miga

I agree that Labour need to pull their socks up - and I happen to think the wisest thing Labour could have done now is the exact opposite of what they're doing - to come up with a *plan* for remaining (or "good as") and definitely not to have a power struggle. Show some unity, put a hand up Corbyn's jumper and make him mouth the right words like a puppet. This would have been good for the country. But I tend to think the Blairites cooked this ridiculous power struggle pre-Chilcot. Even pragmatically, they could have done exactly nothing and still come off better out of this as the Tories wriggled and squirmed post-Brexit. You're right about the smell of turd in the air.

One line of thinking is the Blairites wanted to topple Corbyn before the report came out, since the party base would never vote in those who voted for the war and against investigation (e.g. Eagle), once we get the nitty gritty. Fanciful bit of conspiracy? Remains to be seen.

I wouldn't bother with questions JoeLeg, uncleglen is here for statements only.

Is the fact there was no plan news? I highly recommend "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", a terrific book that's a decade old, written by a guy who was the Washington Post Iraqi correspondent in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. It would be the darkest comedy imaginable, were it not a true account, and were it not for the hundreds of thousands of dead.

Lordship 516 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > who program in Fortran > like it is our mother tongue - sometimes we strip > out redundant lines of code or insert routines of > our own. This made me chuckle....that's kind of what programming is.

In some sense - who cares? He was a marginal figure, at his peak his party managed 12% of the popular vote, disappeared after the election, re-appeared for the referendum, but no one serious wanted anything to do with him, so he had to front his own Leave campaign and was shunted out of any theoretical negotiating team. More bark than bite, thank goodness. As Louisa said - his only real chance is to join some breakaway Cons faction.

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Green Goose Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > The Commission, which is the Executive ie makes > all the decisions ( headed by Junker) is > unelected. > > Only if you consider the Prime Minister and the > cabinet unelected. The commission is comprised of > 1 person from each country, appointed by each > elected national government. > > Since you have no idea how the EU works, GG, > here's some unbiased reading for you... > > https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims > -brussels-bureaucrats/ > > "The Commission is perhaps the most visible EU > institution, but it is not necessarily the most > powerful and is certainly not the government of > Europe." I haven't seen a return on any of these factual rebuttals of the "faceless bureaucrats" and "unelected dictators" shtick. Anywhere. Yet people hold onto their beliefs. What I take away from this, and from the referendum, is that there is a large section of the population who are mentally incapable of processing simple information, but are very certain of their beliefs.

I have no idea if Farage is a racist - I don't see how anyone can be certain either way. He is a populist, though, and did appeal to xenophobic impulses to get votes, I don't think that's controversial. In the olden days, it is my understanding, UKIP had something of an academic anti-EU position, with libertarian guiding principles. There was an LSE academic named Sked who was the top dog. There is nothing philosophical or academic about the party anymore - it's an anti-immigration party, with the indefensible "faceless bureaucrats" shtick bolted on for legitimacy.

Factz lite.

That doesn't make any sense to me. Have you got some specific roles in mind in the EU machine that you think are unaccountable, or is it just the "vibe" of the thing? Unelected - there are elections.

tomdhu Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Give him his due. He started out 17 years ago with > a virtually zero chance of success. He challenged > the Brussels unelected elite. Elite is such a relative word. For some Dulwich College educated ex-commodities traders represent an elite, for others it's Boris Johnson retreating to his country estate for the week-end following Brexit. For you it's politicians elected to Brussels via elections no one in this country could be bothered turning up to. > He exposed the facts - like the Brussels budget > has not been signed off by the auditors for the > last 20 years. That is not a fact, that is an interpretation. You can Google it if you don't believe me.

And same guy that funded Leave.EU is funding Leadsom's campaign IIRC.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Disappears for a few months. Joins Conservative > party. Stands for election in a safe Tory seat at > next election. Wins, enters parliament, joins top > team. > > Louisa. That's what I thought too. Maybe less than a few months till the switch.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm very wary of getting into any kind of major house project or large purchase at the moment, and this is a sentiment echoed by colleagues, who are talking about whittling down debt rather than spending. That's exactly what snowballs into a larger slowdown.

I think the above use of the word "breeding" is very weird too, FWIW. A bit "Deliverance".

It's an Indian sweet. Like a kulfi. A milfy.

Depends on what you mean by move on. If you mean we ought to make the best of the pile of crap we've been handed, then yes, we'll have to.

Even if the City finds a way to survive relatively unscathed through some technical option (some kind of regulatory EU equivalence or similar), and even if the economy at large manages to escape serious long term damage, it won't be because leaving the EU wasn't objectively a terrible idea, it will be because all the promises of the Leave campaign have been unfulfilled.

Something happened between the quals and the Euros. They were scoring plenty against opposition not much worse than what they faced at the Euros. Then they choked. They're not objectively a bad team, and they're not objectively worse than Iceland, but there's a mental issue.

Relax everyone, we've got back control.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nice 100 numbers > > I am enjoying ZZTop, and am pleasantly surprised > mainly because they are playing blues rather than > Heavy Metal Their first three or so albums are all dirty bluesy boogie, the metal thing happened later. Rio Grande Mud, Tres Hombres ... if you like filth, these are good :-)

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > miga Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > James Delingpole live tweeting from > > Glastonbury.... > > > With Brexit and Jezza cancelling he must be having > a field day I was just adding a bit of flavour to the effect Jah Lush was talking about, which pretty much echoes my feelings on the subject.

Lordship 516 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > miga Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I think it was more a simile, or even just a > > histrionic comparison. > > Thank you Miga for your accurate grammar .. I > accede to the simile but not to the histrionic > comparison. It wasn't really grammar either, maybe "literary terms" is the right category. If it was grammar I wanted to pick you up on, I'd point out that the ellipsis is usually three dots :-)

I think it was more a simile, or even just a histrionic comparison.

I get it, I really do. But sometimes I feel like the shouting about the "shouty left" on this forum drowns out the actual "shouty left". OK - it's histrionic - social media is a lobotomy scene, it gets that way. But it's not the shouty left that plunged this country down the toilet on Friday, no matter how annoying they are. But when UKIP supporters or that awful person that used to be on the Apprentice or whoever shout about "champagne socialists", "feminazis", the "condescending urban left" or whatever, my skin crawls. Way to reduce the arguments being put forward to a bunch of lazy cliches. It's what your drunk racist uncle will trot out at Christmas (well, not your or my drunk racist uncle specifically) as a kind of counterpoint to all the other bollocks about immigrants and women. Yes, the "shouty left" exists, but it's not what lies at the root of this disaster. It's wallpaper. It's that socialist guy from Uni who used to bore everyone at parties. It's not what made people from Sunderland vote to fuck themselves up. And every time someone who's smart and considers their opinions says "champagne socialist" and complains about how condescending the Urban Left are to our provincial countrymen, it's an own goal. This time - the "champagne socialists" were right. But no one heard them because they were too busy being shouted down by superstition and prejudice-led politics. No one heard the facts because we're all "tired of experts" now, because "experts" are the Urban Left, and we don't like being condescended to by facts, especially if that boring guy from Uni in the Trotsky t shirt is following it up with some shouty tweets. I don't know, maybe it is all his fault. Maybe if Polly Toynbee stopped writing we would have remained.