You're always welcome to pop in for a cup of tea. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
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You're always welcome to pop in for a cup of tea. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
....gave some of us two hands! Anyway my simple Trek 1.5 just needs an engine, now that even 'granny gear' isn't enough to get me up a modest hill.:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
Sorry Chris! I will never forget my first FRA Committee when you tossed one onto the table. After that meetings for the next 14 years were always a bit of an anti-climax.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris K
.
I can turn my (NHS) hand to most things! Amazing where Brexit debate leads us to....
Seems very similar to Always Injured of a few years ago... the syntax, and lengthy opinions...Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
Some people like anonymity, I do. But if I was to be trading blows then I would reveal myself so as not to be seen as...???
Isn't Mike Remain??
Is he still ranting on Facebook? Don't know why but the FRA facebook page never caught my interest. I suppose it is it's lack of structure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
Mike who?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
They seek him here. They seek him there. Those frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or Is he in hell?
That damned elusive pimpernel!
Now don't get carried away with self-love Oracle; after all you aren't Yorkshire Thug (not knowledgeable enough about fellrunning I'm afraid) :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
BatesQuote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
But then you of all people know I cannot be Yorkshire Thug! So Has YT been retired?Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
And anyway. YT wrongly seemed to think fell running was just an elite sport. That would be news to 95 percent of fellrunners!
Must say, I did not expect the Peterborough result, I assumed the Brexit party would win it easily. I wonder if Corbyn will take note of the fact that a remainer actually manage to win in a strong leave constituency.
The Labour candidate won by a whisker with only 31% of the vote - down 17% on the last election. Peterborough is normally a Labour-Tory marginal. This time many Conservative voters (and some Labour) switched to the Brexit party (29% of the vote) but enough stayed loyal to the Tories (21%) to let Labour win.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
For me it is a worrying foretaste of what could easily happen in a General Election with the Brexit Party taking enough centre right votes to allow Corbyn in through the middle.
FPTP is not fit for purpose, the statistics for votes-per-seat in 2015 where scandalous. While I am no supporter of UKIP/Brexit Party, it is a farce to call it demoracy for a party to get such a high percentage of the vote and zero seats.
Yes I tend to agree. It works reasonably ok where there are only two main parties. However when you get into the fragmented situation that we have at the moment with support spread among a number of parties it produces some very distorted results.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
Yes but it is a bit chicken and egg. The electoral system is proabably a lot of the reason why the UK & US have two main parties. The British are a bit snotty about coalition goverement, but Labour and Tories are such broad churches they are in effect coalitions across center/left and centre/right. This has really been hightlighted by types of Brexit/No Brexit and Momentum on the Labour side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
It's interesting that when we did have a coalition government, one of the parties, the Liberal Democrats paid a heavy electoral price for being part of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
As we all know they'd campaigned to abolish tuition fees at the 2010 election only to go along with the Conservatives and triple them when they got into power. I actually had some sympathy with the LibDems over that. What did their supporters expect? They were the junior partner with less votes and seats than the Tories. They weren't going to get everything they wanted and would have to compromise.
The above episode illustrates that no electoral system is perfect. Proportional Representation leads to coalition every time so you could vote for a party that said it was going to do X only for it to do Y when in coalition with another party. So how do you hold them to account? FPTP used to lead to stable majorities for one party so if a Government didn't do what it promised they couldn't blame anybody else.
But the weakness of FPTP in distorting the relationship between votes and seats is profound where votes are widely spread over a number of parties.
Ya fully agree re the LibDems.
There is nothing easy in politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
Labour threw the kitchen sink at it, and knew exactly what doors to knock on. If it had been a level playing field on information, and brexit party had had more time,the majority is so thin, Corbyn would have lost it. The party themselves were never so confident of winning as the media were.
For a party in opposition for ten years, the result is appalling for labour. They should be winning such seats by big majorities. For one thing labour voters are more likely to vote for a donkey wearing a red rosette, if they turn out at all. In this case they did. Objectionable woman, out of the leaders mold. It is why she got picked.
It is also interesting that Ben (of britainelects) who is worth following and savvy on results said it is as expected from polls: but apparently this also proves that a substantial number of other seats would go to brexit party if voted right now.
In the end none of it solves the problem.
EU refuse to negotiate. So the only brexit is what they call no deal.
The "More ambitious deals" are simply more EU shackles. So not brexit at all.
And parliaments only alternative is to rescind A50.
The straight choice they refuse to make.
The only arguments for staying in are negative: fear of EU reprisal. Like russia, in europe the machine guns point in, to stop people leaving! It is not a reason to stay.
Labour is as divided as Tory. Their only policy is duplicity.
It is not a tory problem.
It is the refusal of the house in general and labour in particular to accept the reality of the position. Compounded by a traitor of a speaker.
No deal or rescind A50. Just get on with it.
and I think a version of PR would see extensive fragmentation.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
You could see the Tories becoming up to 3 parties and Labour up to 4. So whilst I can understand the case for PR I can also see the problems.
The system we have has worked pretty well for us historically. It has been put to the test mostly by a referendum that produced a result that the politicians disagreed with on by about 4:1
I was a little surprised on the Peterborough result mostly because the bookies called it wrong.
I think after recent weeks, most will be surprised at the number that voted Tory.
It's also an interesting point that the SDP, UKIP and English Democrats took votes that would have most likely gone to the Brexit Party and in standing helped Labour.
Future by-elections and even the General Election may become extremely tactical.
It would rightly consign Corbyn to the dustbin of history. So there is one good argument for PRQuote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
The way I see it is the range of left to right of people standing would not change. But yes there would be a wider range of people actually elected. That can only be good, as it is not democratic, where the likes of Greens/UKIP/Brexit have little or no representation over the last few years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
Personally I would be very relaxed with a Tory Wets/Labour Blairites/Lib Dem coalition. Currently two of those parties do not exist and I thing they should.
It is not a good formula for change.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
It favours the lowest common denominator of action, which is why the EU cannot vote to save its own life.
At national level take the government of spain flip flopping, essentially paralysed for years. Could a PR coalition ever dismantle the unprofitable militant ridden coal industry? I doubt it. They cannot make unpopular decisions however necessary.
It enables all "positive" actions to be agreed, never the necessary pain of realpolitik. The two have to be forced through together, or budgets run away.
A party has come into being representing the Tory Wets and Blairites - it's called Change UK. They of course have now fragmented further.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
They could at least have voted against it instead of just caving in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
Just seen that the private prosecution against Boris Johnson has been thrown out by the High Court. Sanity has prevailed.
Ridiculous thing to try to do.
Well they couldn't really if they wanted to be part of the Government. They had agreed to increasing tuition fees during the talks to form a coalition Government. The LibDems got some things they wanted but had to agree to other things they didn't but which the Conservatives did. It was horse trading carried out behind the scenes.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigfella
This was the point I was trying to make about coalition Governments. They sound like the obvious solution in principle but in practice you're going to upset some of your supporters who don't like what you've agreed to.
When we had the coalition, we were told that no one voted for this. The LibDems got slaughtered by supporting the Tories who were then the largest party.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
Had they supported Brown, the defeated PM, it would have been the wrong thing to do and they would still have been slaughtered.
In the end, no one got what they voted for.
I don't look at the examples on the continent and think that any of t hem are an improvement on ours. Horse trading for prominent cabinet positions seems to abound.
The only exception would be Switzerland for me.
You couldnt make it up.
Apart from the stupidity of EU commencing legal action against italy for refusing to beggar its citizens
(this will not end well, watch this space)
And attacking poland for having the temerity to decide how it wants to organise its judiciary.
The latest madness:
They are starting proceedings against ALL 27 COUNTRIES! for failing to implement their precious services directive!
Juncker was complaining this week, that he didnt have a castle or private jet. Which shows how he views his self importance. These fines must be how he intends to fund both
No wonder the metaphorical machine guns point into the EU stopping people from leaving!!!
Just read an interesting statement on a photograph in the guardian. It it there against a wall put up by some Brexit party supporters. Funny one to pick becasue that statement could be used as both a pro and anti Brexit argument. How many rights will we loose because of Brexit?
"The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away"
Tony Benn MP 1991.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ter--live-news
Strange argument made by remainers.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
What rights do you think you will give away? For once an elected parliament can decide them.
Not corporate pressure groups in private closed meetings with unelected commissioners. Or did you not know that is how EU law is decided? That is part of why also why the EU is so dysfunctional.
If we extend that quote a bit further you can see what Benn is getting at:Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry
"The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights."
He also said
"If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions:
- What power have you got?
- Where did you get it?
- In whose interests do you exercise it?
- To whom are you accountable?
- How can we get rid of you?”
That last question is crucial. We cannot get rid of Jacques Delors; we cannot get rid of the [European] Commission. We can get rid of a Government; but we cannot get rid of European legislation that a Government have entrenched during their period in office—be they a Labour Government with the Tories coming or the other way around."
There wasn't much I agreed with Tony Benn on but he encapsulated perfectly why many people want to leave the European Union.
It is true
Far from extinguishing rights , leaving EU allows us to exercise them
It was EU rules prevented us from getting rid of Abu Hamza, he had "EU rights" to impose himself on our country in which we could not interfere.
As Benn rightly points out. If a british politician decided that you could show him the door at the next election.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
You did not read the facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
The EU is not against the Italian government handing peanuts to its citizens.
The EU is warning Italy because their policies of lowering taxes for the rich while increasing handouts for the poor is going to increase the debt, which at 133% of GDP is already extremely high and risky, for Italy and its neighbours and partners.
Or you wouldn't mind to bailout Italy as you dind't for Greece?
Weather you are in the Euro or not, weather you are in the EU or not, a large country defaulting DOES affect you.
I am well aware of it. The fact is the Euro is a disaster and nothing can rescue it. It should never have been attempted. A piece of stupid ideology, considering every previous currency union failed including several in europe. They never learn. Only allowing exchange rates to equalize using a new currency can ever allow italy to recover, so their debt is revalued (AKA defaulted)Quote:
Originally Posted by Gambatte
But the symptom of that failure is the destitution of populations,and whilst the Eurocrats binge in the trough they say "suck it up" to those populations. It cannot end well. And the more we in the UK can decouple from the catastrophe the better. It will still be a tidal wave.
So now EU threatens Switzerland as an example to UK about Brexit. What sort of example is that?. Not nice.
Just Googled it and found F.T article. Switzerland were always on a collusion course with the EU over the rules of the single market. They are effectivly in it via all of the individual deals but that 2014 referendum to limit freemovement was bound to cause problems. The old "Cake and Eat it".Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
Of course this is a classic case of the EU bullying another country becasue they are not playing by the rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_S...ion_initiative
https://www.ft.com/content/6ebabb6c-...a-60e35ef678d2
One of the most fundamental agreements is the demand of EU, that if Switzerland stock market is to have access to the EU - they must treat all EU citizens as having equal rights to swiss citizens on Swiss soil.
The EU really does not respect sovereignty. It is annexation by other means.
The swiss rightly say Nein!
Net result the market will be turned off.
It is petty and vindictive.
That ideology prevents sensible deals being done.
Which is our problem over Northern Ireland.
All ideologues create the seeds of their own destruction because of refusal to compromise. And so it is with EU.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry