/$ and £/€.
    I am not putting my hard earned on it but I do agree with this. I think everything short of a nuclear winter is priced into Sterling at the moment and there is a lot of upside out of a mere disaster.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    IanB2 said:

    The Spectator floats the idea of holding an Irish unification referendum to solve the border issue.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/a-referendum-on-irish-unity-might-be-the-best-way-to-solve-the-brexit-border-issue/

    Why the Irish don't abandon their failed republic and restore the queen of Ireland to her throne is beyond me, it'd solve so many problems
    The mystery to me is why we think there is any benefit whatsoever from holding onto the six counties.
    Do we hold onto them, or do they stay of their own volition? The lack of overwhelming demand for a border poll so far suggests the latter.

    Although that does lead naturally to the broader question of whether or not the UK has a future, and which other parts of it some of us might or might not like to jettison (whether out of necessity or convenience.) The Greater South-East (London+South-East+East Anglia) could be a very wealthy and successful medium-sized European country, possessed of the greater part of the UK's financial services and high-tech industrial clout, Oxbridge and much of the best agricultural land, and one divested of the burden of making fiscal transfers to the whole of the rest of the country and of maintaining a military capability commensurate with permanent membership of the UN Security Council to boot. Londonia could and probably would become a fat outre-mer extension of the Low Countries.

    Some people would be thrilled, but I'm not so sure that the proposal would garner widespread approval.
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all t he defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Actually that last sentence is barely a sentence, is it? It doesn’t even make sense.
    I wouldn't worry about making sense. It is the default position for all our mps
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    edited February 2019
    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)

    How low can it go?
    Who can say? The financial markets are a mysterious beast to the uninitiated (and often, it seems, to most of the initiated as well.) The only constant is that, whenever currencies or shares move up or down, somebody who's clever, lucky or both is making a quick fortune.

    For all I know the pound might not move very much at all. It seems to have stabilised despite the increasingly funereal mood music emanating from the Brexit negotiations.
    I made a nice profit on betting the £ as it rose towards the last Brexit vote in the Commons. Fortunately I took a big chunk of profit before the debate, since the £ has sunk back since. But I still believe the opportunity is on the upside, since any sort of outcome resolves the uncertainty and anything other than no deal exit (which I don't believe any PM would ever risk) should produce a significant upward bounce in £/$ and £/€.
    I am not putting my hard earned on it but I do agree with this. I think everything short of a nuclear winter is priced into Sterling at the moment and there is a lot of upside out of a mere disaster.
    There used to be a saying in foreign exchange that no-one ever lost money selling a pound for two dollars (as you could as recently as 2008/9). Unless the Brexiters manage to trash our country completely, I would hope that the same should apply to buying pounds for $1.30.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    And doubtless a factor in the French protests.

    But if France is suffering in the pretty tourist area then the likes of Picardy and Lorraine much be in a bad way.
    Cognac and Bordeaux are very definitely NOT pretty tourist areas (though Bordeaux is a handsome city). They are flat, boring, grey and tedious, and, once you get there, you realise that the production of cognac and Bordeaux wine is an industry like any other. That is to say: when you look out at the endless vineyards along the Garonne you are looking out at an essentially utilitarian and industrial landscape, like the Welsh coalfields or modern Guangdong, only with the odd charming chateau amongst the grittiness.

    Indeed I recommend a tour of Bordeaux to strip away any remaining delusions about the unique fanciness of French wine. They churn it out in tidal waves, from huge concrete warehouses, with ruthlessly clever use of branding to make it seem unusually posh and desirable.
    Although the Charente is a delightful river.
  • Good for Newport County beating Middlesbough 2 -0 in the cup. Classic cup tie in foul conditions

    Bet City not looking forward to their trip there in the next round
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    CD13 said:

    Has anyone asked the Republic how keen they are on unification?

    I know some of my relatives who have reservations.

    One can well imagine that it would be tough on them. In a united Ireland the North would constitute nearly 30% of the country, it's relatively really quite poor, and paying for its upkeep would be, proportionately, a vastly greater burden to southern taxpayers than it presently is to the UK treasury.

    That and they'd inherit a large cohort of very pissed-off Protestants.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:



    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.

    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    And doubtless a factor in the French protests.

    But if France is suffering in the pretty tourist area then the likes of Picardy and Lorraine must be in a bad way.
    Cognac and Bordeaux are very definitely NOT pretty tourist areas (though Bordeaux is a handsome city). They are flat, boring, grey and tedious, and, once you get there, you realise that the production of cognac and Bordeaux wine is an industry like any other. That is to say: when you look out at the endless vineyards along the Garonne you are looking out at an essentially utilitarian and industrial landscape, like the Welsh coalfields or modern Guangdong, only with the odd charming chateau amongst the grittiness.

    Indeed I recommend a tour of Bordeaux to strip away any remaining delusions about the unique fanciness of French wine. They churn it out in tidal waves, from huge concrete warehouses, with ruthlessly clever use of branding to make it seem unusually posh and desirable.
    Thanks - I'll blame Rick Stein for the misapprehension - I watched his trip to Bordeaux program earlier this week.

    I do wonder if there are French / Spanish / Italian TV chefs eulogizing the 'authentic street food' of Britain.

    Isn't the Dordogne near to Bordeaux ? Is that similarly over-rated ?
  • IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    I'm more familiar with Italy than France or Germany, but my impression is that the overheads in running a shop are less there (not least because many are family owned rather than rented), the culture of personal contact through shopping persists, and the concept of shopping online especially for things like groceries is still in its infancy. Which isn't to say that where we lead, they wont follow, but it will be the younger generation that leads the change, unlike the UK where many middle aged folk already do most of their shopping online.

    I think our problem is a combination of the high cost of rented retail space; landlords holding onto empty retail properties waiting for new tenants who are probably never going to come; lack of funds, imagination or both on the part of local authorities in redeveloping clapped out retail areas; and, of course, the low cost and convenience of online shopping (and banking.) I also seem to recall reading somewhere that we're close to the tipping point, in urban centres at least, where ordering good quality takeaway food will be cheaper (as well as easier for time-constrained or plain lazy households) than cooking your own meals from scratch, which isn't going to help shops much either. I suspect that the nexus of home delivery and click-and-collect apps, allied to so-called dark kitchens, is behind that one.

    Clearly physical retail isn't going to decline to zero, especially in large centres and better-off and/or touristy areas, but the contraction probably has some distance left to go yet.
    Town centres are destined either to become entirely residential, as have most of our villages which in bygone years contained post offices, butchers, greengrocers and the like, or reinvent themselves as meeting places with a primary focus on cafes, restaurants and other spaces for social meeting and service provision, with some ancillary retail on the side. Most councils currently are struggling with working out which of their towns are heading for either destination.
    It will be the latter.
  • SeanT said:

    Casino:



    "With normal people talking normally *about non-political things* she is fine. Particularly on a 1:1.

    However, as soon as it goes political or she's talking to politicians or journalists all that goes. It's like a switch goes in her brain and she goes silent or full Maybot.

    I think it's a confidence thing and a defensive mechanism."

    ***

    Yes, she reminds me of a relative of mine, who is sweet, intelligent, good natured and often very funny in company she knows and trusts, but acute shyness with anyone else makes her freeze and mutter, or repeat things by rote. To newcomers she can appear inadvertently rude and/or lacking in empathy.

    Maybe our PM is just SHY. And rather bad at handling complex social situations, and new people? That's OK if she's a minister dealing with day to day policy issues. As a prime minister tasked with the most important negotiation in modern British history it is a calamity,

    I think there's a lot of truth in that.
  • DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    It should be "nearly lasted" in English if I am not mistaken?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    IanB2 said:

    The northern Irish to me seem to have the attitude of expats who by some quirk of history are still living here.

    That is brilliant.
  • DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Might another round of devaluation post-Brexit help, simply by making UK exports more attractive and reducing our ability to purchase imported goods?

    Of course, in the long run the economy's not going to get fixed whilst such a large percentage of the national wealth is locked up in housing. There's no incentive for most of us, other than the very well-off, to invest in business through shares when property offers such fat guaranteed returns (and when, for many people, being forced to take out a colossal mortgage means there's not much left for anything but day-to-day expenses for the rest of their working lives.)

    (Edit: Actually, I think the rotten property market may even be the main reason why so many people still live beyond their means. When mortgages or rents are so large that you can't save very much, then the only way you may be able to afford luxuries - short of a lottery win or a bequest - is to buy them all on credit.)

    How low can it go?
    Who can say? The financial markets are a mysterious beast to the uninitiated (and often, it seems, to most of the initiated as well.) The only constant is that, whenever currencies or shares move up or down, somebody who's clever, lucky or both is making a quick fortune.

    For all I know the pound might not move very much at all. It seems to have stabilised despite the increasingly funereal mood music emanating from the Brexit negotiations.
    I made a nice profit on betting the £ as it rose towards the last Brexit vote in the Commons. Fortunately I took a big chunk of profit before the debate, since the £ has sunk back since. But I still believe the opportunity is on the upside, since any sort of outcome resolves the uncertainty and anything other than no deal exit (which I don't believe any PM would ever risk) should produce a significant upward bounce in £/$ and £/€.
    I am not putting my hard earned on it but I do agree with this. I think everything short of a nuclear winter is priced into Sterling at the moment and there is a lot of upside out of a mere disaster.
    Perhaps everything except the UK living within its means.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all t he defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Actually that last sentence is barely a sentence, is it? It doesn’t even make sense.
    I wouldn't worry about making sense. It is the default position for all our mps
    As long as it is the default of the idiots on both sides of the argument opposing the WA. We opposed it to the last day and then we gave in.

    Hallelujah.
  • DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Not really. I am afraid ydoethur is showing he is a teacher first and a historian second. Most historians of the period recognise that Harold was indeed a great commander. Faced with an almost impossible situation of fighting off two invasions in succession - one against an army which had already beaten part of his army before he arrived - he did far better than many might have expected. That he lost was not down to his being a poor commander but down to circumstances largely beyond his control. It would be fair to say he was a poor diplomat perhaps but certainly not a poor commander.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    CD13 said:

    Has anyone asked the Republic how keen they are on unification?

    I know some of my relatives who have reservations.

    There is periodic polling. A majority want to see a united Ireland "In my lifetime" but majorities tend to oppose it happening in the short/medium term (though some polls show support). There's an interesting poll near the end of this page which shows support varies a lot based on what the tax impact would be.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland#Assorted_opinion_polls
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    I note that Ladbrokes has finally ended their long run as the longest odds on Trump being the GOP Nominee for 2020. Was 1.5, now 1.4 (Skybet are 1.44).

    Betfair is down from 1.6-1.65 last week to 1.55 or so now.
  • _Anazina_ said:

    You are assuming that we’d recreate BR, which there is no good reason to do. Other countries manage perfectly well with their railways in the public sector - why are we so down on our own abilities? It’s embarrassing

    Because our record of public ownership has been frankly atrocious. I don't trust the Government (any Government of any party in this country) to get basic state things like collecting taxes right. Why on earth would I want to let them within a million miles of the railways again?
    That, and what's the first thing that happens if Labour renationalises the railways? They'll freeze the fares to appease angry commuters. And who are the angry commuters? Disproportionately, they're wealthy or comfortably-off workers, and disproportionately they're concentrated in the South-East of England.

    Ergo, bringing the railways back into public ownership = yet more sweeties for the richest part of the country, which I thought was the sort of thing we were meant to be trying to get away from.

    And then, going forward, either the trains are starved of investment because most Government spending increases are set aside for the NHS and pensions, or if it does happen it therefore comes increasingly from general taxation rather than from fare revenues. Better trains for comfortably-off commuters would end up coming out of everybody's income, including that of a great many poor people and those in rural areas who may seldom (if ever) travel by train, but will get to watch more of their money being spent so that the aforementioned commuters may enjoy the privilege of an improved railway without having to cough up more for their tickets.

    Finite resources would be better spent on bus services, which are dying on their wheels in most of the country outside of London.
    Not many media opinion formers use buses in proleshire though.

    And I suspect you're wrong - the first thing a renationalised railway would do would be to give striking workers a big pay rise.
    There would be both a pay rise and a fare freeze.

    Engineering works, new trains, station improvements and non-safety critical maintenance would take a very big hit leasing to a decline in service quality, reliability and service frequencies.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Not really. I am afraid ydoethur is showing he is a teacher first and a historian second. Most historians of the period recognise that Harold was indeed a great commander. Faced with an almost impossible situation of fighting off two invasions in succession - one against an army which had already beaten part of his army before he arrived - he did far better than many might have expected. That he lost was not down to his being a poor commander but down to circumstances largely beyond his control. It would be fair to say he was a poor diplomat perhaps but certainly not a poor commander.
    Oh come on. He was facing an army that had literally burnt its boats, that was in a hostile country, that basically had one shot to win. They may have got lucky with the shot in the eye but the fact is that a more cautious approach was guaranteed to win and Harold blew it. He needed to be a Varrus and William would have been in deep doodoo.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Surely it's a good thing if we start living within our means.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    I'm more familiar with Italy than France or Germany, but my impression is that the overheads in running a shop are less there (not least because many are family owned rather than rented), the culture of personal contact through shopping persists, and the concept of shopping online especially for things like groceries is still in its infancy. Which isn't to say that where we lead, they wont follow, but it will be the younger generation that leads the change, unlike the UK where many middle aged folk already do most of their shopping online.

    I think our problem is a combination of the high cost of rented retail space; landlords holding onto empty retail properties waiting for new tenants who are probably never going to come; lack of funds, imagination or both on the part of local authorities in redeveloping clapped out retail areas; and, of course, the low cost and convenience of online shopping (and banking.) I also seem to recall reading somewhere that we're close to the tipping point, in urban centres at least, where ordering good quality takeaway food will be cheaper (as well as easier for time-constrained or plain lazy households) than cooking your own meals from scratch, which isn't going to help shops much either. I suspect that the nexus of home delivery and click-and-collect apps, allied to so-called dark kitchens, is behind that one.

    Clearly physical retail isn't going to decline to zero, especially in large centres and better-off and/or touristy areas, but the contraction probably has some distance left to go yet.
    Town centres are destined either to become entirely residential, as have most of our villages which in bygone years contained post offices, butchers, greengrocers and the like, or reinvent themselves as meeting places with a primary focus on cafes, restaurants and other spaces for social meeting and service provision, with some ancillary retail on the side. Most councils currently are struggling with working out which of their towns are heading for either destination.
    It will be the latter.
    I think the more honest answer is that many, but not all, town centres have the potential to reinvent themselves in such a way, but that there will be a fair few that end up as entirely residential with no need for any commercial high street activity at all, given that there is somewhere more successful within easy driving distance. It is already the case that in many town centres the most valuable use for even high street properties is as conversion to residential, and it is only local planning regulations that hold back the tide.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773
    AndyJS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Surely it's a good thing if we start living within our means.
    Well that depends on where you work.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    GIN1138 said:

    AndyJS said:
    Isn't that really at the point where you basically need to scrap your currency and start again?
    That's what I was thinking.
  • SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    I noticed the same in Normandy.
    Normandy is utterly moribund. It's very sad.

    Le Touquet (although not in Normandy) was very different but it's also very touristy.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,090
    AndyJS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Surely it's a good thing if we start living within our means.
    Sadly the way politics works, more people would vote for their children living within their means.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,773
    IanB2 said:

    AndyJS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Surely it's a good thing if we start living within our means.
    Sadly the way politics works, more people would vote for their children living within their means.
    And they do.
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Not really. I am afraid ydoethur is showing he is a teacher first and a historian second. Most historians of the period recognise that Harold was indeed a great commander. Faced with an almost impossible situation of fighting off two invasions in succession - one against an army which had already beaten part of his army before he arrived - he did far better than many might have expected. That he lost was not down to his being a poor commander but down to circumstances largely beyond his control. It would be fair to say he was a poor diplomat perhaps but certainly not a poor commander.
    Oh come on. He was facing an army that had literally burnt its boats, that was in a hostile country, that basically had one shot to win. They may have got lucky with the shot in the eye but the fact is that a more cautious approach was guaranteed to win and Harold blew it. He needed to be a Varrus and William would have been in deep doodoo.
    Do you mean Fabius who wore down Hannibal ?

    Or Varro who lost at Cannae ?

    Varrus was the Roman who lost Germany for Augustus.
  • DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Georgia, and New York island (long Island) were effectively under Crown control right until the end. At times we held Rhode Island and South Carolina too.

    So, not a total slam dunk.
  • SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem , I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Germany is somewhat resistant to internet shopping, so the German high street is doing OK (even if this is unsustainable and possibly inefficient in the long term)

    Provincial France, by contrast, is suffering badly (this may be more to do with labour laws than e-commerce). The rundown French towns I visited on my recent trip to Cognac/Bordeaux were as bleak and boarded up as anywhere in Wales or Lancashire.
    I noticed the same in Normandy.
    Normandy is utterly moribund. It's very sad.

    Le Touquet (although not in Normandy) was very different but it's also very touristy.
    Michel Houellebecq new novel is partly about Normandy and its decline/moribundness.

    Not translated until the autumn.

    Annoying.

  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    edited February 2019
    AndyJS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:


    Given that net trade in goods with the EU is around 8% of GDP, if I were to take a guess I’d say something like 0.5% off in Q2 (-25% by value of trade in goods with the EU), maybe down to a total of 1% by the end of the year before recovering early in 2020. There will be a technical recession, but the whole of Europe is about to get one.

    Supply chains will adjust much faster than predicted, and government will be united in measures to reduce unnecessary friction. Companies already have a lot of plans in place, what’s causing the immediate problems is the uncertainty of which plan to implement.

    The problem with that - and all other forecasts - is that they continue to rely on the UK consumer spending more than 100% of his or her income.

    In the 2007-2008 recession, the government was able to compensate by dramatically lowering the tax burden, and interest rates, so that consumers in jobs effectively got big payrises. They spent this money, and therefore aggregate demand (in the UK) recovered strongly.

    But things are a bit different now. Firstly, the net foreign investment position of the UK was positive a decade ago. Indeed, it was better than France, and Germany. Now, we're negative and getting worse. Secondly, government debt to GDP was about 40% then. It's now 90%, give or take. Thirdly, interest rates are still close to bugger all. Mortgage payments can't be cut much from here.

    So, the ability of the government to raise demand through the usual methods isn't there.

    The problem the UK economy continues to have is that it is fundamentally unbalanced. This isn't anything to do with Brexit, it's the consequence of Blair, Brown, Darling, and Osborne, who discovered that you could do Keynesianism by the back door by persuading people to spend more than they earned.

    The real risk of No Deal Brexit is that it finally kicks off the inevitable rebalancing. In the 1990-93 recession, the household savings rate reached 15%. That's 11% above where we are now. To put in context, if we were to see a similar level of swing, it would be the same as Spain had during the Eurozone crisis. Now, I don't think it'll be that bad. But I think people are so fixated on Brexit, they forget that Britain doesn't currently pay its way. And that - one way or another - will revert.
    British High Streets will look even more desolate if we ever do start living within our means.

    I'm curious as to what French and German high streets look like given that retail sales are falling there.
    Surely it's a good thing if we start living within our means.
    It is but many people (and almost all politicians) prefer to live beyond them.

    And governments encourage that as it keeps those people happy and so more likely to re-elect governments.
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well, i am off to bed shortly. But if anyone wants to know why I am so frustrated and fed up at matters in education, here is a model answer to a question about the Battle of Hastings from AQA. This is quoted from the actual mark scheme that was used last year to mark real GCSEs.

    'The interpretation is convincing because it acknowledges Harold’s possibly daring brilliance as a commander. To have beaten off the first invasion at Stamford Bridge and then taken up a good defensive position on Senlac Hill blocking the road to London. He had roughly the same number of troops as William and deployed them with a shield wall. His troops lasted nearly the whole day to hold their position and beat off the Normans.'

    That's for the PERFECT answer. The model that got 8 out of 8.

    And do you know what's frightening?

    That's still not the most epic fuck up from the new exams. Amanda Spielmann buggering up the marking criteria because she's so dumb she can't count to nine still takes first.

    Good night.

    FFS that’s depressing. It’s like saying we won the American war of independence apart from all the defeats and our eventual surrender.
    Not really. I am afraid ydoethur is showing he is a teacher first and a historian second. Most historians of the period recognise that Harold was indeed a great commander. Faced with an almost impossible situation of fighting off two invasions in succession - one against an army which had already beaten part of his army before he arrived - he did far better than many might have expected. That he lost was not down to his being a poor commander but down to circumstances largely beyond his control. It would be fair to say he was a poor diplomat perhaps but certainly not a poor commander.
    Oh come on. He was facing an army that had literally burnt its boats, that was in a hostile country, that basically had one shot to win. They may have got lucky with the shot in the eye but the fact is that a more cautious approach was guaranteed to win and Harold blew it. He needed to be a Varrus and William would have been in deep doodoo.
    You shouldn't be believing the myths I am afraid. I would suggest to start with reading 'The Year of Three Battles' by Frank McLynn. It is also worth remembering that Harold was regarded as the foremost military commander of his age (or at least jointly held that honour with Harold Hardrada who he beat at Stamford Bridge) having fought various campaigns for Edward the Confessor as well as fighting for William in Normandy and the Holy Roman Emperor in Flanders.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    IanB2 said:

    Town centres are destined either to become entirely residential, as have most of our villages which in bygone years contained post offices, butchers, greengrocers and the like, or reinvent themselves as meeting places with a primary focus on cafes, restaurants and other spaces for social meeting and service provision, with some ancillary retail on the side. Most councils currently are struggling with working out which of their towns are heading for either destination.

    That's pretty much how it is where I live already. There are a few empty units in the town centre (some long-term,) but the hollowing out appears almost to have finished. What's left is largely convenience stores, cafe's, restaurants, pubs and bars, florists, hair dressers, nail bars, tattooists and charity shops. Being relatively well-off (we're in the pale of Cambridge,) there are also a number of estate agencies, most of the banks are still open, there are four or five surviving independent clothing and shoe shops, and we still have a wine shop and a bakery.

    A couple of the disused shops on the high street have been successfully converted to housing; we could probably do with the rest of them going the same way, though unfortunately there's one medium-sized empty eyesore where that may be easier said than done - even if the landlord doesn't just leave it standing empty, waiting for the new tenant that will probably never arrive.
This discussion has been closed.