Current Affairs EU In or Out

[The Esk]

Yes what a lovable combination he's teaming up with Nick Clegg- what a toxic combination that is for Brexit voterslol

Joey - if you look beyond the individual for a moment and read what he's saying, how can you fail to agree with the logic?

 

[Blues Harp]

Yes what a lovable combination he's teaming up with Nick Clegg- what a toxic combination that is for Brexit voterslol

Its a toxic combination for most remain voters also but what he says is, as the Esk said, probably right...you keen on Nige as PM then ?

 

[Joey66]

Its a toxic combination for most remain voters also but what he says is, as the Esk said, probably right...you keen on Nige as PM then ?

Don't be silly, but you can not take away from him his determination to get us out of the EU out of an unnecessary Polictical union that no one had ever voted for till last June the 23rd in which OUT won notice it's only millionaires like Blair, Geldoff Branson who lead a campaign to overturn a democratic vote?
Big business needs the gravy train of the EU - had to laugh the Halifax stated they may leave the U.K. Over EU well pay us the bail out money that crashed our economy first then?

 

[Blues Harp]

Some sympathy with your views in your 2nd paragraph..but do you seriously believe that the majority who voted leave did so because of their annoyance with corporate greed ?

 

[peteblue]

Tony Blair believes that Brexit can be halted. “It can be stopped if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up. And that can happen in one of two ways. I’m not saying it will [be stopped], by the way, but it could. I’m just saying: until you see what it means, how do you know?”

Attempting to secure access to the single market will be the defining negotiation. “Either you get maximum access to the single market – in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European Court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’ Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great, because beyond doubt if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring.”

But, I suggest, the Remain side made numberless dire economic forecasts during the long, dispiriting referendum campaign and they were ignored. The public understands well enough the risks of Brexit.

“But this is what I keep saying to people. This is like agreeing to a house swap without having seen the other house . . . You’ve got to understand, this has been driven essentially ideologically. You’ve got a very powerful cartel of the media on the right who provided the platform for the Brexiteers who allied themselves with the people in the Tory party who saw a chance to run with this. And, OK, they ended up in circumstances where there was a very brutal but not particularly enlightening campaign. They won that campaign.”

He pauses to reach for his coffee cup.

“But in the end, for a large number of the people, even those who voted Leave, they will look at this in a practical way, not an ideological way. And all I’m saying is: what shows you how ideological this is is that when I say, ‘Well, let’s just keep our options open,’ it’s condemned as treason. Why wouldn’t you keep your options open? Why wouldn’t you say, ‘We took this decision, we took it before we saw what its consequences are; now we see its consequences, we’re not so sure’?

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/11/tony-blair-s-unfinished-business

Like him or not, what he says on Brexit makes perfect sense.

Yeah, he really makes perfect sense.....

"Tony Blair told Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman he would be happy to be remembered as the man who told the British people they should join the single currency and that a political rejection of the euro would be "crazy".
"I certainly believe passionately that this country and its destiny lies in Europe.

"Should we stand apart from the alliance right on our doorstep as a country? It would be crazy to do that.

"It is an economic union. We shouldn't, for political reasons, stand aside. I don't believe that would be a fulfilment of our national interest. I believe it would be a betrayal of our national interest."


He would sell his own mother for a few bob.....

 

[magicjuan]

I'm not sure I agree with that. It's more important than that, if for no other reason than simple maths. The vast majority of companies will have many more customers than they'll have employees, but it's equally likely that their customers aren't anywhere near as organised, nor as motivated, as employees, so will kick up much less of a stink should things be made worse for them. That shouldn't mean that they aren't important however. And btw, I'm assuming we're both in agreement that buying something for the sake of buying it is no better than employing someone for the sake of employing them, so we're not talking the extremes here.

Regarding your point about retraining though, it's one I've touched on numerous times during this thread, as none of the politicians behind Brexit (or Trump) have touched on it at all. It's a massive oversight imo, and an oversight done in large part because it's difficult, not least for the person having to retrain. It's much harder to try and sell difficult but realistic change than it is to sell easy but unrealistic change.

People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice."

Alvin Toffler

Toffler dealt with consumerism as a theoretical system prior to its establishment as the governing part of globalisation. If deman continues then resources run out and all the 'wealth' is sucked out of the process by being concentrated in the hands of a very small minority leaving purchase power limited and consequently wealth generation stagnated. He decried the ability of trickle down economics as not being practical due to the human condition of greed in the 'wealth generators'.

As it is the accepted driving force behind economics now it may have shifted some of its theory into practice but only because the only possible end game hasn't yet occurred, that of implosion, the pace to that is dictated by events, some predicted and some as yet unforseen. So possibly I was wrong to use the word 'theoretical' but consumerism is based in theory and has no checks or balances and as such is a kind of fiscal anarchy the burden of which is borne by the majority for the benefit of a controlling minority.

 

[Joey66]

Some sympathy with your views in your 2nd paragraph..but do you seriously believe that the majority who voted leave did so because of their annoyance with corporate greed ?

Inside the EU yes!

 

[Joey66]

Joey - if you look beyond the individual for a moment and read what he's saying, how can you fail to agree with the logic?

They listened to him over Iraq look how that ended he and Bush should have been tried in The Hague for war crimes IMO!
Do not listen to any lie he utters!
He is toxic if anyone believes he's a game changer for Brexit dream on !

 

[tsubaki]

Tony Blair believes that Brexit can be halted. “It can be stopped if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up. And that can happen in one of two ways. I’m not saying it will [be stopped], by the way, but it could. I’m just saying: until you see what it means, how do you know?”

Attempting to secure access to the single market will be the defining negotiation. “Either you get maximum access to the single market – in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European Court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’ Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great, because beyond doubt if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring.”

But, I suggest, the Remain side made numberless dire economic forecasts during the long, dispiriting referendum campaign and they were ignored. The public understands well enough the risks of Brexit.

“But this is what I keep saying to people. This is like agreeing to a house swap without having seen the other house . . . You’ve got to understand, this has been driven essentially ideologically. You’ve got a very powerful cartel of the media on the right who provided the platform for the Brexiteers who allied themselves with the people in the Tory party who saw a chance to run with this. And, OK, they ended up in circumstances where there was a very brutal but not particularly enlightening campaign. They won that campaign.”

He pauses to reach for his coffee cup.

“But in the end, for a large number of the people, even those who voted Leave, they will look at this in a practical way, not an ideological way. And all I’m saying is: what shows you how ideological this is is that when I say, ‘Well, let’s just keep our options open,’ it’s condemned as treason. Why wouldn’t you keep your options open? Why wouldn’t you say, ‘We took this decision, we took it before we saw what its consequences are; now we see its consequences, we’re not so sure’?

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/11/tony-blair-s-unfinished-business

Like him or not, what he says on Brexit makes perfect sense.

No, it doesn't. It is a typical Blairism in that it is loaded with words and phrases that sound good ("keeping our options open", "look at this in a practical way") or bad ("ideological") or mythical ("it's condemned as treason"), all crafted to suggest that only the course of action he wants to see is acceptable (or moral, even).

It is nonsense because the very last thing he wants to do is to allow people a choice, as he himself admitted (when he talked about the Lisbon Treaty in the same interview) and because logically the only possible way you can keep your options open in this matter is to permanently be in this odd limbo that we now find ourselves - which no-one thinks is a good thing.

As an aside, you can see the same technique at work when he talks about Labour in the same interview (emphasis added):

He does not want Labour to split, though he feels that the party is in a much weaker position than it was even in the 1980s. “It’s a tough business . . . The leadership has been captured by the far left for the first time in the party’s history, so we have to see. I hope that the Labour Party realises that it has a historic duty to try to represent people in this country who need our representation desperately. I hope it rediscovers the fact that the government that I led and that Gordon Brown led actually did a huge amount for the people who were left behind by the policies of the previous Conservative government

Note "captured", which is an odd way to describe someone who was voted in by a majority of each of the disparate blocks that make up the Labour electorate, adding up to two landslides within a year. Note also how the suggestion is that the "far left" being in charge is a new phenomenon, even though almost all of the policies Corbyn proposes are actually long-standing Labour beliefs (take a look at the 1945 Labour manifesto for instance, or that from 1992, or even that from 1979).

Blair is a snake. Unless there are demonstrable, verifiable and multiple independent sources backing up what he says, it is best to assume he is telling fibs.

 

[magicjuan]

No, it doesn't. It is a typical Blairism in that it is loaded with words and phrases that sound good ("keeping our options open", "look at this in a practical way") or bad ("ideological") or mythical ("it's condemned as treason"), all crafted to suggest that only the course of action he wants to see is acceptable (or moral, even).

It is nonsense because the very last thing he wants to do is to allow people a choice, as he himself admitted (when he talked about the Lisbon Treaty in the same interview) and because logically the only possible way you can keep your options open in this matter is to permanently be in this odd limbo that we now find ourselves - which no-one thinks is a good thing.

As an aside, you can see the same technique at work when he talks about Labour in the same interview (emphasis added):



Note "captured", which is an odd way to describe someone who was voted in by a majority of each of the disparate blocks that make up the Labour electorate, adding up to two landslides within a year. Note also how the suggestion is that the "far left" being in charge is a new phenomenon, even though almost all of the policies Corbyn proposes are actually long-standing Labour beliefs (take a look at the 1945 Labour manifesto for instance, or that from 1992, or even that from 1979).

Blair is a snake. Unless there are demonstrable, verifiable and multiple independent sources backing up what he says, it is best to assume he is telling fibs.

What Blair says or does has the sole intention of benefitting Tony Blair above all else.

I despise him and his beliefs more than Thatcher and I would gladly dig her up, rip out her black heart, torch it and rebury it, just for peace of mind.

 

[peteblue]

No, it doesn't. It is a typical Blairism in that it is loaded with words and phrases that sound good ("keeping our options open", "look at this in a practical way") or bad ("ideological") or mythical ("it's condemned as treason"), all crafted to suggest that only the course of action he wants to see is acceptable (or moral, even).

It is nonsense because the very last thing he wants to do is to allow people a choice, as he himself admitted (when he talked about the Lisbon Treaty in the same interview) and because logically the only possible way you can keep your options open in this matter is to permanently be in this odd limbo that we now find ourselves - which no-one thinks is a good thing.

As an aside, you can see the same technique at work when he talks about Labour in the same interview (emphasis added):



Note "captured", which is an odd way to describe someone who was voted in by a majority of each of the disparate blocks that make up the Labour electorate, adding up to two landslides within a year. Note also how the suggestion is that the "far left" being in charge is a new phenomenon, even though almost all of the policies Corbyn proposes are actually long-standing Labour beliefs (take a look at the 1945 Labour manifesto for instance, or that from 1992, or even that from 1979).

Blair is a snake. Unless there are demonstrable, verifiable and multiple independent sources backing up what he says, it is best to assume he is telling fibs.

You have to be a committed remainer to quote Blair and then say he makes perfect sense......

 

[peteblue]

What Blair says or does has the sole intention of benefitting Tony Blair above all else.

I despise him and his beliefs more than Thatcher and I would gladly dig her up, rip out her black heart, torch it and rebury it, just for peace of mind.

All he sees is £££££'s......he is blind to anything else.....and now watch to see if he can get a role in the EU......

 

[tsubaki]

You have to be a committed remainer to quote Blair and then say he makes perfect sense......

Perhaps, though if you removed "a" and then "remainer" from that sentence it would also work.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice."

Alvin Toffler

Toffler dealt with consumerism as a theoretical system prior to its establishment as the governing part of globalisation. If deman continues then resources run out and all the 'wealth' is sucked out of the process by being concentrated in the hands of a very small minority leaving purchase power limited and consequently wealth generation stagnated. He decried the ability of trickle down economics as not being practical due to the human condition of greed in the 'wealth generators'.

As it is the accepted driving force behind economics now it may have shifted some of its theory into practice but only because the only possible end game hasn't yet occurred, that of implosion, the pace to that is dictated by events, some predicted and some as yet unforseen. So possibly I was wrong to use the word 'theoretical' but consumerism is based in theory and has no checks or balances and as such is a kind of fiscal anarchy the burden of which is borne by the majority for the benefit of a controlling minority.

With the ghastly Black Friday soon upon us, you won't get my defending consumerism. I guess all I was saying is that in any industrial dispute, the workers and the owners tend to be represented, but not the customer. The very maths of the situation underlines why that is. If you have £x being argued over, if you're dividing those spoils between, say, 1,000 employees or 100,000 customers, it clearly means more to each employee than it does to each customer, even if more people might benefit if the customer is taken into account.

Most technological developments fall into that camp.

 

[magicjuan]

All he sees is £££££'s......he is blind to anything else.....and now watch to see if he can get a role in the EU......

He sees his role in the process as some kind of mediating redeemer, he genuinely has a messiah complex the jug headed gimp