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This topic contains 1,003 replies, has 38 voices, and was last updated by  IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan 5 years, 5 months ago.

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  • #58760
    Nick @nick

    Are exit poles reliable as Bonkers ideas ? If even remotely accurate (ie a Tory majority of less than 20)  this would be the election of the century in terms of result.

    #58768
    Anonymous @

    @pedant @nick @jimthefish @craig @soundworld @frobisher & pretty much all those interested in the election (calling @mudlark) and @rob (where have you been Mr Rob? 🙂   ).

    Has Benjamin Gummer lost his seat? Please sell me he has! Wasn’t he part of the paper commissioned by the CONS in order to ensure “geriatrics” would use their savings and family home (ie, the first home) to pay for their future care? I may have misnamed him, and if so, I apologise

    Jeepers. That made headlines here, even! And our Mudoch news is largely useless to which  @janetteb and @tardigrade can attest

    249 for Labour? V. interesting. I do love politics, and as our own news refuses to explain things properly one has to do sufficient research on the only decent paper in Aus which is The Financial Review -thank god for sense.

    Puro

    #58770
    Anonymous @

    ah! Some actual news: “May has always been a technocrat whilst Jeremy’s remained consistent” which is something I agree with.

    #58772
    Anonymous @

    poor Steve Cannane (great Aus reporter in the UK at the moment. Up all night) saying: “Theresa May may have lost due to breakfast, ah, I mean, Brexit.”

    All the news followers will the “hard Brexit” idea be rubbished? Considering Tory’s themselves weren’t necessarily for a “hard” Brexit etc….

    Puro

    #58776
    Nick @nick

    @thane15

    Puro if things had gone to plan, Gummer would be brexit secretary (replacing Davies) and Rudd would be chancellor (replacing Hammond) as May put her loyal supporters into all of the key positions.

    She is staying it seems at least for now. Running a minority government with the largest Northern ireland unionist party propping her up. That suggests DUP will ask and get some major things for Unionists in Northern Ireland, which will make the devolved government there even more of a mess than it is now. The Tory party in Scotland (wins there) kept Tory seats approximately stable. On the rest of the UK, they lost seats. How ironic.

    Last time something like this happened was in 1974. Wilson won the election (beating Heath) but didnt get a majority. A second election later in the year, gave him enough additional seats to rule. Its hard to see May doing that since she lost the election. If there wasnt Brexit negotiations starting very soon, she would have been forced to resign overnight. She’s safe for now I think. Cameron insisted that Scots couldnt vote on English issues (fear of the SNP). She cant rely on those MPs for most of her policy implementation.

    However, her planned negotiating approach to Brexit and reshuffle in terms on Ministers is dead.

     

    #58777
    Whisht @whisht

    hmmm…. went to bed hearing the ‘Exit poll’ predicting a huge loss of seats for Tories and thought “that’s interesting… but ‘Exit polls’ can be wrong so won’t hold my breath” (which while sleeping is dangerous I assume).

    And now the results are in.
    Ho ho ho.

    In my opinion… *

    @Thane15 – you mentioned the Tory manifesto pledge around how the elderly would pay for care. It seems that May has a very small coterie of advisers and that they didn’t put ideas out more widely through the party. If they had, a few may have told them “are you mad? Are you asking me to explain complex tax ‘winners and losers’ on the doorstep to our now-worried core voters who seem to lose through this?”. But worse than put it in, was to do a U-turn during an election and change it.
    The Tories positioned the election to be purely who leads the Brexit negotiations – trust in the leader’s personality .

    Personally what I heard in the UK from the Tories was simply a repeated slogan “Strong and Stable leadership” (until that went silent after the manifesto U-turn). Other slogans came and went (eg “[Corbyn needs a] magic money tree” to pay for his manifesto).
    And what we got from Corbyn was debate. He turned up for TV debates where May stayed away (unlike all the other leaders). Like him or loathe him, he was visibly debating.

    IF this results in a minority government which is less austere, more collaborative in its decision making and more sensible on Europe (and other things like encryption) then its actually not a bad result for the UK.
    However… that’s a lot to ask for, the Tories still ‘won’ and haven’t given any indication about changing any of their policies and it could get to be quite partisan and stifle anything getting done.

    hmm…. still – better than someone who believes they have a mandate not to listen to the electorate.

    * I reserve the right to change my opinion after thinking harder about it, listening to others and after a second cup of tea this morning.

    ;¬)

    #58778
    Nick @nick

    @whisht @thane15

    I broadly agree with you there. Whilst there are issues about how do we pay for the increasing cost of the older folk when they get sick and need social care, it’s probably safe to conclude that the majority view is that the government should pay for the largest chunk of the cost. This requires tax rises and that the long term (post 1945 at least) tax rate of c36 % of GDP needs to increase closer to 40 % (perhaps more) as we cant borrow enough to bridge the gap from 36 % Tax to c40 % spending anymore.

    The Tory idea/aim of cutting government spending to c35 % of GDP (and eventually taxing lower than 36 % once the borrowing deficit was replaced with surpluses for a few years) – more US like taxation and public services –  doesn’t seem to have any broad popular mandate today.

    More than that anyway, there need to be a major investment in the UK outside the SE. The stats people have shown that UK GDP would be £150+ billion larger if the productivity rate in the SE was seen across the rest of the Country (thats about £50 billion of extra spending power for the government at current tax rates). Average productivity in the SE/London is higher than the average in Germany. How to make this happen though ?

     

    #58779
    Whisht @whisht

    Hi @nick – just to say that I agreed with your earlier post (while I was writing my overly long one!).
    Also enjoying the Guardian article of the US journalist who visited Yorkshire (I’m from the South, but have relations in Rotherham and an uncle who was a miner, and remember the miners’ strike though I’m a bit younger than you).

    But I need to pop out so can’t give you any thoughts on what may have been a hypothetical question(!) but interesting times…

    #58780
    soundworld @soundworld

    @thane15 @nick @whisht

    Yes, he lost his seat. (Hurrah). I agree with whisht, the Conservative campaign was relentlessly empty, and I do hope this results in a softer more collaborative approach, but then we now have the DUP propping up the Cons in government, which is not encouraging to my mind.  I agree with @nick that the general lack of investment across the is astounding, for decades it seems no business strategies other than whatever the City of London requires, the general rundown in infrastructure and so on.

    Here in Scotland the election was rather different from the rest of the UK.  The Conservatives here have claimed their first victories in years, but they campaigned as ‘The Ruth Davidson Party’ (she being the leader of the Cons in Scotland) – many election leaflets barely mentioned ‘The Conservative Party’.  Since the collapse of Labour in Scotland, the Cons have now picked up votes as the Unionist element, votes that previously went to Labour,

    I’ve yet to meet anybody in conversation who likes Ruth Davidson or sees her as anything other than a self-promotion face-changer to suit whichever wind is blowing.  The SNP have lost many seats, but that was probably unavoidable as in the last election they won 56/59 possible so there was nowhere else for them to go but down.  I think their recent call for a new referendum on Scottish independence is generally viewed negatively, but she could yet be proved right once we see the actual results of the Brexit negotiations.

    The UK needed a federal system decades ago, and electoral reform, in my opinion.   Its hard not to think its a complete mess.  But – whether you agree with the Scottish independence campaign or not, the referendum 2 years ago galvanised opinion and debate in Scotland in a most remarkable way – everybody was talking about it, in detail, in a very knowledgeable way.  there was massive debate and participation about possible ways forward for the economy, for society.  I feel that Jeremy Corbyn is achieving something similar at least amongst the younger generation to engage them in politics, which is very encouraging.  Its very hopeful to see that we don’t need to be tied to the Conservative juggernaut ‘heading over the cliffs of civilisation’ forever.

    Just my view!

    PS @thane15 Private Message!

    #58781
    Nick @nick

    @soundworld

    I’ve been a firm believer in the UK having some form of PR based electoral system for as long as I can vote.In some ways the French system is better (two rounds, with only 2 candidates in the final round, so the supporters of the other defeated candidates have to choose). This is rather PR like, but unlike PR big minority parties dont get seats. I may hate the FN, but it cant be right in a democracy that a party that gets c20 % of the Vote gets no representation.

    I saw that Labour were the second largest party in Scotland by votes, which surprised me. The coverage in the UK (already very poor) made me think that Labour had almost disappeared.

    I agree the SNP were always going to loose some seats at the next election. I suspect they didnt expect quite this many though. It will also be a shame to loose Angus and Alec from Westminster. Both have had interesting things to say.

    I also believe that England needs to be split into 5 or 6 regional governments similar to Scotland in intent. I dont think Westminster sees much beyond inner London and the media hub. The only time you see the rest of the country (England I mean) on TV is news coverage, when something bad happens.

     

    #58782
    Nick @nick

    @whisht

    I dont know what the cure is, but I think it must be built around local democracy. There was a time when Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle were important economic hubs rivaling London in economic importance (add Glasgow for Scotland and South Wales as a region). We have to get back to this way of looking at things. The new big mayors will help get this started, but I think more £ needs to be spent pump priming the local economy.

    My wife is French, so I contrast with France a lot. The big regional cities in France has a lot more ability to make things happen locally, which drives the economy. The problem the French have got themselves into is that the Government (national and local) is more important than anything else.

    #58783

    That stereotype of German’s having no sense of humour?

    Not so much…

    @soundworld

    The campaign in England was the same – The Theresa May Party. But is was all but impossible (as you say) for the SNP to do anything other than regress to the mean. Curiously the Tories got put to the sword in all the target seats she visited.

     

    #58784
    soundworld @soundworld

    @pedant Excellent!
    @nick Thanks for your interesting view.  I agree re PR and some sort of federal structure, I don’t see it as being likely to happen, other than through chaos.  I agree re losing Alec and Angus, we need these different voices to be heard.  I bumped into Alec (Salmond) on a street corner in Glasgow a few years back (when he was the SNP leader) and he took 5 mins for a surprisingly honest and in-depth chat.  I think this is a good aspect to politics in Scotland – in a country of 5 million, the people at the top are not so far removed from us, and as a nation we are known for not putting up with ‘numpties’.

    #58785
    Anonymous @

    @whisht  @soundworld

    Other slogans came and went (eg “[Corbyn needs a] magic money tree” to pay for his manifesto).
    And what we got from Corbyn was debate

    Absolutely. Here, when former PM Abbott was running campaigns his diversity towards the vulnerable, his erudition in the face of sneaky concepts of equality was redoubtable:

    Vote to Stop the Boats

    Vote to stop the big new taxes

    Stop school halls being built

    User-pays! Coz it Was Good Enough for Me {with that level of insight it was more than clear that attempts at education had failed him}

    I feel your pain -but see a light at end of tunnel? Certainly hope so.

    #58787
    Anonymous @

    @nick

    it’s probably safe to conclude that the majority view is that the government should pay for the largest chunk of the cost…

    I think probably so.  🙂

    (Puro).

    #58788
    soundworld @soundworld

    @thane15 Imagine a  society where education is seen as a good thing, in itself, rather than purely as a process to produce the minimum standard for necessary workers.  Where we are encouraged to debate and contribute to the big questions – what is society for? How do we want to organise society? How do we pay for it? Where progress is measured not purely by economic growth (how do we have ever-increasing growth in a world of non-infinite resources?) but by measures of human happiness (and, I would argue, ecological health).  The mental herdery (sorry, just invented that term) that goes in in our society through our bizarre ‘newspapers’ and media is, well, bizarre and extreme.  Its interesting that the younger generation became engaged through social media which has in general been much more favourable to Corbyn than the demonising he received in the mainstream.  But this mental straitjacket from the mainstream would have us believe there is no other way than what currently exists – a way that is killing the planet.  I am actually positive for the future, despite the above 🙂

    #58789
    Nick @nick

    @soundworld

    Unfortunately our Westminster leaders are too in love with gaining absolute power from a minority of the electorate for any form of reform to be impossible. Clegg’s biggest mistake (apart from taking a centre-left party into a right wing  party coalition) was not to insist PR as the price for the deal (not a referendum than nobody cared about).

    England might have moved closer to a 2 party system last night than for a considerable period, but it is also clear that the regions have fragmented. More UKIP votes in the North went to the Tories (but not enough to win), whereas in the South more switched to Labour and the Tories gained little. I suspect a lot of remain/liberal Tory voters in London and the SE stayed at home last night.

     

     

    #58790
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    #58791
    Nick @nick

    @wolfweed excellent ! (but all too true)

    #58792
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @thane15  et al

    An interesting night!  I’d been feeling a bit under the weather since the weekend and, although much better yesterday, was feeling a bit dozy and exhausted by the time the polls closed at 10 pm, so was intending to stay up only long enough to see the exit poll results and perhaps half an hour of the initial discussion and speculation on BBC.  On seeing the exit polls, however, I poured myself a glass of wine and settled down for a longer stint – long enough at any rate too see that the early results were broadly consistent, though I had to admit defeat and stagger to bed around 1.30 am.

    Yes, Labour took Ipswich from Ben Gummer with a 10% increase in vote share.  Clive Lewis romped home in Norwich South with 61% of the vote on a 69% turnout, but that was pretty much predicted by local polling in the last week of the campaign.  They weren’t leaving anything to chance though, and when I went to the polling station around mid-day I saw groups of earnest young people clutching clip boards and bundles of Labour leaflets on almost every street, getting out the vote.  In Norwich North the Tories held on, but with a significantly reduced majority.  Interesting that the polls which came closest to predicting the actual result nationwide were those which adopted an unorthodox methodology and did not weight the results on the assumption of a low turn-out among younger voters.  In fact, according to some accounts I have read, the turn out of young voters was something like 72% which, if correct, is higher than the turn-out overall (68.74%).

    So May and her shower will stagger on for now, with her shortcomings and hollowness now fully exposed to all, propped up by the DUP – the last people I would chose as bedfellows even if I were (Heaven forfend) a Tory.  It will be interesting to see to what extent, if at all, the political climate in Westminster will shift, now that the widespread appeal of a more traditionally left wing manifesto has been demonstrated.

    The most immediate worry is, of course, the Brexit negotiations. The EU are ready, with their negotiating platform fully prepared, whilst our government’s position is now even weaker and more shambolic than before.  Some commenters seem to be of the opinion that, Article 50 or no Article 50, the whole thing will have to be shelved for now, or even that it is now dead in the water, but I can foresee May being completely pig-headed and stubborn over the issue, if only to appease ‘the Bastards’, and landing us with the worst possible outcome.

    One of the interesting things shown by the results is that the increase – or lack of increase – in the Labour share of the vote in constituencies held or targeted by Labour correlates broadly with the strength of the Remain vote there.

     

     

    #58793
    Mudlark @mudlark

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond we have Trump: the Opera   https://youtu.be/Hz7SfkhJe74

    #58794
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    Okay, I’ve located the Bowie reference in this episode…..

    #58795
    soundworld @soundworld

    @mudlark very good! Republicissimo di banana…

    #58796
    Nick @nick

    @mudlark

    I agree May will stagger on, probably until the end of the Brexit negotiations (say 2020), be dumped and a new Tory leader will head into the next election. The Brexit talks are too soon to run a 3 month leadership election. They would need to appoint an MP as emergency leader asap. Is this possible  or worse is there a single MP they can collectively stand behind, better than May ?

    May is in a bigger bind than she was before. The Hard Brexit minority will block any softer deal she wants to do (or at least try to) making internal Tory party management on brexit near impossible. The majority of the rest of Parliament seems soft brexit orientated. The feared UKIP/Tory hard Brexit line based on the will of the people argument is fatally weakened. Norway style Brexit with some controls over immigration (ie the ones the Germans use now) seems more likely now than before. The only deal breaker seems to be the 100 Billion bill.

    Can May back down to deliver this ? Maybe, but none of us know what she actually had in mind anyway. It seemed Hard Brexit, but was it. Gummer was supposed to be a certainty to replace David Davies (with Rudd as chancellor). It’s possible her intention was always something softer. That platform might well have won her the mandate she wanted. Her innate secrecy and control freakery may have cost her there.

    On austerity measures, I expect they’ll continue until 2019/20 and then they’ll open the spending gates (with the new leader) to try and buy the next election. This may be made easier by a softer Brexit deal.

    #58798
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @wolfweed — that video is excellent but begs the question why didn’t he get more votes? He certainly deserved them.

    @mudlark — yes, the DUP is the worst of all possible worlds. Reminiscent of when the Cybermen suggested a pact with the Daleks in Doomsday and will undoubtedly go the same way, even if it takes a little longer. As someone on Twitter said, May did warn the election could end with a coalition of chaos propped up by terrorist sympathisers. She just neglected to mention she’d be leading it.

    The one ray of hope is that it almost certainly won’t last long. The DUP has been incapable of forming a stable Government at Stormont. Those problems aren’t going to go away and will be compounded by them getting embroiled in the omnishambles that will be Westminster for the next few months…

    #58800
    lisa @lisa

    @nick

    I texted my bff over there in the East Midlands both last night and this morning.

    She cant stand May.   She’s always complaining about her and I complain back about

    ‘orange cheeto’.  She was hugely pissed off when May called the election.  Her reason was

    that she felt May just opened up an opportunity for the  ‘revenge of the remainers’.

    So now the UK will be thrown into chaos because of this outcome.  Yes, but this is

    what I told her.  The UK might be thrown into chaos because of the pound.  Its going to

    weaken.  Your likely to have serious inflation.    Look at the financial news and check out the

    resistance charts for the pound.   Looks like trouble ahead.   It was relatively stable but now?

    Corbin took a page out of Bernie Sanders, Francoise Hollande and even Donald Trump!

    He made wildly improbable and grossly unfunded promises to everyone but mostly to young

    voters that as @mudlark  points out came out in huge numbers.  Also, he not only wants guaranteed

    minimum wages but also maximum wages too.  But  he leaves out  that a lot of the highest

    wage earners either off shore their money or they take it in stock options to avoid taxes.

    So basically its just more squeezing of the economy there particularly who ever is in the middle.

    But  May certainly is not seeming to be the most competent politician either .    Hopefully not

    as incompetant as ‘orange cheeto’ .   I  shake my  head over what’s going on  in Washington DC

    every day too.   Can’t   what till we can all move on to some new chapter when this was all a

    bad dream.

    #58801
    Nick @nick

    @lisa

    Hi Lisa. I don’t know how knowledgeable you are regarding British politics and the political system. So apologies in advance is this is old news for you.

    Whilst British Prime Ministers appear and act like presidents, they don’t actually have any personal mandate to rule. They are the boss, the CEO, but the Board of Directors (the Cabinet) have much more significant say over policy and implementation behind the scenes. Worst still for the PM they have to keep there wider party supporters on side as they can be sacked by the party at any time. The French or USA presidents dont answer to their Parties in any similar way. I think the system is largely the same in Australia and new Zealand, but not in many other places. Corbyn can not implement everything that he believes in, even if he wanted to.

    Whilst I’m writing this, the various factions within the Tory Party are furiously jostling for power. I have no doubt that if there was a candidate who could muster widespread appeal within the Tory party, May would be sacked almost immediately. In theory there would be a party election to appoint a successor. However, if there are no other candidates (as happened for May) then the new leader and prime minister would be appointed immediately. The reason why May will probably cling to power is that it seems that there is no single person the Tory Party as a whole can back right now. Over the next few months/years someone will emerge and May will be gone. It will not be in an election for sure.

    May’s idea to reach out for support the the DUP in Northern Ireland will also have gone down very badly by many in the Tory party, because of the nature of that party’s core philosophy. It would also cause significant problems with the mechanisms that make the Northern Ireland Peace process work. That’s already in a mess because the DUP made a very expensive financial mistake, which has caused the power sharing arrangements to collapse. Making that situation worse for short term gain is widely seen as utter stupidity in the UK.

    #58803
    lisa @lisa

     

    @nick

    I’m relatively familiar with British politics because  I lived there for a few years albeit

    26 years ago.  I get most of the basics of the system.

    DUP is something akin to evangelicals here to my mind or at least something

    ultra conservative.  Not good in the 21st century.

     

    But who in the Tory party can replace May?  Yes –  I’d be very interested to know too.

     

    I’m   interested in the economics of this.  Interest rates wont go  anywhere.

    It should still be good for exporters.   I wouldn’t be buying stock in home builders but

    you need to expand housing  so rents will stay high.  Some economists will think a

    softer brexit means a stable pound.   Don’t see that.   There is less consensus now on

    brexit then there was before the election.  Hung parliament.  More head winds?

    So how crazy of a  decision was it to call this election?

    BTW,  In case your wondering the election outcome is a very big story here too,

    #58804
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    Just finished reading the election analysis on the Guardian and the Independent, and by far the best and most insightful comments about the election have been here, at the Maldovarium!

    I have a question, as an ex-Australian and new Canadian with only a partial understanding of the UK political scene. Am I right in thinking that there are talks next week on power-sharing arrangements in Northen Ireland in which the UK govt is supposed to act as a sort of independent arbiter? If so, doesn’t a deal between the Tories and one of the two parties at the negotiating table sort of put the kibosh on that?

    #58806
    Nick @nick

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    Re Northern ireland

    You’re absolutely correct.  The UK government is meant to be a neutral. I wont say the that the majority think its a problem (too much focus on the immediate aftermath), but it has been a significant theme in the news coverage today (alongside the general biblical style policies of the DUP party, originally set up by the Reverend Ian Paisley).

    #58807
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @blenkinsopthebrave — yes, the power-sharing arrangements are still in a state of flux and had been put on hold for the general election. And yes, some form of formal alliance between the Tories and the DUP does skew the nature of the talks somewhat. Certainly I don’t imagine Sinn Fein will be at all happy about it — and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they abandon their long-standing policy of not taking up their seats in Westminster should this all go ahead. Certainly, it’s not just made the political situation in the mainland UK messier, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that it could derail the peace process in Norn Iron.

    @lisa — Certainly the DUP are ultra-conservative, bordering on fundamentalist but they’re a little more than that too in that they’re to all intents and purposes the political wing of sectarian terror groups like Ulster Resistance and the UVF. It’s a very, very morally murky act for the Tories to get into bed with them politically like this.

    #58809
    Nick @nick

    @lisa

    Who can replace May. It looks like the party is sufficiently split that no one will. I’m guessing that they’ll leave her there to sort Brexit and then dump her in a couple of years for someone more popular. Boris Johnson is probably the most obvious candidate (he is at least popular), but he’s also a wag (that is a general joker and buffoon). Like the Price Philip he is extremely gifted at speaking without engaging his Brain (think Trump like, with a sense of humour, good manners and able to speak in sentences). Historically, minority governments in the UK have lasted less than 12 months.

    The economic consensus is that the pound has been too strong for years. Many also thought the post Brexit fall was long overdue. Since then, there have been some stats where exports have shown big increases. Whilst the fall has caused significant price increases for Imports (and the UK imports rather a lot running rough $5 to 10 billion trade deficit every month) and has (and will continue) to cause ral terms falling earnings, in the short term. Longer term it ought to keep more money in the UK (staycations) and cause UK produced goods to replace imports. Longer term that will create strong economic growth.

    There are quire a lot of economists who think UK currency has been over valued for years (first because it was a petro-currency in the 1980s and 1990s and more lately due to the Finance sector), which has been a significant cause of running down manufacturing and agricultural sectors in the UK. For example, UK supermarkets import Milk from Poland, because its fractionally cheaper than buying it here.

    Politically, the election looked like a great idea. The labour party was on its knees because Corbyn wasnt rated much and there had been a huge amount of infighting after his election. May needed a big majority so she could put her supporters (and those beholden to her – political patronage -) into all the key positions and dump Boris, Philip Hammond, David Davis, Liam Fiox, and a bunch of other semi-rivals.

    I guess the party didnt realise what a poor campaigner she is and had no say into her manifesto, where she deliberately introduced policies which would act against her biggest supporters (basically retired people). Corbyn was recognised as a good campaigner, but I dont think we knew just how good. Plus he deliberately went left to shore up the Labour base. Even now, I dont think many party MPs or commentators think it will be enough to convert into a majority next election. They need to appeal more to the centre. However, Labour is in a much better position to move forward now than it has been since before 1997 (imo).

    #58810

    @nick

    May has no chance of lasting until 2020. Her entire schtick is “if you ignore it, it will go away”.

    It won’t, especially now she has tied herself to terrorists and neutered the only effective weapon they had against Corbyn. Her weakness is emphasised by the fact that her reshuffle left all of the big jobs in place including Hammond, who she wanted rid of. And Labour now knows that galvanising the youth vote works.

    One by-election in a urban marginal and she is stuffed.

    So watch out for another hubristic snap election when the Universities are on break.

    Oh, and she can’t sort out brexit. It is a clusterfuck wrapped in a nightmare.

    #58811
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @nick

    Who could replace May?  If the choices on offer following Cameron’s resignation are anything to go by, it’s a very shallow pool from which to choose. I haven’t made a study of the Tory party, but while I suppose that it is always possible there is a light somewhere under a bushel in the lower ranks and back benches, I rather doubt it.  BoJo would jump at the chance, of course, but would they ever be mad enough to give him that chance?

    I agree that it must have seemed a safe bet to call a snap election, even so near the start of the Brexit negotiations, but then then to launch a presidential style campaign centred on the personality of someone who has no discernible personality?  I doubt that they will be asking Lynton Crosby to manage any future campaign of theirs.  Meanwhile Corbyn and the Labour party conducted something like an updated version of a traditional stump campaign, to great effect.  Someone at Conservative Party HQ should have googled ‘Gladstone’  and ‘Midlothian Campaign”

    I’m entirely with you on the subject of PR and of the need to invest much more in development in regions outside the bubble of London and the south east, most particularly in the midlands and northern regions which were devastated in the 1980s when the major industries were in terminal decline or being closed down deliberately, without any serious plan to stimulate new and alternative areas of growth in the local economy.

    I’m at least half with you, also, when it comes to regional devolution, though not too sure about the ‘how’ of it. It should be noted that proposals to create a unitary authority in East Anglia – basically Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire – did not get very far, even though this area corresponds more or less to an Anglo-Saxon kingdom and, subsequently, to a distinct region of the Danelaw.  Relations between Norfolk and Suffolk are perhaps a little warmer than those between Lancashire and Yorkshire, but Cambridgeshire is out in the fens and they have webbed feet in those parts 🙂

     

    #58813
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    watch out for another hubristic snap election when the Universities are on break.

    But if the students are registered in the constituency where the university is situated they have the option of a postal vote, even if they are elsewhere at the time. I hope that I am not too optimistic in thinking that, given the motivation and a targeted campaign using social media, it shouldn’t be to difficult to persuade them to use that option, especially now that it has been demonstrated so clearly that their vote can make a difference.

    The first time I was eligible to vote was in the 1964 election, and I discovered that I had the option of voting in either Edinburgh or Norfolk – or both, since my parents had registered me as resident at their address, and my landlady had, without my knowledge, registered me as resident at the student flat where I was living at the time of the election. Being an upright citizen of impeccable morals and integrity, I used only my postal vote 😉

     

    #58814
    Nick @nick

    @mudlark

    🙂 I dont think the public wants/likes regional government. However, if there’s enough money and power and it does good things locally (as well as charging income tax) attitudes can change quickly. I would say the London Mayor has worked well, even though it doesnt have enough real powers

    @pedant

    I agree with you. What they want and what they’ll end up with are two different things. As @mudlark stated, its not clear who could replace her right now. There’s also a good chance they’ll split over Brexit. I doubt they can get hard brexit through parliament anymore and there’s an awful lot of Tories who will accept nothing else.

    I’d put my money on a UK version of a Norway style arrangement now. Even David Davies thinks that the walk away/hard brexit mantra is dead. He’s the only one of May’s brexit team who understand the EU and has a streak of realism.

    #58815
    Nick @nick

    @pedant

    On Brexit, I was previously of the opinion that the odds were on a no deal exit.

    #58816
    Whisht @whisht

    Hi all – in terms of negotiating Brexit…

    Maybe I’m being cynical but I’d say that this was actually the election to not win.
    Whoever negotiates Brexit will get a deal that the others (opposition parties and opposition media etc) will say is terrible. Regardless of who negotiates and what that deal is.

    So its almost a perfect result for Corbyn – ‘look, I showed I can win campaigns’; yet is still in Opposition so can harangue May for her negotiating.

    In 2020 (or whenever the next election) he either says ‘I held their feet to the fire but now step down’ or is in similar position to now and says ‘I can lead to a victory’.
    Win win.

    May has lost lost.
    No matter what she negotiates will not be enough.

    And I say this based on the unrealistic promises that were made for what Brexit would achieve and yet no mention of the ‘cost’ in terms of settlement – no one who voted for Brexit will be happy and no one who voted to Remain will either.

    But even with all that I’m happier today than this time last week.

    ;¬)

    #58817

    @nick

    no deal exit

    If that happens, then bear in mind that the UK only has 4 or 5 days supply of food.

    @mudlark

    have the option of a postal vote

    I was putting myself in the hubristic head of May.

    #58818
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @pedant

    I was putting myself in the hubristic head of May.

    Yeeeuch!  Brain  bleach, stat!

    #58819
    Nick @nick

    @whisht

    I agree with you there. The only ay to negotiate something like Brexit on the basis of a national consensus. Since that doesnt exist, something Norway like is a win win for both sides. We’re out, but in enough to work for both sides. It will also kick the issue down the road for both Us and Europe. We can reach a final decision either way later.

    #58820
    Nick @nick

    @pedant

    There will be at least a year to agree on the paperwork (in fact we already know what that looks like as the UK and EU import from outside the EU already). Trade doesnt stop because of tarifs. We pay more for stuff and receive a tax inflow on imports. You need at least a year to train up the additional people to implement it. A lot is computerised anyway. For this, its a good thing that we’re an island.

    #58821
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    Agree with pretty much all of the above. Some kind of Norway-like situation seems likely, which won’t placate the hardcore kipper wing of the Tory party and will end up toppling May. But I don’t think she’ll get anywhere near that stage anyway. True, there are no obvious unity candidates to lead the party but Boris is reckless and ambitious enough to have a (literal) stab at it anyway. And at the moment, I don’t think May would survive any leadership challenge no matter who mounted it.

    I think it likely we’ll see another general election long, long before 2020, possibly even this year. Getting into bed with the DUP will make NI fragile as it is and Foster and co won’t make many friends on the mainland if they try and rattle sabres too much — big swathes of even the Tory party will be extremely uncomfortable with giving them even a modicum of power. And they’ve not cleared themselves from things like the cash-for-ash scandal fully yet either. This is not an alliance that will last. And even with the DUP support, May only has a majority of 2. I doubt whether Corbyn, Farron and whoever ends up leading the SNP group at Westminster will remotely give her an easy ride. And as @pedant says, all it takes is a couple of shaky by-elections for the whole edifice to come tumbling around her ears.

    The woman has created a clusterf**k of quite gob-smacking proportions and for no good reason, save her own hubris and arrogance.

    #58822

    @nick

    It will take much more than a year to complete “the paperwork” (research how long it takes to tie up a single trade deal – take the EU-Canada deal as a marker). And we will lose 150+ of them when we leave. If you aren’t already then follow @DavidAllenGreen and @sirpauljenkins on Twitter (and in the FT).

    We have no trained negotiators (most of the best work for Nick Clegg).

    UK agriculture can supply about one third of demand, for about 5 months of the year. The entire profit margin of UK agriculture is made up of EU Single Payments (with Scots, Welsh and English uplands especially dependent). A third of the labour force is migrant. Many will not be able to trade.

    For those that can, food will pile up at customs (customs checks generally will be a serious threat to trade, but for farming they will be a disaster in both directions). Points of entry will be overwhelmed. And we’ve fired half the border force.

    There follows panic buying, making a bad situation worse.

    Hello super-inflation.

    The UK has not even started getting prepared, because of a stupid creation of new departments and an even more stupid election that leaves Mayhew much more a hostage of the Tory Remainers than the headbangers.

    #58823

    @jimthefish

    And as pedant says, all it takes is a couple of shaky by-elections for the whole edifice to come tumbling around her ears.

    Or for that matter, 4 or 5 Tory rebels. Woolaston and Soubry are still there…

    #58824
    Nick @nick

    @pedant

    If we no deal exit, we immediately go to WTO rules. We already trade on a WTO basis with the US and China (there are no EU trade deals with them). The problem would be one of  a massive increase in scale not one of unknown basis.

    As for none EU countries with EU trade deals, each would ask themselves whether they would prefer to continue to trade with the UK on the same basis as today by signing exactly the same paperwork as a separate UK/country law or see a reduction in their exports to here ? Most volumes here are small in any case.

    I dont think any of this would be a small simple thing, but neither do I think it’ll be as impossible as some propaganda (from both sides) suggests. Whatever the EU rules say, The UK will have talked with all the major importers outside the EU before hand.

    Since 50 % of UK trade is within the EU anyway, I would be absolutely amazed given the amount of trade both ways if both sides dont agree a start date and leave time for mutual implementation.

    I absolutely agree with you, May acted solely in her own interests in April. The last two months should have been spent by the government doing everything possible regarding Brexit. So far as I am sh should have been sent to the Tower for even thinking t might be a good idea. She should have sought an elected mandate last year if it was that important to her.

    I also agree with you on the rest. The only person who thinks immigration is going to go down in Maybot. Again I bet even she doesn’t think that. Regardless she said it for purely election purposes. She is one of the worst politicians out there.

    #58825
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    No doubt most will have seen this already. Contains some strong language obvs…

    #58826

    @nick

     

     

    Prepare to be amazed.  WTO isn’t a nice comfy fallback agreement, it’s a nightmare. Are you sure you want Trump (or, more likely, his successor) to have us by the short and curlies? Not that it matters. The single market was designed to eliminate non-tarrif barriers. Thatcher (quite rightly) grasped that UK business was getting screwed by them (a half million sq ft warehouse full of British exports, and one very bored and bureaucratic French customs officer to process all it it, say. And is a single unit isn’t up to scratch, the whole warehouse-full gets sent back).

    Your argument is an padded-out variant of the “ZOMG! BMW NEEDS US!!!!!!” argument punted around by Leave.

    a). They don’t (the electric mini will be built in Europe, not Oxford and that is just the start).

    b). They tried to pressure Merkel to go easy on Russia (which is way more important to them than the UK) and failed.

    We have no friends, since we have spent most of the past 100 years pissing off everybody at one time or another. We aren’t important enough to anyone to ever be high on their list of priorities. Maybe Mozambique. They joined the Commonwealth despite never being a UK possession, so they must like us.

    #58827
    Nick @nick

    @pedant

    I said it was what I thought would happen not what I want to happen.

    Anyway, The UK bought 2.69 million new cars in 2016 and manufactured 1.7 million, of which 0.3 million were sold in the UK.  That’s a net import of 1.3 million cars in one year (SMMT figures). Whether you consider that to be a “BMW needs us” argument or not [ i don’t] That’s a lot of trade. The Net EU figures would show higher imports in any case as Land Rover/Jaguar and BMW Minis are exported globally and not just to the EU.

    If you put barriers into that system (which is replicated across a wide range of products and sectors) it costs everyone. To pretend otherwise is being blinkered. The situation you describe about France, cuts both ways as well.

    The primary reason the UK/French border is in France is for Trade reasons. Importing French goods into the UK (especially fresh food) is limited on the shortest routes by lack of physical space in the UK ports. UK inspection in France, where there is more space available, speeds up transit into the UK. Moving that back into the UK works against French trade (and wont make any difference to illegal immigrants as the shipper has legal responsibility and will have to pay for the cost of transport back into France as well as pay a fine).

    These are such complicated integrated systems that no one really knows what will happen if barriers are put into place. There will be unintended consequences. But in general terms, lower imports into the UK from EU states as prices rise, will not be offset by extra sales within the EU or in export markets.  EU producers loose volume and profits. By increasing import costs, it also becomes more profitable to switch to UK production for the UK market let alone import substitution from exports from other markets. Whilst UK exports to the EU will also reduce, it is possible to substitute products from export to UK domestic market.

    When I was living in Dubai, all the meat you could buy came from Australia, New Zealand and Brazil (even in part French owned businesses). Most of the fruit and veg was North African and Indian in origin. Apples were routinely imported from the USA. European sourced food was quite rare. We see little imports from these locations because of EU wide trade barriers. Don’t think suppliers from these countries wouldn’t love to sell into the UK market.

    In fact the UK market is a better place to export into than immediate EU neighbours in many ways. My wife is from Nice in France. Italy is less than 50 km down the road, but you won’t find much if any fresh Italian produce in Nice (it’s about a third cheaper if you go to Italy and buy at the nearest markets and supermarkets).This isnt because Fruit and veg are grown locally instead. In Nice it is mostly imported from central France, because that is where the French supply chains look to. There is virtually no Italian wine to be found in France. In the spring there was a main item on French TV news talking about French farmers smashing Spanish wine in supermarkets near the the border, which they claimed were being dumped into the French market.

    Putin’s EU food import ban is widely ignored. There is now a new market in the Middle East and Belarus when EU products are completely rebadged as local produce and sold into Russia. As one of my Russian colleagues put it, where does all that (farmed) Salmon from that well known producer Belarus come from (Scotland, Norway and US).

    I agree that May and Cameron have done a very good job of pissing off the EU, but to say we are friendless is wrong. We are rivals and would stab each other in the back, but that has always been the case.

    I have a really good chuckle when I hear Tory brexiteers going on. The Single Market and extension of the EU into eastern Europe are Thatcher’s euro legacy. I dont suppose the modern day Thatcherites like May and Fox know that though. Even if they did, they are looking at a 20 year outcome and don’t much care whether things are shit for the first 10 years. It’s their mind set.

    Taking a longer term view, it is possible (and has been done) to create economic justification for Brexit and leaving the single market. As always its a cost/benefit analysis and on what price you are prepared (for someone else) to pay.

    The ever closer Union that the Eurozone needs for it to operate effectively will automatically create a federal EU. It seems The Defence union is the easiest step (now Britain is going), Macron’s EU facing economic policy is based on federalising EU finances and creating a EU budget and budget minister for the Eurozone as well as a stronger banking union. Macron has stated the Euro in its current form won’t last 10 years without this level of integration and that Frexit is inevitable without these steps.

    #58830
    lisa @lisa

    @nick

    Very interesting take on Brexit.   Do you know about the EU/USA banana wars?

    That went on a very long time but it was interesting cause in the end the multinationals

    won a ruling against the EU for basically trade obstruction/protectionism..  My take

    away about the whole Brexit kerfuffle is that trade would still continue to keep going where

    ever it wants to.  We ultimately were able to sell  bananas into the EU cause we were

    going to block some EU imports.   So how much does  the EU  get to negotiate the actual trade

    or do they just get to litigate over the safety and some other rules?

    The EU needs to stay with UK on some level cause of the whole western alliance .

    These are uncertain times of Russian interference and terrorism.

    Reasons why it seemed to me the UK holds some strong brexit cards.

     

     

     

     

     

     

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