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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I was still using Windows XP until 2 years ago. Now I'm using Windows 7...

Was a Win7 guru since it's beginning... just switched to Win10.


Figured I needed to catch up to the times.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's a good thing, because older computers use less power, and we will be paying triple the market rate to the French-Chinese corporation that builds and owns our critical baseline nuclear power infrastructure.

Newer computers usually draw less wattage due to various efficency advancements. That said, anything that involves parts ftom overseas will cost me.

Herzlos wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's a good thing, because older computers use less power, and we will be paying triple the market rate to the French-Chinese corporation that builds and owns our critical baseline nuclear power infrastructure.

Newer computers usually draw less wattage due to various efficency advancements. That said, anything that involves parts ftom overseas will cost me.

.

Otoh, cheaper parts means more people can afford more powerful technology in their computers, which outmost the wattage up.


But what do I know, my making method of browsing the Internet is an iPad2.

At work our software is Windows 2000 and Windows 7.

I am old enough to remember when Windows 2000 launched...

"Suddenly everything sucks!"

Back on topic, it is nice to see that as I predicted, the EU-Canada trade deal has been approved by Wallonia and will now be signed and become active.

That is another deal to add to the pile of deals we will need to renegotiate after Brexit.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
At work our software is Windows 2000 and Windows 7.


Back on topic, it is nice to see that as I predicted, the EU-Canada trade deal has been approved by Wallonia and will now be signed and become active.

That is another deal to add to the pile of deals we will need to renegotiate after Brexit.

Stick with Windows 7 as long as you can, though I think Microsoft are trying to force through ceasing support for other versions sooner to force the...erh...downgrade to Windows "aka spy on everything you do" 10

As for the negotiations "Don't worry, be happy". I'm sure everyone will be falling over themselves for our jam and biscuits whilst the younger generation are sent to the fields as we 'dig for recession'

I also see that the Empress May is now providing more Brexit plans to Nissan than our own parliament. Good to see... Of course by putting a line in the sand like that then that could make negotiations tricky.

Parliament doesn't need to know about Brexit plans because it won't make any decisions about them anyway. It's all going to be done behind closed doors and presented as a fait accompli.

As it stands anyway, but the pressure seems to be building on this issue. It's also quite brave politically as when they inevitably frack it up there's only going to be a handful of people that will need to take responsibility. Although you can't have blow by blow reports on discussions I do think that it is parliaments job to decide on the overall strategic decisions (rather than which ever lobbying group bangs hardest on empress May's door).

But we can vote the people involved out if they feth it up cant we?

Seriously though, i don't like behind closed doors stuff but there's going to have to be discussions on military/intelligence matters that need to be kept quiet.

There is an argument to be made for the fact that nobody "needs" to know anything, apart from the ruling government.
Everybody else is just superfluous to the decision making, or so some would have us think.

With the era of the referendum, maybe we should open more decision making to the general populace too. Of course we'd have to divert serious funding into the education sector first, some citizens of this country couldn't find their arse with both hands, and God forbid we let an ill-educated electorate near a polling booth.
They could vote for any old nonsense.



That was a lot of sarcasm to let go in one post, I need a lie down.

Well considering how much backlash there has been over the Brexit result and how half the country are unwashed racist barbarians, (myself included) and the other half were somehow enlightened angels sent from Europe, I don't think we are anywhere near ready to open the doors to our democratic decision making.


It's fair better to watch the politicians do it, and then have everyone gather on the Internet and blame them.

So the zero tarrif, free access but no free movement movement EU/Canada deal has been done in a sporty seven years.

Should be easy to photocopy it, change the parties and sign the thing in two years.

So that's the business/access part, now all you have to do is bin the EU red tape and law guff, reintroduce some proper law that represses the Scots.

Bish, bash, bosh - job done.

What was all the fuss about?

 notprop wrote:
So the zero tarrif, free access but no free movement movement EU/Canada deal has been done in a sporty seven years.

Should be easy to photocopy it, change the parties and sign the thing in two years.

So that's the business/access part, now all you have to do is bin the EU red tape and law guff, reintroduce some proper law that represses the Scots.

Bish, bash, bosh - job done.

What was all the fuss about?

I see I wasn't the only one with a near terminal build up of sarcasm to vent.

We'll have to retain a lot of the EU red tape in terms of standards if we want to export to the EU.

 SirDonlad wrote:
But we can vote the people involved out if they feth it up cant we?

Seriously though, i don't like behind closed doors stuff but there's going to have to be discussions on military/intelligence matters that need to be kept quiet.

Yeah, I'm not saying we should be party to the details because that will make the process both long winded and on some issues, as stated, not be sensible for security purposes. However it does seem reasonable that parliament should be allowed to discuss and vote on what the overall strategic approach is. So something along the lines of

Maintaining EU/UK intelligence
Continuing cross boundary policing
Continuing to provide military assets in support of the EU
Free trade for Car users
Free movement
Banking passports

etc, etc.

That way parliament continues to input into the process which we the electorate voted them in to do. As it stands at the moment we have 4/5 individuals that are making all the decisions without any oversight and ensuring their isn't any personal interests (or whoever lobbys the hardest, say we got free trade on cars at the expense of tariffs on all agricultural products, should this not be a parliamentary decision?) getting in the way (of which Liam Fox has already previously shown he is not afraid of doing). If as part of the negotiations one of these strategic visions has to fall (or be compromise another area) such as free movement/banking passport then the strategic options should be taken back to parliament for another vote as the way to move forward.

Then maybe you could go down the line of a second referendum which would be a three way choice for the electorate being:-

Stay in the EU
Leave the EU and accept the proposed terms
Leave the EU and revert to standard WTO rules (i.e. don't accept the negotiated terms)

At least then the populace would have a much better idea of what they are going to get.

 Whirlwind wrote:
That way parliament continues to input into the process which we the electorate voted them in to do. As it stands at the moment we have 4/5 individuals that are making all the decisions without any oversight and ensuring their isn't any personal interests (or whoever lobbys the hardest, say we got free trade on cars at the expense of tariffs on all agricultural products, should this not be a parliamentary decision?) getting in the way (of which Liam Fox has already previously shown he is not afraid of doing). If as part of the negotiations one of these strategic visions has to fall (or be compromise another area) such as free movement/banking passport then the strategic options should be taken back to parliament for another vote as the way to move forward.

Then maybe you could go down the line of a second referendum which would be a three way choice for the electorate being:-

Stay in the EU
Leave the EU and accept the proposed terms
Leave the EU and revert to standard WTO rules (i.e. don't accept the negotiated terms)

At least then the populace would have a much better idea of what they are going to get.

Problem with that idea: Time.

You need to activate clause 50, then negotiate deal(going to be lengthy process) and then organize vote.

UK won't get to talk about terms of leave before UK activates clause 50 and when it's activated 2 year time limit kicks in after which UK is out regardless of what status negotiations are. If no deal has been made then it's hardest brexit possible.

Frankly...Is there even provision in rules for negotiating exit terms and mid route decide "sorry, we changed our minds and stay afterwards" anyway?

tneva82 wrote:

Frankly...Is there even provision in rules for negotiating exit terms and mid route decide "sorry, we changed our minds and stay afterwards" anyway?

I suspect that once we trigger A50 we're out, though we'd be able to rejoin within the 2 years under the standard EU terms.
I've no idea there's any clause to allow cancellation of the cancellation clause.

Herzlos wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Frankly...Is there even provision in rules for negotiating exit terms and mid route decide "sorry, we changed our minds and stay afterwards" anyway?

I suspect that once we trigger A50 we're out, though we'd be able to rejoin within the 2 years under the standard EU terms.
I've no idea there's any clause to allow cancellation of the cancellation clause.

Yeah that's my suspect. Otherwise it would get pretty silly and potential for abuse(which is why there won't be talks about terms before clause is activated). "Okay let's talk...Oh we didn't get terms we want so we stay instead. Then activate clause again and keep doing until we get terms we want costing up money to EU until they get sick of it and give us the terms we want".

Talks ain't free so there's got to be some limit on keeping those from dragging indefinitely or being started and cancelled at whim.

There is no set procedure for leaving the EU, so the whole process is open to negotiation, in fact it is going to have to be made up as it goes along.

Parliament should be involved in the process because that is how things work in the UK. The government works with the civil service to draw up plans, these are submitted to the country and parliament through a series of green and white papers resulting in a draft bill that goes through the committee stage for revision before being voted on first in the Commons, then in the Lords. There are many opportunities for amendments or even to dump things.

It would be an outrage for May to bypass this process.

You may say subjecting the deal to the examination of Parliament and a possible second referendum is trying to slip a Remain vote through the back door, but OTOH not to do this is to allow an unelected PM to smash whatever changes she likes through the front door on the excuse of a single referendum vote that had no details.

The excuse is that the promise to hold a referendum was in the Conservative manifesto at the last election, so everything is authorised. This is not true.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is no set procedure for leaving the EU, so the whole process is open to negotiation, in fact it is going to have to be made up as it goes along.

Parliament should be involved in the process because that is how things work in the UK. The government works with the civil service to draw up plans, these are submitted to the country and parliament through a series of green and white papers resulting in a draft bill that goes through the committee stage for revision before being voted on first in the Commons, then in the Lords. There are many opportunities for amendments or even to dump things.

True that but doubtful EU is going to look lightly on idea that first they try to negotiate deals and then hold yet another vote. And def not without the 2 year time limit. MAYBE they can agree that they can hold vote BUT that's less time for the deals themselves so UK is going to be on even more of time pressure. Doing yet another voting is going to eat easily months.

And there's going to have to be some sort of checks that in the case UK decides to vote then for stay after all due to bad terms they can't start the process from start AGAIN in hopes of getting better terms on round 2. That would be just draining EU's money constantly. Like giving open credit card with no restrictions and "feel free to use this at your hearts content". Not smart idea.

Saying that the EU of all political bodies is going to object to holding more referenda until the country in question returns the "right" result seems unlikely. I suspect that if there was a second referendum midway through negotiations, and the decision changed to remain, the EU position would be "well alright then, but it'll cost you (just not as much as leaving)".

At which point UKIP have a purpose again, begin agitating for EUref III, The Refenning, and the whole ghastly process drags on forever.

 Graphite wrote:
At which point UKIP have a purpose again, begin agitating for EUref III, The Refenning, and the whole ghastly process drags on forever.

Which is precisely what EU would not want. That's just literally burning euro's for thin air. First time I have heard EU having money they can afford to literally burn...

The idea that the EU would not want to spend money endlessly talking about stuff doesn't seem credible. They're very happy burning money for thin air. They move parliament each year for no particular purpose.

But from my personal perspective, endlessly talking about something, and it costing a bit of money, is vastly preferable to doing something which might be end up being horrendously expensive and useless. I'm an engineer. The design phase is always cheap compared to the implementation.

Anyone beginning to see why Cameron decided to bang out at the first opportunity?

He'd have been torn into tiny tiny shreds by now. Much better to slope off and let someone else sort out the mess.

I've no idea what the karmic payback for fething over an entire country is, but between him and old Nige, they've got a helluva rebalancing coming their way.

http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/COMPANY/PROFILE/ALLIANCE/RENAULT03/

Renault holds a 43.4% stake in Nissan, while Nissan owns 15% of Renault shares. Each company has a direct interest in the results of its partner.

Renault-Nissan B.V.*, the common strategic management structure of the Renault-Nissan group, was founded on March 28, 2002. Incorporated under Dutch law, Renault-Nissan B.V. is equally owned by Renault and Nissan. Renault-Nissan B.V. is the registered office of the Alliance Board, which meets regularly in Paris and Tokyo.

* B.V. (Besloten vennootschap) is a closed limited liability company under Dutch law.

April last year ;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/11521385/French-government-increases-stake-in-Renault.html

The French government will spend as much as €1.23bn to hike its stake in carmaker Renault as it seeks to retain control over the company's voting rights, according to the country's ministry of Economics and Finance.
The French state will increase its stake in the company from 15pc to around 19.7pc with the acquisition of approximately 14 million shares.
The move comes after a change in French law made last year means shares in publicly traded companies that have been held for more than two years would automatically acquire double voting rights unless shareholders vote against the change.
Renault, the world’s fourth largest car maker by sales, is due to hold such a motion at its annual general meeting on April 30. The government intends to defeat the motion with its bumped up stake.

fun times !

I've heard some talk that -- surprise! -- other car manufacturers are "asking" for a similar deal too.

tneva82 wrote:


True that but doubtful EU is going to look lightly on idea that first they try to negotiate deals and then hold yet another vote. And def not without the 2 year time limit. MAYBE they can agree that they can hold vote BUT that's less time for the deals themselves so UK is going to be on even more of time pressure. Doing yet another voting is going to eat easily months.

And there's going to have to be some sort of checks that in the case UK decides to vote then for stay after all due to bad terms they can't start the process from start AGAIN in hopes of getting better terms on round 2. That would be just draining EU's money constantly. Like giving open credit card with no restrictions and "feel free to use this at your hearts content". Not smart idea.

Well there is precedent. Ireland initially voted against the Lisbon treaty and was allowed a second referendum. It would take 5-6 months to undertake another referendum. 2 years is not really a sensible time to negotiate anyway and the EU if they have any sense will waive the two years A50 obligation (even if it is simply on the basis no one has done this before so there is no basis as to how to approach anything at all). Alternatively they could agree to negotiate before A50 is enacted get everything lined up so that if A50 is enacted it can be implemented quickly. The problem with having a 2 year fixed timeline is that it allows for no flexibility in the timeline (say a civil war in Turkey, Mount Vesuvius erupts, or there is a massive flooding issues in the UK). You would then have to divide countries efforts between equally pressing matters when ideally all these issues would need the utmost of their countries attention. Even from a UK political democratic process having an unfixed deadline would be useful. As it stands Empress May intends to negotiate for the leaking and slowly sinking ship, point the a cannon at the deck and say to parliament "Sign this or I'll fire the cannon and see how fast I can sink the ship and all of you on it". Without the hard deadline May would not be able to use this threat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:


I suspect that once we trigger A50 we're out, though we'd be able to rejoin within the 2 years under the standard EU terms.
I've no idea there's any clause to allow cancellation of the cancellation clause.

I don't think Article 50 is all that fleshed out. It is probably make it up as you go a long so potentially you might be able to cancel the A50 letter (like withdrawing a resignation letter lol!)

 welshhoppo wrote:
Well considering how much backlash there has been over the Brexit result and how half the country are unwashed racist barbarians, (myself included) and the other half were somehow enlightened angels sent from Europe, I don't think we are anywhere near ready to open the doors to our democratic decision making.


It's fair better to watch the politicians do it, and then have everyone gather on the Internet and blame them.

I wholeheartedly agree!

We should definitely set up a system whereby people of any education, background or upbringing can regularly vote for an individual vested with the responsibility of ensuring a thorough understanding of the issues and the wishes of their populace to represent their constituency in a gathering of other similarly endowed professional representatives in order to discuss, debate and vote upon important issues that guide and shape the country as a whole to its betterment and in accordance with the best interests of the population, regardless if sometimes that makes them unpopular. The consequence of unpopularity and not acting in accordance with the wishes of the population is that the representative could be replaced with someone who is better able to reflect the wishes of their local area.
Perhaps if an idea or cause has real, incontrovertible support among the populace it would be at the forefront of every representatives mind, and be an issue that any Government would be unable to resist, and have widespread support and consensus amongst the whole population. An issue so popular that almost every member of this "parliament" would be elected to ensure that the wishes were carried out?

What a wonderful idea.

Or we could shortcut the whole boring process, make a manifesto pledge in an effort to shut up a few strident gobshites, then hamfistedly feth things up so badly that you lose your poorly conceived gamble through mind bending incompetence, and create a huge balls up that someone else will have to try and sort out, at the same time as setting the whole country on edge, polarising opinion, and creating levels of tension and rhetoric not seen since King Charles I decided MPs are a pain in the arse, and he could do a much better job on his own thanks very much.

I always wondered if it'd be a bad idea to proceed a ballot paper with a short multiple choice quiz on the subject. Passing the quiz allows your ballot to be counted, this ensuring that people at least have some vague idea what they are voting on.

Brexit has become the most horrendous can of worms. There's absolutely no way to proceed that isn't flawed.

If the government gives a blow by blow account of what they're doing to Parliament or the electorate, they sabotage their own negotiating position. If they don't, they risk taking a position nobody backs and render themselves vulnerable to accusations of being undemocratic.

If they make the agreement they come up with subject to Parliament's approval, they risk it being thrown back in their faces and the whole brexit procedure being turned into a farce (as Parliament is out of step with the referendum vote). If they don't have it ratified by Parliament, they're violating the constitution and acting in a decidedly facist way.

Finally, whatever they come up with, a third of the country is automatically opposed, and of the third in favour, no more than a third of that in turn will approve of it.

This is a trainwreck in slow motion. Best lay in a few year's worth of popcorn.

 Ketara wrote:
Brexit has become the most horrendous can of worms. There's absolutely no way to proceed that isn't flawed.

If the government gives a blow by blow account of what they're doing to Parliament or the electorate, they sabotage their own negotiating position. If they don't, they risk taking a position nobody backs and render themselves vulnerable to accusations of being undemocratic.

If they make the agreement they come up with subject to Parliament's approval, they risk it being thrown back in their faces and the whole brexit procedure being turned into a farce (as Parliament is out of step with the referendum vote). If they don't have it ratified by Parliament, they're violating the constitution and acting in a decidedly facist way.

Finally, whatever they come up with, a third of the country is automatically opposed, and of the third in favour, no more than a third of that in turn will approve of it.

This is a trainwreck in slow motion. Best lay in a few year's worth of popcorn.

know the term 'political elites' is a term that makes some people roll their eyes, but in this instance, I feel it's justified.

The gap between the ordinary man on the street and the political elites at Westminster is huge.

The public want out of the EU, but Parliament wants in...

I can see the argument for why some people don't like referendums, and in our parliamentary system, they can cause problems.

In an ideal world, MPs would reflect the voters' position, so the referendum wouldn't have been needed, as Parliament would have voted us out of the EU, and a lot of our problems would have disappeared.

Sadly, this crisis has been caused by the distance between Joe public and our MPs, as they no longer represent the views of the people who vote them in. so I think the use of the term political elites is justified...

Should mps act on in accordance of the wishes of those that voted, or in the best interest of all constituents?