Brexit: Uniting the Country Since 31/01/2020

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AndrewJB
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:21 pm

While we’re talking about economic models, the government should publish theirs based on Johnson’s deal.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by summitclaret » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:34 pm

This sort of backs up what I said above, albeit from a remainer.

I never thought I would agree with Macron but there you go.

http://news.sky.com/story/fear-is-cloud ... n-11845097" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by summitclaret on Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:35 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:35 pm

AndrewJB wrote:While we’re talking about economic models, the government should publish theirs based on Johnson’s deal.
I should imagine in due course it will be published, when the deal as been fully finalised.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Imploding Turtle » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:36 pm

Jakubclaret wrote:I should imagine in due course it will be published, when the deal as been fully finalised.
Meh. Even if they don't publish it you can just trust the government to tell the truth about what it says. Right?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:39 pm

Imploding Turtle wrote:Meh. Even if they don't publish it you can just trust the government to tell the truth about what it says. Right?
It's already been heavily discussed tonight regarding economic models or predicted assumptions, so sensible to keep a open mind & see how it develops eh?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Imploding Turtle » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:42 pm

Jakubclaret wrote:It's already been heavily discussed tonight regarding economic models or predicted assumptions, so sensible to keep a open mind & see how it develops eh?
Nah. Just trust the government. They would never lie to us.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by TheFamilyCat » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:43 pm

I reckon Jakub spends rainy days, just like today, looking out the window and saying "it'll be dry in half an hour".

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by martin_p » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:02 pm

TheFamilyCat wrote:I reckon Jakub spends rainy days, just like today, looking out the window and saying "it'll be dry in half an hour".
I’m not sure he’d even admit it was raining.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:02 pm

AndrewJB wrote:While we’re talking about economic models, the government should publish theirs based on Johnson’s deal.
No, they shouldn’t.

The reason being, too many assumptions would be total guesswork. Such as the conditions of a free trade deal (yet to be negotiated).

I see Martin put up a good post earlier about economic modelling, and it all seeming pessimistic about Brexit. We’ve done this to death of course, but out of those of us who know a bit about this stuff, I tend to be more cynical than most.

Economists suffer from groupthink, and plenty of other cognitive biases too. Most of them voted Remain (95% probably) so there is a confirmation bias there before we even start. Then there is what they call hyperbolic discounting, where, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, they think that jam from Europe today is better than jam from the USA tomorrow. They underestimate the benefits of leaving, and overestimate the benefits of staying. An example being the appalling George Osborne 2016 Treasury document which assumed poor GDP due to (a fantasy of) zero net migration (which was never of course broadcast by the media pre referendum).

There will be an initial dip of course, just like when a ship changes course it has to lower its speed (I hate Brexit metaphors, it usually means the writer is wrong, but there we go, I guess if the cap fits I will have to wear it). But economics are only a part of it, other life impacts play a part too.

I suppose I have never understood why we are better off paying a net £8bn annually to join a group which limits our economic flexibility while simultaneously adding (on average) 8% to the costs of everything we buy from outside the group. The poor end up paying the 8% more, whilst the rich business owners (and the Treasury) get richer from the more seamless trade, but does the wealth from the latter trickle down to the former? I don’t think so.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by TheFamilyCat » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:05 pm

And why do you think your estimated 95% of economists voted remain?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Imploding Turtle » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:16 pm

TheFamilyCat wrote:And why do you think your estimated 95% of economists voted remain?
Did you know that the real reason 99% of climate scientists support the theory of climate change is because they're all suffering from confirmation bias?
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:37 pm

TheFamilyCat wrote:And why do you think your estimated 95% of economists voted remain?
Probably because nearly all of them (Ipsos Mori poll) thought household income would go down in the five years since the vote.

Of course, nearly three and a half years later, household income (both mean and median) has gone UP in real terms, not down, making those economists plain wrong (unless there is a massive change in the next 20 months).

It’s not entirely their fault of course - their whole science and thus profession is deeply flawed.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Lancasterclaret » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:38 pm

"We can't let anyone know about the realities of Brexit till there is nothing they can do about it" isn't going to help sell Brexit to the sceptics.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by CrosspoolClarets » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:41 pm

TheFamilyCat wrote:And why do you think your estimated 95% of economists voted remain?
I’d just add, 100% of the time I foolishly unhide a post from Turtle it turns out to be vacuous nonsense which never addresses the challenges posed by the original post. Let’s leave the discussion to the adults.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by dsr » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:42 pm

TheFamilyCat wrote:And why do you think your estimated 95% of economists voted remain?
Because 95% of economists believed that immediately after the referendum, if we voted Brexit, there would be 800,000 job losses more or less immediately and a two-year recession.

There are few economists with valid original thought. (It's the same in most sciences, in fact.) How many UK economists have there ever been? And how many can we name? Adam Smith, JM Keynes, Milton Friedman are the three I can think of that have made huge impacts. What have the rest of them done? If 95% of economists think the same way, it's because they went to the same schools.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by martin_p » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:43 pm

CrosspoolClarets wrote:Probably because nearly all of them (Ipsos Mori poll) thought household income would go down in the five years since the vote.

Of course, nearly three and a half years later, household income (both mean and median) has gone UP in real terms, not down, making those economists plain wrong (unless there is a massive change in the next 20 months).

It’s not entirely their fault of course - their whole science and thus profession is deeply flawed.
And those ‘facts’ have any sort of correlation because?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by martin_p » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:44 pm

dsr wrote:Because 95% of economists believed that immediately after the referendum, if we voted Brexit, there would be 800,000 job losses more or less immediately and a two-year recession.

There are few economists with valid original thought. (It's the same in most sciences, in fact.) How many UK economists have there ever been? And how many can we name? Adam Smith, JM Keynes, Milton Friedman are the three I can think of that have made huge impacts. What have the rest of them done? If 95% of economists think the same way, it's because they went to the same schools.
Again, I’m failing to see any sort of connection between these ‘facts’.

Paul Waine
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:02 pm

martin_p wrote:Again, I’m failing to see any sort of connection between these ‘facts’.
Totally off subject, of course. Lawrenson had Soton v Leicester down as 1-1. ;)

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by martin_p » Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:13 pm

Paul Waine wrote:Totally off subject, of course. Lawrenson had Soton v Leicester down as 1-1. ;)
Which is why 95% of economists voted leave. Makes more sense now.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:22 pm

martin_p wrote:Which is why 95% of economists voted leave. Makes more sense now.
I guess you know the old joke (the only joke?) about economists, "on the one hand, on the other hand and on the third hand...." ;)

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:23 pm

Paul Waine wrote:Totally off subject, of course. Lawrenson had Soton v Leicester down as 1-1. ;)
Wasn't the only 1, Andy Wilson from the express & sports mole plumped 1-2, it can't be possible can it the esteemed football journalists & so called experts getting it wrong.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by If it be your will » Sat Oct 26, 2019 1:21 am

Paul Waine wrote:I guess you know the old joke (the only joke?) about economists, "on the one hand, on the other hand and on the third hand...." ;)
"Can't someone bring me a one-handed economist?!" - Harry Truman
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by HieronymousBoschHobs » Sat Oct 26, 2019 2:27 am

Adam Smith said we only need one hand, but it's invisible.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndyClaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:10 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:Nah. Just trust the government. They would never lie to us.
Remainers: "Publish the economic assessment"
Also remainers : "The Government tells lies"

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndyClaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:14 am

Well done everyone
Attachments
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Burnley Ace » Sat Oct 26, 2019 7:59 am

CrosspoolClarets wrote:
Economists suffer from groupthink, and plenty of other cognitive biases too. Most of them voted Remain (95% probably) so there is a confirmation bias there before we even start. Then there is what they call hyperbolic discounting, where, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, they think that jam from Europe today is better than jam from the USA tomorrow. They underestimate the benefits of leaving, and overestimate the benefits of staying. An example being the appalling George Osborne 2016 Treasury document which assumed poor GDP due to (a fantasy of) zero net migration (which was never of course broadcast by the media pre referendum

I don’t think
I’m going a bit Ringo here but
1. How big is the group that think it’s a good idea?
2 Why do you think 95% of this highly educated group voted Remain?
3. In these circumstances isn’t hyperbolic discounting negated by temporal construal?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Lancasterclaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:08 am

If this isn't done properly, then it just stores up more problems for later.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by martin_p » Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:48 am

https://news.sky.com/story/sky-views-jo ... inApp=true

Good opinion piece by Adam Boulton on how the government uses the media to spread its untruths.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:16 am

martin_p wrote:https://news.sky.com/story/sky-views-jo ... inApp=true

Good opinion piece by Adam Boulton on how the government uses the media to spread its untruths.
Hardly unique to the UK though is it, another thing to knock BJ & the government for, you just can't stop yourself can you from having a go. You are only using the media if people believe the news if people don't believe the news it's a waste of time.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:19 am

CrosspoolClarets wrote:No, they shouldn’t.

The reason being, too many assumptions would be total guesswork. Such as the conditions of a free trade deal (yet to be negotiated).

I see Martin put up a good post earlier about economic modelling, and it all seeming pessimistic about Brexit. We’ve done this to death of course, but out of those of us who know a bit about this stuff, I tend to be more cynical than most.

Economists suffer from groupthink, and plenty of other cognitive biases too. Most of them voted Remain (95% probably) so there is a confirmation bias there before we even start. Then there is what they call hyperbolic discounting, where, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, they think that jam from Europe today is better than jam from the USA tomorrow. They underestimate the benefits of leaving, and overestimate the benefits of staying. An example being the appalling George Osborne 2016 Treasury document which assumed poor GDP due to (a fantasy of) zero net migration (which was never of course broadcast by the media pre referendum).

There will be an initial dip of course, just like when a ship changes course it has to lower its speed (I hate Brexit metaphors, it usually means the writer is wrong, but there we go, I guess if the cap fits I will have to wear it). But economics are only a part of it, other life impacts play a part too.

I suppose I have never understood why we are better off paying a net £8bn annually to join a group which limits our economic flexibility while simultaneously adding (on average) 8% to the costs of everything we buy from outside the group. The poor end up paying the 8% more, whilst the rich business owners (and the Treasury) get richer from the more seamless trade, but does the wealth from the latter trickle down to the former? I don’t think so.
If you're really interested in wealth redistribution, that can be done through the tax system. The rich business owners can benefit from the seamless trade, and then pay more in taxes, so that those who are poor also benefit. Just a thought.

You don't want the government to publish their economic forecast of what things will be like with Johnson's deal, because it will entail a lot of assumptions? We could publish those assumptions too. We could publish positive and negative scenarios - and therefore give people a range. Wouldn't it help parliamentarians reach a decision faster if they have a greater understanding of what they're voting on? If it's such a great deal, wouldn't knowing more about it coalesce public opinion around pressuring MPs to agree to it? The government has it, so why hide it?

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:26 am

Jakubclaret wrote:Hardly unique to the UK though is it, another thing to knock BJ & the government for, you just can't stop yourself can you from having a go. You are only using the media if people believe the news if people don't believe the news it's a waste of time.
Here's Peter Oborne - a leave voter - on the same issue:

https://www.channel4.com/news/peter-obo ... -fake-news" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Johnson has disgraced the office of prime minister with his shabby behaviour, and inability to tell the truth. Britain deserves better.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Imploding Turtle » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:28 am

Jakubclaret wrote:Hardly unique to the UK though is it, another thing to knock BJ & the government for, you just can't stop yourself can you from having a go. You are only using the media if people believe the news if people don't believe the news it's a waste of time.
The big problem for democracy in the west right now is that there are people knowing they're being lied to, but still defending that lie because it comes from their favoured politicians.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:49 am

https://www.ft.com/content/5eb0944e-f67 ... a8fc8f2d65" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh look. A leaked government document in which they discuss reducing workers rights and environmental regulations. This is less than a week since Johnson promised Labour MPs that he'd not look to do this. Anyone still going to insist that Johnson's casual relationship with honesty is no big deal? Is reduced rights and weakened environmental protections what ordinary working people were thinking of when they voted to take back control?

Another link in case the FT's is tiresome:

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-10-26/eu- ... rs-rights/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:01 pm

AndrewJB wrote:https://www.ft.com/content/5eb0944e-f67 ... a8fc8f2d65

Oh look. A leaked government document in which they discuss reducing workers rights and environmental regulations. This is less than a week since Johnson promised Labour MPs that he'd not look to do this. Anyone still going to insist that Johnson's casual relationship with honesty is no big deal? Is reduced rights and weakened environmental protections what ordinary working people were thinking of when they voted to take back control?

Another link in case the FT's is tiresome:

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-10-26/eu- ... rs-rights/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The government have denied this, & the actual proposed agreement leaves room for interpretation, which doesn’t necessarily mean this will happen only if you interpret the worst as some people naturally do with their own agendas.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by jrgbfc » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:06 pm

Jakubclaret wrote:The government have denied this, & the actual proposed agreement leaves room for interpretation, which doesn’t necessarily mean this will happen only if you interpret the worst as some people naturally do with their own agendas.
When it comes to the Tories it's fairly safe to assume the average working man/woman is going to get screwed over.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by RingoMcCartney » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:20 pm

When it comes to a potential Labour government, the average working man / woman , should be worried if they'll still actually have a job by the time they're inevitably booted out!

https://fullfact.org/economy/has-labour ... t-started/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Labour governments have always left office with unemployment higher than when they took over.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:35 pm

Jakubclaret wrote:The government have denied this, & the actual proposed agreement leaves room for interpretation, which doesn’t necessarily mean this will happen only if you interpret the worst as some people naturally do with their own agendas.
Kwarteng didn't actually deny it, but said it was "way exaggerated". This is a man who co-authored a book that described British people (who work the longest hours in the EU) as "some of the world's worst shirkers". This is a government that has hacked away at workers rights, and depressed wages over the last nine years. Of course they're going to use brexit as a reason to cut workers' rights. It's part of their DNA. And of course they're going to lie and claim it's not part of their plan - lying is part of their DNA as well:

"No top down changes to the NHS"

"No plans to increase VAT"

"No plans to prorogue parliament"

"I'm not the father of that child"

"We are committed to the highest possible standards in workers rights and on the environment"

This is the party that can't even deliver brexit after three years.
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:37 pm

RingoMcCartney wrote:When it comes to a potential Labour government, the average working man / woman , should be worried if they'll still actually have a job by the time they're inevitably booted out!

https://fullfact.org/economy/has-labour ... t-started/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Labour governments have always left office with unemployment higher than when they took over.
Between 2010 and 2015, the Tory government - voted in on a manifesto to deal with our debt - borrowed more money than every Labour government in history.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:42 pm

AndrewJB wrote:Kwarteng didn't actually deny it, but said it was "way exaggerated". This is a man who co-authored a book that described British people (who work the longest hours in the EU) as "some of the world's worst shirkers". This is a government that has hacked away at workers rights, and depressed wages over the last nine years. Of course they're going to use brexit as a reason to cut workers' rights. It's part of their DNA. And of course they're going to lie and claim it's not part of their plan - lying is part of their DNA as well:

"No top down changes to the NHS"

"No plans to increase VAT"

"No plans to prorogue parliament"

"I'm not the father of that child"

"We are committed to the highest possible standards in workers rights and on the environment"

This is the party that can't even deliver brexit after three years.
I’m pressed for time now & I’ll digest your points for later, but what I will quickly say it was TM that couldn’t deliver brexit for 3 yrs which in part the blame is attached to the party but I wouldn’t completely blame the party for reasons I’ve explained before when we was discussing David Davis resigning which she was the catalyst for.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by RingoMcCartney » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:44 pm

AndrewJB wrote:Between 2010 and 2015, the Tory government - voted in on a manifesto to deal with our debt - borrowed more money than every Labour government in history.

Which government left the debt behind, that was at record levels, that necessitated the record level of borrowing?

Answer - the previous labour one.



What's happened to employment and unemployment since 2010 ?

Answer-

Unemployment at its lowest for around 40 years.

Employment at record highs.

Every labour government has left with unemployment higher than when it came to office.



https://fullfact.org/economy/has-labour ... t-started/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Which government left office with a note saying, "the moneys all gone"

Answer - the last Labour government


I rest my case
Last edited by RingoMcCartney on Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Mala591 » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:49 pm

Ringo, have you ever considered standing as Conservative party candidate for Burnley? I would love to turn up to a hustings meeting with yourself vs Julie Cooper!

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by RingoMcCartney » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:52 pm

Mala591 wrote:Ringo, have you ever considered standing as Conservative party candidate for Burnley? I would love to turn up to a hustings meeting with yourself vs Julie Cooper!

They couldn't afford my fees darling!

:lol:

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Oct 26, 2019 3:04 pm

RingoMcCartney wrote:Which government left the debt behind, that was at record levels, that necessitated the record level of borrowing?

Answer - the previous labour one.



What's happened to employment and unemployment since 2010 ?

Answer-

Unemployment at its lowest for around 40 years.

Employment at record highs.

Every labour government has left with unemployment higher than when it came to office.



https://fullfact.org/economy/has-labour ... t-started/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Which government left office with a note saying, "the moneys all gone"

Answer - the last Labour government


I rest my case
In five years they created more debt than every Labour government in history, while bringing in the biggest spending cuts since the 40s - savaging the lives of the poor, the disabled, the young - and selling off everything at knock down prices. They gave it all away to their mates in the City.

Never mind your bogus employment figures - in which everyone not on Jobseekers Allowance is therefore employed (or having completed one hour of work during the period of time measured!). Could there be a more dishonest way of measuring employment? And as to the quality of that employment, the Tories cut many tens of thousands of good civil service jobs (causing crime to go up), and replaced them with many tens of thousands of zero hours contract jobs, and the gig economy.
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PWBFC
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by PWBFC » Sat Oct 26, 2019 3:55 pm

AndrewJB wrote:In five years they created more debt than every Labour government in history, while bringing in the biggest spending cuts since the 40s - savaging the lives of the poor, the disabled, the young - and selling off everything at knock down prices. They gave it all away to their mates in the City.

Never mind your bogus employment figures - in which everyone not on Jobseekers Allowance is therefore employed (or having completed one hour of work during the period of time measured!). Could there be a more dishonest way of measuring employment? And as to the quality of that employment, the Tories cut many tens of thousands of good civil service jobs (causing crime to go up), and replaced them with many tens of thousands of zero hours contract jobs, and the gig economy.
Wasn’t the one hour a week measure for employment set by the International Labour Organisation in 1982?

Paul Waine
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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:14 pm

While we wait for the team announcement and an hour later kick off, I've been catching up on a little of yesterday's Times.

Two articles appear relevant to this thread:
1) Philp Collins - Labour’s Brexit MPs deserve praise not spite
and
2) Ed Conway - The euro can’t take its survival for granted.

I'll post both articles below.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:18 pm

Labour’s Brexit MPs deserve praise not spite

Philip Collins, The Times.

Backbenchers like Caroline Flint were brave to vote with the government in the face of online abuse and vilification

Brexit has no heroes. It is a sorry saga from which it is all but impossible to emerge with credit. But let us take a moment to salute the 19 Labour MPs who voted to permit the prime minister’s deal to pass its second reading in the Commons on Tuesday night. To those of them who stick with it until third reading, which will be by no means all, a double salute is due.

These Labour MPs have, instead, been vilified. The anonymous online trolls have been vicious and plenty of people prepared to identify themselves have used the words traitors, cranks and worse. Sadly, Remain-fixated commentators have added to the anger. I suppose it is idle to expect any better of the ex-BBC journalist Paul Mason who accused Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth Valley, of lacking moral fibre.

Yet, to show that even the calm and wise are struggling to see Brexit in perspective, Steve Richards described Caroline Flint, Labour MP for Don Valley, as “a heroine for those seeking to turbo charge Thatcherism outside the EU”. In a column of withering superiority, the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee declared that it would be impossible to forgive any MP who handed victory to Boris Johnson.

The notion that people who disagree with you may not be morally or mentally deficient has gone missing. In fact, the Labour 19 have two good arguments for what they did and they deserve a proper hearing, rather than the random calumny of people who simply refuse to accept that Britain is leaving the EU. There is, first, a question of principle and, second, a question of politics.

The principled case is simple. There was a referendum in June 2016 on terms known to all. The wrong side (in my opinion) won and Britain embarked upon what I regard as a mistake. Yet it is a crucial component of being a democrat that you will yield to the foolishness of others when they outnumber you.

Caroline Flint has said that she resolved, when the result came in, to abide by it even though she voted Remain. I happen to agree with that judgment but I am not even trying to argue that Ms Flint and I are correct. I’m setting the bar a lot lower than that. I am saying that it is a perfectly reasonable thing to think, and one which doesn’t deserve high-octane rhetorical spite, let alone abuse.

I concluded long ago that the economic damage caused by leaving is likely to be fixed quicker than the political damage caused by not leaving. Strictly speaking, the two terms in this equation are out of proportion to each other. You cannot measure the decline in political trust in the same currency as job losses. What we have here is a judgment call, not a simple recitation of fact. It is not the sort of question on which the wise are right and the fools are wrong. Perhaps I worry too much about the reputation of politics. Perhaps I underestimate the economic impact of leaving. I could be wrong. It’s galling, though, to be told that my judgment is not an error but an example of moral failure.

At the bottom of this principled argument lurks the big question to which many of the vanquished Remainers are not yet reconciled. Should we, in today’s circumstances, leave the EU or not? If you have concluded, as the Labour 19 have, that we should, then you will start to seek a viable way to do so. If you still think we should not — and the vast majority of Remain voices are not genuinely seeking a different way to leave, they are seeking a reversal — then you will simply declare a plague on all the exit routes.

This reasoning leads directly to the political reason for defending the right of the Labour 19 to defy their party whip. Given the current state of political leadership, stopping Brexit is wildly unlikely. When Theresa May was trying to get her deal through parliament it was probable — many people said so — that if she was toppled her replacement would be worse. This would lead either to no-deal or to a deal even worse than hers. All of which has come to pass. The valid criticism of the Labour 19 is that, by their own logic, they should all have voted for the May deal when they had the chance, not the deal they are voting for now.

At this point it’s important to interrupt the hyperventilation of Remainer readers to point out that neither deal is exactly marvellous. It is simply that, in a choice between six of the best and a bullet in the face, it makes sense to opt for the former. Of course, if anyone could find a plausible path to an outcome better than both it would be foolish not to listen. But nobody ever did; they still can’t. They can tell you what they think should happen in an ideal world but none of them have 319 other parliamentary colleagues ready to walk through their lobby in support of it. As Caroline Flint has said “I’m the moderate here. I’m trying to stop no-deal by getting a deal”.

The democratic principle and the requirements of political wisdom are more important than the accusation levelled at Labour MPs that they are careerists running scared of their Leave voters. Since when was listening to your constituents a democratic scandal? Parliament is not, in Burke’s fine phrase, a congress of ambassadors, but 68 per cent of voters in Don Valley wanted to leave the EU and it is no betrayal for their MP to put their case. All MPs retain the right to make their own judgments but the whole point of representation is to translate the voice of the people into the smaller chamber of parliament.

There may soon be a new parliament if the prime minister fails to get over his hissy fit about the timetable for Brexit. It would be foolish beyond measure if Mr Johnson were to abandon the withdrawal agreement bill just at the point he may have the numbers in parliament to get it through. It may well be, if wiser counsel prevails in the cabinet and a needless instant election is avoided, that the deal passes in a tight vote with the aid of a few doughty Labour MPs.

No doubt, in the current atmosphere, all hell will be loosed upon them. The two tribes are lined up for a culture war and anyone who crosses the floor of the Commons will have to be sacrificed. Yet they do have a case for what they do. It is not stupid and it is not ignoble. They believe, as I do, that the referendum result should be enacted and, if I add to that the rider that I might be wrong, I do so without expecting die-in-a-ditch Remainers to admit the same might be true of them.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:22 pm

The euro can’t take its survival for granted

Ed Conway, The Times.

The single currency’s problems were exposed in 2012 but nothing has been done to solve them

The euro is “irreversible”. So, famously, said European Central Bank president Mario Draghi in 2012, en route to saving the single currency from oblivion. But the same words were uttered earlier this month by a more unexpected Italian: Matteo Salvini.

“The League is not thinking about Italy’s exit from the euro or the European Union”, the Lega party’s leader told Il Foglio newspaper. “To be clearer still, so that journalists stop feeding strange fantasies: the euro is irreversible.”

Salvini is not the first continental eurosceptic to commit a volte face and throw his weight behind the currency — Marine Le Pen also seems to have dropped her plans to return France to the franc — but Salvini’s conversion is the more dramatic. After all, for years his party was the most vociferous internal critic of the single currency.

The decision by Salvini, a clever politician with an eye for the public mood, to perform this U-turn cannot be explained without reference to Brexit. Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, the proportion of eurozone citizens who support the single currency has risen from 60-70 per cent to an unprecedented high of 76 per cent. One fruit of the referendum is that Europeans are more united than ever. Even so, at the risk of feeding those strange fantasies Salvini refers to, it’s worth asking the question: is the euro really irreversible?

Let’s recall the challenges facing the single currency. First, that it encompasses an economic area with enormous divergences: you have efficient, high-earning, high-saving countries such as Germany and inefficient nations with low GDP-per-capita such as Italy and Greece. Second, locking high and low productivity nations together into a single currency where members issue debts in the same currency is problematic in theory and in practice.

Third, without the ability to devalue their currency the only viable way for those low productivity nations, which is to say much of Europe’s south, to improve their competitiveness is to cut their internal costs, in other words to impose swingeing cuts in wages, incomes and prices. That is broadly how Europe resolved the previous crisis, with Greece inflicting on its people a deeper depression than the US endured in the 1930s.

But imposing periodic depressions on down-at-heel countries can only get you so far. The only obvious long-term solution — the only way to make the euro truly irreversible — is some sort of fiscal union. That, after all, is how most other currency unions, be it the sterling area or the US dollar, deal with their internal imbalances. Poorer states and regions get a permanent drip feed of fiscal support from rich ones: from London to Leicestershire, from Massachusetts to Mississippi.

If you followed the euro crisis and are now tuning back in you’re probably wondering which type of transfer union Europe eventually plumped for. Did they create a proper fiscal union with centralised powers to tax and spend? Did they create eurobonds so member states could borrow and share the risk? Or did they create a full banking union with shared deposit insurance so no country would have to bear the brunt if one of their banks collapsed?

The answer is none of the above. The best part of a decade on from the onset of the euro crisis, the single currency still has none of the institutions to help it withstand the next crisis, nor do its politicians seem close to establishing them.

Indeed, some in Brussels are capitalising on the Brexit chaos to spin an alternative narrative: that their handling of the euro’s challenges was a triumph and that the crisis was primarily a fabrication of pessimists in Britain. This is a dangerous fiction. The euro came within a whisker of collapse. In the summer of 2012, as Draghi insisted the currency was irreversible, insiders were genuinely panicking that it was being torn apart.

The monetary medicine administered by the ECB back then can only last so long. Draghi, who steps down at the end of this month, bequeathed to his successor negative interest rates and a kind of open-ended form of quantitative easing which has infuriated the northern Europeans. But given the German government has been saving rather than borrowing money in recent years, the ECB is literally running out of northern European debt to buy with its printed money. The incoming ECB president Christine Lagarde is faced with the unenviable task of either cutting back the programme and forcing the continent to go cold turkey or persuading the Germans that the ECB should start skewing its monetary support towards Mediterranean economies.

The great hope is that in the face of its likely recession, the German government will finally start splurging. Even that will not resolve the euro’s great problem: a cultural and economic divide between north and south that has widened rather than narrowed since the currency was created. Perhaps Brexit will galvanise the eurozone behind further integration, but there is little evidence yet that German voters have any appetite for it.

So no, the euro is not yet irreversible. As he bowed out in his final press conference yesterday Draghi declared: “You can’t change history — unless you’re a historian.” But without reform the eurozone risks repeating its recent history all over again the next time a financial crisis strikes.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Paul Waine » Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:55 pm

Devils_Advocate wrote:Cheers Paul. The second part of my post was a little hyperbolic and whilst I think a lot of Brexit is about the Rich elites chance to get even more richer and powerful taxation would only be a part of that and not a driver as I implied.

The bit Im unsure on and got find a dedicated summary towards it is the the Exit tax which is due to come in Jan 2020. From what Ive read it sounds like the UK had adopted a lot of this but there are some amendments to come in to play.

What I haven't been able to ascertain is what rules have the UK currently got around the Exit tax directive and what will change on 2020. This seems the one that some of the very key players in funding Brexit could be concerned about. If you can shed any light on this Id like to educate myself a bit more.

On reflection the die in the ditch and get an election asap is likely more just a tactic to keep people are their side and win an election than fear of the EU tax laws but I definitely think the narrative move from a great deal to a clean break over the last few years has had some pre thought out strategy from the backers of Brexit who will no doubt benefit hugely whilst a lot of the working class places struggle and fall apart.

Anyhow over to you if you can shed any more light on the Exit tax changes.
Hi DA, I said I'd find time to take a little look at the Exit Tax Charge.

Easiest way I can think to summarise it is from:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... it-charges" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note the UK already has exit tax rules - and impact of new rules is very little changes: "Only those small number of companies considering entering into an exit charge payment plan on transfer to an EEA territory need to familiarise themselves with the rules, and this would be required under the old rules as well, because this legislation does not affect companies in the normal course of their business.

Summary of impacts

Exchequer impact (£m)
2018 to 2019 negligible
2019 to 2020 negligible
2020 to 2021 negligible
2021 to 2022 negligible
2022 to 2023 negligible
2023 to 2024 negligible

This measure is expected to have a negligible impact on the Exchequer.

Economic impact
This measure is not expected to have any significant economic impacts.

Impact on individuals, households and families
This measure has no impact on individuals or households as it only affects companies.
The measure in not expected to impact on family formation, stability or breakdown.

Equalities impacts
This measure is not expected to impact on any of the groups with protected characteristics.

Impact on business including civil society organisations
There is no administrative impact on businesses or on civil society organisations.

Only those small number of companies considering entering into an exit charge payment plan on transfer to an EEA territory need to familiarise themselves with the rules, and this would be required under the old rules as well, because this legislation does not affect companies in the normal course of their business.

Operational impact (£m) (HMRC or other)
There will be negligible impact on HMRC for this change.

Other impacts
Other impacts have been considered and none have been identified.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by clarethomer » Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:19 pm

400+ page summary.

If someone doesn't agree with a point, they get to know about it pretty quickly.

If they can't prove a point to being wrong, there will be a post relating to something else which ignores that point but claim it proves they are right.

According to the remainer's the brexiteer's must be thick for wanting to do something which has no certainty.

According to the brexiteers, the remainer's have a massive chip on their shoulder and are blinkered by accepting what they know.

Rinse and repeat..

Thank god this is going to roll on for years to come.

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Re: Brexit: The Naked Truth

Post by Jakubclaret » Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:33 pm

clarethomer wrote:400+ page summary.

If someone doesn't agree with a point, they get to know about it pretty quickly.

If they can't prove a point to being wrong, there will be a post relating to something else which ignores that point but claim it proves they are right.

According to the remainer's the brexiteer's must be thick for wanting to do something which has no certainty.

According to the brexiteers, the remainer's have a massive chip on their shoulder and are blinkered by accepting what they know.

Rinse and repeat..



Thank god this is going to roll on for years to come.
1 thing you can always guarantee from a remain perspective is longsidepies liking a post (come rain or shine) but never comments himself.

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