The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

22 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Just for fun

"The Pound Soars"

I think you will find that is the:- 

"pre-launch" Quad-Drive-interface-burner (Ignition Phase 2) being initiated.  It's going to be OK.

I might be wrong.

[Chindie]

There'll be people in Buckinghamshire with onyx tables that'll have that Heil front page framed.

[villaglint]

From what I've read with regard to city job losses as with anything it'll be a little from column A and a little from column B. 

Companies will move jobs because it makes sense for them to mitigate their risk but there won't be a wholesale clear out because of infrastructure reasons but also cultural ones such as London is a much more desirable place to live. So if your a mega rich city type you will probably not want to be relocated to Frankfurt which is immensely boring by the way. So some/lots of the lower level admin stuff will go but some/lot will stay. The / in that sentence is one of throse pesky moving pieces.

Just so I can be neatly categorised in any insuing bickering I am defo Remainiac but also one of those people who doesn't like black and white issues. Always looked better in boring old grey. 

[Chindie]

I don't think anyone thinks London will be cleared out of bankers. The point being raised is jobs will move because of Brexit. For months the talk has been the EU is responsible for about 20% of their business (I think this is true for financial services entirely actually). They aren't going to ignore that but they aren't going to go mad over it either. So jobs that rely on it will go. If the workforce and revenue are linked (unlikely) that would potentially be 20% of jobs.

It obviously won't be that high but it's likely to be fairly significant. And even if it isn't significant, do we want any jobs going? Really? Even if they are despicable bankers?

[peterms]

14 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Gross.

Here's a comparison of the tubthumping nonsense of the Mail, and how Europe ses us.

 

 

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Agreed,  they are so pro-remain it's a bit uncomfortable to watch when they are supposed to be impartial.  If they could play"Here comes the clowns" just before they cut to something about "Leave" they would.  

Impartiality doesn't mean that every possible viewpoint and opinion is given equal validity and respect.

Sometimes there are ignorant, ugly and stupid things which need to be called as ignorant, ugly and stupid. And the BBC demonstrably failed to do that well enough over the summer.

[Davkaus]

8 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

 

Sometimes there are ignorant, ugly and stupid things which need to be called as ignorant, ugly and stupid. 

Agreed, but this isn't the right topic to talk about Donald Trump.

[a m ole]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

Gross.

 

I'm assuming I pronounce EU in that headline phonetically? As in "We'll walk away from a bad deal - and make you pay"

[HanoiVillan]

On the BBC's current affairs output: you can't necessarily say it's good just because people on both sides dislike it. It may be that it's just a bit shit (this is increasingly my feeling). 

[snowychap]

Michael wishes he hadn't given Sarah the password to his twitter account.

[snowychap]

On 16/01/2017 at 15:02, Awol said:

A slight aside but Fox has deep links with the republican establishment in the US through the Atlantic Council, Hudson Institute and Heritage Foundation

With ref to the Heritage Association and Fox, Luke Coffey in the Torygraph writes about Putin (and the wider connotations with Trump)*:

Quote

On the campaign trail President-elect Donald Trump called into question the most sacrosanct principle of transatlantic security: that an attack on one is an attack on all. How this will translate into actual policy during his presidency remains to be seen, but many Nato members in Eastern Europe are rightfully alarmed.

During this era of uncertainty in transatlantic relations the UK has no choice but to lead if the US fails to do so. This will require a rethink in Britain’s defence posture, military spending, and its role in the region’s security. 

When looking at Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Georgia, Syria or its militarisation of the Arctic we are often told by commentators that we are dealing with a “Soviet Russia” or that what we are seeing by Moscow is “Cold War behavior”. This is a complete misunderstanding of the threat Russia poses to the West. 

Today, we are dealing with an Imperial Russia – not a rehash of the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin behaves more like a Tsar than a Soviet Premier. He is very much an imperial-style leader. Thanks to his constitutional gymnastics he has been either President or Prime Minister of Russia since 1999, and can remain in either one of these positions for the rest of his life.

So the West faces a 21st-century Russia with 19th century ambitions. Moscow’s goal today is not to spread an ideology of “workers of the world unite” as it was during the Cold War. The goal is to use all the tools of Russian power – military, economic, energy, diplomatic, and propaganda – to maximize Russia’s influence and advance its interests. The target is often our core values: the rule of law, equal rights, access to justice, right to information, media freedom, transparent elections, and good governance. In Ukraine this is done by military force. In Central Asia this is often done by economic means. And in the US it was done by meddling in the presidential election.

A quick comparison of Russia’s current actions with its imperial past draws many parallels. For example, Putin is spending billions of dollars (money which could be better used elsewhere) to open new bases and militarize the Arctic. In 1724, Peter the Great spent 1/6 of the Russian state budget on a scientific expedition to explore Russia’s Arctic region.

Or look at Russia’s actions in Syria. Today is not the first time Russian forces have fought in the Levant. In 1772, Russian forces under the leadership of Catherine the Great attacked various Syrian cities along the coastal Levant and even occupied Beirut for six months.

Of all of Russia’s Tsars, Putin has the most in common with Nicholas I, who ruled Russia between 1825 and 1855. Nicholas I’s reign was marked by crushing political dissent, a presiding over a decaying economy, fighting Islamic fundamentalists in the North Caucasus, territorial expansions in the South Caucasus, and a war in Crimea.

Doesn’t this sound familiar?

There is no country in Europe which knows how to deal with an imperial Russia better than the United Kingdom. The UK has literally hundreds of years of experience dealing with an imperial Russia. Perhaps it was the Victorian statesman and former Prime Minister Lord Palmerston who in the 1850’s best summed up Russia’s behavior:

“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance and then to wait for the next favorable opportunity.”

Some things never change. How Russia was described by Palmerston then is exactly the same as the Russia we see today.

British leadership is needed more now than at any other time in Europe’s recent history. Until (or unless) the new Trump administration makes an unequivocal commitment to transatlantic community Britain will have to fill the security void left in Europe. 

As with many of history’s autocracies, today it the Russian people who are the losers. Democratic freedoms are in retreat, corruption is endemic, and the future is bleak for most Russians. The same failings of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago are starting to reappear in Putin’s Russia today.

The drop in the price of oil and the economic sanctions over Ukraine only make worse Russia’s deep social problems. Its population growth is stagnating and alcoholism, drug addiction, HIV, and suicide are widespread. 

Expressions of ultra-nationalism are on the rise, which fortify the Kremlin’s quest for a new sphere of influence. Added to this is the so-called compatriot policy which makes Moscow the self-designated protector of ethnic Russians no matter where in the world they might reside. 

Whether it is over occupied Crimea or at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, Putin knows how to wave a flag. At least for now the average Russian sees national glory as a substitute for general wellbeing. But how long people will tolerate this misery is anyone’s guess and as patience begins to run thin at home you can bet that Putin will be looking abroad for more adventures as a distraction. 

Just because there is a new US president does not mean that history, geography or geopolitics has changed in Europe. Trump will eventually learn, just as his two predecessors did, that Russia under Putin cannot be partner for the West. The question is at what cost to transatlantic security this lesson will be learned.

In the meantime Britain will need to hold the line essentially playing the role in European security today which the U.S. played during the Cold War. Britain can stand up to imperial Russia. It has done it before and it can do it again if the political will is there. 

The UK cannot and should not shirk from this responsibility. The fate and stability of Europe might ultimately depend on it.

*It's rather immaterial for the point of the article whether Mr Coffey had the requisite clearance for his role as a SPAD in the MOD in his earlier career. It is, though, something to remind ourselves about when we consider the conduct of the disgraced Liam Fox, for whom he was a special advisor.

Edited January 19, 2017 by snowychap

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

 

'Look Mike, you can say what you want, but I'm never going to be friends with you again, not after last summer. Go and play with someone else.'

[hippo]

Isn't walking away from a bad deal - walking into  a WTO tariffs deal  ?   ergo a a bad deal ? 

[Chindie]

17 minutes ago, hippo said:

Isn't walking away from a bad deal - walking into  a WTO tariffs deal  ?   ergo a a bad deal ? 

Yes.

But shush. Theresa thinks we, and our European 'friends', are too thick to notice. 

Her threat is the equivalent of one person stood demanding special treatment from everyone else in the room, and threatening to slash their wrists if they don't get it. With the added tax haven threat, which may as well be us saying 'and when we've slashed our wrists we might set off a bomb to hurt all you nasty people too'.

Certainty the behaviour of 'friends'. And certainly conducive to a well mannered and good willed negotiation.

Disgusting witch at the head of a bunch of words removed.

[PieFacE]

We're in a bit of a pickle really aren't we? I'm kinda hoping someone at some point is just going to say "enough is enough this is retarded" and put an end to all this nonsense. There's nothing to gain.

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

We're in a bit of a pickle really aren't we? I'm kinda hoping someone at some point is just going to say "enough is enough this is retarded" and put an end to all this nonsense. There's nothing to gain.

I think what's happening is that people are trying to construct a narrative that the referendum was a conscious, informed choice made on the basis of a common understanding of what was an offer, and that any attempt to ask for further consideration in the light of better knowledge of the real-life consequences amounts to an attempted coup.

On the back of that, there have been attempts by Falange and the rest to whip up a fever about supposed attempts at "betrayal".

Parliamentarians seem either cowed by this, or confused about the best strategy in a situation where their own constituencies fall into both camps, so they see a danger of alienating a crucial part of their core support.

In that situation, I think the conclusion they reach may be that there has to be a certain amount of shit hitting fans before people are prepared to accept that there may be enough problems with the current approach that some kind of rethink may be necessary.  They will be cautious about trying to act before there is evidence of enough of a shift in public opinion to make it supportable to propose, for example, a further referendum on the terms and conditions actually available as opposed to the fantasies spun by imbeciles like the disgraced Fox and Davis.

[blandy]

11 hours ago, a m ole said:

"We'll walk away from a bad deal - and make you pay"

[Dr_Pangloss]

12 hours ago, Chindie said:

I don't think anyone thinks London will be cleared out of bankers. The point being raised is jobs will move because of Brexit. For months the talk has been the EU is responsible for about 20% of their business (I think this is true for financial services entirely actually). They aren't going to ignore that but they aren't going to go mad over it either. So jobs that rely on it will go. If the workforce and revenue are linked (unlikely) that would potentially be 20% of jobs.

It obviously won't be that high but it's likely to be fairly significant. And even if it isn't significant, do we want any jobs going? Really? Even if they are despicable bankers?

The oversized (as share of GDP) and increasingly inefficient financial services sector needs to be cut down somewhat. I don't think in the case of job losses in finance that it is all that of a terrible thing. 

[peterms]

[mjmooney]