UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
General Chat - anything Goes
>
The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
Jim wrote: "Government cannot decide what kind of Brexit we get. By definition that has to be agreed with the EU.It was with immense hubris that the government didn't put in place a plan to cope with a leave ...
To say that leave should have a plan is just silly. They're not the government, many of them aren't MPs."
Didn't stop them making promises that sounded like definitive policies though did it?
I presume if you're young but able to take advantage of visaless travel and ease of currency exchange and have experienced the continent then you were more likely to vote remain. But if you don't have the income to travel, the benefits are harder to see.If the young had really wanted Remain enough, they would have turned out in greater numbers, as usual they were at the bottom of the table for turnout by age, presumably wallowing in Somerset mud
Will wrote: "I know that some on here find it hard to understand why others hold different views and cannot comprehend communities wanting to leave the institution of the EU.I recommend everyone reads this pi..."
it's a good article but ask yourself this. The Tories have no intention of helping these communities (unless they move to riot) and Labour are incapable of helping them. Leaving the EU will not improve their situation in any significant way. So what happens next for them? They've had their kick at the politicians. I can only assume UKIP having got their way will not fade away and die but seek to displace Labour as the party of the white working class and become the second largest party in England/ what's left of the UK.
And can anyone explain to me what "we want our country back" actually means? Who should they want it back from, low paid workers (who happen to be from different countries) or the politicians who do nothing to improve social and economic conditions for these communities citing austerity, while blithely not collecting the just revenues from corporations?
That's tarring millions of young people with the same brush too.It is tempting to play the what-if game. What if people had known that the £350 million promise was a lie? What if people had known that Remain wasn't going to win? What if people had known that Boris wasn't offering to do anything about immigration? What if people had known that the markets would crash? Or that the other EU countries aren't going to give us the cushy deal that the Leave campaign promised? What if Hodgson had brought Rashford on sooner?
The fact is that this referendum produced a result. A narrow result based on a pack of lies, but a result all the same.
All of this will now have to be exposed. The Leave campaign have an awful lot of explaining to do. There will need to be a new Government and, in all likelihood a general election and a referendum on the format of the Brexit. The decision to leave would have to be ratified by Parliament.
If everyone knows the truth and we still decide to Leave, then that's that. No point in worrying about what might have been.
Will wrote: "That's tarring millions of young people with the same brush too.It is tempting to play the what-if game. What if people had known that the £350 million promise was a lie? What if people had known..."
There were lies and scaremongering on both sides Will - and we were told time and time again about the £350 million lie. However, we are not all the silly little airheads you seem to think we are - we are quite capable of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. My decision was based on my own experience of the world and my own thoughts on travel, immigration, jobs and the economy. I may or may not have made the right decision -but it was one I made for myself and only time will tell - when all the hoo ha has died down, whether I think still think I was right or not.
Will wrote: "That's tarring millions of young people with the same brush too.It is tempting to play the what-if game. What if people had known that the £350 million promise was a lie? What if people had known..."
the stats show their age group to have the lowest turnout. How is that tarring them? And their vote seems to have been split and not just all pro-Remain. I have twin 18 year olds. One voted Remain(and is steaming about the result), the other Leave. He wants his Britain back. Though exceedingly bright & having done Politics A-Level, when challenged on what that means, I'm afraid what he trots out is unconvincing to my ears.
And I bet he sighs at your lack of comprehension.
T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "There were lies and scaremongering on both sides" Really? I didn't see any serious Remain lies or scaremongering. To be honest, I thought Osborne's threat of an emergency budget was a tad on the pessimistic side, but it was based on an IFS study and it was within the confidence limits of that study.
But nothing like the porkies like the £350 million a week figure or the back-pedaling on immigration. Do you have anything in mind from the Remain campaign that I might have missed?
B J wrote: "And I bet he sighs at your lack of comprehension."he doesn't sigh he rather relishes the verbal combat, though he does think me a ridiculous old leftie-liberal
No Remain scaremongering? How about Boy George projecting 14 years ahead to say that families would be £4000 p.a. worse off? The Treasury can't get its 12 months forecasts right.
Will wrote: "T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "There were lies and scaremongering on both sides" Really? I didn't see any serious Remain lies or scaremongering. To be honest, I thought Osborne's threat of an emerge..."
Will, again I state that I am a Remain supporter, but the Remain campaign contributed to the defeat. Whether they were lies or not, and let's face it their predictions for the consequences of a Brexit could be made with little more confidence than the claims made by Leave because we just didn't (and still don't) know. But the Remain campaign indulged in project fear just as much as Leave and tried to spook people blatantly in areas ranging from pensions to foreign holiday costs. Many people felt they were being bullied and therefore opted not to listen to any statistics and numbers but react and yes I use the word again, viscerally with contempt for the politicians.
Leave indulged in nonsense like the EU army, Turkey joining the EU, £350 million for the NHS, and that infamous poster with the long line of refugees.Not to mention the whole "We are getting sick of experts."
Remain didn't embark on anything anywhere near that.
If we tell enough young people that it was old f**ts like us who voted leave then that's what they are going to believe. Do we really want another fracture in society?
And there's more!
I'm probably just as p****d off by the result as anyone else. But I'm even more upset by the mud slinging from both sides of this seemingly unbridgeable divide.
Will we have a D Trump style wall with Europeans on one side and English people on t'other?
I think we have to stop moaning about what is done and try to find a way to deal with it.
If not that, then what?
B J wrote: "No Remain scaremongering? How about Boy George projecting 14 years ahead to say that families would be £4000 p.a. worse off? The Treasury can't get its 12 months forecasts right."This is the Treasury analysis which was the basis for the £4,300 figure:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads...
It explains in detail how the figure was calculated and the different scenarios that were examined. It is an authoritative and carefully worked out assessment. I can't claim to have read every word, but it is well worth reading the exec summary (say up to about page 12).
Compare and contrast with the £350 million a week figure which was calculated on the back of a fag packet and left on the side of the bus long after it was discredited.
Of course, no-one can accurately predict the economy 12 months in advance. It's a dynamic system which is subject to too many external factors. But that isn't an argument to ignore research like this.
The trick that the Leave campaign pulled was to get the public thinking that both sides were the same when it came to research and evidence. They weren't. The Remain campaign had the full strength of the Treasury behind them and were able to produce credible forecasts.
The whole "we're getting sick of experts" line was a con trick, perpetrated by the side who couldn't get any experts to back up their claims.
As far as the economic forecasts are concerned this should be read. The £ 4300 figure was quoted as fact, and presented as a cash loss to the pocket, rather than an estimated possible reduction in growth by 5 years time. A bit of honesty there would not have gone amiss, would it?https://fullfact.org/economy/leaving-...
Will wrote: "T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "There were lies and scaremongering on both sides" Really? I didn't see any serious Remain lies or scaremongering. To be honest, I thought Osborne's threat of an emerge..."
His emergency budget was meant as a threat - plain and simple!
Will wrote: "As far as the economic forecasts are concerned this should be read. The £ 4300 figure was quoted as fact, and presented as a cash loss to the pocket, rather than an estimated possible reduction in ..."The £4,300 figure was presented in the context of the Treasury report which generated it as an estimate of the impact on GDP. The cost per family was given to put it into context so that people could understand it. Everything was honest, open and above board.
Here's an extract from the report you linked:
"Most studies predict that these negative effects will exceed the benefits of not having to pay the EU membership fee.
But economists do not agree how big the effect would be
There are at least twelve studies that predict a negative effect on long-term economic growth, but their estimates range between a potential loss to growth of -0.1% and -7.9%. (Last month’s Treasury Report was toward the more negative end of these estimates)."
Yup, that seems about right. Most of the studies agreed that the cost of leaving the EU would outweigh the savings. The Treasury report was towards the more pessimistic end of the twelve reports they looked at, but it was not the most pessimistic.
In other words, Osborne was being entirely honest in the way that he reported it. And given economic losses of that scale an emergency budget becomes a necessity, not a threat.
I do believe that he slightly overplayed it, but I see no dishonesty here. And he was trying to compete with the scandalous lies from the Leave side.
if these lies were so blatant and I believe many of them were, why didn't the Remain side debunk them conclusively? Instead they ratcheted up their own shrillness to matchargghh edited, to change 'Leave' to Remain!
The Leave side couldn't debunk the Treasury figures because they're pretty reasonable estimates. We had too many organisations coming up with similar results - and they are still continuing to do so. They're forecasts and all forecasts are dodgy, but they're the best we've got.The Leave campaign couldn't compete when it came to facts so they devised a clever five point strategy:
1. accuse the Government of scaremongering no matter what they said
2. rubbish all statistics produced by anyone
3. continue using their own figures, even after they had been debunked
4. allow UKIP to come up with their own ridiculous claims without challenging them
5. try to stop the experts (like Mark Carney) from speaking by saying that they should be impartial.
Hats off to them, it was a clever strategy. Immoral and dishonest, yes, but clever all the same. Whenever the Remain campaign called them out, the Leave side threw their criticisms right back at them.
And all the time there was this underhand message - "you don't need to listen to the experts because they're part of the establishment and you can't trust them."
sorry Will mistyped. It's been a long few days... Think I'm just going to retire for a while
Ah, now that makes more sense!I think Remain did try to debunk the Leave figures, but it all got lost in one almighty row which ended up discrediting all statistics. Quite understandably, the public threw their hands up in frustration and declared that they didn't believe any of them.
It was masterful gamesmanship by Boris and Gove. In a contest where they had no evidence and very few experts, they managed to discredit all evidence and experts. The more that Remain argued, the more the public decided that they couldn't trust any of them.
I've seen that tactic before, but rarely played so well as they did here.
Should we be concerned about bad news that's going to be buried while all this is going on?
Just don't mention the football...Oh, I forgot, you're honorary Welsh, aren't you?
Is it an honour? Yes, I suppose it is.Does that make Dave an honourary Canuck?
As you're all my friends, I'd say that makes you honourary Canucks as well.
Thank you Patti - I'm deeply honoured :-)
Sorry Will, creditable effort, but I do not agree with you.Osborne presented the figure not as an estimate but as a fact he continually repeated. If he had been honest and said:
'Here is a figure of a possible reduction in growth in 5 years time. This is based on the best estimates we can make right now without knowing any of the true figures' that would be telling the truth. He did not say any of those things, did he?
Oh, and.. ICELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marc wrote: "Didn't stop them making promises that sounded like definitive policies though did it? ..."Just because somebody campaigns doesn't mean to say you have to either listen to them or believe them. By definition campaigners are biased even if they're not lying.
In my own case I have spent a working lifetime living in and watching the EU in action. Simply by keeping an eye on things over the years. So I'd made up my mind, drifting slowly from, "Well we're probably better off in than out" to "We have to leave" over a period of twenty years. Most of the movement has been in the last five years.
I basically ignored totally both sets of campaigners because I wouldn't expect either of them to actually tell me the unbiased truth.
but do you think the majority of the population are like you making their own observations & drawing their own conclusions Jim?
I said the majority. Bear in mind Goodreads is a site for readers and a sizable number of adults in the UK wouldn't choose to read books for pleasure
I'd modify that to a sizeable number of people worldwide wouldn't choose to read to gain information.Of course, it's no longer necessary to be a reader to be well informed.
What I find distressing is the number of my acquaintances who are quite happy to parrot others' thinking rather that going to FOFO.
That's teacher speak for Fuck Off and Find Out. :D
Marc wrote: "but do you think the majority of the population are like you making their own observations & drawing their own conclusions Jim?"What we have to remember is that the political class, the BBC and the media have a vested interest in exaggerating their own importance.
They also have a vested interest in exaggerating the importance of an election campaign.
My guess is that on an issue like this, there is a large 'core vote' who aren't going to change, and comparatively small floating vote. At least for the Leave side.
It strikes me that it is not a straight education issue. Our younger generation who apparently have the best education couldn't (as a whole) be bothered to register or vote. 30% turn out or thereabouts?
It also strikes me that the migration issue is more complicated than just 'don't like migrants'. For me migration was an issue, but the issue is the incompetent way the EU actually dealt with the issue. After a short time the EU commission was largely ignored and Member States took over dealing with it, closing their borders, ignoring treaties and putting up razor wire. Not the presence of Polish relief milkers and Hungarian tractor drivers.
But for the BBC they want to report racism, the last thing they want to report is that the proles are thinking for themselves. That would clash too much with their picture of themselves as the ones who do the thinking
So yes, I would say that a great majority of the population will approach a political campaign with a picture of a world view which they've built up over the years. I've talked to farm workers, fitters in the yard and dustbinmen who at the time felt the EU was wrong in screwing Greece over. It's amazing what you discover when you're just chatting to people and slip in the occasional question like that as part of conversation.
But it means that when they approach the campaign they have canon against which to compare politicians blether.
You'll have a bunch in the middle who'll believe the last thing they were told or have given up independent thought to just 'believe' in a political party, but we've always had them and you cannot make people think for themselves
Jim - it's a nice theory to try to rewrite history, but it doesn't fit the facts. When Cameron decided to call the referendum all the polling was showing a clear advantage for the Remain argument. That's why he went when he did. You might say that was cynical games playing, and I probably wouldn't disagree. Personally, I don't think that politicians should be able to choose their moment like that.What is clear is that there was a large swing from Remain to Leave during the course of the campaign, even on the day before the campaign. Even on the night of the poll, Farage and Boris were ready with their "ungracious loser" speeches and their calls for a second referendum if it was split 52-48.
So, sure, there was a core of people who had made their mind up before the campaigns started and who wouldn't read any evidence put in front of them. On both sides of the argument.
But there is no doubt that there were a huge number of floating voters in the middle who were shifted by the campaigns. A cool, factual and slightly unemotional campaign from the Remains (sabotaged by Corbyn) and a blatantly dishonest campaign from Leave. Which is now starting to unravel.
People have built up a world view over years? Well, yes they have but it doesn't mean that it's accurate. Let's not forget that a section of the gutter press has been spinning scandal stories about the EU for many years. Most of it has been untrue - remember the myths about the EU banning bananas? And we've had Farage spinning his anti-EU and anti immigration stuff for years.
There is this great myth about "the nasty establishment is trying to screw you" and the nasty establishment could be anyone from the Govt, big business, the EU, the Tory party, the Blair/Brown labour party. The reality is very different. Most of the problems that people are worrying about are really caused by demographic change and not anything done to them by Whitehall or Brussels or the City.
The BBC are reporting racism because it's happening. Let's not try to argue it away or somehow blame the BBC for it.
Will wrote: "Jim - it's a nice theory to try to rewrite history, but it doesn't fit the facts. When Cameron decided to call the referendum all the polling was showing a clear advantage for the Remain argument. ..."Yes, and they showed a clear advantage for the remain argument at the end when the vote was counted as well
Months ago, shortly after the referendum was announced, Val McDermid was interviewed about her latest book. At the end of the interview she was asked, on the basis of her experience of recently surviving the Scottish referendum, whether she had any advice for the rest of us on what we could expect from the European campaign that was about to begin.She said that we would get months of one expert telling us something and then another expert telling us the opposite, neither being able to prove their opinion, and that at the end of it we'd just be guided by our gut feelings.
Just as Marc said in his 'visceral' post.
Except that isn't what happened. We had every expert telling us one thing and a non-expert campaign making up lies ... and some of us were guided by gut and some actually thought about it.
Oh dear. I think I've had enough of lectures from the only informed person in the group.
In Jim's post mentioning migrants is one but not the sole reason that made me vote the way I did. Its the way the EU have totally mismanaged and manipulated migration. I know I bang on about Calais but it's the closest I personally come to seeing for myself not just on selected news reports of what they want you to see. It's appalling the way people are existing there and being allowed to be exploited by various organisations. I include aid agencies in that criticism too. The official and unofficial camps all over Europe contain how many now? I don't know the numbers. Some are refugees some are economic migrants and some are criminals seeing a way to escape their country. They are exploited by organised people traffickers who are making fortunes on the backs of these unfortunate desperate people. That is the problem, When I worked I worked in international transport logistics so I had a good mix of nationalities as work colleagues and employees. Working foreigners have never worried me in the slightest as I was one myself until retirement. So the aspect of 'racism' as not liking Johnny Foreigner label is one you can stick where the sun don't shine in my case. We've lived and worked abroad, husband took a job under a Zambianisation scheme in the 70s too.
I still feel That the EU are no longer in control. They only think they are.
Touching on the lies aspect, if you look at that bus with the 350 m a week to the EU it doesn't actually say anywhere they would give 350 m a WEEK to the NHS and being married to a career nit picker and civil servant it was spotted instantly and digested along with all the other propaganda.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'd modify that to a sizeable number of people worldwide wouldn't choose to read to gain information.Of course, it's no longer necessary to be a reader to be well informed.
What I find distressing is the number of my acquaintances who are quite happy to parrot others' thinking rather that going to FOFO.
I love it and will use it at the first opportunity!! ;-)
And how is the UK pulling out of the EU going to change any of that?That kind of thing has gone on for centuries and occurs outside of Europe as well.
B J wrote: "Oh dear. I think I've had enough of lectures from the only informed person in the group."Come on, argue on the facts - not with ad hominem attacks or sarcasm. We've just taken the biggest political decision that most of us will ever take in our lives. Both sides are complaining about a lack of evidence, the lack of a plan A, let alone a plan B, or the misleading figures put out by one side or another. I strongly believe that the Leave campaign lied far more, but that's just my opinion. If you disagree, let's see your evidence.
In all likelihood we are going to have to vote on this at least once more. Tory party members are going to have to choose between Boris or someone else, probably Theresa May. Labour party members are going to have to choose between Jeremy Corbyn or someone else, possibly Angela Eagle. All will be offering different takes on the Brexit question.
Then there is a strong likelihood of an early general election, which could turn into one party offering Brexit and one party offering Remain.
And there's a chance of a second referendum, either to ask the same question again (but with more honest evidence this time) or to ask the public which of a number of deals they would want to take.
So we can't think that this one is done and dusted. That means that we need to be clear about the facts before we vote again. We need to dispel the myths and get rid of the lies - on both sides. We need to have the honest debate that we should have had in the first place.
Michael Cargill wrote: "And how is the UK pulling out of the EU going to change any of that?That kind of thing has gone on for centuries and occurs outside of Europe as well."
I don't imagine for one minute my puny vote is going to rattle the almighty EU but dissociating from their policies as a country who gives a lot of money to them might.
OK. Given it might have gone on for centuries. How old and powerful is the EU at present. They do have the power to direct the flow of migrants and the way Germany encouraged them for cheap labour is nothing to do with it? I think differently.
Love FOFO. - if I use it I might just mean Fuck off x 2 or even more - imagine it with a stutter. :o)
I note you've not replied to my post 3608.
This is my last post on this topic. I fear that repetition ad nauseam may inter alia make me lose compos mentis and resort to ad hominem remarks.We had Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, saying that leaving was 'a bad thing'. This was followed promptly by Lord King, former Governor of said bank, saying that this was unduly pessimistic and that over the long term leaving would be 'a good thing'.
We had Carolyn Fairbairn, Director-General of the CBI, saying that leaving would be 'a bad thing', closely followed by Lord Jones, former DG, saying that in the long term it would be 'a good thing'.
And so it went on. We also had Michael Portillo, for example, a passionate pro-European and someone who spends a lot of time travelling around Europe, giving a well-balanced analysis coming down in favour of leaving as he'd seen the damage that political/monetary union had done.
Jim wrote: "For me migration was an issue, but the issue is the incompetent way the EU actually dealt with the issue. [...]
But for the BBC they want to report racism, the last thing they want to report is that the proles are thinking for themselves. That would clash too much with their picture of themselves as the ones who do the thinking"
It is odd how many people on the Remain side (including the BBC reporters) want this to be all about racism. It is as though they simply cannot process the situation any other way than through that particular distorting lens of theirs.
Anyway, it was not about voting FOR the Leave Campaign (such that it was), it was about voting TO leave, and - like you say - who are the ones in control of things like migration, not the migration itself.
while it's true that the EU are not in control of many things, migration, events in the Ukraine, the swings of the global economy, what makes anyone believe that a stand alone British government could be in any more control of these factors? Global economy, instant communication & exposure, it is almost impossible for governments to exert any control (except the possibility to make things worse, often in foreign policy decisions).
David wrote: "Jim wrote: "For me migration was an issue, but the issue is the incompetent way the EU actually dealt with the issue. [...]
But for the BBC they want to report racism, the last thing they want to ..."
I don't think it's all about racism from Remain supporters. I gave several factors why I believe Brexit carried the day. But the isolated incidents that have broken out since the result are I'm afraid only about racism and small in quantity though they may be, they do seem to evidence that some people feel they now have been vindicated to express their racism openly. If they're arrested & prosecuted with the full weight of the law, then that is all we can expect.
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
The Beiderbecke Affair (other topics)The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study (other topics)
The Peasants Are Revolting (other topics)
How to Lie with Statistics (other topics)
That Old Ace in the Hole (other topics)
More...
That's not a view, that's a rant. Typical metropolitan elitist rubbish. *
"
Typical tarring of 8 million people with one brush