The UK is Out - New PM - and whither now for Article 50

grey_til_I_dye

Herb

Yeah, but in the way that parents are there to 'serve the needs' of their children, which often includes saying: 'no, don't do that; it's naughty/silly/dangerous'.

claretandbluesky

IronHerb said:

No. Governments are elected to serve the people.

The peoples interest and the national interest must surely be the same thing, as a nation could really only be defined as a body of people sharing a territory or common decent..

ironmike44

Grey - so our elected representatives are there to treat us like children? ;wink

upos

Iron,
Amended it for you -so our elected representatives are there to treat us act like children?

simonc

Claret,
The peoples interest and the national interest don't necessarily match up with the elected representatives interests, they seem to be primarily concerned with feeding their ego's or eating from the political trough.

ASLEFshrugged

First and foremost MPs represent their party, running for Parliament is expensive and without party backing most people couldn't afford to stand. Generally MPs are expected to follow their party's policy on any given issue and we vote for the candidate whose party's policies we feel are closest to our own interests.

There are exceptions, occasionally MPs will find themselves having to oppose their party's national policy because of local issues, an example is HS2; Conservative policy supports it but Tory MPs whose constituencies are on the route oppose it.

It's all a bit of a balancing act but in the end any MP is going to have to do what they think will get them re-elected.

TheMadcapLaughs

I think this chap summed up pretty well what government does and what it is for:

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice, that is its morality.

Written more than 150 years ago, and not much, unfortunately, has changed. And this chap was pretty mild in his admonishment.

ASLEFshrugged

Madcap - what did he propose as an alternative?

NEoldiron

ASLEF - probably survival of the fittest in a lawless world - Lord of the Flies landscape?

IronHerb

Think he had a chip on his shoulder

MrsGrey

;nonono ;whome

TheMadcapLaughs

Democracy from the bottom up, not the top down. A trust that, if left alone, man has the innate ability to organise society perfectly adequately for himself in the name of equality and fairness. I don`t believe that society is organised to promote the general good, I think it is organised to profit and benefit the fortunate few. Not a popular word I know, but communism, without the State. I find it very hard to understand that anyone can take a look around the World and think it`s fair. Unfortunately State Socialism/Communism has failed (as predicted by most Anarchicist writers) as power and money tend to corrupt. I know that most people will scoff at a Socialist Utopia, but surely aiming that high has got to be worthwhile, and although not a revolutionary in the true sense of the word (too much of a coward I`m afraid) I think that people should strive to chip away at centralised power, I think people should be taught an "alternative" way of thinking and acting. The possibility that things could be different. ALL great social changes have been won from the bottom up. No government has voluntarily conceded power to "the common man", all changes that make our lives better and easier have been hard won. Mostly by radicals, revolutionaries, anarchists. Yet these are the very people who are generally vilified by governments, the press, etc etc etc. I used to be, I suppose, a Marxist, but have always had Anarchistic leanings (since the Punk era) and base most of my "appreciation" of things/events from this perspective. Anarchy is basically a society organised via cooperation rather than coercion, but also values the uniqueness and "beauty" of the individual. I think that centralised government is pretty superfluous, I find it hard to get my head round the fact that a tiny, tiny minority of people make (in some cases) life and death decisions for millions of people, just seems plain wrong and crazy to me. I know it`s a tired old saying, but "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" what`s so wrong with that. I also find it hard to justify "value". Why is a small shiny stone, or a lump of yellow metal more valuable, valued more by society, than a kidney dialysis machine?? I think you will find that most people would prefer the machine, we have the resources, we have the technology, we have the wealth, but someone, somewhere, makes the decision not to make them. I believe, contrary to some, that the vast majority of people do have the intelligence, the compassion, the will, to make decisions at grass roots levels and those decisions would be generally for the common good, as it seems mad to me that decisions would be made by the majority of "normal" people, that would be contrary to the common good, when you think about that, it makes perfect sense. Not gonna happen in my lifetime, but if the right people keep chipping away, you never know.

TheMadcapLaughs

NEoldiron said:

ASLEF - probably survival of the fittest in a lawless world - Lord of the Flies landscape?

You really couldn`t be more wrong. Read a little of Kropotkin, the total antihesis of what you have just said...................

ASLEFshrugged

Sorry Madcap but society changes slowly. Four hundred years ago in Britain some thought that one man had the Divine Right to rule millions, two hundred years ago a man could only vote if he owned freehold property worth 40 shillings or more (that's £2 to all you post-decimal types) and one hundred years ago women couldn't vote. And its worth remembering the UK is quite advanced socially/politically compared to some other countries.

Maybe the type of society you describe existed back when we lived in extended family groups, before some clever Dick invented the wheel but we've come a long way since then and it will be an equally long way back. In the meantime we need to make the best of the social and political systems we have, keep developing and reforming, evolution rather than revolution.

Saving the NHS from gradual privatisation seems more important to me than achieving Utopia

BTW Utopia is derived from the Ancient Greek "Eu" (not) and "Topus" (place); ergo Utopia is "no-place".

MrsGrey

;hmm The eu (pronounced ef or ev) prefix means 'good', I thought.

Hence euphonious (good noise) and euthanasia (good death).

ASLEFshrugged

Mrs Grey - sorry my mistake it should be "οὐ " not "eu", "eu" is good.

Sir Thomas More was having a bit of a joke, describing a perfect society and giving a name that suggested it didn't exist. With "jokes" like that its little wonder he got his head chopped off.......

MrsGrey

Ah. ;ok

Hence 'News From Nowhere'.

I don't think I'd ever made that connection before.

Or if I had, I'd forgotten it. ;puzzled

TheMadcapLaughs

Adler most anarchist writers acknowledge the fact that society changes gradually punctuated by violent episodes. I still think an anarchist society is worth striving for. Most anarchists are pacifists and condemn violence both state and terrorist so acknowledge the fact that it may take generations and not by violent overthrow. Again a lot of anarchist thought think that an anarchist society is the ultimate in evolution. Should say Adler. How do you over ride predictive text.......

ASLEFshrugged

Indeed, William Morris, crazy dude.

NEoldiron

I posted these on July 7th on the Dimi Payet thread (in the context of his new contract)

"There are many 1st teamers whose national currency is the euro. If their salaries were negotiated in euros, the Daves will have to cough up a significant %age increase in pounds. Would that unsettle those players whose contracts are in pounds? Of course this is all speculation, but still needs consideration."

and

"When their salaries were negotiated, it's only natural that they would have calculated how much those salaries were worth in euros. Now that the salaries are worth considerably less euros, will they ask for an increase? ;hmm"

I think it now becomes an issue with all the forecasts for the fate of sterling.


The first response to the second post was the following:

"What if the £ goes back up, will the club then look to re negotiate their contracts down? I don't think that the £ will stay low for a prolonged period so don't really see this as being too much of an issue in the long run."
;lol ;lol ;lol

NEoldiron

And for another piece of cheery info - not, although this really ought to be on the "UK Out" thread.

http://www.cityam.com/251146/sterling-falls-again-against-euro-and-dollar

AdMeus_CaputFilius

But NE, the Dollar is quite strong atm, since the beginning of the month both the Yen and Euro have gone down against the dollar, so it is not all due to the leave vote. There is also a belief in some financial back rooms that the Americans are, behind the scenes, deliberately building the value of the dollar as if Trump does win the election, they believe the value of the dollar will suffer so they are putting in a cushion. If Clinton wins they will allow a gradual weakening of the dollar to bring it down - a strong dollar is bad for exports, so unless they want to start to lose income from their export markets they can't sustain an overly strong dollar for to long.

grey_til_I_dye

AdMeus

Not sure what the dollar has to do with it? ;hmm

Sterling has dropped 16% against the Euro since the vote.

Hard to argue concerns over Brexit aren't a major factor in that.

grey_til_I_dye

As a for instance:

pre vote we got around €1300 for £1000

today it was €1100 (actually, a bit less.)

Over a year, it's quite a chunk for us.

For businesses trading in millions of pounds, it's massive.

grey_til_I_dye

This is probably just me, but does anyone else think...

claretandbluesky

Police have just reduced the number of sinister clown sighting today from 30 to 29, apparently after investigating one of them turned out to be Boris simply popping out for a lunchtime sandwich !

NEoldiron

Grey, my God, it's Saint Theresa of Boomtown ;pray

AdMeus_CaputFilius

;hmm ... NE was including the dollar, and a lot of businesses also conduct international trade in dollars not Euros so I was making the point part of the problem was also the strong dollar.

Take the Unilever/Tesco et al issue in the news today, that was about Unilever trading in dollars but is also an example of big business being underhand about things, as the price increases they wanted to make included products made in the UK which have not been affected by the changes in the value of currencies - strange when the value of the dollar fell a few years ago they did not pass on the savings they were making to their customer, who'd have thought???

As I said a while ago, there are some people out there making a lot of money out of this (or are planning to), who along with interested parties who want uncertainty, are deliberately adding to the problems - for instance The Scottish FM and SNP (for their own personal ambitions, not for the Scottish People IMO) along with certain politicians in Europe and the EU elite (as they want the UK punished for daring to actually leave their cosy socialist club) are the only one's really pushing the hard brexit issue, the UK Gov't certainly aren't.

Not to mention all the so called 'Experts' who have so far been wide of the mark on the impact of the leave vote, who continue to beat the looming Armageddon drum in the hope they will talk the disasters into being just to prove themselves right and salve their bruised ego's. Also the leader of the Lib-Dems needs to take a step back and regain perspective - on a politics programme at the weekend, the way he was going on he would not have looked out of place in a chicken outfit in the snow running around claiming the sky was falling with all the doom, gloom and impending disasters he was ranting on about.

My point being that the leave vote in itself is not solely responsible for the fall in the value of the pound, there are other factors in play.

AdMeus_CaputFilius

Re: the clowns. Saw a story yesterday about a dude dressed as batman who chased off a couple of clowns who were umping out on people.

OutcastLondoner

Maybe but the three times it's dropped significantly have been at major Brexit points; the announcement of the date, the result, the announcement on Article 50 being triggered. Are people taking advantage? Probably. But they can only do that in uncertain situations.

I have a daily ATM withdrawal limits. That used to get me roughly 3,000 shekels (my rent). It's now more like 2,300. That's a massive difference and is not just related to the dollar.