UKH

UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/16/uk-austerity-has-inflicted-...

I disagree to some extent... whilst clearly unhappiness with status quo led to a vote for change, In my view it is the 30+years of constant lies and inaccuracies (i.e. long before any referendum campaigning or austerity) and UK politicians blaming Europe for their own inadequacies that has led to this shit storm.

Too many brown people in the Doctors/Schools due to EU immigration - No mention of the increased tax receipts from these net contributors not spent on services by the government, no mention of the fact that UK gov entirely in control of immigration leading to said brown people arriving

EU rules and regs are killing business in the UK - If EU didn't make the rules and regs, then the UK still will, and less efficiently due to multiple standards having to be maintained

EU stops us trading with other parts of the world - Obviously it doesn't because we do, more than that 40+ European FTAs with other countries in place etc etc

All good points

Not to mention the brown people actually *being* the doctors!

With projected demographics, austerity hasn't yet begun.

Actually I reckon the Queen is behind it all. When enthroned she had an empire and would like to leave Charles at least one 'sovereign' country

The cause of this mess is that politicians, both in the UK and EU ignored ordinary citizens genuine concerns for 40 years.  In it's simplest form that about sums it up.

Al

I disagree with the 'brown' part of what you say & imply. During the referendum a mate, who you would describe as 'brown', was complaining about schools/ doctors being over-subscribed by immigrants - I.e. from the Eastern EU. 

I don't think the referendum result was a 'racist' thing, I think it was partly an 'anti-immigrant' thing (with immigrants being perceived as putting pressure on public services - total rubbish in my view).

'anti-immigrant' is racism

Also read in the graun today that brexit came about because we have never got over WW2, and that deep within our cultural psyche is this notion of repelling the invader at all costs. I certainly think the desire amongst some politicians to leave (Enoch Powell, Tony Benn etc) was certainly articulated in terms of 'capitulation' or 'surrender'. That was from the first referendum campaign, and to me was the basis of the emotional appeal of 'take control' and all the other hollow soundbites from leave in the 2nd ref, which of course followed 30+ years of euroscepticsm from the media (print in particular) and politicians.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/16/brexit-paranoid-fantasy-fi...

Or maybe, politicians have incapable of fixing much more systemic factors. Globalisation combined with digitisation/automation, that have taken out swathes of jobs or eroded earnings potential in developed economies.  The beginnings of mass migration, and the impacts of climate change.  The concentration of assets with the wealthy or by non-domiciled tech giants. 

I think without anyone necessarily understanding why, there is that sense that the system is not working for a lot of people. If we'd seen some progressive action by the EU on these issues, we wouldn't be where we are with Brexit.  In its absence, we're reverting to parochialism and self interest - basically doing a Trump, though we'd hate to think of it like that. 

I sometimes wonder if history will prove him far shrewder than we give him credit for now. 

Al

Re 'brown' doctors (sic)

I spent a day in hospital with a lung infection 3 weeks ago. I was referred by my GP (UK Kenyan), screened by a casualty nurse (Polish), registered on a ward by an administrator (Italian), and given the full works (intravenous saline & antibiotics etc) by a Sicilian nurse, prior to being examined & signed off by a UK (Indian) Consultant and his accompanying (Croatian or Slovenian - I think) junior doctor.

Not all 'brown' - but you get the gist. I was dealt with efficiently, with kindness and courtesy and was left feeling reassured that these practitioners really knew their stuff (even though a couple looked dead on their feet).

Altogether a humbling experience.

in the course of Brexit, of course they are. Their ability to do that as part of the EU is more limited due to the level playing field (though Germany had done rather well out of it). 

Germany and Greece are on a level playing field!  Give me a break

Al

Well, Greece did lie about it's finances to get on the playing field and then did rather well in the first half until the Germans realized they were playing against the equivalent of Port Vale reserves   

hmmm, a majority of leave voters were relatively well-off elderly Tory voters and the whole EU-complaining was primarily a Tory issue. So why would austerity be the cause?

It is easier to explain the popularity of Corbyn by austerity.

I think one of the root causes of the brexit mess is British exceptionalism (both among remain and leave supporters, btw).

Austerity's over FFS!! They told us that a couple of weeks ago, it's like you have no respect for what you're being told, what the f*ck is wrong with you?

I don't know how they can expect us to believe any word they say when they're spouting shite like "austerity is over" and no one picks them up on it, "Ooooo! slightly off black jacket, with a hood!!!!"

That's a novel concept!

Totally agree! Brexit was a protest vote against the ruling class.A working class estate in New Mills turned out en masse to vote,whereas normally,about half that number would vote in British elections.So many people near destitution these days,aforced to use food banks,and it is only politics that is causing it.

I'm anti immigration and not racist. I don't give a shit about someone's colour and that doesn't determine how I feel towards them, or how I treat them or anything you seem to be trying to insinuate. Whether the net migration is white, black, brown, pink, green or a slightly blue shade of lilac with a hint of maroon makes no difference. Its just a numbers thing. P.s I'm not biting into a debate about benefits/drawbacks of immigration I just wanted to pull you up on your ignorant (and bigoted post bud 

The timing is a real shame, unfortunately it's just burried in the back pages behind the implosion of the Tory party when really there should be national outrage that things have got so bad the UN dispatched an envoy. What a brutal irony this report comes within weeks of our chancellor declaring austerity over and getting down to the business of reducing taxes for high earners. It's still the crowning glory of Cameron and Osbourne's reign that most people think they did a good job putting the economy back on track instead of the reality of using a recession as an excuse to rip the welfare state to pieces and reshape the fabric of our society in their right wing libertarian image. The UN are probably taking the same medcine as the IMF and most respected economists, Britain's doing fine surely? It's not in our nature to cause a fuss, just roll our eyes a little as we watch the disabled protest outside parliament or see yet another news story about food banks, wealth inequality, buggered public services and rising poverty. Nothing to be done really I mean they did their best surely? Their hands were probably tied with all the imigration and scroungers wrecking things for the hard working man.

I have been watching the progress of his tour with interest and looking forward to the report but i couldn't even find a news article about it on the bbc news website without googling it. Sorry Philip but the ship is sinking here and no one even noticed you stopped by to point at the hole. "It is a bit damp isn't it, oh well, nothing to be done really I'm sure it's all under control. I vote conservative because they are a safe pair of hands for the economy. Strong and stable you know."

History will prove Trump  a criminal

  Comparing the UN report and the Graniad’s summary of it to the Rowntree and IFS reports which statistics it quotes one might wonder whether Alston had been reading some alternative versions.

What bollocks, most of the recent immigrants have been white, Christian, North Europeans, virtually indistinguishable from the the majority of British people. They are the SAME race as most of us. Most people simply feel that the sheer number of arrivals is unmanageable in the what is already the most densly populated country in Europe.

 Your attitude is so typical of the high minded arrogance of the metroplotian elite that lead to the Brexit vote. "Let them eat cake"

I'm sure most people would agree with your experience but don't you think its a disgrace that the fifth largest economy in the world and one of the most developed economies at that is incapable, in an era when nearly half of all people go to university, of training and retaining enough of its own medical practitioners to staff our own health service?

Most would agree that some exchange of doctors across the world to share ideas, experience and spread best practice is a good thing but simply plundering the brightest and the best from other countries, many of which need them far more than we do, to compensate for our inadequecies is a national disgrace and frankly modern day colonialism.

We cannot go on importing more and more people into this grossly overcrowded country forever to compensate for our apparent inability to run it properly. One of the opportunities of Brexit is that it should act as a reality check to put our house in order.

How is being in the EU preventing us "training and retaining enough of its own medical practitioners to staff our own health service"? 

6th largest. We have recently been 'overtaken ' by France.

Forgive me, but have you a working definition of race that stands up in the 21st century? 

I may be wrong but I think you'll find that France and Britain exchange places pretty regularly on this measure - probably due to fluctuations in the Pound/Euro exchange rate as much as anything. 

The more relevant measure is wealth (eg GDP) per head rather than total GDP.  On that measure Britain and France rank rather lower - around 20th I think - behind smaller European countries (Norway, Netherlands, Ireland) our commonwealth friends Australia and Canada, and small rich states such as Singapore.

Martin

Oi! We have a decent reserve squad!

the problem is the politicians left or right, whatever one party says the other will disagree whether is could be good for the Country or not.  They just look out for themselves and don't give a flying fcuk for the Country.

Lies like that we were joining a common market not a common country - it’s own flag, constitution, Parliament ...

Funny how we are so exercised by Trump. The larger dangers are in Beijing and Moscow. 

So why don't you play them in the first team.........

Why spend money training home grown talent  when you can drain talent from other countries, impoverishing them in the process. 

Hmmm. Because the Chinese and Russians have always been "foreign", Americans are supposed to be "just like us". Divided by a common language, etc.

Not got one that stands up but do have one that reclines in a demure pose. Is that any use. 

The conclusion you would draw from this is that the UK is an open, diverse and tolerant country with great opportunities for migrants. Leaving the EU will not reverse any of those features, despite the hallucinatory rambles is the remainers. 

That’s a well balanced report. Doesn’t read at all like he’d made his mind up before he came. Any wonder the UN is such a discredited organisation. 1700 allegations of child abuse by UN peacekeepers. He should put his own house in order. 

I do hope you're not holding your breath! 

The real threat to diversity and multiculturalism would come from a second referendum. Bagehot in the Economist last week is fascinating. Confirms my own experience in using polls and focus groups in early noughties that immigration has been a massive underlying issue in EU politics since 2004. But elite have chosen to ignore. Great quote from a Blair speech writer about  using immigration ‘to rub the rights nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.’  Here’s what Bagehot concludes : ‘millions of people who voted for Brexit precisely because they felt their opinions were being ignored by the establishment could  be dangerously radicalisedif a second referendum went narrowly in favour of Remain.’ I think he is right but expect no one on here to agree. 

Not sure I get your point. Mine is that there is a strong streak of anti Americanism in the UK, has been for decades, especially among the liberal left that seems peculiarly blind to the real nastiness in China and Russia. 

Did the other night. A 15 yr old scored

Mine is that a lot of people expect the Russians / Chinese etc to be nasty / threatening (damned commies etc), so no surprise is expressed when they prove this to be true, whereas the Americans are all supposed to love us dearly, and it causes a shock when they find out that there is a significant cultural difference between USA and UK, and that maybe they dont love the old country as much as they are supposed to........

It is entirely possible to recognise that Russia, China and the USA are all nasty and dangerous. In different ways perhaps, but the jury is out on what order of nastiness they go in. It takes a wilful bit of non-thinking, or the hope that your audience won't think, to assume that the USA is basically OK because we think they are like us (mainly white, English speaking, love films with guns and explosions, big cars and sport). Deeply institutionalised racism, rape culture, gun fetishes and bare-faced lying might be the norm where you're from but to me they're all as foreign as they are repellent. 

I don't entirely disagree. Millions? I doubt it. A great many? Definitely. However it sounds like a slightly better put version of the old trope that is continually getting spewed out on R4 by any and every brexiteer at the moment; that a "people's' vote or second referendum is a bad idea because "it would be divisive." Well knock me down with a feather, of course it would be divisive! But, FFS has no-one noticed that Brexit is already extremely divisive? 

Funny you should bring up Moscow!

Sad that it’s beyond your comprehension that Bagehot is saying the big issue is not Brexit but the division it has revealed. We’re all ranting about the symptoms not the causes. A second referendum in his view will make matters worse. I agree. And it’s the main reason I’ve stayed on here to rant back at ranting remainers. 

Why? I’ve always said that Banks should be indicted and charged if the evidence is there. 

Attempting to discredit experts for having the gall to disagree with your lopsided world view? You've offered better posts in the past.

One of the opportunities of Brexit is that it should act as a reality check to put our house in order.

The beauty of the People's Vote is that it allows us the reality check without the undeniable damage of Brexit. What's not to like?

Obviously it would be divisive but more significant is that settling the matter is the last thing it would do. Another referendum so we 'get the right answer' would guarantee that Europe remains the most contentious issue in British politics for decades to come.

In itself EU membership does not stop us but it has created a mindset that means its is easier to rely on immigration to "solve" our problems rather than actually solve them in a long term sustainable way. Immigration has become the drug of choice for politicians and businesses who would rather take the easy option  now and shunt the problems of unsustainable population growth into the future for someone else to deal with, if indeed they even think that far ahead.

I was more implying that Brexit ought to be a reality check to politicians that many people will not tolerate uncontrolled mass migration for much longer and that we need to take stock and make our education and welfare systems fit for purpose.

If you're saying that we can't define race any longer then you can't define racism, ergo, it doesn't exist. Is that what you're trying to say?

On the contrary, it will simply mean we return to "business as usual" and we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend all the reasons for it have gone away. Until that is they come back with a vengeance because they didn't really go away at all.

So deeply institutionalised is the racism that the previous first family were black. Read the names of all those who died in 9/11 and tell me they were not from every corner of the world. The richness and diversity of the US is in stark contrast to monocultural, atavistic Scotland. Trump is elected. He will be removed. Putin and Xi are leaders of a post communist kleptocracy and a communist one party state. It’s realky bordering on racist to categorise a people and a society like you do. American is no ideal society. But it’s incredibly diverse and open. I recently had the good fortune to meet Fei-Fei Li, head of Human Centred AI at Stanford and also director of AI at Google.  She was accompanied by a group of four other researchers, all women from the Indian subcontinent to China.  All leaders in organisations that are the very opposite of what you claim. You’ve just demonstrated the bigoted prejudice that you claim to abhor. Is it any wonder Scotland is a drab monoculture, here’s the figures as percentage of population. African 0.6%, Black O.1% Asian including Asian British 2.7%. You want to see instructional racism at work go to Scotland! There are two ethnic  minority MSPs I think. Both from Glasgow. You’ll not get a black man or woman elected on Perth and Kinross. US racist? Give over. 

He is an eminent human rights lawyer. He spent 12 days in the UK. Met many poor people who feel let down by ‘the system’ and cited no new evidence other than previous Rowntree and IFS reports. Both the latter are super researchers. But the tone of his comments suggest he is less an independent expert looking for data rather than — what he actually is — a human rights activist. This would have been a story, of the man bites dog kind, if he’d come to UK and said it was a land of milk and honey. The irony is of course that it is from this disgruntled, disaffected group that the leave vote (partly) emerged. And all the remainers can do is sneer at them and call them retards. In previous posts I have said that the dispossessed have nothing to lose voting leave; yiu can’t tske away from people who have nothing. For some of them this was a way of them giving us the ‘opportunity’ to feel their pain.  

Oh well, I tried to engage with you, but it was a waste of time. I should have known.

  He has also cherry picked those reports to support a vision that is not theirs.

No. You did engage. And so we can recall what you said of America, here are your words:

......mainly white, English speaking, love films with guns and explosions, big cars and sport). Deeply institutionalised racism, rape culture, gun fetishes and bare-faced lying might be the norm where you're from but to me they're all as foreign as they are repellent. 

So: mainly white. Yes. But 30% non white. Compare this to Scotland. In Scotland the black population is 0.1 percent. I will say that again....0.1 per cent......In the US the black population is 12.7%. The second largest ethnic group. The largest ethnic group is German by the way.

They love films with guns and explosions -- isn't this a bit like saying black people are good dancers and make great athletes. So that will be American films like The Big Lebowski, Twelve Years a Slave, Koyaanisqatsi, Dr Strangelove, Citizen Kane,  North by Northwest....you get the picture...

.'rape culture'....have no idea what your demented mind is thinking....the world ranking for rapes per 100k puts USA at 14th after Sweden, Belgium and Australia, and way behind a host of African countries.....and

bare faced lying.....no idea where you get this from..unless it is the current President and his fake news....but that is not America...

but to me they're all as foreign as they are repellent....now that is racist..

So, yes, you engaged. And I engaged back and concluded that you are borderline racist, 'uneducated' and a retard....are you sure your not a leave voter ???? 

ps a third of all graduates voted leave...the clever ones with minds of their own

That's an interesting point. It deserves a whole spurt of semiotics to do it justice.

Very briefly, as the term 'racist' has lost its crude Victorian sense of race, to be replaced by terms such as 'culture', 'heritage', 'background' etc, into an environment where the colour of your skin or physical cliches no longer play a dominant part in the narrative of 'otherness', 'in-group', 'out-group' etc, we still use the shorthand word 'racist'.

Have a like.

Where’s the semiotics in that. Also pecs comment doesn’t stack up as a piece of logic. The fact that something cannot be defined does not mean it doesn’t exist. 

"And I engaged back and concluded that you are borderline racist, 'uneducated' and a retard

Classy, John, classy. Are you sure he's not a spaz or a mong or a joey?

+1 like for mentioning Koyaanisqatsi. Amazing movie!

There were none. Hence my 'to do it justice' remark. I found his/her point interesting in our current cultural climate in which some people get confused with old school racism and being 'racist' towards Bulgarians for example.

And I only came on here to see if Alan had stuck Statement of Youth up yet. Just another Saturday night UKC piss-up. It's a great shame what this site has become. Or perhaps it's just a reflection of our fractured society at the present time.

Night all.

Exactly. Roll on the day when the human race dispenses with all that shite and we all become equal citizens of our planet. 

You deliberately omitted: "because we think they are like us" like the very good editor you are. 

I've said that from the start.
But your middle class professionals in their cuddly bubbles didn't see it coming.

Remainers, you're the authors of own down fall.

That changes not one jot your poisonous I’ll informed nonsense. Where is the evidence to support your vile pseudo racist claims. 

Keep dropping the acid dude. Remember it’s just a ride. 

Agree on all fronts. Sorry to have lowered the tone and brought down your rush. X

The words were carefully selected. I am glad  you find them offensive. They are. But they were and are all used regularly by remainers on this site to attack those who either voted leave, or, like me who didn’t vote, but who believe the leave voters deserve to be heard. My words are exactly the ones first deployed by the remainer rabble. It was simply to show how offensive it is. 

Sure is. 

Cherry picking? You’re right.  He ate the lot and deserves indigestion. 

I'm not offended, it's no less than i expect from you - a quick search reveals you rather like referring to retards.

It isn't our planet -- that is where the problem starts. We think it is, and that that gives us a right to abuse ..and man shall have 'dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds and all animals, domestic and wild......

We belong to the planet and not the other way round.

Life will continue long after we have been eradicated. We have been on earth but a moment in time..

I'm not saying that either race or racism don't exist, if you read what I wrote and the context I wrote it in i.e. in reply to davidalcok's comment.

I accept that race is a tricky one to pin an unambiguous definition to, but it does seem that those most keen to fudge the definition of race to fit their own agenda are also to quickest to call 'racism' when it suits their agenda.

Anyway, I'm off the Roaches now

It costed us to be in,and it will cost us to be out. Our problems are internal.The NHS will still be screwed,as it has been for the last 20 years,as will British industrial exports.The country is run by and for the rich.Brexit will barely touch them.Brits will always blame everyone but themselves.

Do you write for Rory Stewart creatively too?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-46225696/rory-stewart-apologises-...

Good, there appears to be plenty evidence, despite Government intransigence on the issue. Of course that evidence also suggests that Banks is just the tip of the iceberg.

Given the potential scale of the electoral fraud, your constant assertions about the “will of the people” seem a little hollow.

Not at all. Let justice take its course. Funny how so many cast aside the presumption of innocence when it serves their political prejudices. But second, even if he were found guilty it is still a very big leap to suggest that It was Banks what won it. The establishment behind leave far more powerful. But who would touch Goldman Sachs or former PMs and their Barons. 

I have no idea who he is. Have not had a TV in the house for nearly 15 years.  Will not bother with the link. But sure you tweet was well intentioned. I was a big fan as a kid of Rory Gallagher. Sadly no longer with us. 

Enjoy the Roaches. My old stomping ground.  X

There’s a lot of truth in there. A lot of truth. 

If you have the patience to find the original you will see it is not mine and that I took great offence at it. I throw it back at Remainers who constantly question the intelligence and mental condition of leavers. I’m so glad it offends you. You might now know how it feels to be so labelled. 

You took offence at one post and now call remainers  retards? That's really quite pathetic.

Usual dishonesty I see John. I’m not questioning anyone right to a presumption of innocence, there is however considerable evidence of electoral fraud, some of which has already been ruled on. As I said Banks is just the tip of the iceberg.

I doubt if he takes offence at anything on here, he's not daft. It seems inconceivable that someone of his age and intellectual background would spend his spare time gushing his sort of venom on a climbing forum. You could give him directions and wish him a pleasant journey and he'd pretend to interpret it as a nuclear-level slur on all brexiteers if it suited his agenda. I'm fully expecting some of the remainer's views which have largely been invented by him on here to reappear in other media for the purposes of stoking up anti-remain sentiment. 

Anyway, I'm out. There have been some objectionable people on ukc before but the few who were as poisonous were mostly half-wits and they generally haven't lasted long.  

The article is spattered with woeful adjectives and it makes me fearful. Miserable even.

This just screams smug, metropolitan elite! Are you too good for TV John?

Apart from sideslipping dealing with a bludner by a government minister and light of the MayGov

Outrageous assumptions. I could explain my motives. But why? Only to be abused by half wits and bigots? 

Are you writing in tongues? 

You did not address any of the pseudo racist claims you made about the US. And no, I am not going quietly into the good night.  I take the not daft comment as a compliment. If you were to give me directions, I think I would consult a map first before setting out. How a Scot can call a society as ethnically diverse as the US institutionally racist is beyond me. And the rape culture.. well just plain idiotic. See you on down the trail. 

No you say there is plenty of evidence about Banks. At this stage the CPS appear to think it is insufficient to prosecute. You also talk of icebergs. Please provide corroborated evidence to this effect. And not cut and paste from The Guardian. Just one question. Do you think he is guilty or innocent. Yes or no. 

So let's say someone were to direct you to a place called, for example, Sunlit Uplands; and after consulting your map you realised that it doesn't exist. Would you still set out, or would you explain its non-existence to whoever gave you directions and rethink whether to set out after all?

So, let’s say if someone asked me a dumb hypothetical question would I answer it? 

Aha! he's not been avoiding questions John, "how will brexit make my life better?" is simply a dumb question, not worthy of an answer

and?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46224677

seems he might have lied to Parliament about the way his staff were employed

That is not a hypothetical question -- Brexit is happening. You conveniently missed out the word...As for The Climber, I long ago stopped viewing any of his questions as worthy of a serious answer..

Although there are precedents, I think you will find misleading Parliament is not a criminal offence and therefore would not be considered by the CPS. Sorry to disappoint.

So what are it's benefits? or does that get filed under "hypothetical"?

And I long ago stopped expecting answers from you even to non-hypothetical questions, since you've consistently proved unable and/or unwilling to provide any.

So maybe in one sense we're even. Except that only one of us has a workable solution to the crisis that we find ourselves in that doesn't involve cake, unicorns or 50 years of pain with no guarantee of recovery even then. Or if you do too, you've repeatedly declined all requests to justify it. I don't know who's paying you to continue your crusade of attempting to discredit all things Remain but it's wearing so thin now that if you have any remaining conscience it must be getting difficult for you to sleep at night.

In your world you may require payment to say things you believe in. Not mine. Your ability to impute the worst of motives to people seems inexhaustible.  Everything you and your chums have said on here makes it clear there is no point entering into a conversation on benefits and alternative futures outside the EU, as earlier attempts to do so have been met with the predicable venom of closed minds. What I can do is punch some holes in those minds and throw the light of reason and criticism into them. I am not so naive to think it will change opinions but it creates an element of friction by rubbing you up the wrong way and that at least gives voice to the silent majority of voted Leave. 

I have listed these in other posts and the reaction has been a mixture of scorn and ridicule, if I thought for a moment you were interested in a future for the UK outside the constraints of the EU I would happily discuss. But, as I already know your response, I will save my limited energies to pricking holes in the remainer myths, lies and distortions. Fascinating Channel Four News last night with a City remainer saying we will get through this temporary chaos and life return to normal. No cliff edge. No mass migration of the city to EU. No slump. No racists rampaging down Threadneedle Streets baying for the blood of Johnny Foreigner, no ‘end of western political civilisation’ as Juncker claimed, and no Third World War as Blair henchman Baron Adonis has hysterically declared. Project Fear is a scandal far in excess of Aaron Banks and Buses. 

Still unable to say how to find Sunlit Uplands on your map then. 

But it's somehow the fault of those who live the real, imperfect world.

Life will return to normal after some temporary chaos? Marvellous. But WTF is the chaos necessary for? 

I'm only expecting more evasion to this post (assuming any response is forthcoming at all)

You don’t own a TV John!

If you want the truth from him you'll have to ask him what the other chap would have said to your question and then take the opposite to be the truth, from the old logic puzzle.

I don't. The wonders of the internet. x

Silent? Almost all the English press amplify the voice of the majority in the most aggressive way possible. You are suggesting this majority is somehow cowed and need doughty word warriors like you to defend them. I think not when they have such as Johnson and  Mogg on their case. 

They are in a distinct minority here. 

Why is that, do you think? Is it a love of snow that makes climbers into snowflakes, maybe?

No idea what snowflake is. The reality is it is a dozen or so folk on here who are avidly Remain and spend time bigging each other up. A turkey shoot really. 

I think you'll find it's a great many more than a dozen. I'm a committed Remainer and do fairly regularly post here but I try not to get involved in tit for tat arguments. 

The Leavers on here have always been in a minority, albeit a very vocal one. Perhaps that's because climbing and pro-Brexit sentiments don't by and large attract the same people. I did a straw poll of our active club members - admittedly those I most often climb with - at the time of the 2016 referendum. One Leaver out of about 30. That while our area voted 59/41 to Leave.

One thing we're agreed on though. I've no idea what "snowflake" is either.

Martin

Just read this:

David Aaronavitch in The Times

"Against their own expectations the Leavers won, and then proceeded to treat the half of the British population who voted Remain with utter contempt, making no compromises on what Brexit should be and, as a result, opening up even more of a generational gulf in British politics. They agitated for the early invoking of Article 50 without the foggiest notion of what came next. They were told over and over again that we would end up somewhere like this and that their “Jerry’s on the run and the war will be over by Christmas” promises were delusional, and they laughed.

Today the Raabs are deserting the sinking ship, a scurrying made additionally poignant by the fact that they are the ones who sank it. They gnawed through the hull and ate the sails.

And it’s anyone’s fault but theirs. It’s Theresa May’s fault, it’s Michel Barnier’s fault, it’s the fault of the civil service, it’s the fault of the Remainers. It’s down to the traitors, the enemies of the people, the quislings. Their military language is relentless and I’m sure they saw themselves as a lot of little Churchills. In reality they were always a bunch of Canutes.

No change in metropolitan elite David’s crass stereotyping of leavers. So what’s news Jess? 

Climbing is a predominantly middle class pursuit -- professionals, academics, business owners, university students are massively over-represented compared to a random population sample. Therefore it should come as no surprise that they have generally middle class views, the views of the privileged proportion of the population. Furthermore, being in that privileged proportion of the population, and generally having had a superior education, leads a small vocal minority to behave with a certain superiority and arrogance, especially when it comes to Brexit. 

Aaronvitch - a professional commentator - was (and still is) a very vocal supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As mentioned on his Wikipedia page:

"... he wrote in 2003: "If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere." On 7 September 2018, he labelled people who ask him about the article "lamebrains."

He has zero credibility.

Canutes?

That seems a bit of an insult to Cnut - we were taught that he wasn't really resisting the sea so much as demonstrating the falsehood of his followers in asserting that you could

Have we finally now lost all pretence of reasoned argument for Brexit, and find ourselves back to shoring up the anarchist vote?

How about faux naïveté?  Do you know what that means?

I was stating what I think is evident to anybody who stands back and looks at this dispassionately. My own personal circumstances would be significantly better if we stayed in the EU, by the way, but I can accept we're leaving and the sooner that job's done the better.

If you were looking at it dispassionately, surely you'd want the job done in a way that ensures the best possible outcome for the UK, rather than just quickly?

The longer this is argued over for reasons of dogmatic ideological purity or political advantage the more damage is caused both economically and, more importantly, to the population's confidence in democracy. 

In which case you rather ruined what may have been a valid (albeit not insightful) observation by adding "leads a small vocal minority to behave with a certain superiority and arrogance", which doesn't even attempt to conceal the ad hominem nature of the post.

Of all the stuff you've come out with I find this the most baffling. It seems impossible for someone to have taken as much interest in UK and US politics as you have and be unfamiliar with the term snowflake as a modern idiom. 

"the most densly populated country in Europe"

Unfortunately you bought into a Farage lie...

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-population-densit... 

F*ck knows what will happen to the population's confidence in democracy if we crash out, traffic grinds to a halt at Dover/Calais and 100,000 manufacturing jobs go down in the toilet in short order.

I believe England is, apart from countries that are virtually cities and smaller than London.

I wouldn't put the Netherlands or Belgium into that category.

I understand they are both less densely populated than England.

Devon's got more miles of roads than Belgium.

England was reported as being the most densely populated country in Europe in 2008 (see e.g. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/2967374/England-is-most-crowded-c...), which probably explains the claim.

(I don't know what the current figures are; of course I know that England is not the same thing as the UK; nor am I defending Farage.)

But it does lead to a small vocal minority behaving with a certain superiority and arrogance. Sorry if you have a problem with that, and it wasn't directed specifically at you. Some of you people just won't consider the opposite side of an argument, or contemplate that others opinions are equally valid based on their own experiences of life because of this. Instead you attack, belittle and deride. Again I'm not directing that specifically at you. You might not consider what I've said valid or insightful, but I don't really care as there is some satisfaction in telling it like it is.

And 'some of you people' don't seem to realise that this isn't some sort of game, this could be the biggest catastrophe to hit the UK on all sorts of fronts since WWII.

We're in the EU because geographically we're part of Europe; trying to unpick that flies in the face of common sense.

But we've been here before. For my part, it *seems* that TM may just have made the best of a bad job, that will deliver some sort of sop to the swivel eye loons (the politicians, not the public) and not devastate the economy too much until our children get the opportunity to renegotiate their way back in. 

Just for the record I am not a full-on card-carrying Brexiteer. I just think that after the vote to leave we should. And I agree with your last sentence, although renegotiating re-entry is unlikely.

In effect it's just more hand-waving generalities to convey an impression that Leavers have a good point that's being ignored by an I'm-alright-Jack strata of society. I'd be the first to agree that many Leavers have very good reasons to be pissed off with the way they've been treated in recent years or decades, but until someone can explain what part membership of the EU has played in that - and more specifically how non-membership of the EU offers any key to this improving - I'll continue believing that "the other side of the argument" is overwhelmingly a domestic policy matter and has little to do with EU membership.

Not only that, but I'd go as far as to suggest there are huge numbers in the group you're dismissing as "you people" who would be very keen on economic and social reform in ways that would certainly benefit many of those apparently disillusioned enough to see this as a protest issue. It simply isn't an 'us and them' situation and attempts at portraying it that way have largely been responsible for the damaging divisions and disastrous course we're now facing.

It's clear that pushing ahead with this outcome of a protest-vote will benefit neither the largest protesting group nor the group of people you seem to be implying the protest should be against. It will benefit a tiny group of disaster capitalists, career politicians and cronies. Unless, of course, you have any convincing arguments to the contrary, but the question has been asked a great many times on here lately and the silence of the response has been deafening.

More fear and loathing. We currently have record levels of employment. Manufacturing is not in a tail dive. Quite the opposite. All despite the best efforts of the Remain rabble to scare people witless, frighten markets, and create a mood of panic. Comparisons with World War II are risible and historically ludicrous. As a EU leader claims that this could spell the end of ‘western political civilisation.’ As for John Arran he continues the fatuous claim that because none of our domestic problems are the result of the EU we should stay in the EU. First he arrogantly dismisses the expressed democratic wish of the referendum majority. He mocks their desire to take back control, to become law makers not takers, to devolve decision making powers to the nation state on borders and migration, to set our own fiscal policies and debt ratios, to break out of the protectionist ‘single market’ and the corporate club that runs it. His whole philosophy is pure Thatcher...there is no alternative. There is. And 17m people voted for it. Freedom from the EU. Simple John. Why is that so hard to understand. 

Well you made an effort, at least, so thanks for that. But you can actually reply to me directly you know. This isn't like a family squabble where people aren't talking to each other ('Will you please tell your mother ...')

Anyway, let's flick through your list of sunlit uplands:

If you'll permit me to rephrase that as 'because none of our domestic problems are the result of the EU we shouldn't blame the EU.' Clearer now?

Remind me again what the electoral commission had to say about Leave EU's campaign? Or what it said on the side of a bus, for that matter. Now remind me what opinion polls say now about people's democratic wish.

I'm afraid you'll also need to remind me what control it is that these people specifically voted to take back, otherwise it does sound jingoistic and hollow.

Is this what you meant by control? Any particular laws you had in mind that 17 million people are just itching to change?

Ah, that old chestnut. Who is it that you'd like excluded, John? Because the ability to exclude is pointless unless you actually want to use it. Whose exclusion from our precious UK territory would merit the damage that even the most prominent Brexiteers are admitting is inevitable?

Seems to me that we have a more Thatcherite fiscal policy than any other country in the EU already. Are you suggesting we should deregulate even further? How is that likely to affect the people in Yorkshire and Wales that have suffered the most from the wonderful policies we've seen already from recent governments?

I'm sensing Soros might be next on your list ...

You do make me laugh sometimes. No, really!

What’s with the no really? Talking to yourself now? Might as well, no one is listening. 

What’s with the .....‘no really?’ Talking to yourself now? Might as well, no one is listening. 

Strangely enough my wife had a meeting with him the other week. He'd been travelling round Britain talking to child care professionals and academics gathering information and hearing opinions.

My wife really liked him, thought him very well informed, very clever and easy to talk to. I suspect his different conclusions may be due to the the different perspective he has.

That he is clever and well informed is no doubt true, but that does not mean he has not produced a report that seems a but over the top - focussing on the relative poverty rate, rather than the 'destitution rate' - which sounds like real poverty to me, and has been improving - just seems like grandstanding.

Agree. He is an advocate not an independent researcher. There is little doubt that cuts to local government, especially social care, are hitting the most vulnerable. Wider rise in inequality much to do with hidden effect of QE and asset price bubble -- for me a much bigger threat to all our livelihoods than Brexit which seems to vex a small but vocal minority coterie on here. 

I've never heard Farage talk about that so I certainly haven't bought into 'his lie'.

England has a population density of 427/km

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281322/population-density-in-the-united...

In the European ranking there are no major countries higher, just a few islands and city states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_European_countries

When you consider that large tracts of England are effectively uninhabitable because they are mountains or moorland and that this doesn't apply to The Netherlands (just behind us on 414/km) then the effective population density of England is much greater. Thus the apparent population density as experienced by most people is much higher still.

Not surprising our transport network is in a semi permanent state of gridlock and that every new housing development is opposed by people as each one erodes away at any sense of space we still have left and even if there is room to shoehorn in a few more houses they still have to spill out onto the same congested roads every day because there isn't room to build any more because they've already got houses on them, assuming we need to leave a bit of space to grow some food to feed all the extra mouths because as global warming kicks in we can't rely on being able to import all our food for ever more etc etc.

No not really. My wife, who spends her working life researching, discussing and advocating on this sort of stuff remarked on how much they agreed. Maybe you don't take child poverty as seriously as some others do though.

When you say poverty I think of what the Rowntree foundation describe as destitution - what do you (or your wife if you prefer) think of as poverty?

( and if you would like to focus on the problem of poverty rather than suggesting that folk don’t take it seriously then that would be ace)

It always amuses me when people like you, who I'm taking an educated guess that you're a Veterinary, talk about about poverty.  You haven't got a f*cking clue what you're talking about.

Try living it instead of referencing studies on the subject.

Hi Frank, as it happens I’ve been really lucky in life and not lived in poverty. 

Oddly though being a vet does not stop you having experienced poverty before attaining the blessed state of MRCVS, and whilst it’s true few Vets live in poverty as I would define it, some do as defined by some of the broader definitions used.

Further being a Vet absolutely does expose you to people who are in Poverty, and managing the interaction between animal welfare and money can be very challenging and massively upsetting all around.

for reference the JRF definition of destitution is below, the fact that about 1.5 million people in the U.K. fit that definition, including 350000 children IS a national disgrace and we should be het up about it - why is this not the headline figure in the UN report rather than the far larger number in ‘relative’ poverty - a definition based on how much money you have rather than what you actually experience.

“

People were defined as destitute in this study if they or their children have lacked two or more of the following six essentials over the past month because they cannot afford them, or their  income is so low, less than £10 per day for a single person (excluding housing costs), that they have been unable to purchase them for themselves:

Shelter (have slept rough for one or more nights)

Food (have had fewer than two meals a day for two or more days)

Heating their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)

Lighting their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)

Appropriate clothing and footwear

Basic toiletries (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush)”