blandy

Thing is, I always thought Scotland was a cold place

Kind of. I think that’s generous to Cameron, though. He did it for his own party purposes, and as you say because he expected to win, paying no heed to, or having no awareness of actual, normal people’a views. It was just, “I’ll do a referendum and win and put it to bed” with no contemplation of anything other than winning, as that’s all his life has ever been about, being on the lucky side of things. But the twunt lost. The massive Bell.

Just to illustrate

Ah, ok, gotcha. the social media and trial by it, is appalling. Not specific to this, but generally. Your pink trousers analogy is the problem. The court of social media decides they’re beyond the pale and then anyone who is rouge of garment is vilified to the end of the earth. It’s mental. pink trousers are a crime, mind!

Shape of water. Yes, that’s another belter. I don’t see that many films, but like that people who do and have good critical skills, like you do, point out good ones. Cheers Si.

Yes, superb film. I watched it not knowing who directed it and thought it was the Cohen’s best effort yet, but it wasn’t them at all.

It’s mungous. I’m there now, and the nearest big city is 2 and a half hours different in time zone. But what a place!

Yes exactly. They both barely showed their faces and made token efforts to “support” remain. May, IMO, didn’t want to contaminate herself with either side of her party and Corbyn didn’t want to (rightly) share a platform with the likes of Cameron, but also hadn’t any actual genuine belief in remain. He’s an EU sceptic, he doesn’t like the way things are, the way the world is. Which is fine. Good even, but while it’s almost admirable in a person who is, I dunno, someone you’d meet in a bar or Cafe, I kind of want a potential PM to be a bit more proactive. He’s got these dreams, he’d tell you over a pint, if the world wasn’t like it is, we could have unicorn milk and Venezuelan ideals and utopia. No mate, you’ve had enough, I didn’t hate the 70s that much either, but y’know, maybe look around you a bit and see if you can’t adjust a tad to where we are now? Oh , alright, I’ll get you a taxi back to your potting shed where you can talk to the flowers about bringing back 3 channels of TV and revolution.

Yes and no. In a choice between remain or leave, heads or tails, the line 30% tails 70% heads is just a weak fudge. Like May, at the time he basically hid. For all that the issue is massively complex, leaders need to lead. Neither him nor May have done that.

Yes, sorry, I know it was. I was expanding, along the lines of many people not keeping up with stuff seem to think Momentum and labour and youth and all that - anti brexit, but Corbyn's not anti Brexit and labour say they'll do Brexit, too, but with different Unicorns.

To be fair, Corbyn and Labour stood on a brexit manifesto, supported Article 50 being issued and have failed to oppose Brexit. SO we'd get Brexit and a Corbyn gov't. It's not about being more scared, it's just changing Brexit plus one set of arseclowns for Brexit with a different set. Corbyn, Abbott Gardiner etc. are every bit as incompetent and deluded as May and her, I was gonna say chums, but sort of colleagues.

They are all talking while negotiations are ongoing. Hence some degree of I dunno, position setting is in play, "we don't want a border" "there will be no border" and all that plays well with the UK and Ireland and the EU, so they all go along with that line, yet the technicalities, rather than politicians tend to point in a different direction. link

We're not in Schengen either, and like the Irish, we can go and live and work anywhere in the EU, and EU folks can come and live and work in the Uk or in Ireland right? So any EU citizen can move to Ireland, no problem. Then with no border, what's to stop them simply wandering across into N.Ireland, and then into (if they wish) mainland Britain? nothing, that's what. No control.

And just to be more light hearted about it, does anyone believe anything May says? "No snap election", "nothing has changed", "there will be a vote" and on and on. Anyone trusting anything she says wants to have a word with themselves.

I accept that the politicians have said they don't want a border. Though Barnier implied there might have to be one, when talking to the Irish parliament. But, as we've seen what politicians say and what is fact is often very far apart. I totally agree no-one wants a border. The problem is May (the UK) wants no border and has a red line on immigration. She cannot have both those things. It is impossible. Like I say I believe they desire no hard border. But listen to the Likes of JRM and a few other of the nutters and they have been rather less effusive (perhaps in some ways more honest, though not in a good way) in saying "yeah, OK, border it is then" - at least it has the virtue of recognising that there has to be choice, a heads or tails - control or no border.

And one more thing. How do we take back control of immigration and our borders, with, er , no border? We can't. Whatever May, Juncker or Dublin say during negotiation press talks, it's clearly bollex. It is not possible to control borders while having no borders. Like I said, why people are continually denying this is beyond comprehension. It's blatant failure to look truth in the face. Delusional by the tory brexit clowns.

What I meant by "pure WTO terms would require a hard border to the UK" is that with Ireland having tariff free goods from the rest of the EU and being next to N.Ireland, with no border, smuggling cheaper goods into the UK would be rife. It would need a hard border, because of the higher cost of goods coming into the UK (and if the reverse were ever true, to stop illegal outflow of goods etc.). It's true that the WTO doesn't tell nations how to police their borders or what the nature of border security should be, but nevertheless the reality is that border control is necessary to comply with the trade terms, as I understand it. Ergo hard border.

That's a reading which seems at odds with circumstances. Firstly, I'm pretty sure that the GFA included dismantling the various security infrastructure (including border check etc.). Secondly, pure WTO terms would require a hard border to the UK. Also Absence from the CU and SM would require the EU to put up a hard border with the UK. Thirdly, no one on the Island of Ireland (well not no-one, but ykwIm) wants or will accept a hard border. Fourthly, as we've done to death, you cannot have control over immigration and no hard border between the UK and the EU. It has been fundamentally impossible to have both these things. So everything is loaded against having a hard border. Yet May's demands for control of immigration and the nutter hard Brexit lot desire for "just leave" must impose a hard border by its nature (the hard leave). Finally, Ireland has a veto. They do not accept a hard border. They can kill any agreement. Oh and the backstop - it's not made in London, it's an essential part of the EU protecting itself, in that if we leave the CU and SM we cannot have the benefits of them, so there needs to be something in place (which doesn't exist) to protect the integrity of the CU and SM, or N.I (or the whole UK) has to stay in them. Why anyone's making a fuss over something so blindingly obvious, and which has been since before the vote, is quite beyond comprehension.

I don’t think it is. It never should be. I’m not defending the utter tube, but I’d rather he be treated appropriately than some public court of this moments outrage. Racism is just sick, as is racist abuse, yet punishment should still fit the crime, and education should be part of that.

Pretty much this. What, 4 months ago we were going bust, Jack was leaving, We couldn’t keep JT and Sam Johnston, the owner had disappeared from view and all was bleak. We faced a year or more of dirge football and little hope. Look at us all now. Enjoying goals and games and the style and looking forwards and upward.

This thread is a bad influence

Sorry, these things have hardly featured in the "debate". I'm sure no-one has any strong views on them, from the Brexit supporting camps.

It’s worse than that OBE. American business of the renewable energy type, solar, wind, etc. was, is and would do just fine, more than fine out of a change to sustainability in energy. I read somewhere that despite Trump there’s more jobs being created in that area than in Coal and so on. So Trump is not protecting American business, that’s not really it at all. He’s protecting donations to the Republicans and expressing profound ignorance and denial about science and evidence and facts, while giving the finger to, well, pretty much everyone else.