British Politics

[phb10186]

Moved a bunch of related posts into this new thread.

I'm sure Cameron is kicking himself for having offered this referendum.

Likely, he was a decent bloke, but he fell on his sword.


I don't want to see the rise of the right though, we need a centralist government with common sense policy, and we need to act in a socially responsible way now. We need to take the moral high ground and make things better for all... that I hope happens.

I do not want Britain to fade in to the abyss, we are capable and intellectually responsible for so much more.

 

[Benjamin Nead]

My British-born mother, Vera Agnes Lawrence (1915-2000), would have found the Brexit events most interesting. Hard to say which side she would have been on, exactly. The European Union was only a few years old when she passed away. But I do know that she would have absolutely loved John Oliver and I also find him not only hilarious, but an extremely keen intellectual observer on a variety of topics. His take on the Brexit (video a few posts earlier on this thread) is absolutely spot on.

I really hope the British survive this well. But I do have a feeling that many there who voted for the breakaway really didn't comprehend the full ramifications until after the fact. It might be best for all that Northern Ireland and Scotland go independent and become members of the EU on their own. Whatever happens, it's going to take years to transpire. England's breakaway might not be as radical by then, as they are likely to pick and choose - cafeteria style - various aspects of the EU Charter and end up not all that different from where they are now. They did, after all, never adopt the Euro as their currency, even when they were on board with the EU.

 

[phb10186]

If you like a politician with a nice English accent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoTSo1uB22c

 

[wmcbrine]

If you like a politician with a nice English accent:

I'm not really loving the accent or the content there.

What a perverse answer on climate change.

 

[phb10186]

If you like a politician with a nice English accent:

I'm not really loving the accent or the content there.

What a perverse answer on climate change.

He's definitely a dinosaur. Glad I don't talk like that, wear glasses like that or brush what's left of my hair like that.

 

[Phximiev]

No overs apparently: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/07/10/pleas-of-4-1-million-rejected-as-british-government-denies-second-brexit-referendum/#4d0c8915400f

 

[phb10186]

No overs apparently: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/07/10/pleas-of-4-1-million-rejected-as-british-government-denies-second-brexit-referendum/#4d0c8915400f

Not going to happen - for a start there are loads of people who aren't even legitimate voters signing that (amazingly, anyone can sign the thing, it's not IP sensitive - so you could sign it if you want).

Secondly, and my opinion was always that 'article 50' the big red button that starts the withdrawal from the EU, will probably never get executed, because some kind of deal will be made, like is always the case in big politics. The referendum wasn't legally binding - which I am still having diffuculty understanding. Only laws passed by the house of commons and house of lords is.

I spent a couple of months in California in 2007, and it was $2 to £1... looking at it today it's $1.295 to the £1... the pound is suffering badly, and there is simply nothing we can do about it. The stock market however, didn't get too badly thrashed.

I predict interest rates being dropped from 0.5% to 0.25% or 0, and then when the country starts falling apart, they are going to have to raise those again - hopefully not too high, as that will make literally tens of thousands of people default on their mortgages, and lead to a civil war. We just came out of 5 years of QE, printing money wholesale and a very deep recession. Things were just ramping up, and then this all happened.

I really don't know why so much of the world has a soft spot for us; we don't really deserve any special treatment. We are a successful country, we do do things in a certain way that has this honesty and 'old school' properness about it, but let me assure you, we have as much dirt on our hands as all the other major economies, and the old empire went many many years ago.

... don't worry, the US said they would still be our friends.

 

[Phximiev]

Brexit Breakfast:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38328272

Parliament to vote?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37857785

 

[Phximiev]

Brexit Breakfast:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38328272

Parliament to vote?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37857785

Per their Supreme Court, the Parliament must vote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/world/europe/theresa-may-brexit-vote-article-50.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

Despite the naysayers, will Parliament reject the referendum?

 

[phb10186]

The country is a circus. The world is a circus.


I assume that the 'ripping up' of the Trans Pacific trade agreement would imply that your IMIEV (if it were still available) would be far more expensive than it is now. Not that it bothers me, i'm eastwards of that stuff, and the PM has some serious Trump-seducing to do in the next week or 2...

This Brexit lark is going to take years, it's how we do politics over here. At the end of it Scotland will vote to leave the UK, so they better upscale on the Glenfiddich/ other unpronounceable Whiskey brands, and find some now oil and gas in the North Sea.

 

[Phximiev]

The country is a circus. The world is a circus.

I assume that the 'ripping up' of the Trans Pacific trade agreement would imply that your IMIEV (if it were still available) would be far more expensive than it is now. Not that it bothers me, i'm eastwards of that stuff, and the PM has some serious Trump-seducing to do in the next week or 2...

This Brexit lark is going to take years, it's how we do politics over here. At the end of it Scotland will vote to leave the UK, so they better upscale on the Glenfiddich/ other unpronounceable Whiskey brands, and find some now oil and gas in the North Sea.

Couldn't agree more. I can't help but believe that sometimes people do things without thinking about the long term consequences (or do think and just act maliciously) and hurt themselves and a lot of other people in the process. This applies to all people round the world not just in the UK and US.

With the TPP, who knows what will take its place, if anything? I thought that it would be good for the US having read the summations (not the detail language), but Congress didn't act on it leaving it for the President.

Perhaps your Parliament will keep the UK in, if not then maybe the answer is in the whiskey!

 

[phb10186]

Dont think we are part of the TPP - we are sort of on the wrong side of the world - but I suppose that the EU has a trade agreement separately with all those involved - and we will be leaving that show eventually. Most of the English speaking world will support us, most of the rest of it probably wont. China will be an issue, as we have to like them as we need the goods, which may be a problem when we pally up with them and the US, as we have to follow the US now as Europe doesn't like us very much anymore (which I think is terribly poor show actually considering how much we poured into the project for the last 40 years, and how little we got out of it)... well the EU administration is as corrupt and as it gets anyway.

I'm all for American jobs for Americans, British jobs for the British and so on. I know that China constantly devalue their currency to satisfy the export market yada yada yada... but the reason all this 'globalisation' (a word that has gone full circle from the gift of god to the worst thing imaginable in about a month) was actually the product of free market economy. We wanted good stuff at a cheap price - we all want that.

So, i'll sit back and observe the changes that are happening, but I remain unconvinced that the US will be able to reindustrialise to the extent seen previously. Firstly, taking a car for example - well those prices will shoot up as the cost of labour is higher, then - no good just producing for yourself, you need an export market - so how is that going to happen by selling US made goods abroad that cost more to produce than most of the rest of the world, and you've just ripped up all your trade agreements and made enemies of all your neighbours?

We started buying Japanese cars en mass in the UK because (among other things) they were better, and we had a choice. So, to load import tax on foreign goods to protect jobs may work in a limited way - it's not going to do any favors for the consumer at all. Want to subsidise infrastructure - well that's gonna cost tax revenue, so that means prices will rise somewhere/ your purchasing power goes down/ inflation.

So... looks like you will be paying to protect domestic jobs, and be rewarded with less consumer choice. That's what I call social welfare, and we have a lot of that in the UK, and I'm 50:50 on it - as in it's a necessary evil for unresolved bad policy made in the past. It's also highly anti-capitalist (again we are good at that in the UK with all our socialist freebies - free healthcare, unemployment handouts etc etc).

So... in summary - I don't know where this goes. I like the sound of a lot of it, it's sexy and all - but a back-of-the-envelope calculation just doesn't lead to a logical conclusion. Either you stand by the pillars of free market economy, or you dont (and the UK is very much a mid-point between free-market and centrally planned - it works sort of, but life gets very expensive). What you can't do (and win a successive term for) is go for iron clad free-market capitalism, then essentially max-protect things by some sort of central planning and still call it free market economy: you have to be clear about your policy direction, or you're a fraud.

We stopped buying British cars because productivity fell to about 10% of the Japanese worker, and the product ended up being high cost, low quality junk - shot in the foot way back in the 1970s... never recovered.

The US could be fairly self sufficient, the UK can't - not enough landmass for the population, and not enough sunshine to grow most things. So, where i'm happy to see where all this goes, and respect that changes are needed - the gold standard Government approach to dealing with failures of the past tend not to be to fix things properly, but rather rehash the organisation of how things are administered until the next bunch of politicians assume office.

... I just figured out the solution... what you do is 'make' the car in the US so that it qualifies as a US made product, but all the steel gets imported, the engine and transmission stays at the Mexican plant, tyres from Brazil, electronics from China and Korea, seats made in Malaysia... all that comes in as 'components' not subject to the relevant tax levvies - and then you bolt the thing together right in the centre of the US where your 45 degree pencil lines cross on your map. Sorted.

Quality control - whats that?

 

[wmcbrine]

I assume that the 'ripping up' of the Trans Pacific trade agreement would imply that your IMIEV (if it were still available) would be far more expensive than it is now.

The TPP had yet to take effect, so, no.

 

[Phximiev]

Approved by Parliament, so the "devil's in the details"?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/02/europe/brexit-white-paper/

 

[phb10186]

'EU doesn't need a UK bridge to Trump - there is Twitter for that':

http://news.sky.com/story/no-mrs-may-we-dont-want-your-bridge-to-trump-10754408

 

[Phximiev]

Approved by Parliament, so the "devil's in the details"?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/02/europe/brexit-white-paper/

Rebellion before the final vote?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38895007

 

[Phximiev]

Decrease in migration?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39178288

 

[Phximiev]

Russian interference?

http://www.businessinsider.com/labour-mp-ben-bradshaw-suspicious-russian-interference-brexit-2017-2

Since it appears Russia tampered with our election, I suppose its possible that Russia may have tampered or influenced the Brexit issue.

 

[Phximiev]

Were we all conned into our political situations through our Facebook likes?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

This is actually a rather disturbing article.

 

[PV1]

What a find! Just goes to show why I don't partake in the social experiments. At least I know everything posted here is public information (though I probably still share enough to build a profile :? ).