holystove

6 minutes ago, RPG said:

Initial data coming from the B737 crash shortly after take off from Imam Khomeini International suggests this was not an engine failure. The climb gradient was initially normal and data then stopped abruptly. It is usual in the event of an engine failure for the climb gradient to shallow off and it is almost unheard of for data transmission to cease unless the failure was either immediate and catastrophic, or possibly wilful.

This doesn't automatically mean it was shot down of course but I think reasons other than engine failure are likely. Hopefully, they will be found to be of a technical rather than a terrorist nature.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51044996

Another Boeing goes down.   Do you fly Boeings (the 737 MAX perhaps?) ?  Any difference in safety with Airbus planes?

On 27/12/2019 at 11:36, MikeO said:

New peer Zac Goldsmith seems to have had a change of heart since 2012....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50868906

 

Reading up in this... So he stood for re-election, was rejected by the people and was then made a 'lord' so he could continue in government, ie rule the people that rejected him.

To pick up an old theme: who do you have to vote for to get rid of Zac Goldsmith?  

39 minutes ago, Matt said:

This will only hurt his ego, though he’s that delusional he’ll probably take it as a good thing. It’ll certainly help his election chances further, it’s solidifying the divide and his supporters will only see this as the left trying to make waves rather than what it actually means. 

1 hour ago, Bailey said:

Labour shadow cabinet look like they are gearing up to appoint one of their own to be the new leader in Rebecca Long-Bailey with the possibility of Burgon as deputy. 

I find it completely demoralising that they would rally behind her when you have someone like Yvette Cooper in the backbenches who is 10 times the politician of those two idiots put together.

Jess Phillips would eat Johnson alive every single PM's questions.

8 minutes ago, Matt said:

True, but this time the democratic process was actually followed, even if it was mutated because of the key issue. 

Yes the conservatives won a clear majority within the system, not disputing that.  I was just having a dig at John who always rails against the undemocratic nature of the EU. 

1 hour ago, johnh said:

Assuming Brexit now happens, Remainer's do have a major consolation.  At least they now know that 'democracy' has prevailed.  We came very close to destroying it.

Conservatives got 358 on 43.6% of the vote. Labour and Lib Dems got 214 on 43.8% of the vote.

Labour + LibDem + SNP + Greens + Plaid Cymru + Sinn Fein + SDLP + Alliance = 52,2% of the vote.  A majority of people voted for parties which opposed the Brexit deal and were pledging to put it back to the people in a second referendum.

etc.  etc. 

There is one thing I don't understand.  All those Tories who believe a hard brexit will damage the UK, but will still vote Johnson because they fear Corbyn will do more harm to the economy.  How can these Tories not understand that a hard brexit would do much more harm to the UK economy than a Corbyn-led minorty government could ever do?

Looking at it from this side of the Channel, there are two possible outcomes:

* Tory majority : withdrawal deal passes, much more difficult phase two starts which either crashes at the end of 2020 or lasts for multiple years.

* Labour-SNP-LibDem coalition, in which SNP will get its indyref, LibDem will get their second referendum, but there is not a chance in hell Corbyn will get his "gigafactories".  At most, UK will be run like the average EU country with a socialist government in power.

I would just go with this : https://tactical.vote/

14 minutes ago, Matt said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50079385

May also got her deal agreed with the EU.  Key question is, will it pass the House of Commons?

1 hour ago, Formby said:

Are the eurozone and EU really completely unconnected? The political left in the UK thought the EU was to blame for what happened in Greece. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/14/left-reject-eu-greece-eurosceptic). Corbyn, himself, (https://www.markpack.org.uk/153744/jeremy-corbyn-brexit/) has been highly critical of the EU's position, and their environmental policies / ridiculous farming subsidies trashed (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture). It's not all rosy.

On what happened in Greece they are certainly unconnected.  What happened in Greece was the fault of Greece. How it was handled afterwards is the fault of the Troika (which includes the IMF), the inherent weakness of the euro-structure and the Eurozone ministers playing hardball.

I'm not trying to make the point everything the EU does is by definition good (farming subsidies being one example).  My point is that, overall, regarding economic growth, protection of consumers and civil liberties, it has been beneficial to every member state to increase international cooperation and the EU is, and has proven to be, the most effective vehicle to achieve this.

31 minutes ago, RPG said:

From the Right of Centre (but certainly not extreme right wing) Daily Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1325398/Euro-court-outlaws-criticism-of-EU.html

I tend to ignore your posts as most of what you write is just trolling unworthy of response.  But once again, when you finally do give a source for your various claims, it falls wide of the mark.   Here is the actual judgement https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:61999CJ0274&from=NL   Your source is a comment piece by an anti-European (Ambrose Pritchard Evans) in a newspaper whose opinion-section has been a joke on matters EU for many decades now.  You'd be a lot better informed if you looked at the primary sources rather than what you get from the Express, Leave.eu and the Telegraph.

"Pro-Europe but anti-EU" is another one of those ...   The EU is the polticial, legal and institutional manifestation of the deepest cooperation among European states and their peoples.  That's what you are against.   So what are you pro?  The alps?

2 hours ago, TallPaul1878 said:

Don't you think we have been trying that for the last 30 years or so?

We have tried many times to make compromises and reforms but ultimately there are too many cooks spoiling the broth. The big 3 of Britain, Germany and France all have different ideas for what they want out of the Union. With France being the most federal minded and Britain the least. Germany appears to be kinder towards a federal Europe but more aligned with Britain economically than the French.

The Scandinavian countries all have their own ideas and so do the more Eastern European nations. It seems the southern states who have had histories of dictatorships are happy with a federal union but economically it isn't working for them.

As a concept it has failed. These countries have diverse economies and are shackled by the EU and their stipulations. I understand that the world has become global and China is a looming threat, as are the USA. I don't believe we can operate as individual isolated nations and that Europe needs to remain united, however the instrument of the EU itself doesn't work for me in my opinion and needs to be torn down and rebuilt in a way that works for each member state.

Just like every other EU member state, southern EU has benefited massively from EU membership, massively.  Not just economically, but in their struggle to transform from autocracies into modern liberal democracies (look up the data on Spain in particular, it's spectacular).  I think you are confusing EU membership with eurozone membership, which is more tailored to the rich eurozone members and has not been a success for the southern states from the 2008 financial crisis onwards and has resulted in high (youth) unemployement.  

"Shackled by the EU and their stipulations"?  How can you be shackled by a harmonized rule?  Trade, in general, is more free between EU member states than it is between States of the USA!  Again, I think you are confusing  EU and the Euro (which does come with strict rules).

As an economic partnership, the EU is an unparalleled success.   For most eastern European nation, it has however also been the liberal values (rule of law, human rights, ..) that made them aspire membership.  It may seem self evident in our rich Western European world, but Spain, Greece, Romania, Estonia etc all have very recent experiences with autocratic rule.  The EU acts as an important barrier to a return of those times; this is a big reason so many Eastern European nations that are not yet a member desperately want to join.

Noone knows how the EU will evolve.  The last treaty (Lisbon) actually reinforced certain intergouvernmental areas, which you seem to favour, as an answer to the Dutch and French rejecting the (integrationist) Constitutional Treaty.  Each crisis point has guided the EU in a particular direction and noone can predict the next turn but as a concept it has definitely not failed, to the contrary, it is being mirrored all over the planet (African Union, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, ... ).

Apologies for the long post, but I saw your last couple of posts and the upvotes some of them got so I wanted to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings which were stated as facts.  There is a big difference between being a member of the EU and of the eurozone.  The EU has benefited all members.  The eurozone has, after 2008, primarily benefited the rich members.   The euro as a way of taking away a barrier to trade (different, fluctuating currencies) has been a success, it has however not been effective as a fiscal tool because too many competences remained with the members, rather than being centralized.  Advocating a deconstruction of the EU would create similar problems. 

To make it more concrete, I think you'd struggle to identify the EU rule that is a constraint on member states and which would be better handled in 28 different ways. 

Conservative party is looking for an intern to support its MEPs in the European Parliament. Starting November 1st, for 6 months. 

http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=72853

Yeah, definitely leaving on October 31st

Good to know length of extension is already decided.  'Definitely leaving on April 30th 2020', it is.

1 hour ago, johnh said:

In a democracy, the only body to hold a government to account is the electorate. An unelected judiciary is only one position short of an army in terms of unsuitability.  As for your idea of democracy Mike, the country is now run by an unelected judiciary (of eleven remainers), an unopposed  Speaker, an unelected EU Commission and a load of MP's who ignore the manifesto's they were elected on.

This is wholly incorrect John.  Parliament has the constitutional duty to hold government to account.  What the UK Supreme Court did was to hand power stolen by the executive back to parliament.  They took no stance on Brexit; they only, unanimously, asserted the rule of law and separation of powers.   To frame this in terms of unelected remainers is irresponsible and very damaging to the liberal values that made the UK so great.

holy crap. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261

It is now a fact that a prime minister with no electoral mandate or majority tried to unlawfully suspend parliament.  

(and yes this in the right thread)

54 minutes ago, johnh said:

Steve, you say 'give me the status quo and get back to how things were a few years ago'.  That's the problem with the EU Steve, there is no 'status quo'.  It is a continuously evolving body.  The real problem is that they never produce a manifesto.  All the decisions are behind closed doors by the unelected elite in Brussels.  Just one example:  If your 'status quo' is the date of the referendum, the EU were lying through their teeth that there were  plans for an EU Army.  Even Britain's Deputy Prime Minister was saying an EU Army was a 'fantasy'.  We all know different now.

wait .. we do?

Someone made a post on here linking research that concluded the S*n boycott helped to cut Euroscepticism in Liverpool.

Over the weekend, the former Europe correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, David Rennie, gave some insights into how his paper goes about covering Brussels:

"As one of Boris Johnson's successors as Telegraph Brussels correspondent from 2005-2007, I fear Sir Max is being too easy on the role his paper played in establishing the idea that Europe has only foolish and bad ideas, imposed on a hapless Britain.  I inherited Boris's office, with its fine view over a Brussels park and lake, and his assistant who told adoring tales of her scallywag boss.  I also inherited a beat predicated on the idea that stories about the EU did not have to be wholly true as long as they were funny.  I wrote at the time that UK journalism felt like school bullying and the EU was the kid in the playground with glasses who had to be punched, because it never fought back and deserved it.  I should say I had some fine Foreign desk editors, who let me knock down flase stories, but it felt like swimming against a tide.  Two small stories, then I'll stop.  I once asked for a briefing about a project to connect national databases of asylum applications.  A patient EU Commission official explained how real-time maps could now be shared with governments.  I rang London and was told to speak to the home news desk.  I explained the scheme to the editor on duty.  He was sincerely baffled. "But that's helpful to the UK", he said. "Yes," I said. "It sounds sensible," he went on, audibly at a loss at what to do with the story.  It was buried.  Last story.  Shortly before my move to The Economist in 2007 I was rung to be told that the Telegraph was closing its Brussels staff bureau and wanted me to move to Paris as Europe editor.  I argued for keeping an EU staff job, though I already knew I was off. I reminded my then boss that an op-ed colleague Simon Heffer had that week written a column comparing the EU threat to Nazi Germany. "Don't you think our readers should have a correspondent here to explain what such an institution is actually doing?" I asked.  My then boss told me: "Telegraph readers hate the EU so much they don't want to read about it." This was the logical end of years of unserious, unprincipled, lazy polemic. Europe's wickedness was established as a feeling, a delicious channeling of contempt and rage. Facts didn't matter because the EU didn't sue and if Eurocrats complained that proved the UK press was doing something right.  Boris Johnson didn't invent that journalism, but he and Sir Max put it on page 1, week after week, forcing others to compete, and changing UK debate."

Eye-opening, though unsurprising.

This is unbelievable.  The first clip shows him lying for something he prepared for, the second one lying answering something unexpected. 

How could anyone vote for this person? 

This is informative by the neutral, government funded, think-tank "The UK in a changing Europe" :

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/UKIN-No-Deal-Brexit-Issues-impacts-and-implications.pdf

5 minutes ago, RPG said:

That depends on whether you call May's WA Brexit or not. It certainly wasn't what we were told we were voting for so it was (quite rightly imho) rejected three times because it left us under the control of EU via, inter alia the Backstop.

Brexit means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  May's deal may not be what you think you were told, or what you specifically voted for, but you can't presume this extends to 17.4m people.   May's deal would have taken you out of the EU and would have effectively ended freedom of movement  (a lot of people would say immigration concerns were one of the major driving forces behind Brexit).

One thing is for sure, you certainly weren't told you were voting for 'no-deal'.

4 minutes ago, johnh said:

The Gauke's and Hammond's of this world will vote against any Brexit deal (as will all arch-remainers) which is why May's deal was voted down three times. They don't want a deal of any description, they want to remain in the EU.

They tried to achieve remaining in the EU, by voting for the only available way to leave the EU?  That is strange reasoning.

Is it true that if the right wing of the conservative party had voted for May's deal, it would have passed?  Were there enough Labour members to offset the DUP voting against?

If so, how are they getting away with saying people like Gauke, Hammond, etc are frustrating Brexit?  It is the right wing tories (currently in government) that have stopped Brexit from happening thus far by voting against it three times.

4 hours ago, RPG said:

What is dangerous about the extreme left is that it drives businesses, entrepreneurs and money out of the country. It causes high inflation, high interest rates, high taxation, high unemployment, strikes and riots. The last left wing government we had in the 1970's  (nowhere near as extreme left wing as Corbyn) had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a loan after they had spent all the taxpayers money and more. I call that very dangerous.

You choose to look at Liverpool not the entire country. The fact of the matter is that we put almost £2 into EU for every £1 we get back. I can agree (and would enthusiastically advocate) that more government spending, post brexit, in Liverpool is a good idea but the absolute fact of the matter is that UK will have far more £ to spend on UK post brexit than it does at the moment.

That's a bit tough on Corbyn as a lot of people would call that an accurate description of Brexit.   Today your PM tried to make a speech in front of 10 Downing Street but was drowned out by chants of "stop the coup", while yesterday one of his Cabinet said government wouldn't automatically respect laws passed by Parliament, which the PM himself suspended to push through his policies.  I'd say Corbyn can't be much more disruptive to the economic and social cohesion in the UK.

I'm all for being upbeat about Brexit (I hope it all works out for the UK and EU), but at some point its time to face reality.  The UK is a services based economy (80%); there has never been an FTA between two countries (or blocs) that covered services in any meaningful way. Countries are not waiting in line to do a trade deal with the UK; to the contrary numerous countries are refusing to roll over their EU deal for the UK (until they see what the EU-UK relationship will be) or offering worse terms. Only Trump seems interested as it is his policy to support anything that weakens the EU (which Brexit definitely does). Even the most ambitions FTA with the US will only add 2% to GDP (as opposed to the massive drop from leaving your primary market).  The UK is fifth in per capita contributions to the EU, but the anual beneftis from EU membership (increased tax take, membership numerous agencies, horizon programmes, etc) far outweigh the cost. etc. etc. etc.

Brexit might be a good idea in the long run, who knows.  But you can only get there if people aren't deluded but rather up front and honest about the consequences of a crash out Brexit and realistic about the (short to middle term) future. 

Brexit really is Syriza for slow learners 

1 hour ago, Chach said:

...

Does anyone east of Germany have any political clout?

Yes they do.  But as they don't care about Brexit they're not spending any political capital on it.

2 hours ago, Chach said:

 

Imagine a political campaign run by a leader on the basis of "we will create 100,000 new jobs and grow the economy" with a caveat added that they may create no jobs and no growth, its fanciful to expect politicians to offer up the worst case scenario, and you know what, lets just for once in the whole debate give the voters some agency.

 

I disagree with that comparison.  A more apt one would be:

Imagine a political campaign run by a leader on the basis of "we will create 100,000 new jobs and grow the economy".  Then after he has won on that message, he actively pursues the opposite while still claiming a democratic mandate. 

Do you think Leave would have won if the prominent Leavers had said before the referendum what they did after?

38 minutes ago, Palfy said:

But if we are not to stay in then it has to be a no deal. 

The thought of a half way house fills me with more dread than a no deal, stay or go and nothing in between because the in between will benefit the EU and hurt us. 

I see your point, but Norway and Switzerland are in a half way house and both were presented by prominent Leave campaigners as models for the future EU-UK relationship post Brexit.