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EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

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Howardh

Howardh

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Xenophon PCDGS said:
It most certainly did not, as the Chuckle Brothers were pluralistic in number and the sole remaining Chuckle Brother is a singularity.
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And as I wrote if the lost one were still with us there'd be two. Brothers. Plural.

I'm losing the will to live on this planet.
 
krus_aragon

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edwin_m said:
If you use "intelligent" to refer to level of education or experience then you are incorrect. I might consider you ill-informed in that respect, but I wouldn't conclude that you were unintelligent.
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That isn't a view that I want to convey. Ivory towers are not bastions of intelligence by any means. (And IQ tests are not what I'd equate with intelligence, though I admit that I'd be hard-pressed to give a firm definition myself.)

I would (stubbornly) suggest the skill and ability to intelligently evaluate arguments made by others is something that people develop over time, through experience. Formal education certainly isn't the only way for this to happen, diplomas from the school of hard knocks are equally valid.

But I fear I'm dragging the discussion into a rabbit hole now, so I'll stop babbling on about this.
 
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“If one of them were still with us”.

Conventional and correct use of the subjunctive “were” in the third person singular.
 
O

oliMw

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https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/the-remain-alliance-that-could-spoil-boris-johnsons-party/

What George Orwell said of left-wing intellectuals now applies to Boris Johnson and his ministers: so much of what they propose is a ‘playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot’.

They may suspend Parliament and crash us out of the EU on 31 October or crash us out in the middle of an election campaign. Understandably, all the talk is of the threat to the conventions of democratic life. Yet if Johnson does not buckle, the autumn will not just bring a constitutional crisis but an economic and social crisis.

No one knows how bad crashing out will be because no country has been stupid enough to tear up its main trading relationships without having an alternative in place. But it is not hard to imagine panic as the pound falls and the threat of job losses, food and medical shortages grows. The realities of Brexit, for so long an argument dominated by fantasists, will confront the British for the first time, and the next election will have the atmosphere of a revolutionary crisis.

The Tory right think they can get away with tearing up constitutional norms because Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity gives them the freedom to do as they please. Their assumption, that he cannot become prime minister, allows them to treat Parliament with contempt, without worrying that they are providing a precedent a radical left government would be free to imitate.


No one can predict with certainty if they are deluding themselves (again) and will live to regret their recklessness. But we can say that a second assumption is starting to fall apart. Johnson’s strategy is to unite the Conservative and Brexit party votes and face down a divided opposition. Yet opposition divisions are healing with remarkable speed.

On 15 August, the attempt to build an effective remain force will begin when the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid Cymru agree a non-aggression pact in 30 constituencies. They will back one candidate in each seat who will stand as X Liberal Democrat (Unite to Remain) or Y Green (Unite to Remain) and so on. The “Unite to Remain” title has already been agreed with the Electoral Commission so the problems found in running unity candidates in the European elections shouldn’t trouble us next time.

My understanding is that the easy decisions are close to being taken. There’s agreement that sitting MPs should be given a free run, and on the names of candidates for obvious target seats. The Greens were far ahead of the Liberal Democrats in the Isle of Wight in the 2017 election, for example, and will provide the sole remain candidate in the constituency next time.

A second tranche of 30 or so constituencies will be settled on 22 August. As the parties move down the list of target seats, the task becomes harder. In each constituency they are asking activists to step aside for a rival, a hard concession for many to make.

Nevertheless, the scale of the national crisis and the almost universally hostile reaction from remain voters to the Greens, Change, Lib Dems and nationalists splitting the vote in the May European elections is concentrating minds. All three parties are close to deciding who should stand in every Welsh constituency except Ceredigion by Cardigan Bay, a Lib Dem/Plaid marginal that the Tories have no chance of winning.

On occasion, it can suit parties to share the load. If you just looked at the 2017 election results, the Liberal Democrats would appear the obvious party to fight all six of the Cornish seats. But if they went for every seat they might disperse their resources, and win just one. The plan is for the Lib Dems to target four constituencies in the county, and hope to win three, and leave the Greens to fight the remaining two – probably Truro, Newquay and Falmouth and Camborne and Redruth. Green politicians know how Corbyn and his supporters operate. Even though the party has built support mainly in Labour seats, it will avoid inevitable accusations that it is aiding the Tories, or worse, turning “centrist”, by fighting prominent Conservatives: most notably Amber Rudd in Hastings and Rye and, perhaps, Maria Caulfield in Lewes.

The final meeting on 6 September, in the week Parliament returns, will be the most important. Candidates for a final tranche of about 40 seats will be chosen. It will also be the deadline for independent MPs to decide what they want to do. The Commons has 16 independents already, and could see more by next month. If they want support, they can join one of the Remain parties – Sarah Wollaston, the former Tory MP, and Angela Smith, ex-Labour, will join the Lib Dems next month. They can run unopposed as independents, if they can reach agreements with remain parties, or perhaps a new umbrella party could be created to accommodate them. After 6 September, all deals are off.

....
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A move towards a remain alliance, a good start to prevent the splitting of the vote as in the Euro elections!
 
AlterEgo

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LWB said:
“If one of them were still with us”.

Conventional and correct use of the subjunctive “were” in the third person singular.
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It's by no means good English though - the "one of them were" part implies there are none existing.

"I love The Beatles; I wish one of them were still alive", implies all of The Beatles are dead, when only two are. A proper way to express a wish that an extra Beatle was still alive would be to say "I wish George or John were still alive" or "I wish we still had three Beatles" or even "I wish one more of them were still alive".

Similarly, imagine a full scale riot where there are a hundred police on the ground dealing with a mass of people. An observer might want there to be more police to quell the riot. An improper way of expressing this would be "I wish there were police officers here", because there already are police. And so on.
 
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edwin_m

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oliMw said:
A move towards a remain alliance, a good start to prevent the splitting of the vote as in the Euro elections!
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Interesting that should appear in the Spectator, which on the rare occasion I see it spans the range between Brexitism and ultra-Brexitism. The author is Nick Cohen, who also write for the Observer, so probably not reflective of their core viewpoint though if it helps some Tories to smell the coffee it can't do any harm. But in the part of the article not quoted, he goes on to be pretty pessimistic about the chances if Labour continues its current stance.
 
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edwin_m said:
Interesting that should appear in the Spectator, which on the rare occasion I see it spans the range between Brexitism and ultra-Brexitism. The author is Nick Cohen, who also write for the Observer, so probably not reflective of their core viewpoint though if it helps some Tories to smell the coffee it can't do any harm. But in the part of the article not quoted, he goes on to be pretty pessimistic about the chances if Labour continues its current stance.
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I agree that it is an interesting choice of periodical. I'm not certain whether the readership will react positively though, the best I am hoping is that sufficient numbers get into a rage and send in a note cancelling their subscriptions then they will not subjected to its rhetoric week after week. When the fourth most popular article is "I'm prejudiced against the Oxford comma" by Jacob Rees-Mogg you know there is no hope.

I am also a little concerned about some of the strategy described:
On occasion, it can suit parties to share the load. … Green politicians know how Corbyn and his supporters operate. Even though the party has built support mainly in Labour seats, it will avoid inevitable accusations that it is aiding the Tories, or worse, turning “centrist”, by fighting prominent Conservatives: most notably Amber Rudd in Hastings and Rye and, perhaps, Maria Caulfield in Lewes.
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Hastings and Rye is a 'Leave' area (55%), the constituency is marginal (346 majority) with Labour in second, neither the Greens or LibDems have got to 2,000 votes in the last two elections (despite only one running each time), Labour run Hastings council and has done for some time. I certainly don't think its worth putting resources into it, let the others scrap it out. Lewes is a different proposition - it voted Remain, used to have a LibDem MP (Norman Baker), and has an uninspiring MP.
 
433N

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bramling said:
I’m ideologically opposed to the EU, however I would be open to remaining if the economic case was sufficiently strong. I’m unconvinced that it is, and am willing to take the risk.
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This seems a bizarre statement which can be written alternatively :
"I disagree with the the principles of the EU but I'm willing to change my mind if it is in my financial interest"

I would be interested to hear why you are 'ideologically opposed to the EU'.

Surely the principal idea of the EU is to strive towards equality of work and living conditions amongst the people of the nation states of which it comprises and to trade on equal terms. As a consequence, the friction that arises between nation states owing to different living standards is reduced and the conflict which blighted the last century of European history will, hopefully, not be repeated

The nub of the issue is that Tory governments doesn't strive to do the same for the people of its the constituent countries of the UK or even the regions of the constituent countries. Again and again, you hear right wingers say "that's not human nature", ironically by those like Rees-Mogg who in the natural world would have been snapped like a twig by someone bigger.

What appears to be driving Brexit are anti-equality oafs trying to pull up the drawbridge. Why people see it different is complete anathema to me.

We live in a developed country where there is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. However much we wheel-and-deal, we are not going to get a sufficient advantage over our European neighbours to bring back days of double digit economic growth. In fact, the wheeling-and-dealing will almost certainly come with a transactional cost which will make us significantly disadvantaged as productivity in continental Europe far exceeds that in the UK.
 
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Xenophon PCDGS said:
With my good lady wife (77) and I (74) being convinced remainers since Day 1, I am pleased to note that we are in the minority of the elder generation that you refer to above. Unlike those examples of that generation that you quote above, neither of us wish to return to the days of the 1950s and 1960s, but are quite happy to live in the 21st century.
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And I am equally pleased to note that there are some from older generations not simply reaching for the rose-tinted 1950s glasses! ;)

433N said:
This seems a bizarre statement which can be written alternatively :
"I disagree with the the principles of the EU but I'm willing to change my mind if it is in my financial interest"

I would be interested to hear why you are 'ideologically opposed to the EU'.

Surely the principal idea of the EU is to strive towards equality of work and living conditions amongst the people of the nation states of which it comprises and to trade on equal terms. As a consequence, the friction that arises between nation states owing to different living standards is reduced and the conflict which blighted the last century of European history will, hopefully, not be repeated

The nub of the issue is that Tory governments doesn't strive to do the same for the people of its the constituent countries of the UK or even the regions of the constituent countries. Again and again, you hear right wingers say "that's not human nature", ironically by those like Rees-Mogg who in the natural world would have been snapped like a twig by someone bigger.

What appears to be driving Brexit are anti-equality oafs trying to pull up the drawbridge. Why people see it different is complete anathema to me.

We live in a developed country where there is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. However much we wheel-and-deal, we are not going to get a sufficient advantage over our European neighbours to bring back days of double digit economic growth. In fact, the wheeling-and-dealing will almost certainly come with a transactional cost which will make us significantly disadvantaged as productivity in continental Europe far exceeds that in the UK.
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Much of what made up the Brexit argument was around people's perception of how much say they had in the process. Given the nature of the EU, and the complex structure of it's governance it was easier for those arguing to leave to play the "un-elected bureaucrats" card than it was for those arguing to remain to explain how the EU actually works. And so the "un-elected bureaucrats" card become part of the winning hand. Sadly what most people don't seem to release that much of the transfer of power in a leave scenario will result in them having exactly zero percent more say in how the UK is run, with the transfer simply being a paper exercise between Brussels and Whitehall. What it does however mean that we as a country reduce our influence on one of our largest trading partners to zero, whilst still having to comply with their terms when continuing to trade with them, and a 'no deal' scenario would even have us pay more for the same.
 
433N

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Bantamzen said:
Much of what made up the Brexit argument was around people's perception of how much say they had in the process. Given the nature of the EU, and the complex structure of it's governance it was easier for those arguing to leave to play the "un-elected bureaucrats" card than it was for those arguing to remain to explain how the EU actually works.
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But this isn't a thing of ideology, this is a mechanism.

The idea is that the EU is a democracy and the structure of that democracy is no more complex than our own. In fact, it is far easier to explain the idea of Proportional Representation as in EU elections than it is the archaic and perplexing first-past-the-post system of 'democracy' that we have.

However, by its nature the people of the UK get less say since there are more people ; but then decisions made in Brussels are just as likely (if not more, in practice) to be beneficial to the people of Newcastle (or Inverness or Swansea or Portrush) as those made in London.

Your word 'complex' is probably better replaced by 'alien'.
 
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Bantamzen

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433N said:
But this isn't a thing of ideology, this is a mechanism.

The idea is that the EU is a democracy and the structure of that democracy is no more complex than our own. In fact, it is far easier to explain the idea of Proportional Representation as in EU elections than it is the archaic and perplexing first-past-the-post system of 'democracy' that we have.

However, by its nature the people of the UK get less say since there are more people ; but then decisions made in Brussels are just as likely (if not more, in practice) to be beneficial to the people of Newcastle (or Inverness or Swansea or Portrush) as those made in London.

Your word 'complex' is probably better replaced by 'alien'.
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You make a good point, the structure of the EU is as you say 'alien' to many Brits and as such this was easily exploitable by those seeking our exit. Now we may have to rely even more on those within the corridors of Whitehall. I'm not religious in any way, but may whatever deity people believe in have mercy on our souls, because trust me when I say this, we are going to need it!
 
EM2

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From LBC:
Michael Gove has said the government is prepared to spend "whatever it takes" in order for Britain to be prepared for a no deal Brexit.
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Why are they prepared to spend whatever it takes for this, but not for:
- ending the need for foodbanks
- eliminating poverty
- decent homes for everyone
- outstanding schools and colleges for everyone
- social care
- genuine dignity and quality of life for all disabled people
- ending homelessness
- a genuinely world class health service
...just for starters?
 
Xenophon PCDGS

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EM2 said:
From LBC:

Why are they prepared to spend whatever it takes for this, but not for:
- ending the need for foodbanks
- eliminating poverty
- decent homes for everyone
- outstanding schools and colleges for everyone
- social care
- genuine dignity and quality of life for all disabled people
- ending homelessness
- a genuinely world class health service
...just for starters?
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Because their ideology is not that espoused by the Blessed Jeremy and the Labour Party.

Remember all those TV adverts we see asking for direct debits for human and animal charities in overseas "now independent" nation states, perhaps those same countries such as Burkino Faso, etc, could use their state run television channels to carry similar TV adverts asking their populace to use the monies they seem not to appear to concern themselves with and let monies be sent to this country to relieve those items you refer to.
 
NoMorePacers

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Xenophon PCDGS said:
Because their ideology is not that espoused by the Blessed Jeremy and the Labour Party.
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Why is almost every single one of your posts in this thread, no matter what the topic at hand, somehow redirected to be a swipe at Corbyn and Labour? I'm not saying you have to like them - no, have your opinion on politics, but every single damn post I see from you in this thread seems to be some jab at that specific figure and that specific organisation.

Also, being concerned about money that should be spent on child poverty being instead spent on something utterly stupid and pointless doesn't require you to have a house painted in red while you molest a portrait of Joseph Stalin every morning and every night now does it?
 
433N

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NoMorePacers said:
Why is almost every single one of your posts in this thread, no matter what the topic at hand, somehow redirected to be a swipe at Corbyn and Labour? I'm not saying you have to like them - no, have your opinion on politics, but every single damn post I see from you in this thread seems to be some jab at that specific figure and that specific organisation.
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Because to misquote wikipedia on Orwell's 1984 ...

" ... the Two Minutes Hate is the daily, public period during which members of the Outer Party of Oceania must watch a film depicting the enemies of the state, specifically Jeremy Corbyn and his followers, to openly and loudly express hatred for them. "

Remember that as a nation, we still believe Thatcher's proclamation of an Enemy Within and poor old Jeremy is old enough to have been deemed tagged as such.
 
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