Will TIG totally wipe out the Lib's?

[D-Dan]

OK, let me try an segment this. I voted leave, but the crap show that dictator May is showing to Parliament is not what I voted for. She is not only ignoring the opposition, but she’s ignoring the majority of her own party. If a Ref 2 came to us, I’d support staying rather than on her terms. So, segment one done.

Segment two is just an answer to a question that Google can’t provide. Non-binding parliamentary votes. Surely, a vote in Parliament is a binding vote, but apparently not. We now have this concept amongst our ruling bodies of an advisory vote. However, what differentiates a “meaningful” vote from a non-binding vote, and who the hell decided there was a difference?

The House of Commons is our law makers, and yet it seems it’s optional. If I were an MP, what would be the difference, in law, between tabling a binding vote and tabling an advisory vote.

Bear in mind, I was a delegate of the biggest branch of one of the ten biggest unions in this country, and, indeed, Europe. At conference, we either followed or broke our mandate. If we broke it, we had better be able to explain ourselves.

I honestly don’t get the whole “meaningful” vote idea. Surely, they are all meaningful?

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Dave Rice]

I think it’s a way to gauge the real mood of parliament without committing to anything. I was going to say if you see that it’s all going against you, you can change your approach. But TM lost by the biggest margin in history in a meaningful vote and ignored that so, yes, what is the point in the current situation? Deny a 2nd referendum as just asking the same question until you get the right answer, then do exactly that on your own question. Hypocrisy in action again.

As for them banging on about being voted in on a manifesto, what about the great swathes that aren’t getting done? Kenneth Clarke says he had his manifesto only days before polling and throughout campaigning many interpretations are made of it. Party conferences change things too. It’s just another thing that gets invoked when it suits.

Having two children with issues I’d like to see some movement on the “burning injustice” of mental health, but both are getting more help from their Universities than the NHS. More broken promises I wonder what the ERG policies are on this?

[JayCeeDee]

I did not intend to suggest that the ‘rectification’ took things to where they should be or that such as you put it, would “save the country”.    I had thought my analogy with a pendulum and how a swing too far in one damaging direction results is and equal an opposite swing in the other would have made that clear that the other is equally damaging.   Neither extreme is desirable.  It is merely inevitable in major part because our FPTP electoral system of its very nature is not one conducive to balance.

I got the pendulum reference, but in the earlier paragraphs of that post, you seemed to be waxing lyrical on the achievements of the Conservatives, whilst in the next recounting Business World’s fear over Labour.
That aspect alone, puts you on the right of politics. Yet, if neither extreme is desirable, you seem to be mocking those leaving the extremes to meet in the middle. That’s ‘cake and eat it’ time!!

[Dave Rice]

Well we are now seeing what I’ve described as the “silent moderates” gaining their voice even here. There comes a time when enough is enough, it’s gone too far one way.

If there is a No Deal Brexit there will be trouble in every respect, including civil disobedience, and that so could so easily have been avoided had TM done what she said she would. But no, she listened to the extremists when she could so easily have won over the moderates.

Yes I think that leaving the EU isn’t the best decision but I accepted it. I was quite willing to accept the best of a bad job and that is basically what was promised – don’t make me get the quotes out again. But that doesn’t mean I won’t question the psuedo economic arguments, most of which are pure fantasy leveraging the best of the best and ignoring any negatives. Leavers I talked with were quite happy to do the same from their perspective, don’t make me get the quotes out again from their public face.

It became a numbers game – sod austerity here’s a billion £, yes a bloody billion £ – found down the back of the sofa when Labour where accused of having the money tree, just to keep the Tories in power. Fiscal responsibility? Who paid for that billion £ ? We all did, do you think Lord Snooty and his mates did? Are they looking for somewhere to have a piss in Bristol or just being chauffeured to the London champagne party celebrating defeating their leader and taking the country they love closer to chaos?

The saddest thing is that those that believed the lies the most are those that will lose the most and it’s already started. You can decide it’s nothing to do with Brexit all you like but the fact remains, the jobs have gone. How will the grand Brexit project reverse that? How will the jobs in Swindon be replaced? Unicorn wranglers and Rainbow polishers? Probably need an Eastern European to do that as the locals are far too skilled… They could have been building Dyson cars, what with him being just down the road and all…

Oh, the car industry is moving to countries that have a FT with the EU and the UK has no idea what it’s relationship will be. Wake up and smell the coffee for God’s sake!

[The VFM Addict]

@Dave

I believe that the last paragraph of your post demonstrates how full of spin your position actually is.   The car manufacturers are not moving to “countries that have a FT with the EU” as such implies.   Were that so they would be moving to numerous countries, such as Canada or South Africa.   The reality is that they are moving production home to Japan.   Such would have occurred irrespective of whether we remained in the EU or not.   This is why Honda are also leaving Turkey and that plainly has nothing to do with Brexit, does it.

I chuckled when you said we all paid for austerity and then modified what you consider to be ‘all’.   Let me ask you, Dave, can you list what aspects of austerity it has been which have seriously impacted you or your family directly?     Conversely, several members of my own extended family are through no fault of their own entirely reliant on state benefits and they have been hit very hard by the austerity. Most benefit increases have been capped sub-inflation for the last five or six years; i.e. just 1%.    Those are the hardest hit by austerity so please do not imply that I have no idea of what austerity has caused.  I suspect I’ve seen its effect at closer hand than you.   In reality I have great issue with the Triple Lock which guarantees OAP’s, of which I am now one, hikes in the State Pension of at the very least 2.5% a year.    It would have been to my mind more balanced to raise all benefits, be they pre or post retirement age equally.    I am not comfortable with the Triple Lock during austerity which in reality we all know was/is designed primarily to keep older, more inclined to vote Tory, voters on-side; and to hell with benefit reliant voters who most commonly are Labour supporters.   I think that stinks.

I note you statement that the jobs have gone.   Can you point to those that have gone due to Brexit.   If jobs were going as you insist then it is hardly ever likely that employment levels would be increasing as they have done or unemployment falling as it has done, is it?    If there was a sum total exodus of jobs the reverse would be true, wouldn’t it?    Obviously, some companies will reduce their involvement in the UK and others will increase theirs.    Its only the total picture that tells the tale.   Forgive me if I don’t accept you inherently tempting invitation to reply in kind with a suggestion that you too wake up and smell the coffee.   Instead I would simply ask you to look at the figures.   There is no over all exodus of jobs.   The absolute reverse is the case.     There is no prediction from either the BoE or the EU that UK growth will be lower post Brexit than will be Germany’s.     The reverse is true.  Both project greater growth from us than in Merkel-Land.   Again look at the figures.

Post Brexit Art.24 of GATT would allow us to continue trade as is with the EU provided that the EU agreed.    You might ask why they would ever agree.    I’ll tell you.  Its because they sell more to us than we sell to them; its because it solves the N.I. border issue; its because the very last thing they want is to have to bail out Ireland should a No Deal occur, especially just before the EU elections take place.  The German electorate have had enough of having to fund bail outs.  Another at such a point in time would see the AfD support going meteoric during the elections.    Truly, Germany cannot weather a No Deal.   Yes, Malta, Greece, Romania, Lithuania, etc., etc., are not terribly hurt by No Deal but the most dominant state in the EU, that which especially without us would be even more so the EU’s bankroller, would be severely hurt financially and politically.    That is pivotal, especially at a point when Germany it is already tottering on the brink of recession.    If and I agree its an unlikely if, Parliament held its nerve, the backstop would be softened or removed; and then the Malthouse compromise would pass to the relief of all of us.

However, if Parliament does not hold its nerve the EU involvement conflicts that have persisted in this country for the last forty years will continue and I suspect far more savagely than ever before.   To my mind that will destroy our community and our appeal to inward investment even more so than a No Deal Brexit would.  Because such would mean enduring and relentless uncertainty.

In closing I concur fully with one thing you suggest might occur; civil disobedience.   With a roughly 50/50 split in opinions and passions high on both sides such disobedience is pretty much guaranteed if the decision goes either way.   The only sign I see of that being avoided is the Malthouse compromise which was agreed by firm Remainers like Nicky Morgan and firm Leavers like JRM.   But for that to be achieved Parliament must not blink before the EU does.   I don’t see the bunch of Muppets in Parliament exhibiting the slightest sign of a steady nerve.   Most are a load ob ‘blinkers’.  Remind me, colloquially what do folks of tradition say makes one go blind………if you get my drift, Parliament is full of them.   So one way of the other I’m probably as certain as you seem to be that very considerable civil disobedience will be what we have to look forward to.

 

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[The VFM Addict]

@JCD

JayCeeDee wrote:

I got the pendulum reference, but in the earlier paragraphs of that post, you seemed to be waxing lyrical on the achievements of the Conservatives, whilst in the next recounting Business World’s fear over Labour. That aspect alone, puts you on the right of politics. Yet, if neither extreme is desirable, you seem to be mocking those leaving the extremes to meet in the middle. That’s ‘cake and eat it’ time!!

How very wrong you are.   I am a great supporter of the middle ground compromise reached by firm Remainers like Nicky Morgan and firm Leavers like JRM; that is to say the Malthouse compromise.

I see no others leaving the extremes to meet in the middle.  Certainly not the TIGGERS.  The only thing that unites the TIGGERS is that all are firm Remainers.    Has or will Soubry renounce the austerity that she was so vociferous in supporting or voting for?   Or has Chukka suddenly started endorsing it?   Strip away the sole unifying component of their alliance – their avid support for remain – and where is this middle ground meeting?    It is that I mock.   Because they do not offer what they paint on their tin.   Tell me have you ever seen such blatant lies and hypocrisy as that exhibited by Heidi Allen.   Do take take a look.

I’m sorry to say this but if you think that the TIGGERS are meeting in some middle ground or are worthy of respect I truly believe you have been utterly taken in.    Despite the old commercial catch phrase that “Tiggers are wonderful things…” in this case nothing could be further from the truth.   All were MPs that were going nowhere in their own parties, were at risk of being deselected, knew it and tried a side-step to prolong their own careers.    They offer nothing new and are about as useful at representing a healthy compromise as is a bag containing a mix of lettuce leafs and raw stinging nettles.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

@VFM – we have not actually suffered from Brexit yet as it has not taken place and no-one knows what the hell Brexit is!  BTW we have not lost all the Financial jobs because The City has cut a regulatory equivalence deal with its  EU counterparts that nearly preserves the pass-porting status quo (the politicians do not want to publicise this at the moment).  However GDPR and the UK Government’s habit of not honouring privacy could still bite us.

Where we have been hurt is in the uncertainty of this appallingly badly managed Brexit process. This has most certainly affected business confidence and recently has impacted on investment and capital formation. It has also affected national wealth by allowing idiots such as Greyling loose with our funds. To date we have wasted close to £1Bn on preparing for a Hard Brexit case that only a political idiot could want, and only flies due to misguided judgement that it provides bargaining leverage.

You split hairs with Dave purely for meaningless rhetoric – is or is not Japan in a FT agreement with the EU?

If using your argument it comes down to us versus the Germans in a Hard Brexit case – who loses most? Obviously we do overall – that sounds like a pretty carp basis for saying that we have a good poker hand.

 

[JayCeeDee]

@JCD Tell me have you ever seen such blatant lies and hypocrisy as that exhibited by Heidi Allen.

 

Yes – from every GE manifesto over the last 40 years, the Yes/No EU vote in the 70’s to the EU Ref campaign from 2016.

The whole confrontational politics from PMQT’s to Question Time panel answers is broken.

This is why I’ve only posted in this topic about specific points, not the whole political approach/perspective.

This was a whole lot longer and deeper, but I went to insert an emoji with steam coming out of their ears, and the page refreshed and I lost the whole post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

[The VFM Addict]

First @JCD,

I forgot to add that TIG defector Sarah Wollaston sponsored a 2011 bill to make by-elections compulsory for any MP changing party.    That is the mark of the integrity of the TIGGERS !!!

Now @EdP,

Obviously I was not splitting hairs re Dave.   Yes Japan does have a FTA with the EU meaning it could and would have repatriated production irrespective of whether we remained in the EU or not.   Were this not so it could have gone to an EU state or any other state that had an FTA with the EU.   That is is going home and is leaving Turkey at the same time proves the Honda move, as they said themselves, had nothing to do with Brexit.   To continue to attempt to link them to Brexit is unquestionably willfully incongruous and misleading.

As regards Germany, German commitment to the EU is crucial for the EU’s survival, is it not?   Having to bail out Eire could severely damage the German electorate’s commitment to the EU given that dissent re immigration and the ever growing rise of the AfD have shown.   AfD are in favour of Gexit of whatever one would term it.    It matters not if the smaller EU states are hit hard by Brexit but hit Germany at this point in time when recession is nearing and euroscepticism is growing and the wound could be fatal to the EU politically hitting it at its core.   AfD already projected to take large numbers of MEP seats in May would have a field day.   Truly, Germany and the EU cannot politically afford having to bail out Eire.   That is the dynamic that gives us a strong hand.   And, I say again No Deal provides no backstop whatsoever.   So why not accept the softer backstop offered in Malthouse?     Crikey if you were offered by your employer a slight reduction in your terms of employment or no job at all due to adverse trading conditions what would you accept.   It would make no sense for the EU to stick to so hard a backstop to such a degree as to guarantee no backstop whatsoever.

But I anticipate that our MPs as a whole will not have the sense to recognise the above.   So folks heads down because its likely to be Battle Brexit, more fierce than ever before, for the next twenty years or until the EU collapses through its inability to reform just as Soros has predicted.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[The VFM Addict]

@JCD,

I know what you mean about losing long texts.  I now pre-type in MSWord and then past to avoid such.  If there is two things I believe everyone of this thread would agree with.  First that Politics in the UK is fatally wounded – and – Second that we desperately need PR if we want compromise and consensual decisions to be reached.    Is it – So say all of us, lads?    I do hope so.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[JayCeeDee]

AfD are in favour of Gexit of whatever one would term it.

Probably D eutschland Aus giving you a catchy DAus!!

[JayCeeDee]

The VFM Addict wrote:

@JCD, I know what you mean about losing long texts. I now pre-type in MSWord and then past to avoid such.

On longer posts I normally do as well, but it was the inserting an emoji that wasn’t on the list, by adding a picture copied from a Google search that caught me out.

[Ed P]

I can accept or agree nothing because the public have no say in this whole mess, and anything you, or I say means damned all.

Which is why this whole process is extremely frustrating and unfortunately reveals the flaws in our broken ‘Elected Dictator’ system of democracy. In an ideal world the public would be able to say enough of this costly charade and to the tumbrils with the lot of you. Let us have anarchy instead – it cannot be much worse!

Through political inaction we have wasted far more of our National Wealth than was ever fictitiously supposed to be gained through Brexit

[The VFM Addict]

All I asked was whether you agree that we need PR in the UK.     Your response leaves me concluding that you are responding to my posts without reading them.  Because your response seems so totally mismatched with what the actual question was.

If I take your text as written response to what the actual question was I would have to conclude that you are against PR; which I very much doubt to be the case.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

Malthouse has naff all to do with PR. It certainly does not represent a consensus for the country, just something some Tories can agree on, and not even the majority of Tories! As your question does not even contain PR as a subject why on earth would I express an opinion on it?

I responded directly to the only question(s) that I could find:

” So why not accept the softer backstop offered in Malthouse? Crikey if you were offered by your employer a slight

reduction in your terms of employment or no job at all due to adverse trading conditions what would you accept.”

 

With the following response that more or less corresponds to your question assuming it was me and not the MPs you refer to later.

“I can accept or agree nothing because the public have no say in this whole mess, and anything you, or I say means damned all.”

 

Perhaps a Brexit Bot is writing your responses and you have not had time to read them yet!?

[Dave Rice]

Sorry not been about. And yes it was hair splitting on the word move, as you know very well. It avoided my question as to what will the grand Brexit project being doing to help replace the jobs lost? These jobs have gone, for whatever reason, what part of the sunny uplands will be coming to the rescue?

Austerity and me. You really have a cheek, you know nothing of my circumstances yet you imply that I must be well off enough or something not to notice. Some sort of champagne socialist. Well I am disabled with a wife and kids and rely on things like public transport – BTW I get no help from the state whatsoever and never have. I am now helping get the last one through University and the oldest finish his PhD (you don’t get paid to write them up and you don’t get a student loan). They have got there through sheer hard work and my wife and I have had to make sacrifices to get them there and keep them there. Patronisation I don’t need.

[The VFM Addict]

Ah, I see.  We were talking about different ‘questions’ and hence talking at cross purposes.   The question you responded to was not a direct or directed question at all.  It was merely rhetorical – i.e.  Why won’t the EU accept a softer backstop and instead are in effect forcing No Deal and no backstop at all.    Note very carefully that nowhere in you post to which you were referring and responding did I ask anyone to agree.

The only post where I was asking for agreement as such was in my reply to JCD, which was also my last post prior to your reply.   That post included;

‘If there is two things I believe everyone of this thread would agree with. First that Politics in the UK is fatally wounded – and – Second that we desperately need PR if we want compromise and consensual decisions to be reached.  Is it – So say all of us, lads?’

That post was directly asking if folks agreed.   So when your first post after it said you could not agree with anything, then quite obviously I thought you were replying to that open request to all regarding PR.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

Sorry – obviously I was totally floored by your undirected rhetoric which was apparently addressed to JCD, but you wanted a reply from all. To which I wrongly assumed you would be waiting for JCD’s comments. You then addressed a post to me, and included general rhetoric to which you did not want a reply, but then complained that I had not replied.

Confusing — Hell yes, just like some of your Brexit spinning!

[The VFM Addict]

Dave Rice wrote:

Sorry not been about. And yes it was hair splitting on the word move, as you know very well. It avoided my question as to what will the grand Brexit project being doing to help replace the jobs lost? These jobs have gone, for whatever reason, what part of the sunny uplands will be coming to the rescue? Austerity and me. You really have a cheek, you know nothing of my circumstances yet you imply that I must be well off enough or something not to notice. Some sort of champagne socialist. Well I am disabled with a wife and kids and rely on things like public transport – BTW I get no help from the state whatsoever and never have. I am now helping get the last one through University and the oldest finish his PhD (you don’t get paid to write them up and you don’t get a student loan). They have got there through sheer hard work and my wife and I have had to make sacrifices to get them there and keep them there. Patronisation I don’t need.

I was not being patronising nor accusing you of being a champagne socialist.

You post has two components I will address each.   You keep talking of all these jobs lost due to Brexit.   If such were the over all trend then unemployment would be rising.   It is not.  It is falling.    Companies come and go.   That’s the way of things.   The reality is that when Woolworth’s closed more jobs were lost than are now vanishing from the car industry.   Kodak lost thousands of jobs as Digital Photography took over.   Its all the way of markets and technological developments.   Jobs however have come from all over and we now have lower unemployment than when Woolworth’s existed and Kodak ruled the chemical photography world.  No individual company nor even market can be viewed in isolation.   It is the overall trend that matters.  There is no massive fall in the number of jobs quite the reverse.  It is as preposterous to ask me where the jobs will come from to replace those lost in the car industry as it would be to ask me to tell you where the jobs came from to replace those lost at Woolworth’s or Kodak or in Coal Mining.   The answer will be as it was with those – From all over the place.   I say again unemployment is falling.   So clearly jobs came to replace them.   What I find utterly ridiculous is that Remainers on the one hand say we need freedom of movement because we need the extra workers from the EU but then say we are losing jobs.    Spot the contradiction.   There has been no exodus of jobs and the loses at Nissan and Honda are but a scratch compared to the loses we have seen over the years in other industries and companies; like Coal Mining or Woolworths.

Regading as you put it patronisation –  The point I was making is that from your posts here over recent years (and indeed even in the post to which I am now replying here) I see nothing to suggest you have been directly hit by austerity.   I fail to see why your disability comes into it.    My partner is disabled and is prescribed more than a dozen different medications a week.  The last few years she has been a wheelchair user.   We will both knows therefore that the disabled have not been directly hit by austerity measures because DSA and PIP unlike other benefits were not capped under austerity measures.    I am not sure how public transport comes into it either.  Public transport has not been reduced as a direct austerity measure either.

I simply do not suspect that you visit food banks as has at least one of my extended family to my knowledge.   On this site you incredibly often talk of numerous trips/holidays to Europe and of purchases of luxuries like craft beers.   Such are hardly badges of those severely suffering as a result of austerity measures.    Of course you were not obliged to answer.   But from your posts here over recent years, months and weeks, I believe it was entirely valid to assume that you have not been badly hit by austerity measures; unlike those reliant on benefits who can’t even afford a trip to the British Seaside let alone multiple trips to Europe each year and at times can’t even fund another loaf of bread let alone Belgium beers.

I do not see that the fact that you are helping your off-spring though post-grad education links with a debate re austerity measures either.   I have not the slightest doubt that your off-spring have got where they are by hard work nor that you have had to make sacrifices to help.   Been there done it.   Medical qualifications require hard work, longer degrees and hence greater debt and having lived through helping one of ours down that route and his other two siblings through normal degrees, I am well aware of how it impacts finances.   Indeed, two years during that ‘helping hand phase’ we could not even afford a holiday in the UK let alone cross the channel several times a year.

Sorry, Dave, I certainly wasn’t calling you a champagne socialist.  But I was most definitely responding to the facts as posted by you on this site and they are entirely inconsistent with you having been bludgeon by austerity measures.   I do wonder if you have seen the effect they have close-up like I have.   No correct that.   I’m pretty certain you have not or you would surely have cited such in your post.    Instead you cited numerous facts in that post which are in reality not related to austerity but which appear to seek to paint you are hard pushed and hard done by; something entirely at odds with the huge body of evidence which exists elsewhere on this cite in your posts.

I am sure most long term users of this site in their hearts would have to agree that your posts suggest you are doing better financially than most who post here (and I do not doubt that such is from your hard work) but have said nothing before or in your recent post to suggest that you or yours are any thing like a victim of austerity.   Feel free of course to cite both the dates of your next planned holiday  to Europe and I will feel free too cite the next visit of my extended family members to a food bank as soon as I can speak with them.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

Actually if you look at the less easily fiddled Long Term Unemployment figures the trend is now on the upslope.

link

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