debtlessmanc

apart from anything else, i do not "support" brexit - i voted remain. i just happen to think things will not be as bad as some say. That seems to make me a target on here, says alot about you? And what i posted is opinion not logic.

I think there may be limits on that? afterall they were given a fairer opportunity than eg Catalonia was on the issue.

I have posted on here before that one member of my ex-wifes family took it to the extreme and had loaded arms under the floorboards (now chucked in the sea by his ex-wife). I am afraid i have been converted by all this from a left wing radical to a sort of libertarian anarchist with a deep cynicism for human politics, anyway the planet is the only thing that really matters.

It will be a decade before another referendum on this, lets be honest. It is not the kind of thing you can keep on asking people in this way (if you ask them anything in this way). Anyway a good analogy is Canada and Quebec, referenda 1980 and 15 years later in 1995 with almost identical results. I like the scots, i really do, i had scottish grandparents etc, but i really cannot see cessation working for them, especially now with the oil resource fading. The driving force from the political leadership is a desire to hob nob with Angela and Immanuel at Summits, it is depressing fact how much crap countries get so that their leaders get to meet the us president etc. for example the development of the H-bomb by the uk.

I don't like Petersen but he does point out some very uncomfortable facts for the feminists, eg the more liberal the society, the less women actually CHOOSE eg STEM jobs. Unless feminism can explain this then there is something that is incomplete in their argument. These issues should be aired on the media by someone rather than relentless "we are put upon" narrative.

The hard left (like my ex-wife and her family, momentum members) are only really interested in settling scores, helping the average person takes second place.

Is this beyond the D-notice? Have a colleague who use to work on secret services technologies, interesting guy to get drunk....

The most hassle i ever had in my life was from a colleague who had clearly pulled string to get where he was (basically the manager who appointed him was a mate of his fathers at Cambridge). Ended in him taking 20 of us to court alleging bullying and racism (he is white but not british), because he had not got promoted (in reality he was totally incompetent, couldn't do anything properly). He lost, ended up paying damages for bringing a vexatious case. He is now labout party rep for education in a local constituency and spouting about all sorts of "injustices". God help the country if people like that end up in charge.

As to opinion polls- as relevent as ever

You mean like the editorial staff of the Guardian being public school and oxford educated (same college i believe). These people (like your friends) are there for the money and access to politicians. There is no point in working for a newspaper no-one reads so they have to sell news to one demographic or the other. The Guardian has endless articles about "public school privilige" doesnt meet the people writing the stuff actually believe any of it.

indeed neither parties would do this in the UK, Corbyn would have stolen the money from the usual targets to spend on his cronies. No one in politics is really interested in science and progress in this country, just settling scores.

It was the same for the transport strikes. Some colleagues were amazed when i warned that they would be unable to get a train in france last year as the whole public transport system was shutdown. Almost no coverage in the UK press, i found it bizarre. Not sure whether it is too close to home to be of interest as nightowl says or part of the general “the uk is worse than the rest of the eu” meme. I have a colleague who owns a place in France, i occasionally ask about the GJ he mumbles something into his beard about them being “a pain in the ****” and then launches into the usual diatribe about Brexit. There are some difficult decisions coming in france about its state expenditure and the current Situation is bringing those forwards. Could be a lot of trouble there soon.

Unless you think like me that such a need was coming anyway, just being ahead of the curve. Would create a few milluon new houses though, to be on topic.

There are other visions of the future, if the UK is forced to accept unfavourable terms for things it imports it could stop importing them. Eg We could actually massively increase food production within the uk with modern vertical growth technologies. We need energy for thei and that can done too, in a renewable powered world the uk has one of the world’s best wind power resources. The other real amazing energy resource tho is tidal power, a severn barrage could reliably generate 20% of our power virtually for free. A similar barrage across the wash would generate more energy and potentially increase England’s surface area by 10,000 hectares of prime arable land, alternatively a new city could be built (worked actually started on the construction on such a city in the wash in the 1960’s before you laugh). Necessity is the mother of invention.

The Guardian is as bad with the " Boris Johnson is a fascist/racist " crap, BJ is a lazy, lying clown unworthy of the office BUT it is clear that he is the most socially liberal incumbent of Tory leader role since Heath. His offer to give millions of Hong Kong Chinese asylum (tho probably never happen) is typical and a it is a good laugh to watch the liberal press unsure what to say about it. The NY times comment section went into meltdown with people incapable of believing what they assumed was a mini trump could contemplate such a Merkel beating offer! edit to add, in the eyes of the average telegraph reader a nuclear strike on Birmingham. Would probably render Brexit unnecessary

I think they may have won if they had tbh it was only a few % after all. Interesting to see Merkel and Macron cosying up, quite apart from the UKs problems, it will be interesting to see how the EU will change now the UK has left the party.

Just as Club med want the brits back.... god knows what this virus is going to do for their youth unemployment, it was bad enough to start with.

unless you view picking sprouts as arduous, dull work and serving coffee as a better gig...

Your analysis ignores the fact that English is the international language, ireland has a similar influx. A lot of it is down to this (temporary) structural imbalance in the EU job market, leading e.g. to a tendency for multinationals to locate here and want to employ people. As i posted several times elsewhere, the other less obvious impact of this is that the English (especially) are very comfortable in their cultural skin - they do not really care if "the applicant's english is crap they will soon pick it up" and English as a language aint going anywhere. Try that in France or italy... as i keep pointing out 23% of UK professors are born outside the UK, the same statistic in Italy (profs born outside Italy) is 1% that is an amazing discrepancy and is pretty much like that for all other EU states. This means, as is often the case, that migration is a too edged sword for the UK, we get some great people but UK people are facing much stiffer competition for jobs, even when they are educated, and they cannot easily move abroad, not only need to learn a language but also they will run in to good old fashioned job protectionism in many states. Hence 4 million EU citizens in UK, 1 millon UK citizens on the continent and lets be honest half of them are retired. I agree about the productivity issue that has been a problem for the uk going back to the time of wilson, short term thinking. However, in the debates on who goes sprout picking in East Anglia, no-one ever points out the obvious fact that they are picked by maching in the netherlands and we should not be using people at all!

Farming is an interesting question, we can buy food cheaper on the world markets than grow it here anyway and the main beneficiaries of the subsidies are landed gentry Tory grandee farmer types. Perhaps not a bad thing to make it unviable financially. The personal freedoms? You would have to demonstrate that Singapore's economic success is based on the lack of those freedoms I suppose. Singapore has a very significant electronics manufacturing industry

A very complex article!? The growth predictions though have us at the top of the European countries. They then say that this is informed by the graph above. If you look at the complexity list (whose logic is not well explained) 8 out of 13 above use have a combined population smaller than the U.K...

I don't think he was questioning "the reason" more the actual effect. I do not doubt the EU thought That and, more importantly for itself, sold FoM As doing exactly that. The question is has it really had that effect or not?

To humiliate people, we have had the breathalyser for 50 years In the U.K., but, At least last time I heard they still made people do the whole, walk the line and stand on one leg stuff, whilst they laughed their heads off.

We were also still paying war debts and fighting a Cold War, on behalf of the rest of Europe. we were 5/6th economy in the world, we still are.

are you sure of that? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-4-charts-that-show-labour-may-be-losing-the-ethnic-minority-vote-10274051.html of course one way to gain votes is bad mouth Israel, anyone tried that recently?