Brexit Penny Dropping?

[P.K.]

58 minutes ago, Cambon said:

You did actually read it all, didn’t you? The headlines say uk is doing badly but the text sections basically say otherwise. The text sections say all the G20 countries are in trouble one way or the other, especially since the pandemic. Taxes will have to go up. I suspect the cut in NI was to ensure labour have to restore it. 

Of course I actually read it all!

That's how I know that the G20 was never mentioned...

So did you actually read it all, did you?

Are you actually blind to reality?

The UK is in a complete mess. The National debt is £2.7tn. Schools are falling down. Due to 13 years of serious underfunding the NHS is riven with discontent and has record waiting lists. There are a record number of children living in poverty. Foòd prices have gone up by 23% over less than two years. There are record numbers of food banks and record numbers of people using them. The rivers are poisoned with sewage. Levelling up is a complete failure with the cancelling of HS2. Hardly surprisingly the UK's life expectancy number is actually going down ffs! 

And that's just from the top of my head!

[woolley]

On 6/22/2024 at 1:15 PM, P.K. said:

@Cambon

So in your opinion what are the "true economic pointers" because I thought the UK was the fifth richest country in the world but now it seems we have slipped to sixth place?

Depending on where you look of course...

The performance of all countries is contingent on where you look.

[woolley]

48 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Of course I actually read it all!

That's how I know that the G20 was never mentioned...

So did you actually read it all, did you?

Are you actually blind to reality?

The UK is in a complete mess. The National debt is £2.7tn. Schools are falling down. Due to 13 years of serious underfunding the NHS is riven with discontent and has record waiting lists. There are a record number of children living in poverty. Foòd prices have gone up by 23% over less than two years. There are record numbers of food banks and record numbers of people using them. The rivers are poisoned with sewage. Levelling up is a complete failure with the cancelling of HS2. Hardly surprisingly the UK's life expectancy number is actually going down ffs! 

And that's just from the top of my head!

And all of this has been building since 2008, well actually, a lot longer than that. Such problems are not confined to the UK either. Food banks are all over the world with substantial numbers even in Germany. None of these factors you list are Brexit issues at all.

[P.K.]

3 minutes ago, woolley said:

And all of this has been building since 2008, well actually, a lot longer than that. Such problems are not confined to the UK either. Food banks are all over the world with substantial numbers even in Germany. None of these factors you list are Brexit issues at all.

Nobody is claiming that the problems facing the UK are all down to brexit that I notice is your latest cop-out.

But it's definitely in the mix playing a part...

[woolley]

On 6/19/2024 at 11:22 PM, P.K. said:

But then you clearly also think the US model of Supreme Court Judges being political appointees is somehow going to be totally non-partisan because it's the only way they can perform their duties without fear or favour.

Give your arse a chance...

 

On 6/20/2024 at 12:28 AM, woolley said:

I said no such thing. Read it again. This has been your problem throughout these 8 long years. You either don't read what is posted, or your comprehension whilst reading is abysmal. Then you go off half cocked with a diatribe against what you thought you read but actually dreamed up yourself.

 

On 6/20/2024 at 2:44 PM, P.K. said:

Hardly. I certainly read this:

I was pointing out that the highest court in the US are political appointees. Which makes their justice system more than a little suspect. When you add to that fact all the rulings made by the ECHR against UK policies then I start to think that we should never want to be like, in your opinion,  "the most successful democracy on Earth..."

I blame a lot of these ills on our out-dated and out-moded FPTP system. Most European democracies, 40 out of about 43, have some form of PR. So they are used to having working democracies with coalitions. That not only means a broader outlook in government but it also pretty much negates the chances of extreme policies like brexit getting through. Because making your economy take a leap into the dark is certainly not without risk as any fule kno.

So hopefully with a large majority the next Labour government will take a serious look at PR because after the last 14 years of the worst government in living memory and probably forever the UK is in a dreadful state and everybody knows it...

Yep, but that's what you said and not what I said. Nowhere did I suggest that the courts in the UK should have politically appointed judiciary. You attributed that to me in your own mind.

Labour will not go for PR. It has no reason to, and besides it was the subject of a referendum in 2011, the crowning achievement of silly Clegg, when it was roundly defeated. How's PR doing for those 40 countries? Things are looking a bit ominous in lots of them, and if the UK had it we'd probably still be mired in the EU.

[woolley]

7 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Nobody is claiming that the problems facing the UK are all down to brexit that I notice is your latest cop-out.

But it's definitely in the mix playing a part...

Not a cop out. It's a fact.

[P.K.]

6 hours ago, P.K. said:

Nobody is claiming that the problems facing the UK are all down to brexit that I notice is your latest cop-out.

But it's definitely in the mix playing a part...

6 hours ago, woolley said:

Not a cop out. It's a fact.

Well at least you got that right...

[P.K.]

6 hours ago, woolley said:

Yep, but that's what you said and not what I said. Nowhere did I suggest that the courts in the UK should have politically appointed judiciary. You attributed that to me in your own mind.

You posted that the US was the most successful democracy on Earth. I simply pointed out that the way that the US judiciary are political appointees means that as a democracy it's seriously flawed. A cornerstone of every democracy is that nobody should be above the law. However...

Thousands of classified documents were found at Trump's seriously over-valued Mar-a-Lago estate. The case was given to Judge Aileen Cannon to "manage" shall we say. 

Since taking the case, she has repeatedly pushed back deadlines and a trial once scheduled to begin in May now has no start date.

She has also ruled against the prosecution on several occasions and held hearings on most of the claims - including the far-fetched - from Trump's defence team.

Essentially she is nit-picking on every little nuance fed to her by Trump's defence team to time the court case out until after the presidential election.

Judge Aileen Cannon was working on appellate matters as an assistant US attorney in Florida when she received a lifetime appointment to the federal bench from Trump in 2020...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ggl64k191o from 22 June.

There is no way that the US with it's deeply flawed judicial system should be considered the most successful democracy on the planet...

[P.K.]

6 hours ago, woolley said:

Labour will not go for PR. It has no reason to, and besides it was the subject of a referendum in 2011, the crowning achievement of silly Clegg, when it was roundly defeated.

It wasn't a referendum on "Proportional Representation" but on an "Alternative Voting" system. As per with all things Nick Turncoat Cleggy involved it was a personal disaster much like tuition fees.

Very interesting "wash-up" piece on that referendum and others from Open Democracy. Well worth a read:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/av-vote-was-fiasco-but-then-uk-referendums-are-undemocratic/

[manxman1980]

11 hours ago, woolley said:

and if the UK had it we'd probably still be mired in the EU.

That's an interesting take.  Arguably a referendum on EU membership may have happened earlier under PR as the smaller parties who attract a sizeable vote would have had some representation whereas under FPTP they were never getting anywhere near to forming a Government.

[woolley]

51 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

That's an interesting take.  Arguably a referendum on EU membership may have happened earlier under PR as the smaller parties who attract a sizeable vote would have had some representation whereas under FPTP they were never getting anywhere near to forming a Government.

Maybe. I'll let you argue the finer points of that one with @P.K. 😉

[Cambon]

15 hours ago, P.K. said:

Of course I actually read it all!

That's how I know that the G20 was never mentioned...

So did you actually read it all, did you?

Are you actually blind to reality?

The UK is in a complete mess. The National debt is £2.7tn. Schools are falling down. Due to 13 years of serious underfunding the NHS is riven with discontent and has record waiting lists. There are a record number of children living in poverty. Foòd prices have gone up by 23% over less than two years. There are record numbers of food banks and record numbers of people using them. The rivers are poisoned with sewage. Levelling up is a complete failure with the cancelling of HS2. Hardly surprisingly the UK's life expectancy number is actually going down ffs! 

And that's just from the top of my head!

I don’t know about you P.K., but I cannot remember a time when there wasn’t a national debt. I cannot remember a time when schools were all really good. I cannot remember a time when the NHS were not in trouble in some way. Record numbers of children in poverty is arguable, but they are not going up chimneys or working for free at the “Big House” anymore. Parents are to blame, not the state. Food prices have been artificially low ever since the zero interest rate policy to suppress inflation was introduced. Now that was a stupid policy. Increase in food prices was always going to happen. Foodbanks, I am sorry to say but build them and they will come. All the HS project was a complete waste of time and should never have been started.

Brexit had no influence on any of the above.

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, Cambon said:

I don’t know about you P.K., but I cannot remember a time when there wasn’t a national debt. I cannot remember a time when schools were all really good. I cannot remember a time when the NHS were not in trouble in some way. Record numbers of children in poverty is arguable, but they are not going up chimneys or working for free at the “Big House” anymore. Parents are to blame, not the state. Food prices have been artificially low ever since the zero interest rate policy to suppress inflation was introduced. Now that was a stupid policy. Increase in food prices was always going to happen. Foodbanks, I am sorry to say but build them and they will come. All the HS project was a complete waste of time and should never have been started.

Brexit had no influence on any of the above.

That's the woolsters cop-out as well...

Yes there's pretty much always been a national debt but this is a record level. So your school was built with RAAC? I can remember when under Blair and Brown the longest you had to wait for a doctors appointment was the next day and an operation three months. Look what we have now. You can argue about the number of children living in poverty and at the end of it there will still be too many children living in poverty. So what are the figures you are arguing about. Ah yes, what defines poverty? Parents are to blame? Then you no doubt approve of the cap on child benefit at two thus hitting the poorest households. What a truly dreadful stance to take. Research shows that a third of food price rises were down to brexit. The other two thirds were down to other factors that we all know about. I think you'll find that foodbanks arose out of need and necessity and not because some folks wanted to graze off freebies and shame on you for thinking otherwise. As for HS2 the "Northern Powerhouse" is now as dead as some of Thatchers privatisations...

As to this load of old flannel

18 hours ago, Cambon said:

You did actually read it all, didn’t you? The headlines say uk is doing badly but the text sections basically say otherwise. The text sections say all the G20 countries are in trouble one way or the other, especially since the pandemic. Taxes will have to go up. I suspect the cut in NI was to ensure labour have to restore it. 

The text sections do not say otherwise. They explain the reasons for the UK's poor performance. The G20 never got a mention but the G7 did. I liked this particular format because you and woolley like to muddy the waters with vague references to EU countries that are irrelevant. What really matters is how the UK is performing against our peer group to get a more accurate idea of where we are in the standings. So the fact the graphs show in the main the UK compared to France, Germany and the US makes it all a lot clearer.

Unfortunately...

[Cambon]

@P.K.

Okay, so lets look at your beloved eu. Only nine countries are net contributors to the project (including the uk until the end of this year). The rest all are supported by the hard work of those countries tax payers. Biggest contributor is Germany by far. However, Germany is in real trouble due to cheap Chinese imports (Chinese government supplements industry in a massive way). So Germany (not the eu) are negotiating with china wanting to apply an additional 37% tariff on Chinese EVs. 
The point is, how is Germany allowed to do this? I thought they had to go through the eu like uk was told they have to. What has changed? 
Better off out. Germany too! 
 

Oh, and no. I don’t agree with the two child limit. I don’t agree with child benefit at all, because it doesn’t work. 

Edited June 24 by Cambon

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, Cambon said:

@P.K.

Biggest contributor is Germany by far. However, Germany is in real trouble due to cheap Chinese imports (Chinese government supplements industry in a massive way). So Germany (not the eu) are negotiating with china wanting to apply an additional 37% tariff on Chinese EVs. 
The point is, how is Germany allowed to do this? I thought they had to go through the eu like uk was told they have to. What has changed? 
Better off out. Germany too! 

Apparently the Germans do not agree with you on contributions4:

Germany tops the ranking, putting in 25.6 billion euros more than it gets out, followed by France with net contributions of 12.4 billion euros. The UK previously came in second place in the ranking, with roughly 10 billion euros of net contributions in 2018.

But being on top of this list doesn’t have to send a country scrambling to leave the political union. In Germany, for example, support for the EU is high. While budget contributions might outweigh direct financial benefits for the country, a study by the Bertelsmann foundation suggests that the single EU market increased the average incomes of Germans by over 1,000 euros, above the EU average increase of 840 euros.

On Chinese EV exports to Germany:

June 24 2024 - Beijing has suggested Germany's luxury car manufacturers could benefit if Berlin convinces the European Union to drop tariffs on Chinese electric-vehicle exports.

China said it could lower its existing tariffs on large-engine cars in return for the EU scrapping planned EV levies on imports from China, according to people familiar with the discussions, who asked not to be identified as the talks were confidential. Beijing currently imposes a 15 percent fee on passenger vehicles from the EU.

China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao hinted at the possibility of the advantages to his German counterpart Robert Habeck during a meeting on Saturday in Beijing, one of the people said. Habeck's three-day visit to the world's No. 2 economy came weeks after the EU proposed hiking charges on electric cars to as high as 48 percent later this year.