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Rational and informative are big words Louisa, but you are fun to do battle with and I don't think I've ever seen you be rude to anyone.

Also, people within the UK move to where there are jobs which is why the populations of the North have decreased. I don't understand what part of that people don't get either. They are blaming the EU for things that are nothing to do with the EU but the demographic and economic strategies of our own governments.

That is completely right LondonM. The solution to housing pressure is to mass build. And we are only in that mess because of the failure to build enough over the lat 20 years. Why politicians cling to this idea that the private market alone will do it is anyone's guess. We've mass built before, and we weren't part of any EU then.

Yes there is an element of tell the people what they want to hear with elections. Watching that debate last night, it felt like a party rally for Boris, rather than any kind of balanced hustings.

And those free trade deals were done with a trading bloc of 500 million people, not a small island of just 65 million. Size of market matters in trade negotiations. You are not comparing like for like. But if you actually look at those deals, they are mainly with smaller countries, namely in South America with individual exports of less than 2bn. This is significant because there is no market competition detriment on such small levels of exports. They are deals set up namely to help poorer economies. We on the other hand export 200bn worth of goods/ervices to the EU annually, which is a different ball game altogether when it comes to market competiton.

Greece is always held up as an example of how bad things can go but as we see with Louisa, it's always to suit a misinformed world view. I do think that leavers are secretly hoping for the fall of the EU. But that would be an economic catastrophe for many smaller economies, and we all know what an unstable Europe descends into. You never hear leave campaigners trying to emplain the unemployment levels of America, India, China. Yet unemployment within the EU becomes the fault of the EU. Emerging economies are doing so on the backs of cheap exploited labour. We went through that, which is why employment legislation and protections were formed. Are we going to stay stuff all of that so we can become like China? Be careful what you wish for.

And just on tariffs. Even the WTO imposes tariffs, and there is no way of avoiding those, no way whatsoever.

Robbin, Germany is bound by the same rules as every EU member. She won't be able to do a unilateral deal with the UK on trade. We WILL be subject to the same rules as Norway and Switzerland. This is just fantasy to think we are so special that other EU members will just accept a special deal for us while they have no such deal. Clearly you have no understanding whatsever of how the EU and trading rules work.

Housing is a poor reference to make Fox. Housing shortage is not in the UK as a whole, but predominently in the South East, where the economy is centred. But that could be easily solved if we stopped selling off public housing and had a mass building programme. Governments have have 30 years to keep pace with changing demographics and have done nothing. 2.5 million people have moved south over the last 3 decades. We have had mass home building waves in the past, we can do that again. There just has to be the will from government. Also though, if government did something to help economy generate and grow in other parts of the country, people would move to other parts of the country. Don't confuse failures in national economic strategy with immigration.

He said that leaving the EU would be irreversible. Meaning that we would not be able to rejoin the EU with the concessions we already have on things like shenghen and the euro if our economy went belly up and we realised leaving was a huge mistake.

LondonM is right on fishing and agriculture. I grew up on a farm and know lots of farmers, so that is something I personally know a lot about. But I also take issue with Louisa's general view that it is the EU who are responsible for the UK's general decline in industry. Manufacturing and raw materials were already well into decline before we joined the EU. Shipbuilding is a perfect example of that. We went from being one of the worlds largest ship builders to being one of its smallest, simply because of the rise of other nations - nothing to do with the EU at all It was always going to be that other nations could provide coal cheaper, or steel. The EU actually has tried to protect those markets for its member states. The harsh reality is that we can not compete on production costs with countris that have lower costs of living for their labour. And that, if anything, is what is responsible for our decline in manufacturing. You can not have cheap goods and high wages at the same time. But this is what we seem to want.

I agree on a narrow win with the debate going on beyond too. The Tory party may well end up with Gove or Boris leading, but I don't see the promise of another referendum any time soon either.

"I get that you aren't familiar with all of this which of course is fine but its insane to simply dismiss it as speculation when these are bold face verifiable facts just because they don't dovetail with your world view." This for me has absolutely characterised my personal experiences of debating with people who are set on voting for leave.

I find it incredulous that anyone would think what happens on the stock market doesn't affect us all, esp given the history of austerity that follows every single major crash. When markets crash, government tax revenue falls, which means spending on services falls.

Quite Titch. The problem LM is that immigration has been confused with economic decline. Most parts of the country have seen local populations fall over the past 40 years as people have moved to the SE (i.e where the jobs are). Housing has even been demolished in parts of the North because there is no-one to live in it! And then if you take seaside areas like Thanet (where Farage stood) - you have areas long in economic decline having seen recent arrivals of the wrong sort of immigrants for locals liking. So the immigration issue is nuanced and wrongly blamed for things that have nothing to do with it. Governments don't mind this too much though if it steers blame away from their failure to regenerate local economies. For local economies to develop and exist of course, you need people of working age. It's no suprise to me that older people per se are backing leave whilst younger people are backing stay. Older generations are the ones who were promised cradle to grave state provision, whilst forgetting how that was going to be paid for. Younger people are used to the idea of having to pay for everything themselves, but resent shouldering the debt and responsibility for what they see as a pampered generation that had the best of everything, whilst they will have no such thing to look forward to. We really are a nation of two halves, in more ways than one.

I think that is the problem with Cameron LondonM. If he deviates from his script, he ends up offending and patronising. This is well reported about him. I do think there were glimmers of clarity we have not seen from this debate til now though. The point he made about Turkey needing to satisfy 35 qualifications for entry to the EU and having to date only satisfied 1 is exactly what remain needs to get accross in challenging Gove and Boris.

Great talk there rahrah. If only the campaign could have been built around the points Michael makes. Thanks for posting that link.

You are bang on with pompous. That's what seems to aggravate people most. I've watched QT now and didn't think he was too bad, esp on points around the three main lies of the leave campaign. Where he fell apart a little is when pressed by Dimbleby on things he was trying to brush off as irrelevant. I think that the problem with all of these tv debates is that the arguments are so polarised that those who have made their mind up one way or the other aren't really listening anymore. So the fight is for the undecideds. Those are the people that should be making up these studio audiences. Otherwise it's just a repeat of the same merry-go-round of argument. Both sides seem completely unable to deviate from that. Will be glad when it's over, but if the difference is narrow between the two sides, I think it won't go away.

I haven't seen it yet Louisa, but yes, Cameron is off putting. He's almost like a robot imo.

Don't encourage him red devil. He'll only write something disgraceful.

Hi Doodlebug. That list was posted elsewhere and it was pointed out that membership of the EU would not and does not stop corporations moving to where labour is cheapest. Any EU country can apply for grants to attract business to itself. The UK has done the same. I can't tell you how to vote, that is for to decide. There are many like you who are left bewildered by the various campaigns. There is no perfect option in leave or remain. Both results have pros and cons. I based my decision to remain on not wanting to damage UK business (and therefore the economy)(and the leave campaigners acknowledge there will be at least short term contraction). I also want employment protections to stay, and want a relationship of unity with Europe. Do things have to change? The EU is bogged down by its own bureaucracy and over regulation. I think we can play a part in reforming that. Leave campaigners argue that long term we are better off out, but we have no way of knowing that for sure. I have especially been put off by the leave campaign by the people who are fronting it and the admission that they would do away with some of the EU employment protections (but they won't say which). That is number 3 on their hit list. Number 2 is doing away with regulations put in place to regulate banking after 2008. What the leave camapigners want, is an economy even more beholden to private business than it currently is, where ordinary workers have less security and protections than ever. I also think we should be looking to our own governments for blame on many things the leave campaign is trying to blame the EU for. But those are just my thoughts.

Also postal votes have already been cast. I think the sooner it is out of the way the better. It would only be a matter of time before the tone returned to the same divisive, extreme rhetoric we have seen. Let's get it out of the way and be done with it.

Agreed. And perhaps now too, it's time for both sides of the campaign to also think carefully about the emotions they are playing on. A very sad day for us all.

Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed this afternoon by someone who allegedly shouted 'Britian First' and is in critical condition. There's an element to nationalism that isn't good - whether it is xenophobic scaremongering, hooligans using football as a front for violence, or criminals trying to murder people. We should think long and hard about what nationalism really means, and just who are the people supporting it. And let's all hope that Jo Cox recovers. Truly awful attack.

Also Louisa, those EU migrants working on farms, are doing so because those farmers can't find local people who want to do back breaking work in fields or packing factories all day. I grew up on a farm and know many farmers, so know something about this. Market garden farming has always been low paying, and before min wage regulation, was often peacemeal (ie the more you picked, the more you were paid). It also has become more mechanised in recent decades, so the amount of labour needed on farms has drastically reduced. Take a look at the machine that harvests lettuce for example! Migrants aren't flocking to areas of moderate to high unemployment. Peole in those areas who are unemployed are blaming the wrong people in thinking immigration is the reason they are unemployed.