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Thread | No deal Brexit
at 08:51 11 Aug 2019
In recent days there have been a number of stories coming out about a no deal Brexit.
We’ve had Matt Hancock – now fervent no deal backer – refusing to rule out that a no deal Brexit could lead to deaths of patients due to medication shortages. He has spoken about millions of pounds being spent on trying to prevent this whilst describing no deal as “not pretty”. (Source – The Evening Standard)
We’ve had Christopher Hope, another ardent Brexiteer, explaining how we can airlift in essentials like food and medication in the event of a no deal Brexit. That’s right, the 5th largest economy in the world can airlift in humanitarian aid for itself in the event of a no deal Brexit. The cabinet are also reported to have accepted that food prices will increase post-Brexit and this will have an impact for at least a decade. (Source – The Telegraph)
We’ve had a government leak telling us that we cannot maintain the integrity of our waters in the event of a no deal Brexit. (Source – The BBC)
We’ve had the treasury telling us that they will be setting up a “bail out fund” to prevent businesses from going bust in the event of a no deal Brexit. That’s millions if not billions of pounds of public money that is going to be used to prop up businesses that would otherwise fail because of a no deal Brexit. (Source – Various news outlets)
Now, these aren’t ‘project fear’ scare stories from ‘Remoaners’. These are coming from those who either support Brexit, are charged with preparing for no deal Brexit, or most often both. Nobody – aside from perhaps Boris – is even trying to pretend anymore that a no deal Brexit will lead us to the ‘sunlit uplands’. They are open about the fact that it will harm businesses and the economy and that it will lead to shortages of food and medication. It will make things more expensive for the public. We risk inflation going through the roof. On top of that we also know:
A no deal Brexit poses an existential threat to the United Kingdom. In the event of no deal, Scotland will agitate to leave the UK and it seems more likely than not that they will leave. Northern Ireland will be plunged into deep uncertainty.
No deal Brexit also puts us back to square one in negotiating future trade with the EU, but it puts us in a position of weakness in doing so because (a) we will be desperate for a deal, and (b) negotiations will likely take place in an atmosphere of mistrust and bad faith given how the government has conducted itself over Brexit thus far.
Furthermore, the US has ruled out a trade deal with the UK being ratified if the UK does anything to jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement. A no deal Brexit, which will necessitate border checks on the island of Ireland, will necessarily act as a threat to the Good Friday Agreement and that scuppers us doing a trade deal with the US.
Other major countries will be reluctant to do trade deals with us for two reasons. Firstly, we’ve already said we intend to offer tariff-free access for 90%+ of goods and services following a no deal Brexit, so there is no incentive to do a free trade deal with us. Secondly, any major economy will want to know what our trading relationship with the EU will look like before committing to a deal. They will want to know how easily a deal with us will improve or hinder access to our biggest trading partner in the EU.
We also know that Brexit has cost and will continue to cost billions in terms of money spent to mitigate its impact and in terms of the ongoing hit on the economy.
I know that there are some on here who are very keen on a no deal Brexit and see this as their preferred option. Given all of the above I am genuinely curious as to what the rational basis is for your support of a no deal Brexit. What do you see as the short- and long-term benefits that will outweigh all of the above? Do you feel that potential deaths, food and medication shortages, the break up of the UK, the economy struggling, things becoming more expensive, billions being spent on avoiding disaster rather than making the country better etc. is a price worth paying to leave the EU at all costs? If so, how do you justify that?
[Post edited 11 Aug 9:10]
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Thread | Happy Ashes day everyone!
at 08:19 1 Aug 2019
Predictions for today and for the series?
I'm not feeling all that confident to be honest. Both sides have excellent bowling attacks but I think Warner and Smith are likely to get more runs than Root and ?????. I think ultimately that will end up being the difference. 3-1 to Australia with them taking a narrow win in a low scoring first test. |
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Thread | Archer left out
at 13:50 31 Jul 2019
Interesting. Perhaps he's not fully fit and perhaps the overcast conditions that are forecast are better for our swing bowlers rather than raw pace. |
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Thread | Stolen woodchipper
at 17:28 26 Jul 2019
Back at the start of this year I agreed to fix a crappy old woodchipper for some bloke who claimed to be a tree surgeon. He looked pretty down on his luck so I let him borrow my lovely top of the range woodchipper as a favour. Anyway, I tried calling him a couple of days later to let him know his chipper was fixed and he'd changed his number. Gave me a phony address too! Should I call the police yet? |
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Thread | TV and broadband
at 18:59 25 Jul 2019
TWTD hive mind, I've just cancelled my Virgin subscription as the cost was more or less daylight robbery. I was going to go with BT or Sky but then I started wondering about getting a Now TV box or a Fire stick. We get Freeview through an aerial and we mostly watch the old terrestrial channels anyway. I dip in and out of Sky Sports so not worried about having an ongoing subscription for it.
What do you guys have and what would you recommend? |
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Thread | So Darroch has resigned then
at 12:34 10 Jul 2019
Didn't really have a lot of choice after Boris refused to back him for fear of upsetting Trump. Worrying times when our next PM is more interested in kowtowing to a dreadful US president than he is in standing up for British sovereignty. |
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Thread | India are tanking at the minute
at 11:54 10 Jul 2019
25-4. New Zealand have come to life this morning and now look big favourites to make the final. |
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Thread | Some quite troubling attitudes being shown....
at 11:47 22 Jun 2019
.....on here and on social media on the subject of violence towards women over the last couple of days. It seems there's a worryingly large and vocal minority that seek to minimise or excuse it. We're going backwards as a society. |
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Thread | Tory leadership vote today
at 08:47 18 Jun 2019
Who do we think is going?
I expect Stewart to definitely fall and probably Javid too. I wouldn't be hugely surprised to see Raab go, his team really needed to do a Boris and not let him speak in public. |
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Thread | The world is fooked
at 08:53 17 Jun 2019
Being realistic about it, Boris is going to be our next PM. The Tory party see him as, somehow, being someone who can win elections against the Labour party and have decided that this is clearly more important than resolving Brexit in a way that doesn’t destroy the country and indeed more important than what is best for the country in general. Concerns about his lack of competence and integrity have been pushed aside in the interests of preserving the Conservative Party and their grip on power. Standard, but depressing nonetheless.
More broadly, though, is there anything more indicative of how badly we’re fooked as a society than Boris and Trump coming to power? Neither man is remotely capable of the job they have been tasked with, both are where they are solely on the back of white male privilege and nothing more. They are the definition of the triumph of elitism over meritocracy.
Let’s start with Trump. The man is a thick bigot, the most fragile egotist imaginable. The Trump blimp triggered him so badly precisely because it was so accurate. He pitches himself as a successful businessman who knows how to get deals done, someone who is not part of the establishment and who has been a huge success. Bigly successful. And yet, if he’d simply put the vast wealth he inherited from his father into a savings account he would be wealthier than he is now. He has failed as a businessman many times over and any mitigating success has come solely because his vast inherited wealth has enabled him to try and try again. His one selling point is based on smoke and mirrors.
He has managed to ride a wave of mainly white working-class discontent through carefully managed populist rhetoric that is as dangerous as it is vacuous. His litany of misdemeanours would make him unemployable if he came from any other background, yet pure wealth and privilege has enabled him to bankroll his way to power. If his followers really feel that white males are being marginalised by liberalism, they need only look at the fact that Trump is in power as proof that this is not remotely the case.
As for Boris, the man is simply a nasty, power-hungry incompetent. Born to wealth and privilege, from very early on his character was marked by seeking power at all costs. Even at Eton and Oxford he was more concerned with gaining power and notoriety than actually excelling as a student, and he was willing to do whatever was needed to get there. Sounds familiar? As a journalist he was sacked for falsifying a quote, a journalistic offence so egregious that it would usually spell the end of a career. Yet Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has been given chance after chance, purely because of his name and privilege rather than his talent.
As an MP he has held one cabinet position and was an abject failure. Not only did he fail to achieve anything at all of note, numerous reports suggest that he was simply unfit for the role; frequently he was not well-briefed, not interested in detail, and seemingly uninterested when attending important meetings. That’s without even considering that he endangered the life of a UK citizen through his own lazy carelessness when talking about why she was in Iran. He still refuses to take any responsibility for that, despite it once again being such an horrendous error that it would cost most people their job, let alone somehow pave the way for them to hold an even more responsible job. All this before we even consider the overt racist remarks, the dog-whistling, the general question marks over his poor character and total lack of any principles (writing two articles backing both remain and leave, anyone?).
Sorry for the lengthy rant, but it really boils my piss that we have these snake oil salesman in positions of power. They are where they are not because of any talent they have, not because they are the best men for the job, not because they have a positive vision for their countries. They are where they are because of wealth and privilege, nothing more. Their sole focus in on maintaining their privilege and on preserving a system that rewards such privilege.
The worst of it is that they are doing so by exploiting unrest amongst the working classes, unrest caused by the kind of social and economic inequalities that they and their cronies are responsible for. And they know this, yet they point the finger at other disadvantaged groups and lay the blame at their door. It’s easy to do, it plays on a base instinct in people to blame the ‘other’ rather than someone that looks like them and speaks their language (in more ways than one). They are backed by the wealthy and powerful in the media who share their overriding agenda to preserve the dominance of wealthy elites, and this simply makes the power train an irresistible force with no immovable object available at our disposal to oppose it.
All thoroughly depressing, really. |
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Thread | Trump is a classless prick #2654789245
at 08:51 16 Jun 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48651131
Using the deaths of three young people to further a feud? Retweeting the vile Katie Hopkins, whose tweet contains some blatant dog whistling? It shouldn't be acceptable behaviour for someone in his position. If we had any leader with any backbone in government they would take a vocal stand against his behaviour. To stay silent tacitly condones his behaviour. |
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