Mozzavfc Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 20 hours ago, bickster said: So MPs get AV but we're stuck with FPTP?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 14, 2019 Moderator Share Posted February 14, 2019 6 minutes ago, Mozzavfc said: So MPs get AV but we're stuck with FPTP?! Don't think the amendment has been accepted yet. Bercow to decide in a few days iirc Makes a change MPs getting something we don't in Brexit, they've been "Not getting stuff" for two years or more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Am I missing something, or is it just more wheel-spinning? Presumably four plans will get more than 50 votes, ie. Second Ref / Lab Frontbench / May's WA / No Deal, and none of them look like they could carry an actual majority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 14, 2019 Moderator Share Posted February 14, 2019 25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Am I missing something, or is it just more wheel-spinning? Presumably four plans will get more than 50 votes, ie. Second Ref / Lab Frontbench / May's WA / No Deal, and none of them look like they could carry an actual majority. You know how single transferable voting works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 12 minutes ago, bickster said: You know how single transferable voting works? Ah okay, so I had missed something 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 7 hours ago, bickster said: the first sentence is so untrue that it may as well have been published on a bus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Government lose heavily again. Not on something that has any legal clout, but makes it very tricky for her to claim the EU27 just need to budge a little bit and everything will be fine. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Just now, ml1dch said: Government lose heavily again. Not on something that has any legal clout, but makes it very tricky for her to claim the EU27 just need to budge a little bit and everything will be fine. Only 45 votes this time though. I think any right minded person can see she's on the winning trajectory. Just need a couple more weeks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Quote Labour has accused her of "running down the clock" so that MPs will be faced with a last-minute choice between her deal and no deal. Quote An SNP amendment, which was also backed by the Liberal Democrats, calling for Britain's departure from the EU on 29 March to be delayed by three months, was defeated by 93 votes to 315, after most Labour MPs abstained. BBC 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Only 45 votes this time though. I think any right minded person can see she's on the winning trajectory. Just need a couple more weeks. Bear in mind though that this wasn't a vote on the withdrawal agreement - this was a vote which basically said "we're happy with the Government carrying on doing that thing that passed with those amendments a couple of weeks ago" That narrowly passed, so she's actually going backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 22 minutes ago, ml1dch said: Government lose heavily again. And, I gather, Mrs May wasn't there for the result or to respond to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Just now, snowychap said: And, I gather, Mrs May wasn't there for the result or to respond to it. Yup. Then the speaker invited the Brexit secretary to respond in her stead. He declined. Then he asked the Chief Whip. He also declined. What a humiliation these people have foisted on the country. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 (edited) If you're interested in the status/rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU, it's worth a listen to the evidence given to the Immigration Bill Committee by Prof Stijn Smismans contained in the thread that begins with this tweet: Edited February 15, 2019 by snowychap 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post snowychap Posted February 15, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted February 15, 2019 Could also have gone in the Labour Party thread but more pertinent in here: Gloria De Piero is wrong: there’s nothing socialist about opposing free movement Quote “Though I voted to Remain in the EU at the referendum I have long been concerned about wages being depressed at the lower end of the wage market,” Gloria De Piero, Labour MP for Ashfield, said earlier this week. “Is there anything socialist about a free market in human beings?” Let’s leave aside the evidence on the impact of migration in general, and free movement, on wages – I’ve written about that extensively before. Those who claim there must – because of “supply and demand” – be negative wage impacts simply don’t understand the basics of economics (see here; and for the empirical evidence on what we do know, see here). Let’s also pass over De Piero’s reference to a “free market in human beings” (as opposed to “free market for labour”). This is, essentially, the dictionary definition of slavery – which is a legal state under which market relationships, underpinned by property rights, can apply to human beings. Even allowing for the hyperbole of Twitter, making this comparison to the choice of individual workers to move within the EU to seek employment ought to be out of bounds. My immediate reaction was to suggest that if it was indeed socialist to stop people from choosing to move where they want, to work, live, study or retire, then Se Piero thought that East Germany was an exemplar of socialism in practice. This was challenged by several people on twitter, and, on reflection, I do think it is slightly unfair – there’s nothing to suggest that De Piero wants to forcibly prevent people leaving their countries of origin, as opposed to stopping them moving here. A better analogy is China’s hukou system, which controls internal migration. As my colleague Adrian Favell has written, “Just as some Chinese cities and regions are now adopting measures to limit or marginalise migrant labour despite economic growth, some European countries – notably the UK after Brexit – are seeking to re-impose the “hukou” of national citizenship on demand-led labour mobility which previously enjoyed the free movement rights of European citizenship.” As with the EU, China is a continent sized economy, with very large differences in productivity, wages and job opportunities between different regions, which means people have a strong incentive to move. And as with the EU, people are mostly free to travel internally where they want – internal migration is not controlled at the borders – but, unlike with free movement, there are very considerable restrictions on their rights to reside permanently, work, and access public services. Moreover, this relatively restricted system for labour mobility coexists with free trade, capital mobility and so on. This is presumably the sort of system that De Piero (a strong supporter of the UK remaining in the EU customs union) would like to see operating in the EU, or between the UK and the EU after Brexit. Is there anything “socialist” about this? Well, it would certainly be hard to argue that, overall, it’s inhibited China’s economic development to date. And I don’t want to enter into the difficult debate about whether China is socialist, capitalist or its own unique mixture. But what is clear, and relevant here, is that the idea that the hukou system is good for Chinese workers is delusional. Quite the contrary. It creates a two-tier workforce, with migrant workers having fewer rights and less job security, enabling employers to pay them less and treat the worse; and at the same time, to use the availability of this class of workers with inferior rights to undermine the bargaining power of workers in general. Indeed, to the extent that there are genuine issues with “undercutting” of wages and conditions in the EU, they typically relate not to workers’ rights to move, but to employers’ ability to do exactly this, under for example the pre-reform Posted Workers Directive. Those making De Piero’s argument often refer to the Marxist concept of the “reserve army of labour.” But where Marx really excelled was not his understanding of the functioning labour markets (he mostly got that wrong, as I’ve written here), but of the dynamics of power in a capitalist economy. Indeed, it’s worth recalling what Marx did actually say about both the purpose and result of dividing workers according to their place of birth: “Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life…This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class… It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power.” As a description of the political economy of the debate around free movement and Brexit, this could hardly be bettered. De Piero – and many others across the political spectrum – want us to have “all the benefits of the Single Market”, without free movement. That is, they argue for restricting the rights of workers to move to where they could find better jobs, while allowing the owners of capital to move it to wherever it could obtain the highest return. Socialism? Marx, for one, would have laughed. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 (edited) It's interesting to note that, in the letter from which the above Marx quote is taken (it's not whole - it has been trimmed), the prior sentence/para says the following: Quote But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class. Whilst one might see this as reinforcing some of the basis behind the Brexit argument (the simple 'supply and demand' nonsense), surely it needs to be taken in the context of the economic time in which it was written rather than as an analysis of now and also as part of the analysis within the letter in terms of the power wielded by the English bourgoisie (at the time). Edited February 15, 2019 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 16, 2019 Moderator Share Posted February 16, 2019 Good read, thanks @snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 16, 2019 Moderator Share Posted February 16, 2019 Flybmi collapsed blaming Brexit. All flights cancelled and staff told not to turn up to work My least favourite airline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jones1328 Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 16 hours ago, bickster said: Flybmi collapsed blaming Brexit. All flights cancelled and staff told not to turn up to work My least favourite airline The fact they were averaging 18 customers per flight may have been more the issue me thinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 17, 2019 Moderator Share Posted February 17, 2019 Just now, jones1328 said: The fact they were averaging 18 customers per flight may have been more the issue me thinks. I'd agree. In my experience, they've cancelled/overbooked more flights for us than we've actually boarded on time. I think the score was 3 -1 at which point we never flew with them again 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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