Brexit View

[DulwichFox]

JohnL Wrote:

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> So Theresa May returns and starts going on about a

> big bell.

>

> Oh dear - has she been totally sidelined.

She should hold a Referendum

Silence the Bells or Keep the Bells.

Foxy

[Loz]

malumbu Wrote:

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> I think that this photo says it all. There should

> be a new sign saying you have just left a

> progressive modern forward thinking country.

I reckon that description might come as a surprise to even a fair few Irish people...

[malumbu]

Irish have adopted the metric system. We are still in the dark ages. Well at least we can converse with the yanks. what? The American gallon is actually four litres? Oh dear we are even further behing than them.

(I was taught metric in the 1970s - why we keep this Island mentality of protecting an unscientific system I really don't know, but the little Englanders amnongst you will be pleased no doubt) and I'll get a ton/tonne of postings.

[red devil]

I grew up knowing both systems, it wouldn't bother me if everything was metric, but I still think in imperial for some things, like my height, weight, long distances. I've never understood the hoohah about metric/imperial when buying fruit and veg as I tend to buy by quantity rather than a specific weight...

[Loz]

Back in the mid-70s, Australia had a 'metric day' when, not only did the metric system become the standard, but selling tape measures, scales, etc in imperial was not allowed. My father held onto his old ones for a while, but even he converted over within a short time.

Coming over to the UK, I found myself converting from metric for a while, but I'm now pretty happy in both systems. Though I still find dividing stuff by 16, 14, 8, etc pretty frustrating, even if it is useful for keeping my mental arithmetic up to speed.

I'm just glad I never had to do physics with the imperial system.

[JohnL]

Loz Wrote:

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> Back in the mid-70s, Australia had a 'metric day'

> when, not only did the metric system become the

> standard, but selling tape measures, scales, etc

> in imperial was not allowed. My father held onto

> his old ones for a while, but even he converted

> over within a short time.

>

> Coming over to the UK, I found myself converting

> from metric for a while, but I'm now pretty happy

> in both systems. Though I still find dividing

> stuff by 16, 14, 8, etc pretty frustrating, even

> if it is useful for keeping my mental arithmetic

> up to speed.

>

> I'm just glad I never had to do physics with the

> imperial system.

Physics degree in 1987 and it was all SI.

Some of the old textbooks used Imperial though - and it was a nightmare :)

[malumbu]

Equally conversant in kms and miles, had two grey import bikes in kms and do a lot of driving in France. A bit more clunky to to the litres per 100km (which I do find daft) to the mpg (which really we should have dropped seeing as we buy fuel in the litre, and that didn't hurt too much). Having said that apparently many like the 'how much will it cost to do a set distance'.

When I speak to cycling mates everything is by the km now. Good.

Used to work with the US occasionally on nucler stuff. What was worse is that they mixed their units. God knows how they ever managed to build a power station.

Get really peed off with air travel which sticks to the American way and worse still when BBC kow tows to them by switching to feet for heights on nature programmes for the US audience. Stuff um. That is why I like Canada and Ireland for just going for it. Got a funny response to my letter to BBC for this. And then turned Devils Advocate and wrote an angry of Tunbridge Wells about the metric system to see if they gave me a similar response.

Imperial should be left with the Daily Telegraph and the Express.

[JohnL]

not just theoretical issues.

http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

[Alan Medic]

This is some speech.

https://piie.com/newsroom/short-videos/posen-discusses-damage-brexit-british-economy

[malumbu]

A timely reminder of the nut jobs leading Labour (which is not the point of the talk, rather that there is no proper political challenge). Well that was a depressing start to the morning (or maybe a dose of reality). Be interested to hear the counterargument - it wasn't obvious to me. I like the notion that Maybot wants to return to pre-Thatcher employment controls. I don't of course like it, I like the irony.

[Seabag]

It's a sh*t storm of reality. I'm a fan of his (which currently feels like being a fan of the grim reaper) way of talking. It's clear, direct, substantial. I also agree that the greater reality is there's a strong racist correlation to this whole Brexshit debacle.

I'm currently reading this in a hotel room in Amsterdam. I'm seriously considering a move to here or Ireland business wise. We're a dead duck in the U.K. I'm an importer and exporter within Europe and U.K and by-passing the UK is looking more and more likely.

Hey ho! Brexit means Brexit which means we're fkd

[KidKruger]

UK will just become increasingly the arse-end of Europe.

Which, ironically, will get the Leave voters what they want - because no-one with any sense will want to come here any more.

[Jenny1]

He also offers a useful reminder that we have a smaller welfare system than the rest of the EU. Heaven knows what it'll be reduced to in years to come, when there's less cash to spend on it post Brexit.

And of course there's the central irony (which he alludes to) that a Tory government is carrying out a policy that it doesn't really believe in - but which fits perfectly with the long-cherished wishes of the Labour leadership. If Lewis Carroll were alive today he'd chuckle.

[Alan Medic]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-brexit-keir-starmer-single-market-customs-union-a7914761.html

So just what are Labour up to? Is this a cynical change in policy?

[Loz]

Alan Medic Wrote:

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> So just what are Labour up to? Is this a cynical change in policy?

Doing their normal Brexit policy - trying to be all things to everybody and balancing precariously on the fence. But, in effect, having no policy whatsoever.

[red devil]

Agree Loz, but at least they have distanced themselves a bit from the Gov, perhaps hoping to appeal to pro-EU Tory MPs for the upcoming Autumnal debates on the 'divorce bill', citizens's rights, and the Irish border. But of course, just as with the Gov and their recent position papers, you have to ask the question, what's in it for the EU to agree to this? All sounds like 'have your cake and eat it' again.

Although as a Remainer it was a huge relief that the election meant that May didn't have a mandate for her Hard Brexit, the problem I have with any so-called soft Brexit is that it's still Brexit, and this article questions whether that is actually a good thing...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/27/labour-soft-brexit-brexiter-eu-eea-efta.

[JohnL]

Labour is more or less stating what was in their 2017 manifesto.

"Labour recognises that leaving the EU with ?no deal? is the worst possible deal for Britain and that it would do damage to our economy and trade. We will reject ?no deal? as a viable option and if needs be negotiate transitional arrangements to avoid a 'cliff-edge? for the UK economy."

http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017/brexit

[JohnL]

One of the biggest pro brexit 'noise makers' on twitter (@DavidJo52951945) outed as a Kremlin troll. (He gets basic UK history wrong a lot and has those numbers in his name so it was always pretty obvious really).

He blocked me when I called him out.

[red devil]

David Jones, a good Welsh name..:)

[malumbu]

Going off thread a little I heard a great talk from our ambassador to the Ukraine. She get's trolled by the Russian state to the extent that she can tell what time they clock on and clock off during the working day and when it is holidays. Fair to say a nasty lot. I don't think I am saying anything that is confidential. It's all about destabalisation of Ukraine by any means

https://en.censor.net.ua/resonance/380134/this_is_what_its_like_being_an_ambassador_to_an_antigay_country_when_youre_a_lesbian

Returning to the subject funny thing that we ar promoting the benefits of joining the EU to Ukraine whilst waving bye bye.

[JohnL]

Another hammering coming up for David Davis.

You're getting sacked in the morning David.

[red devil]

Johnson taking a pasting too, people finally realising that the joke isn't funny anymore.

From The Times...

Boris Johnson is becoming the Where?s Wally? of international diplomacy. All over the world the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting yet at this time of huge global significance the foreign secretary is all but invisible on the international stage. On the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, the crisis over Saudi Arabia and Qatar or the clash between the US and China, he is irrelevant. On Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Turkey and Yemen, he is incoherent. Occasionally he surfaces briefly, like a hostage paraded before the television cameras to prove he is still alive, as he did after a visit to Libya last week, but even then he is ineffective because he has ceded all influence to others.

As the US enters an extraordinary culture war under Donald Trump, Mr Johnson remains morally ambiguous, flip-flopping between dismissing criticisms of the president as a ?whinge-o-rama? and claiming he got it ?totally wrong? in his response to the recent racial violence in Charlottesville. He made a serious strategic error in aligning himself so quickly with a divisive populist across the Atlantic who no longer even has the support of his own Republican Party.

In this country, Labour has finally joined the argument about the implementation of Brexit, but the foreign secretary is nowhere to be seen in that debate. Having fooled the United Kingdom into voting to leave the European Union, by promising that it would mean an additional ?350 million a week for the NHS, he has no realistic idea of what Brexit should entail. He suggests the policy should be to have our cake and eat it and that other EU countries can ?go whistle? for UK payments, as if this were some kind of public school game rather than a negotiation on which the future of the nation depends. Again, there is an inability or an unwillingness to think through the long-term consequences of his position ...

I?ve just spent a fortnight in America and was shocked by the number of tech entrepreneurs, hedge fund managers and political strategists I met who asked: ?Why has your prime minister appointed a fool as foreign secretary?? According to diplomatic sources, even officials at the Trump White House ?don?t want to go anywhere near Boris because they think he?s a joke?. If that seems ironic, one minister says: ?It?s worse in Europe. There is not a single foreign minister there who takes him seriously. They think he?s a clown who can never resist a gag.?

[DulwichFox]

Don't under estimate a Fool. The Fool is the best Dancer in the Troupe.

DulwichFox

[JohnL]

That "David Jones" twitter account that has so many tweets and followers on the leave side in the papers now, possibly dirty tricks.

Where there's one, I reckon there's more.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/twitter-account-suspected-of-being-part-of-russian-disinformation-campaign/news-story/709a877c4c3cee522c6290feae26a2b5

[red devil]

500...and some Dad dancing from The Fool...