For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By malcolmfrost
#1541703
Last nights Theresa v Boris on BBC 2 and now on iPlayer was interesting, I thought it might be just a dramatisation, but it was mixed in with interviews with the various aides and MPs involved. More like "The Thick of It"!!
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541704
This is from a Swiss newspaper and sums up our position all too clearly

THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE
If it weren't so serious, the situation in Great Britain would almost be comical. The country is being governed by a talking robot, nicknamed the Maybot, that somehow managed to visit the burned-out tower block in the west of London without speaking to a single survivor or voluntary helper. Negotiations for the country’s exit from the EU are due to begin on Monday, but no one has even a hint of a plan. The government is dependent on a small party that provides a cozy home for climate change deniers and creationists. Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary. What in the world has happened to this country?

Two years ago David Cameron emerged from the parliamentary election as the shining victor. He had secured an absolute majority, and as a result it looked as if the career of this cheerful lightweight was headed for surprisingly dizzy heights. The economy was growing faster than in any other industrialised country in the world. Scottish independence and, with it, the break-up of the United Kingdom had been averted. For the first time since 1992, there was a Conservative majority in the House of Commons. Great Britain saw itself as a universally respected actor on the international stage. This was the starting point.

In order to get from this comfortable position to the chaos of the present in the shortest possible time, two things were necessary: first, the Conservative right wingers’ obsessive hatred of the EU, and second, Cameron’s irresponsibility in putting the whole future of the country on the line with his referendum, just to satisfy a few fanatics in his party. It is becoming ever clearer just how extraordinarily bad a decision that was. The fact that Great Britain has become the laughing stock of Europe is directly linked to its vote for Brexit.

The ones who will suffer most will be the British people, who were lied to by the Brexit campaign during the referendum and betrayed and treated like idiots by elements of their press. The shamelessness still knows no bounds: the Daily Express has asked in all seriousness whether the inferno in the tower block was due to the cladding having been designed to meet EU standards. It is a simple matter to discover that the answer to this question is No, but by failing to check it, the newspaper has planted the suspicion that the EU might be to blame for this too. As an aside: a country in which parts of the press are so demonstrably uninterested in truth and exploit a disaster like the fire in Grenfell Tower for their own tasteless ends has a very serious problem.

Already prices are rising in the shops, already inflation is on the up. Investors are holding back. Economic growth has slowed. And that’s before the Brexit negotiations have even begun. With her unnecessary general election, Prime Minister Theresa May has already squandered an eighth of the time available for them. How on earth an undertaking as complex as Brexit is supposed to be agreed in the time remaining is a mystery.

Great Britain will end up leaving its most important trading partner and will be left weaker in every respect. It would make economic sense to stay in the single market and the customs union, but that would mean being subject to regulations over which Britain no longer had any say. It would be better to have stayed in the EU in the first place. So the government now needs to develop a plan that is both politically acceptable and brings the fewest possible economic disadvantages. It’s a question of damage limitation, nothing more; yet even now there are still politicians strutting around Westminster smugly trumpeting that it will be the EU that comes off worst if it doesn’t toe the line.

The EU is going to be dealing with a government that has no idea what kind of Brexit it wants, led by an unrealistic politician whose days are numbered; and a party in which old trenches are being opened up again: moderate Tories are currently hoping to be able to bring about a softer exit after all, but the hardliners in the party – among them more than a few pigheadedly obstinate ideologues – are already threatening rebellion. An epic battle lies ahead, and it will paralyse the government.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said that he now expects the Brits to finally set out their position clearly, since he cannot negotiate with himself. The irony of this statement is that it would actually be in Britain’s best interests if he did just that. At least that way they’d have one representative on their side who grasps the scale of the task and is actually capable of securing a deal that will be fair to both sides. The Brits do not have a single negotiator of this stature in their ranks. And quite apart from the Brexit terms, both the debate and the referendum have proven to be toxic in ways that are now making themselves felt.

British society is now more divided than at any time since the English civil war in the 17th century, a fact that was demonstrated anew in the general election, in which a good 80% of the votes were cast for the two largest parties. Neither of these parties was offering a centrist programme: the election was a choice between the hard right and the hard left. The political centre has been abandoned, and that is never a good sign. In a country like Great Britain, that for so long had a reputation for pragmatism and rationality, it is grounds for real concern. The situation is getting decidedly out of hand.

After the loss of its empire, the United Kingdom sought a new place in the world. It finally found it, as a strong, awkward and influential part of a larger union: the EU. Now it has given up this place quite needlessly. The consequence, as is now becoming clear, is a veritable identity crisis from which it will take the country a very long time to recover.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541711
Bill McCarthy wrote:All a matter of opinion - not a matter of fact.


I'll agree it's mixture of fact and opinion based on scenarios the author considers likely, it's certainly not all opinion.

The events that led to the referendum are a matter of record, inflation is certainly happening as predicted due to the factual drop in value of the pound. The issues around the Deadly Excess are also well known.

What happens next is of course a matter of conjecture, but the author's scenarios are soundly based.

BTW "Opinion" has two meanings. I'm assuming you didn't mean this one: "a statement of advice by an expert on a professional matter." :D
User avatar
By OCB
#1541712
Zzzz...

Whoever wrote that hatchet job in a Swiss newspaper obviously hasn't been in this forum, and probably not even to the UK and spoken to real people.

same old tired and trite platitudes. Nothing to see. Move along...
User avatar
By kanga
#1541821
OCB wrote:.., and probably not even to the UK and spoken to real people.

..Move along...


Suddeutsche Zeitung in UK and Ireland, based London.

https://mobile.twitter.com/chzaschke?lang=en


Original article


http://mobile2.derbund.ch/articles/5944 ... 44ba000001

(As ever, without​ taking sides on underlying issues :roll: )
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541840
OCB wrote:Zzzz...

Whoever wrote that hatchet job in a Swiss newspaper obviously hasn't been in this forum, and probably not even to the UK and spoken to real people.


Each to his own, impossible to prove right and wrong ... I happen to think the Swiss summary sums up where we are rather well. I'm not proud of that, it simply proves what a basket case the UK is ...

Back in the 70's we were not a member of the EU club and we were knocking on their door to be allowed in and now we are clambering to get out ... all very confusing.
User avatar
By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541848
avtur3 wrote:Back in the 70's we were not a member of the EU club and we were knocking on their door to be allowed in and now we are clambering to get out ... all very confusing.


Umm, not quite... Back in the 70s the UK sought to join the EEC. The UK is now trying to leave the EU. I suspect that if the EEC had not become the EU, the UK public would not have voted to leave the EEC...

And I say this as a Brit living in France who will undoubtedly be affected by this stuff.

Regards, SD
cockney steve liked this
User avatar
By kanga
#1541873
As I'm sure many Forumites know, the Cornish writer Daphne du Maurier had several of her works used as the basis for Hitchcock films. Not, however, her last novel Rule Britannia...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_Britannia_(novel)

This was written just after UK had been accepted for EEC. What the Wikipedia gist above does not say is that it is set in some future time, UK leaves EEC, economic collapse results, .. then (as gisted) UK seeks arrangements with US, US occupation forces arrive, Resistance movement starts in Cornwall.

Obviously fiction, but would have made a great Hitchcock movie .. :)
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541888
skydriller wrote:
avtur3 wrote:Back in the 70's we were not a member of the EU club and we were knocking on their door to be allowed in and now we are clambering to get out ... all very confusing.


Umm, not quite... Back in the 70s the UK sought to join the EEC. The UK is now trying to leave the EU. I suspect that if the EEC had not become the EU, the UK public would not have voted to leave the EEC...

And I say this as a Brit living in France who will undoubtedly be affected by this stuff.

Regards, SD


The bulk of the public had no idea what they were voting for, they'd just been told by the Daily Mail and the Express, Gove and Boris that they could stop immigration and get £350 million a day for the NHS. Both monumental fibs of course.

Others wanted Sovereignty though none of them could define it.
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541891
johnm wrote:
The bulk of the public had no idea what they were voting for, they'd just been told by the Daily Mail and the Express, Gove and Boris that they could stop immigration and get £350 million a day for the NHS. Both monumental fibs of course.

Others wanted Sovereignty though none of them could define it.


I don't wish to be dismissive of my fellow citizens views and opinions, it's a free country and all that, but I can't help but think that this is a fairly accurate appraisal of what was in peoples minds when they voted.
User avatar
By OCB
#1541908
Back to the article.
Britain is at its most divided since the English Civil War? Eh???
Who here actually agrees with that?
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541911
OCB wrote:Back to the article.
Britain is at its most divided since the English Civil War? Eh???
Who here actually agrees with that?



I do. Half of us want to be an isolated little island off the coast of Europe, while thinking we're a major imperial power and half of us want to be part of the EU and get stuck in and make it work properly. Sounds quite analogous to Royalists and Parliamentarians to me :-)

In fact I'm quite tempted to have a go at doing a Cromwell and tearing up the Article 50 letter :-) Executing Boris and Farage is quite an attractive prospect too :twisted:
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