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I don't care what Sadiq Khan thinks about Sturgeon. It's stupid to worry about the Guardian Crossword when the Labour Party is falling apart like a Clown Car.

Khan is free to say what he wants, that's his perogative,

but I'll tell you what annoys me the most.

When Khan was running for mayor, he was subjected to all sorts of disgusting dog whistle racist insinuations from Goldsmith and his supporters.

Who stepped forward to defend him?

Sturgeon and the SNP.

No wonder SNP supporters are annoyed at being branded racists by Khan. He's got a short memory!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what Sadiq Khan thinks about Sturgeon. It's stupid to worry about the Guardian Crossword when the Labour Party is falling apart like a Clown Car.

The Labour party falling apart is nothing new in British politics. It has happened before in my lifetime. Michael Foot and all that.

Well the wider issue is about Labour falling apart at the seems, very few people really care about the Guardian crossword writer's little 'jokes'.

Khan completely failed to read the mood in Scotland to the extent that even Slab are distancing themselves from him. It was just cack handed and rather inept, which seems to be the norm for Labour these days sadly.

The Lords have sent the Brexit bill back to parliament, for all the good it will do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39133400?utm_content=buffer5d502&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
You clearly don't like in the sticks with gakky broadband.

Though to be fair we've been watching a huge amount of films off USB these days, much easier to deal with than DVD's when you've got a lively toddler!

Weren't the government supposed to have rolled out better broadband to rural areas by now?

Another thing that needs to be addressed post Brexit.

At any rate, I have to go. I wish I had the time to hang around dakka all day, but I've got miniatures to paint.

There's still no real competition and as far as I understand it the roll-out funding largely went to upgrading service for the easy fruit.
Not that my internet is bad, I get about 16Mbit and on the whole it works but it can be pretty temperamental so streaming can be a frustrating effort. Especially given the number of cat videos Mrs Herzlos watches.

Well, Brexit has suffered it's first defeat in the House of Lords.

Now we must guarantee rights for EU citizens. Oh no!

There's no guarentee the EU will protect ours back. Might as well play poker while showing our cards.

 Lord Bingo wrote:
There's no guarentee the EU will protect ours back. Might as well play poker while showing our cards.

Its utterly stupid offer a guarantee when we do not even know if EU will.
We just weaken out position.

If they do not, we cannot. This must be unilateral.

Exactly. What will we do if we guarentee the rights and its not done back, either we'd have to go back on our word and look untrustworthy or agree and look weak.

I don't care about "looking weak".

I do care about the many thousands of people, including many of my friends and colleagues, who have made a home and a career in the UK, usually over many years or decades, because they love life here and love our culture, who we are saying we may kick out purely out of vindictiveness.

I don't care about looking weak. I really do care about looking heartless and evil. But again I'm probably just too ridiculously liberal for realpolitik, right? I'd just get beheaded towards the end of Season 1.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I don't care about "looking weak".

I do care about the many thousands of people, including many of my friends and colleagues, who have made a home and a career in the UK, usually over many years or decades, because they love life here and love our culture, who we are saying we may kick out purely out of vindictiveness.

I don't care about looking weak. I really do care about looking heartless and evil. But again I'm probably just too ridiculously liberal for realpolitik, right? I'd just get beheaded towards the end of Season 1.

Right, and what if the EU refuses to reciprocate for British ex-pats? What then? We've just given one of our means of leverage away.

As Ketara said earlier ITT, its very telling that the EU hasn't already accepted May's offer to immediately guarantee the rights of all EU and British citizens living abroad, separately from official Brexit negotiations. They have no intention of reciprocating, they intend to use the threat of deportation for British ex-pats to blackmail us.

Perhaps in exchange for the EU keeping control over OUR national waters...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/15/uk-fishermen-may-not-win-waters-back-after-brexit-eu-memo-reveals


Also, as far as I'm concerned, anyone wishing to permanently live in a foreign country ought to apply for citizenship of that country, whether they're British or European. Its foolish not to.

Looking weak is bad in any form of negotiation. I consider my self left wing so feel that is irrelevant to the point, but regardless what "wing" you should know that giving away such an important point for free is a poor idea.

We should only concede on this point when the EU agree back, the fact that such a simple and mutally beneficial agreement hasn't been made is one of the reasons I'm glad we're leaving. The EU will do its best to punish the UK and showing weakness now will mean more damage is done. At the end of the day the British goverment has to look to its own citizens first.

I would like to think that the EU will honour British Ex-pats if we do the same to current EU nationals, many could likely argue that pushing Ex-pats out of countries could be harming (depending on if they are skilled workers or are retired spenders in local economies). I think worse case scenario would be they would have to reapply for VISA like status, however if the EU does decide to chuck everybody out I guess the only alternative for those affected would to gain national citizenship of which ever country they are in or hope they have somewhere to go when they come back.

Spain would be the country to watch out for.

We don't get on with them a lot, what with Gibraltar. They literally said they wanted dual control over it the day after the referendum took place.

I've negotiated sales of businesses, houses, cars, etc., and gotten good deals.

At now point have I had to threaten, "hey, you know that really smart scientist lass and her equally smart doctor husband, who love the UK and have lived here twenty years but are now worried that we might have secretly hated them? Unless you improve the terms I'm gonna deport them overnight!"

That just feels way more like a combination of blackmail, and self-harm, than any negotiation I've taken part in. But I'm probably just weak! Next time I sell a car I'll be sure to wave a firearm around a bit to threaten the buyer, and then shoot myself in the foot repeatedly just to ram the point home.

It shows strength and confidence to guarantee EU citizens' rights now.

The idea that the EU is out to "get" us feeds the kind of suspicion and unco-operation that will guarantee the worst outcome of the negotiations.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It shows strength and confidence to guarantee EU citizens' rights now.

The idea that the EU is out to "get" us feeds the kind of suspicion and unco-operation that will guarantee the worst outcome of the negotiations.

Exactly. Using people's lives as chips in some sort of political willy waving competition, even in the face of the fact that we actually need these migrants here, much more than we need the 380'000 or so pensioners living in Spain, is ridiculous.

Thank god for the Lords is all I can say. They might actually be able to beat some sense into this farce of a government, and force them to not completely do ourselves over like some self harming dullard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Bingo wrote:
Looking weak is bad in any form of negotiation. I consider my self left wing so feel that is irrelevant to the point, but regardless what "wing" you should know that giving away such an important point for free is a poor idea.

We should only concede on this point when the EU agree back, the fact that such a simple and mutally beneficial agreement hasn't been made is one of the reasons I'm glad we're leaving. The EU will do its best to punish the UK and showing weakness now will mean more damage is done. At the end of the day the British goverment has to look to its own citizens first.

It was explained before. As I understand it, when we leave, the EU is no longer responsible for telling it's members what to do with its non-EU migrant British citizens. Spain, France and Ireland will have to negotiate with us as individuals about the our expats who live in their country.

However, there is likely to be no expulsions, but maybe a change in current agreements, such as health care provision,

This is based on the Vienna Convention of 1969, which says that the termination of a treaty "does not affect any right, obligation or legal situation of the parties created through the execution of the treaty prior to its termination.”

The House of Commons Library says that "withdrawing from a treaty releases the parties from any future obligations to each other, but does not affect any rights or obligations acquired under it before withdrawal."

In other words, Brits who have already exercised their right to live in EU states can expect to keep that right after Brexit. One important point though: this only applies to people who have started expat life in the EU before Brexit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/eu-facts-what-would-leaving-the-eu-mean-for-expats/

The EU can only negotiate for things in its remit, it cannot negotiate to force it's member states to comply with rules not covered by the free movement of people in the EU. We would be a foreign power, and the individual nations of Europe would be able to treat British expats exactly as they would Australian, or American migrants, with no interference from the EU.

 r_squared wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It shows strength and confidence to guarantee EU citizens' rights now.

The idea that the EU is out to "get" us feeds the kind of suspicion and unco-operation that will guarantee the worst outcome of the negotiations.

Exactly. Using people's lives as chips in some sort of political willy waving competition, even in the face of the fact that we actually need these migrants here, much more than we need the 380'000 or so pensioners living in Spain, is ridiculous.

Thank god for the Lords is all I can say. They might actually be able to beat some sense into this farce of a government, and force them to not completely do ourselves over like some self harming dullard.

Its almost as if the Lords have had some kind of basic sales training. EU nationals are living and working here, we need and want them too....Deal done and handshakes all round.

 Lord Bingo wrote:
Exactly. What will we do if we guarentee the rights and its not done back, either we'd have to go back on our word and look untrustworthy or agree and look weak.

It doesn't make us look weak, it makes us look like we're willing to do the right thing regardless of what the other side says. I'd rather we took the moral high ground on at least something in this mess.

It's also in our own interest to guarantee the rights of those EU citizens already here; on the whole we need them more than they need us. Making them feel insecure means we risk serious brain drain.

That we're even still considering them as bargaining chips is reprehensible.


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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
They have no intention of reciprocating, they intend to use the threat of deportation for British ex-pats to blackmail us.

Have you any source for this? I thought the EU was pretty happy to retain the status quo, and they don't want to agree anything until A50 is triggered. We've got no reason to believe they'll use the ex-pats as a bargaining chip when they've got so many other ones.

I'm also pretty sure that Spain won't want the wholesale exodus of ex-pats, though they may insist that we pay for their healthcare.

Yeah, there's a LOT of highly skilled, essentially irreplaceable EU citizens here.

I mean, technically nobody is irreplaceable. But I have a great many EU-origin colleagues, almost all of whom are either planning to leave the UK or seriously considering it due to feeling unwelcome (even if we do end up successfully negotiating a deal, it turns out that treating humans like hostages tends to make them hate you). Likewise a recent survey found that 60% of EU-born doctors in the UK are considering leaving. In both those cases we're talking about many, many years to train up UK people to do the same work; this is not the kind of thing that can be done in the next two years. And you know. Who's going to do the training? Universities and medical schools are already stretched pretty thin... what happens when they lose a large percentage of their staff and can't easily recruit more?

What happens then?

I imagine Farage, The Heil, Express and The Scum will blame it all on darkies or gays?

I mean, that's typically what happens when things go Pete Tong?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:


Normally I would just laugh this off as a mistake and some attendant tinfoil hattery. .

.. did none of you watch Inside Number 9 this week ?


If you're not then, well, you really should do -- t'is superb.


Given the above this weeks one is extra spooky.

Herzlos wrote:

 Lord Bingo wrote:
Exactly. What will we do if we guarentee the rights and its not done back, either we'd have to go back on our word and look untrustworthy or agree and look weak.

It doesn't make us look weak, it makes us look like we're willing to do the right thing regardless of what the other side says. I'd rather we took the moral high ground on at least something in this mess.

It's also in our own interest to guarantee the rights of those EU citizens already here; on the whole we need them more than they need us. Making them feel insecure means we risk serious brain drain.

That we're even still considering them as bargaining chips is reprehensible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
They have no intention of reciprocating, they intend to use the threat of deportation for British ex-pats to blackmail us.

Have you any source for this? I thought the EU was pretty happy to retain the status quo, and they don't want to agree anything until A50 is triggered. We've got no reason to believe they'll use the ex-pats as a bargaining chip when they've got so many other ones.

I'm also pretty sure that Spain won't want the wholesale exodus of ex-pats, though they may insist that we pay for their healthcare.

Theres a negotiation right there. Nothing that should stall anything though.

I would like to think that the Spanish areas (as one example) will be making sure their representatives in Spanish Parliament are aware of what they bring to the local economies and the long term backlash there could be if the EU decide to go HAM.

Yeah there's plenty of negotiating content ahead, so we should just concede the stuff everyone knows we're going to concede anyway and move on to the stuff we actually need to waste time on.

The rights of EU citizens in the UK and British ex-pats abroad, is the least of our problems.

Law and order is going to the dogs!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39135300


Gangs of marauding criminals are roaming the streets with impunity. Police cutbacks are worsening the situation,

and even if the police do catch the and put them in prison,

our prison system is a shambles! We know from that Panorama documentary that the prisoners are taking over the jails

Forget EU citizens, we've got bigger fish to fry.

Country is going to the dogs

And all because the Tories refuse to spend money on anything but tax cuts for their mates.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And all because the Tories refuse to spend money on anything but tax cuts for their mates.

Did you see that Panorama documentary about the undercover reporter in the prison?

It was like a 5 star hotel for the prisoners! Booze, cigarettes and drugs on tap! Rehabilitation was non-existent!

The prison staff try their best, but when you're operating with one hand tied behind your back, there's not much you can do.

And Liz Truss's risible response to the problem shows the justice secretary to be way out of her depth.

With Hunt in charge of the NHS, and Truss running the prisons into the ground, I thank God that the Scottish Parliament has control over these things. At least they have some competence up here.

I feel sorry for English dakka members with those two clowns running hospitals and prisons.

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/03/we-forced-doctors-strike-admits-tory-health-minister/

A former Tory health minister has gone spectacularly off message — claiming junior doctors “were forced into taking strike action” by the Government…


Lord Prior of Brampton, who was Undersecretary of State for Health at the time of the BMA strike action early last year, blasted the Government’s conduct:

“Like me, a number of noble Lords in this House were staggered that the junior doctors, for example, were forced into taking strike action. These people are vocationally committed, yet somehow we created an environment in the public sector which is far from satisfactory.”
This is just a little bit embarrassing for Tory top dogs, after Hunt claimed the BMA had forged a “path of confrontation”, and May accused striking doctors of “playing politics.” Lord Prior couldn’t have put it more bluntly:

“We are not good employers, if we are honest.“

..so they forced the rail strikes and the health ones.

Top work.

 reds8n wrote:
https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/03/we-forced-doctors-strike-admits-tory-health-minister/

A former Tory health minister has gone spectacularly off message — claiming junior doctors “were forced into taking strike action” by the Government…


Lord Prior of Brampton, who was Undersecretary of State for Health at the time of the BMA strike action early last year, blasted the Government’s conduct:

“Like me, a number of noble Lords in this House were staggered that the junior doctors, for example, were forced into taking strike action. These people are vocationally committed, yet somehow we created an environment in the public sector which is far from satisfactory.”
This is just a little bit embarrassing for Tory top dogs, after Hunt claimed the BMA had forged a “path of confrontation”, and May accused striking doctors of “playing politics.” Lord Prior couldn’t have put it more bluntly:

“We are not good employers, if we are honest.“

..so they forced the rail strikes and the health ones.

Top work.

You have to want your employees to be happy and content.

FCA has announced a deadline for PPI.....

Things could get interesting for me as a result.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
FCA has announced a deadline for PPI.....

Things could get interesting for me as a result.

I take it you work in the PPI claims industry?

I'm all for a deadline, presumably anyone who's likely to have a claim will have done so now, and it'll stop the weekly calls I get about that £3000 I'm owed. It's certainly crap for the people working there, but it was always going to be a short term thing whilst the ambulance chasers move onto something else. Personally I think it'll be compensation for private parking tickets (refunds for invalid tickets, compensation for credit history damage, compensation for DPA violations). Given that there's hundreds of thousands issued incorrectly each year, there's a lot of work in pursuing them (ok, only at maybe £500 a pop max, so maybe £100 for the claims company).