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The poor thing, it's horrible when your political ideology is definitively proven to be so much complete garbage.
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Kilkrazy wrote: I feel this digression has gone on long enough.
I would prefer to get back to the important topic of whether Meghan Markle is a total bitch because she didn't invite her father to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because she did invite him to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because he isn't coming now anyway.
My wife holds all three views simultaneously, and also thinks that because her father is a total prick, which apparently is hereditary according to my wife, the case is proved.
I do not subscribe to the same process of thought. This is causing domestic disharmony. What can I do?
I get the feeling that your wife is not a fan of Ms Markle?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 09:22:02
"All their ferocity was turned outwards, against enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals" - Orwell, 1984
LinkedIn hiring data, captured in our monthly UK Workforce Reports, shows that the UK has gone from being a country that gains talent from the EU to one that loses talent to it. The change is significant. Over the last year alone, migration to the UK from the EU has fallen 26 per cent, while more people are leaving the UK for the EU than were previously.
(...)
Is Britain becoming more global and less EU centric?
To see the real impact of Brexit on the UK talent market and economy, we therefore have to look beyond the EU migration figures. Are we seeing evidence of businesses sourcing these missing skills from elsewhere? So far, the answer is no.
Rather than an increase in the number of professionals moving to the UK from non-EU countries, net migration to the UK from the rest of the world is also dropping. In fact, it’s down 20 per cent over the last year, almost as significant a reduction as migration from the EU. The UK remains a net importer of talent from non-EU countries, because the number of professionals leaving for these countries is still lower than the number arriving from them. However, it is importing talent at a significantly lower rate.
Obviously this will take a while to reflect in real economic terms, but the early indicators are there.
Herzlos wrote: If the eurozone goes tits up. People have been predicting it's demise for decades. It's less likely to collapse than the UK is.
tneva82 wrote: By the time that happens UK is burned and buried centuries ago.
I’m going to save these quotes for latter use.
Please do. If the EU falls apart before the UK does, I'll send you a GW battalion box of your choosing.
The UK is about to make a mess of Northern Ireland, as well as it's entire economy. Scotland and to a smaller extent, Wales, are making noises about leaving. Scotland is considering doing a Catalonia and having a referendum anyway, since it's being shafted over repatriated EU powers. If NI gets a special customs deal, then Scotland, Wales and most of England will want one too.
The EU has... Some Visegrad countries making noises about not wanting to play ball, and a handful of minorish issues.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 11:50:08
Kilkrazy wrote: The argument is not that people shouldn't change their mind.
The next generation have grown up within the EU and like it, and will take us back in at the earliest opportunity. Three years more will be enough time to decisively shift the balance, and neatly gets us to the 2022 election to crush the Tories, bring in a pro-EU Labour government and run the referendum again.
Personally I like a nice bit of gammon, preferably with chips and a fried egg or a pineapple ring, but my wife and daughter hate it, so we never have it.
Therefore it's going on my "bucket list" for the month they are away this summer and I can make my own catering arrangements.
A few months ago, you accused me of having a Brexit strategy that was heavily reliant on Russian tanks rumbling into Western Europe, or something as equally as dire
And now you're saying your Remain plan is wait until the old folk die off
To be fair, I don't think anyone has ever accused you of having a Brexit strategy.
It's not a case of waiting for the old folk to die off, it's more acceptance of the fact that the demographics will change enough between elections to change the results as the only group to vote in the majority to leave are they ones least likely to vote next time due to age. It also corresponds with more of the youngsters (who tend to be more pro-EU) becoming old enough to vote.
No-one wants people to die, but it's a fact of life.
That may be, but it's still a pretty feeble case for being in the EU.
Where are the fire and brimstone types making the case for the EU? Basing a strategy on the other side dying off is pretty wretched on any issue, never mind Brexit.
Never mind the Euro, what depresses me the most is the young people.
I'm hearing about 1 million students are signing a petition wanting back in
And I've seen many a young person wave a EU flag.
Historically, students have been some of the most radical agitators we have known, both Russian revolutions being a prime example. Resistance to the Nazis being another. The students in Bohemia in 1618 being my favourite.
And yet, here we are with young people backing a calcified protection racket, in exchange for a few baubles of free movement and 'human rights,' as though the EU was alone in creating them.
The young ain't what they used to be
Wow, the cognitive dissonance is strong here, you ask where the passion is and then immediately launch into a complaint about 1 million young people expressing their passionate belief in a European Britain.
The language expressed by Remain supporting students is what annoys me the most. If they want to support and vote for, the EU, then that is their God given right, and I would always support that.
But a lot of them seem to complain that they are losing their 'European' identity.
Utter hogwash.
Europe, derived from Europa, her from Greek mythology, existed as a concept long before the EU, or even Britain, rolled into town, and it will still exist long after the EU is gone.
As I say, I think Brussels should get some grudging credit for creating the idea that the EU and Europe are one and the same. Never underestimate the subtle importance of language.
Do Norway and Switzerland feel any less European for not being EU members?
Brexit continues to be a bad, bad idea. We'll go under before Europe does.
Until they square the circle of fiscal union without political union, and until they re-balance Germany's huge export surplus with fiscal transfers like what the USA does to the poorer states,
the EU will have serious economic problems as a running sore for years to come...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 12:20:32
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Do Norway and Switzerland feel they are cutting themselves off from Europe or don't have any sort of cultural integration? They've both got free movement of people, for instance.
It's hard to feel part of Europe when we've spent 2 years (so far) trying to become less a part of the EU. Interaction with the EU will get harder, thus we're putting an artificial cultural barrier in place.
It'll be harder to travel here/there, to send stuff here/there, and if we diverge further it'll get worse.
Sure, we'll still technically be European, being that we're not moving away from the continent, but we're going to be less close to the EU, which lets face it is the bulk of the Europe we actually deal with - France, Spain & Germany. Will we have less Europeans in our country interacting with us on a daily basis?
Until they square the circle of fiscal union without political union, and until they re-balance Germany's huge export surplus with fiscal transfers like what the USA does to the poorer states,
Why do they need to do that?
the EU will have serious economic problems as a running sore for years to come...
Has there ever been a time in the last 300 years when Britain didn't have some kind of issue with Europe?
It has been an awkward relationship for centuries. They know it, we know it.
And like we always do, we'll grudgingly accommodate each other when we have to...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Why the last 300 years? We've been at loggerheads with them on and off for the least 2500 at least.
But our objections to them in the last 70ish years has been pretty minor - us complaining about things and being stubborn. Even now most of our issues with Europe, from a political basis, are completely fictional or misdirected.
I don't get how it ties in with your point though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Banking firm I've never heard of blaming Brexit for a move to Dublin.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Leavers are preparing their Brexit betrayal narrative
They are not equipped for life as defenders of a flawed but liveable reality
So nostalgic and moleskin-trousered by stereotype, Britain’s Eurosceptic right is actually mesmerised by technology. In the referendum campaign, Leavers espoused the power of digital communication to collapse geographic distance, and make India as viable an export market as France.
Now, faced with the riddle of how to leave the customs union without compromising supply chains or peace along the Irish border, they bank on unspecified inventions to finesse the problem over time.
This vein of techno-optimism does not run through Brussels, where “ maximum facilitation ” has few supporters, or even London, where Theresa May, the prime minister, tries to sell colleagues on a simpler customs partnership with the EU. Such is the minutiae behind an intra-Conservative party war fought in increasingly public view.
The mystery is why, with a hard-ish Brexit so close, Leavers would choose to die in this particular ditch. The customs partnership would not prevent an independent British trade policy. Britain would have to collect tariffs on behalf of the EU, but this seems a small nuisance next to the prize of exit. And if the technology really does emerge, partnership can be swapped for max fac later on.
Yet Boris Johnson, whose survival as foreign secretary is a daily reproach to Mrs May’s judgment, calls her idea “crazy”. Jacob Rees-Mogg MP goes with “completely cretinous”. Ministers whom she has asked to war-game the policy will do so with clothes pegs on their noses and expressions of distaste.
There is something forced, almost thespian, about their complaints. After all, their dream is near. Why imperil it? Leavers did not just win the referendum, but the interpretation of the result, too. Britain is leaving the customs union and the single market, despite the closeness of the vote and the ambiguity of its meaning. We have lived through the gradual normalisation of a type of exit that was held to be “hard” in the days after the referendum.
Mrs May has been a gift to the Leavers. As a rookie prime minister, hemmed in by advisers who failed to last the course, it was she who drew the red lines that left little to negotiate with the EU. “Trust me,” she wrote in The Sunday Times last weekend, but they should trust her implicitly by now.
Why, then, this struggle among Leavers to take yes for an answer? Perhaps it is sincere, and they read into the difference between max fac and customs partnership a significance that is worth delaying an exit deal for. But with various pressures against them — time, the House of Lords’ enthusiasm for the single market — a passionate Leaver would surely compromise at this stage.
Which is why we must entertain a more cynical theory. A good number of Leavers do not want to be associated with the exit deal that Britain eventually strikes with the EU, whatever its content. To that end, they are inventing grievances. Disavowal of the agreement allows them to escape blame if economic life deteriorates after its implementation, or voters feel no compensating thrill of self-government. “If only we had left properly,” would serve as the Leavers’ defence against popular anger.
The betrayal narrative writes itself. A cabinet resignation or two would help it along. Mr Johnson’s behaviour is consistent with that of a man who wants to be fired. Having won the referendum as rebels, endorsement of the official deal would turn the Leavers into apologists for a new status quo overnight, with all its imperfections and disappointments. Not just MPs, but newspapers too, would have to explain away the non-materialisation of Shangri-La on British soil. Neither temperament nor experience equips them for life as pragmatic defenders of a flawed but liveable reality. They will do what they can to prevent the change in role.
And if their vexatious complaints prevent any deal being agreed, then, for some of them at least, so much the better. A certain kind of Leaver has always loathed the idea of exit talks, as though European permission were needed, and hates even more the prospect of entanglement in budget payments, regulatory agencies and the like.
If all this seems implausibly calculated, then remember what the alternative explanation is. You have to believe that people who have devoted their adult lives to the cause of EU exit would, on the brink of their dream’s orderly enactment, become immovable on the details of customs regimes that merited no mention before. I do not believe it. Even their language (“crazy”, “cretinous”) suggests the histrionics of a ham actor. Leavers demand everything from a Brexit deal except their names on the paper.
Spoiler:
--“It is crucial to the Leave cause that it resist the temptation to set out a plan... It is a campaign in a referendum, not a party bidding for office.” Charles Moore 24.4.16.
... some actual fething details or thought seems good now eh ?
did people Hanann's recent " it's not my fault it's going badly" whine
Donald Trump is ready to use trade talks to force the National Health Service to pay more for its drugs as part of his scheme to "put American patients first”.
Mr Trump has claimed that the high costs faced by US patients are a direct result of other countries’ health services “freeloading” at America’s expense.
Alex Azar, the US Health and Human Services Secretary, has said Washington will use its muscle to push up drug prices abroad, to lower the cost paid by patients in the United States.
"On the foreign side, we need to, through our trade negotiations and agreements, pressure them," Azar said on CNBC.
"And so we pay less, they pay more. It shouldn't be a one-way ratchet. We all have some skin in this game."
He continued: "The reason why they are getting better net prices than we get is their socialised system."
In the UK, prices are dictated in part by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which has been successful in securing discounts for some of the costliest drugs.
Single-payer government-run health services like the NHS are able to use their negotiating muscle to pay far lower prices than their fragmented insurance-based private American counterparts, to the fury of the US president.
“America will not be cheated any longer, and especially will not be cheated by foreign countries,” Mr Trump said.
“In some cases, medicine that costs a few dollars in a foreign country costs hundreds of dollars in America for the same pill, with the same ingredients, in the same package, made in the same plant. That is unacceptable.
“It's unfair. It's ridiculous. It's not going to happen any longer. It's time to end the global freeloading once and for all.”
The pharmaceutical companies in the US are among the biggest corporate political donors and Democrats accused the US president of looking after the industry rather than patients.
Lowering drug prices was one of Donald Trump's key campaign promises and he hopes to achieve this by making other countries pay more.
"I think this applies to all advanced countries, including the UK," said Paul Ginsburg, professor of health policy at the University of Southern California.
“This effort to change other nations' health policies will be driven by the US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer when he is negotiating deals to avoid application of US tariffs or, in the case of the UK, a bilateral trade deal post-Brexit,” said Brandon Barford, a partner at Washington-based Beacon Policy Advisors.
“The second goal is that, for the UK in particular, trade negotiations will likely occur in the run-up to the US Presidential election in November 2020.
“The President and his team want to be able to use the NHS and NICE as a foil for his plan that reduces costs for consumers at the point of sale, but without rationing and access restrictions for which the UK system is infamous in the US, particularly amongst conservative media.”
Britain’s lower drug prices date back to an agreement reached between the industry and the NHS in 1957, which was designed to “achieve a financial balance in the interests of patients, the National Health Service, taxpayers, and the pharmaceutical industry."
While prices in the UK are controlled, in the US they are left to the market and the differences can be dramatic.
For example, Americans paid an average of £1,964 ($2,669) for Humira, an injectable drug used to treat an array of autoimmune diseases including ulcerative colitis. The cost for a British patient is £1,003 ($1,362).
According to the latest figures the NHS spent £15.4 billion on medicines in 2016-17; only salaries cost the health service more.
In the UK there was some debate over whether the US could impose higher drug prices on the UK.
“How much the UK spends on healthcare and on medicines is a matter for the UK government and it is not clear to us how the US or any other government would influence this,” said Richard Torbett of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
“The way medicines' prices are set in the UK is governed by a voluntary agreement called the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, which is negotiated between the global industry and the UK government.”
Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, an independent health think tank, disputed that British patients were freeloading at the expense of their American counterparts.
“There is no reason to suppose that more expensive prices for drugs in Europe would translate into cheaper prices in the US.
“USA healthcare prices are generally higher than in Europe and the absence of the sort of large-scale negotiation by the US government does not help.
“This is more likely to be the cause of high drugs pricing, rather than one side of the Atlantic subsidising the other. "
Lower food standards and higher drug prices, Brexit keeps on giving !
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 19:52:32
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Herzlos wrote: Why the last 300 years? We've been at loggerheads with them on and off for the least 2500 at least.
Wait, what? Britain wasn't a unified entity for the vast majority of that, and loads of kingdoms proto-states stretched across the channel (and Irish Sea).
In other news, have we seen the video of BoJo actually running from the chamber to avoid the Urgent Question on Gaza? Tip top shamefulness.
The poor thing, it's horrible when your political ideology is definitively proven to be so much complete garbage.
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Kilkrazy wrote: I feel this digression has gone on long enough.
I would prefer to get back to the important topic of whether Meghan Markle is a total bitch because she didn't invite her father to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because she did invite him to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because he isn't coming now anyway.
My wife holds all three views simultaneously, and also thinks that because her father is a total prick, which apparently is hereditary according to my wife, the case is proved.
I do not subscribe to the same process of thought. This is causing domestic disharmony. What can I do?
I get the feeling that your wife is not a fan of Ms Markle?
She wants to put a bet on that the marriage will be over in 10 years max. I've told her to get down to Ladbrokes and punt £10 on it. IDK what odds she can get.
The poor thing, it's horrible when your political ideology is definitively proven to be so much complete garbage.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: I feel this digression has gone on long enough.
I would prefer to get back to the important topic of whether Meghan Markle is a total bitch because she didn't invite her father to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because she did invite him to her wedding or whether she is a total bitch because he isn't coming now anyway.
My wife holds all three views simultaneously, and also thinks that because her father is a total prick, which apparently is hereditary according to my wife, the case is proved.
I do not subscribe to the same process of thought. This is causing domestic disharmony. What can I do?
I get the feeling that your wife is not a fan of Ms Markle?
She wants to put a bet on that the marriage will be over in 10 years max. I've told her to get down to Ladbrokes and punt £10 on it. IDK what odds she can get.
Has she tried sharpening a guillotine?
*Not that I would wish harm on anyone mind, but down with the royalty and etc.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 20:56:19
Herzlos wrote: Why the last 300 years? We've been at loggerheads with them on and off for the least 2500 at least.
Wait, what? Britain wasn't a unified entity for the vast majority of that, and loads of kingdoms proto-states stretched across the channel (and Irish Sea).
In other news, have we seen the video of BoJo actually running from the chamber to avoid the Urgent Question on Gaza? Tip top shamefulness.
Got a link to the vid?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/15 21:29:24
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Herzlos wrote: Why the last 300 years? We've been at loggerheads with them on and off for the least 2500 at least.
Wait, what? Britain wasn't a unified entity for the vast majority of that, and loads of kingdoms proto-states stretched across the channel (and Irish Sea).
In other news, have we seen the video of BoJo actually running from the chamber to avoid the Urgent Question on Gaza? Tip top shamefulness.
Well we've now had provisional numbers for the Windrush folk who've been wrongly deported/forced to leave the UK
(evenly split between those who've done nothing wrong and those who've committed crimes bad enough to trigger removal although technically since they were actually full british citizens they should have be immune to removal for any reason)
goodness knows how many will turn out to have been illegally detained as the removal numbers are much higher than the 1 or 2 initially posited
Herzlos wrote: Why the last 300 years? We've been at loggerheads with them on and off for the least 2500 at least.
Wait, what? Britain wasn't a unified entity for the vast majority of that, and loads of kingdoms proto-states stretched across the channel (and Irish Sea).
In other news, have we seen the video of BoJo actually running from the chamber to avoid the Urgent Question on Gaza? Tip top shamefulness.
What the hell? A member of the shadow cabinet has an urgent question for the government in parliament and the minister is allowed to literally run away from it? Its not even a difficult question. All he had to do was make noises about wanting peace and a need for talking and not fighting.
Bozza is a lightweight, a dodgy chancer who's main priority is himself.
He's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. He's just superficial and glib. He's made a pig's ear of Foreign Secretary. He's a traitor to cabinet government and collective responsibility.
I'm pretty sure he's trying to get fired, so he can wash his hands of Brexit. That and he's a total rat. Now it's become acceptible for ministers to run away before questions (Hunt earlier in the week) I think we'll see a lot more of it.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Well we've now had provisional numbers for the Windrush folk who've been wrongly deported/forced to leave the UK
(evenly split between those who've done nothing wrong and those who've committed crimes bad enough to trigger removal although technically since they were actually full british citizens they should have be immune to removal for any reason)
goodness knows how many will turn out to have been illegally detained as the removal numbers are much higher than the 1 or 2 initially posited
Has anyone proposed or talked about bringing them back to the UK?
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Yes. And it was Scotland's will to remain part of the EU....same with Northern Ireland.
Seriously. It's time for a second referendum. The result was too close. There are too many divides, and they're only widening. The populace are now better informed about the actual impact of Brexit, both short and long term.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Scottish Independence would really make it hard for Brexit; May would lose the ability to use our fish/ing waters or whisky as bargaining chips, and having Scotland in the EU would cause all sorts of other issues. It'd take a few days to open up a ferry route from Edinburgh <-> Holland, London bankers could move to Edinburgh to stay in the single market for financial access (same timezone, 90 minute flight or ~4 hour train), another land border with the EU to deal with. NI, Wales, Cornwall, London & The North wanting similar freedom.
Politically they'd get a battering trying to deal with 2 sets of negotiations at once (Scotland wants to be out of the UK before the UK is out of the EU, so they don't need to waste any time on the outside), plus they'd need to be making 2 contradictory arguments at the same time - any argument for why Scotland should be in the UK weakens Brexit, and any argument why Brexit is good strengthens Scottish Independence.
On the flip side, losing Scotland would give the Tories a majority in Parliament (I think, I haven't run the numbers).
I'd almost feel sorry for her, taking up a poison chalice with an utterly impossible position, if it wasn't for the fact she's a malicious, self serving cretin.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/16 11:53:22
So we stay in the eu, then what? What about all the issues surrounding it? The open boarders, the waste, the lack of accountability? What are we supposed to do then? Business would carry on as before and our complaints would be fobbed off because our bluff will have been completely called.
Its not even a difficult question. All he had to do was make noises about wanting peace and a need for talking and not fighting.
