YouGov polling say Johnson won 52/48% on tonight's debate.
Will we ever escape that cursed split? Feels like ever since 2016 we've been haunted by various events coming down to splits of 52/48...
YouGov polling say Johnson won 52/48% on tonight's debate.
IMO the root cause is successive governments taking us deeper into the European project without bothering to ask the people what they thought about it.
By the time they were given a vote, resentment had built up such that 17.4m voted leave. To continue with further EU integration without consulting the people would have simply led to even bigger problems further down the road.
And sadly, successive British Governments compounded the problem by never bothering to explain what the point of being in the EU was, or the benefits of international collaboration
And do you know who was responsible for a lot of that made-up anti-EU press coverage?Whereas I would completely disagree. I would say the root cause was decades of most of the Press continually presenting the EU in the worst possible light they could, always presenting every EU decision as a malicious attempt to infringe on our precious sovereignty, without ever attempting to explain the often good reasons for those decisions.
Johnson did not invent British Eurosceptic reporting, Guilford said, but “took it to new heights. It delivered him the profile and publicity that he craved.”
Guilford later became spokesman for Leon Brittan, one of two British European commissioners in the early 1990s. He recalled Johnson was often trying to stand up stories of “a German plot against a British commissioner; he was always playing off second world war themes”.
Bruno Dethomas, spokesman for the then European commission president, Jacques Delors, said Johnson’s stories were not very different from those of his tabloid rivals. “Boris was of course exaggerating, but more smartly than the others,” he said.
Dethomas discovered this when he invited the young reporter to his house in Brussels for drinks. The soiree later provided inspiration for a Johnson report that Dethomas lived in a castle. “He knew perfectly well that I lived in a normal house with a small garden,” he said. “I was surprised; I found it not absolutely fair, but I knew Boris.”
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Rolf-Dieter Krause, a former correspondent for Germany’s ARD public broadcaster, recalled Johnson slumped in his chair at the European commission’s daily midday briefings. “If he asked a question, it was to create a laugh … When we read his articles, we always felt he had been to a different event from the one we were at,” he said.
This approach came to a head with a narrow rejection of the EU by angry voters in a referendum, stoked by fears of rule by Brussels and fuelled by Johnson’s writing in the Daily Telegraph. This was 1992 and – almost 25 years before the Brexit vote – Denmark voted down the Maastricht treaty with a majority of 50.7%. Johnson would later claim his front-page story “Delors plans to rule Europe” had helped swing the result.
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Denmark’s then foreign minister, thinks Johnson’s writing – picked up by the Danish press – helped influence the result. “It definitely had an impact,” he said. “The story was that once the Danes had voted yes then we would have much more Europe, much more union and all that stuff. When I said it was nonsense, I was called a bloody liar.”
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Many in Brussels found Johnson funny. One British official spoke of a “hilarious exchange” between Johnson and the agriculture commissioner’s spokesman about how bent a banana had to be. Another said: “He was great company, he was great fun, but I used to be very angry with the way he just wanted to ridicule the institution and was clearly misleading people.”
The Daily Telegraph was delighted. Guilford said there were enthusiastic letters from the Telegraph’s then editor, Max Hastings – now a fierce critic – pinned to Johnson’s office wall. For the Telegraph foreign desk, he was “as exasperating as he was brilliant”, Wade said in an unpublished memoir. “On many nights, I would be on the phone begging Boris for the piece he had promised to deliver an hour ago. There was a lot of ‘oh gosh Nigel, golly Nigel’ and ‘for godsakes Boris!’”
Nobody imagined where Johnson’s “annoying” stories would lead, said one of the British officials: “He was more seen as a colourful buffoon figure. But we didn’t realise it was going to set the tone of the British debate.”
But Cameron's renegotiation would have led to the UK being less integrated with the EU, giving us more opt-outs and exclusions than any other member state.By the time they were given a vote, resentment had built up such that 17.4m voted leave. To continue with further EU integration without consulting the people would have simply led to even bigger problems further down the road.
I don't recall any radical proposals being agreed by the EU. In fact as far as I can remember Mr Cameron asked for next to nothing and got slightly less than that. Looking at the pamphlet sent to every household, this is what it says about the UK's "Special Status" within the EU:But Cameron's renegotiation would have led to the UK being less integrated with the EU, giving us more opt-outs and exclusions than any other member state.
Reform of the EU is not what was being discussed, it was our supposed further integration, which, as you have shown, we don't have.Leaving aside the fact that I don't recall the EU being "reformed" as a result of Mr Cameron's interventions, it's true this may have meant the UK being granted more opt outs and exclusions than other EU nations. But they were hardly much to write home about. As well as that, what The Lord giveth, The Lord can certainly take away and the EU is well known for removing "privileges" once they have been running a while. The only way to be sure to secure the UK's special status is to leave the EU.
She deserved to remain unknown. By comparison, Tim Farron was an intellectual colossus. Her latest disastrous, live interview on 'Woman's Hour' this morning plumbed the depths, it was so embarassing. She cries 'sexism' whenever she is challenged on anything, despite some of her severeist detractors being other women, many of a feminist persuasion. The more she's interviewed, the lower the LD ratings go. Prime Minister? She might not even get back into parliament.
YouGov polling say Johnson won 52/48% on tonight's debate.
Did the Boris Bluster Bots watch a different debate to what was transmitted??
... sanctimonious policies about gender (see: removal of women’s sex-based rights) and identity mean they are better thought of as centrist authoritarians. Thoroughly unpleasant; Swinson has come across as a desperate harpy ...
So to prove your point that we don't need 'sanctimonious policies about gender' , what it the male equivalent of a 'harpy'. ?
.I hope all the parties lose. I hate all of them.
I wasn't particularly knocking Farron - I don't dislike him, and he refused to be hypocritical about his beliefs, which I can respect. It's just unfortunate that he could never command the electoral support that a careerist hypocrite like Clegg could before his mask slipped.Farron was a good and thoughtful man. The Liberal Democrats ensured his position as a Christian (who had a belief that gay sex was a sin) was incompatible with being in the party. This was a profoundly illiberal thing to do.
The Lib Dems’ positions of unilaterally reversing a democratic vote, and relentless unpopular, sanctimonious policies about gender (see: removal of women’s sex-based rights) and identity mean they are better thought of as centrist authoritarians. Thoroughly unpleasant; Swinson has come across as a desperate harpy throughout the campaign and they have struggled to move away from the Challenor paeodphile scandal. Another party I hope burns down to be reborn as something more palatable.
I hope all the parties lose. I hate all of them.
Farron continued as a LibDem MP and is standing for re-election as such, so it's wrong to say that his beliefs were incompatible with membership. More that the conflict between his beliefs and party policy provided an easy stick to beat him when he was leader.Farron was a good and thoughtful man. The Liberal Democrats ensured his position as a Christian (who had a belief that gay sex was a sin) was incompatible with being in the party. This was a profoundly illiberal thing to do.
The principle in the UK is that a manifesto commitment of a party that wins a majority is regarded as the will of the people, although ironically with their commitment to electoral reform the LibDems are less in favour of that principle than the larger parties are. The LibDems were always clear that they would only seek to revoke if they achieved a majority government, which would have satisfied that test. It may have been a bad move politically, mainly due to inviting accusations like yours, but it wasn't in itself anti-democratic.The Lib Dems’ positions of unilaterally reversing a democratic vote … mean they are better thought of as centrist authoritarians.
Indeed not. But Mr Cameron's £9m pamphlet explained to the electorate what life would be like under a "reformed" EU which presumably he was seeking to renegotiate. In fact no such animal existed nor was it ever likely to. It was not (and still is not) at all clear that the UK would be exempt from any attempts at further integration. On the contrary it seemed to be emphasised during the Cameron "renegotiations" that we'd got all we were going to get and that the days of "opt outs" and "exemptions" for any member were gone. That's why he returned with far less than the very little he asked for.Reform of the EU is not what was being discussed, it was our supposed further integration, which, as you have shown, we don't have.
It was not (and still is not) at all clear that the UK would be exempt from any attempts at further integration. On the contrary it seemed to be emphasised during the Cameron "renegotiations" that we'd got all we were going to get and that the days of "opt outs" and "exemptions" for any member were gone.
“It is recognised that the United Kingdom, in the light of the specific situation it has under the Treaties, is not committed to further political integration into the European Union. The substance of this will be incorporated into the Treaties at the time of their next revision in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Treaties and the respective constitutional requirements of the Member States, so as to make it clear that the references to ever closer union do not apply to the United Kingdom”
Indeed not. But Mr Cameron's £9m pamphlet explained to the electorate what life would be like under a "reformed" EU which presumably he was seeking to renegotiate. In fact no such animal existed nor was it ever likely to. It was not (and still is not) at all clear that the UK would be exempt from any attempts at further integration. On the contrary it seemed to be emphasised during the Cameron "renegotiations" that we'd got all we were going to get and that the days of "opt outs" and "exemptions" for any member were gone. That's why he returned with far less than the very little he asked for.
Yep.It was a major tactical error for Cameron to suggest "renegotiation" in the first place. It was clear from the start that he wasn't going to get much and that the Mad Brexiteers were going to rubbish whatever he came back with anyway.
The principle in the UK is that a manifesto commitment of a party that wins a majority is regarded as the will of the people, although ironically with their commitment to electoral reform the LibDems are less in favour of that principle than the larger parties are.
Better start your own, then. What would your policies be?
I honestly don't know anyone with any compassion, with a heart, with even a ounce of morality can vote Lib Dems or Tories.
They aren’t in favour of that principle at all which is the problem they have when promising to overturn a direct answer to a referendum.
So, out of interest, if the LibDems policy had been something more like, that they would revoke Brexit, but only if they formed a Government and also won more than 50% of the votes in the election, would you regard that as democratic and OK?
Except it's not a "normal" debt. If you don't earn enough money, you don't pay it back. It should really be renamed as "graduate tax": 9% of your income above £25000.Imagine this: you're a student, having to pay £9k a year to get a degree in order to get a decent job. You're burdened with nearly £30k or more of debt over your working like.
Or, paid less than the minimum wage because you "don't understand how money works".Imagine this: You're disabled. You suffer from something such as arthritis or another problem that is similar. Some days you can't even hold a pen, let alone walk 5 yards. Every 5 years you are subject to a humiliating assessment by a company such as Capita, when you risk losing your personal independence payment because someone who does not understand your condition thinks you're fit to work.
Or, paid less than the minimum wage because you "don't understand how money works".
That's a real thing Sally Ann Hart advocated and defended. She is the Conservative candidate for Hastings & Rye.
https://mobile.twitter.com/HastingsInPress/status/1202954158518816768
I read things like this from Labour supporters so often and it drives me further and further away from ever identifying as one again. How can you possibly think that so many of your fellow citizens are devoid of morality or compassion? How can you possibly think you have the monopoly on righteousness?
I read things like this from Labour supporters so often and it drives me further and further away from ever identifying as one again. How can you possibly think that so many of your fellow citizens are devoid of morality or compassion? How can you possibly think you have the monopoly on righteousness?
I read things like this from Labour supporters so often and it drives me further and further away from ever identifying as one again. How can you possibly think that so many of your fellow citizens are devoid of morality or compassion? How can you possibly think you have the monopoly on righteousness?