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Blah Blah

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  1. Yeah and changing local demographics has nothing to do with that right? Millions of people moving south over the past 30 years to get jobs has had nothing to do with it also right? And I challenge you to prove that any electrician will work for ?20 a day. Total crap from start to finish Uncleglen.
  2. Being a vegetarian, the idea of eating anything from a chopping board, that might normally house a dripping steak horrifies me.
  3. And you already posted that nonsense on another thread. If workers want to protect rates of pay, they need to unionise and take on employers. It's not the Pole or the Turk (and there are lots of Turkish people already living and working here btw) who set rates of pay, but the employer in a buyers market. Lots of people have been laid off only to see their old jobs readvertise at lower rates of pay, often employing younger people, who are cheaper to employ as well. So they EU are shafting working people are they? Workers have the following protections because of the EU; Health and safety at work: general rights and obligations, workplaces, work equipment, specific risks and vulnerable workers. Equal opportunities for women and men: equal treatment at work, pregnancy, maternity leave, parental leave protection against discrimination based on sex, race, religion, age, disability and sexual orientation. Labour law: part-time work, fixed-term contracts, working hours, employment of young people, informing and consulting employees. Individual EU countries must make sure that their national laws protect these rights laid down by EU employment laws (Directives). And then of course there's the people kept in jobs by the ?200bn of exports to the EU annual. Yeah right, whatever has the EU ever done for working people.
  4. Strong words yes, but given that homes sold under RTB haven't been replaced and people needing those homes have increased I'm just baffled that anyone would think the council should sell them one of those homes so that they can extend theirs! I don't mean to offend Lenka, but Southwark currently has a waiting list of 15,000. Every home is needed and Southwark are building new homes. But Jeremy is right, you can make a request, but it's unlikely Southwark will sell.
  5. These were points made on Question Time, especially in reference to services. And that we currently have 53 trade deals in place, all of which would have to be renegotiated. The more I hear from both sides on this, the more apparent it becomes to me that the whole thing would be a mess to sort out, which could take years, and in the meantime UK business and jobs would suffer to some degree. But at least now the debate is moving on to detail instead of single issue soundbites on things like immigration.
  6. Yes, only a council tenant can buy the council property through RTB. The council will say no to your request to buy. It would be a bit like someone knocking on your door and saying, I like the look of your house, sell it to me! You'd say no, so why do you think you even have the right to ask the council to sell any property they own to you?
  7. Only if we leave the EU completely. Having any kind of trade deal will mean still accepting the free movement of people, as it does for Norway and Switzerland.
  8. Not sure that is true Nigello. There are many points in history where invasion dramatically changed the landscape far more than anything we see now. Infrastructure is the job of government to maintain. If you have sucessive governments that are reactionary, rather than visionary, invest little in infrastructure and services etc, then you get into trouble. Every government since the 80s has known about the increase in life expectancy, has seen increased levels of people living alone and the fragmentation of families, seen the economy become more and more south east centric, and has done little to plan for it, because they believed the free market should solve these problems. The free market doesn't care about anything but profit.
  9. 'Why do you need permission to take a picture, on a private road or not?' You can only legally take pictures on private land with the permission of the landowner.
  10. This is true, but it's also worth pointing out that every wave of migrants has faced animosity since the dawn of time.
  11. The article is a little out of date Louisa, we now pay 7bn more than we get back, not 10bn, but interesting all the same. I still think the most likely deal would be along the same lines of Norway, Switzerland etc and that would place us around 20bn worse off.
  12. ???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > er, no. we'd have a single trade agreement with > the EU like other countries do; and that would be > rushed through by the big beast of Europe as we > are a massive importer of their products and we > run a trade defeceit with them; it would be put > through pretty quickly. No we don't. We have 50 different trade agreements, all of which would have to be renegotiated. And here we go again, this delusion that we are somehow special, more special than Norway and Switzerland.
  13. I think a starting point is demographics. During the 50s and 60s, we had the Malthaus Pyramid theory. We could pay for a welfare system, NHS etc because the proportion of those of working age was more than double the no of people over 65. We also had near full employment with good average rates of pay compared to living costs and higher taxes. The post war boom is probably the only golden period in those terms. And we had immigration then, to fill the jobs surplus and to make sure the working population was high enough to support the rest. Today the proposition is very different. There are almost as many people over 65 as there are in full time work. There were two reasons why New Labour were pro immigration. One was to increase the tax paying workforce, and two was becuse of skills shortages, especially in construction and the NHS. That seems odd doesn't it when we have so many adults of working age not in employment? Skills shortages and too few people of working age in work, are in some ways different problems. And both come from a lack of forward planning. In terms of economics, we have moved from a long term economy to a short term one. With that comes reactionary politics, rather than visionary. It can also be argued that part of the success of the NHS is in the improved health and lifespan of the nation, but those three million extra over 75s (since the 60s) are in turn pushing up the cost of the NHS. We have two options. Either we get the number of people in work up, wages up, and tax receipts up, to restore the Malthaus Pyramid, and that means increasing population along with other things, or we reduce the cost of the welfare state, with all the consequences that brings. The other option is to increase taxes of course (not a popular one with voters). Immigration has huge benefits. But it has become the scapegoat for deeper economic issues that are more to do with changing demographics and the rise of competition from a global economy.
  14. But you miss the core point ???? which is that we won't be able to do single trade deals with individual EU countries, we would have to go through the existing EU treaties on trade deals. If we couldn't agree terms with the EU then we'd refer to the World Trade Organisation tariffs. Either way we will have tariffs to pay, reduced membership costs, and be required to adopt a third of EU regulations. Sheff, your figures are interesting and pretty much in line with what economists estimate would be the extra costs on exports (of between ?18bn and ?50bn in tariffs). You also illustrate perfectly why some aspects of that business would relocate to within the EU to avoid those tariffs.
  15. That a fair point. I found that poll interesting because it broke down aspects rather than just the straight in/out question. The big unknown are the undecideds and whether they will in the end stick with what they know rather voting for change (which is what tends to happen in elections). We shall see in June.
  16. Also there are only two ways that private land owners can enforce no parking, and that is by fines and PCNs (clamping is no longer legal) or by physically restricting access by gate/ lock/ barrier. So if the landowner wants to enforce unauthroised parking/use, the only option they have is to hire a parking enforcement company/gate keeper. This is how commercial premises control parking on their land.
  17. Interesting polling here. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-britain-is-deeply-eurosceptic-but-will-still-decide-to-stay-says-poll-a6892086.html
  18. I think that's right ????. We need to care more about MEP elections if we want the right calibre of MEPs there. Right now we have a bunch of UKippers who refuse to participate in any kind of meaningful reform. But there are other MEPs who do. These are our MEPs in London. http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/uk_meps/london_region.html They all have monthly newsletters you can sign up to, to see what they are doing. 'The Tory 7 that are leading No and presumably fancy themselves running the country - absolutely awful.' Completely agree KirstyH - if they are the benchmark of what will come, then we should all be very worried.
  19. Network rail replied to a FOI on this road and confirmed they did not own that land. Some differing opinions here, but still no evidence that the owner of the property in question owns the road. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/designation_of_railway_rise_se22 The land registry though shows the cottages sold as freehold. But the road does not belong to the freehold of those cottages. So no owner there has any right to enforce parking. Only the landowner can do that and I think given it's a commercial landowner, they probably don't care who uses it for now. I suspect there's a bit of OCD going on. Most of us live on roads, and have people parking and coming and going outside our homes all the time. If the commercial landowner does redevelop the site, they are going to have an increase in traffic anyway.
  20. I accept that Jeremy. I think my point is more one of why people believe the things they do. It's so clear to me that a lot of people believe things about Europe without having the first clue about the economic detail. Take the myth that the EU somehow stops us trading with the rest of the world - it doesn't - but lots of people believe that, because certain people like Farage keep infering that it does. And whilst no-one can know exactly to what extent business would be affected by tariffs, we can at least look at Norway and Switzerland and make some informed stabs at it. Again, many people believe we pay too much to be part of the EU as though it is money that goes to the wind. But the same people don't know exactly how much we do pay, that half of it comes back in grants, and that membership enables ?200bn of exports every year. Too many people are making their decision based on a lack of knowledge of what actually is.
  21. Louisa, from someone who thinks only 200,000 jobs rely on those 200bn of annual exports I'll pass. Whatever my argument is, it is better informed than yours by a mile. Whether people agree with my line is neither here nor there. In debating terms though, I prefer to have a balanced view based on fact, not soundbites swallowed hook, line and sinker from the UKIP Brexit bunch. I am assuming that's where you get your ideas as you certainly haven't got them from any kind of detailed research. I'll give you just one example. The Working Time Driective was set up to protect employees from being made to work long hours. The Tories were fiercely opposed to it, the same Tories that think zero hour contracts are acceptable. You really think that if we lose the pretection of a piece of regulation like that, that this government will still apply the legislation as 'a good thing' in principle? I've shown that trading with europe will still cost us, that it will cost British business. Renegotiating 50 trade deals with Europe will take years. That we already trade with the rest of the world, like China, India, the USA, Africa, Argentina. That non EU refugeess and how they travel has nothing to do with the EU per se. That five million brits live and work in the EU. Millions of Bulgarians and Rumanians did not head to Britain when they were allowed free movement finally - something that is claimed every time a country joins the EU these days. That we have a right wing government that is not interested in workers rights, unions or the poor (all groups the EU does protect). All of those things are hard to disagree with because they reflect what is. And in spite of these robust replies to your claims you haven't challenged a single one. Why is that Louisa? It's because you can never acknowledge you post stuff that is clearly untrue. I'm still waiting for you to provide the economic data that backs your claim that only 200,000 jobs rely on businesses trading with the EU. You say stuff, get called out, and then conveniently ignore the response, going on the attack instead by labelling someone as patronising. And that is why you are impossible to have any kind of debate with.
  22. If you actually read those documents, they are formed by knowledgeable economists based on available data. You haven't challenged a single point in any of them. Whereas the one link you posted, I did read and challenge. You do contradict yourself and call foul when called out on it. It's not my fault that you fail to research your points properly. It's just too easy to find the holes. That's what happens when you engage in debate but aren't really up to it. And if you find that patronising...tough. Your lack of interest in the detail and economics of it all is down to you.
  23. I don't consider occasionally dropping someone off to be anti-social. I do consider someone verbally abusing someone and taking photos they can't legally take as anti-social behaviour though - and would report such behaviour to the police for the agressive harassment that it is.
  24. I know. That's why I gave up debating with her. A total contradiction.
  25. But that is a moot point. A vehicle is not committing any infringement by doing that.
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