What will you be doing on March 29th?

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What will you be doing on March 29th?

open a bottle of champage or other alcoholic drink
4
12%
go on a cycle ride to your favourite part of the UK to contemplate the future
2
6%
stay in bed and sleep until the day is over
1
3%
goto work but avoid discussing Brexit
9
27%
write in your diary the end of the world as we know it has begun
5
15%
shout hurray! as indyref2 one step closer
4
12%
as an expat apply for a foreign passport
2
6%
grumble but carry on as usual
6
18%
 
Total votes: 33

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bovlomov
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by bovlomov »

Isn't this about people rather than regions? London gets tons of infrastructure projects, and a disproportionate amount of spending that could be described as "national" (e.g. museums). On the other hand, it has some of the poorest people with the highest living costs. Rich people from all over the country (and world) may have their offices and flats in London, but they have their family homes elsewhere. Who are the 'Londoners' benefiting from this economic imbalance? Certainly not most of the young people born in London, who have to move out to Stevenage if they ever want to own a house.

Are we Londoners (born within the sound of the M25) sucking money from the rest of the country? Or is it that certain sectors and certain people are doing that? There's a lot of discussion about whether bankers contribute to the economy or whether they are a drain. Either way - London can't take credit for the wealth a banker from Durham generates, and it can't take the blame for his deficit.

All else being equal, if money was poured into the NorthEast, the wealth would follow, but wouldn't the poor remain just as poor (perhaps with more jobs but higher rents)?

Sorry - that's a bit jumbled. I hope you get the point.
Tangled Metal
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Tangled Metal »

Well 29th March is over. Did you do what you said you would?
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661-Pete
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by 661-Pete »

Well I didn't do anything much, planned or unplanned, on the Wednesday - but I'd done a tougher-than-usual spin on the Tuesday: only 18 miles but a bit of 'up-and-down' thereto. Long enough for me! So I was resting my aching limbs.

I rather expected all the "we won so get over it" and similar stuff from the triumphalists, mostly it's stopped bothering me. Well, less bothersome than things were last June.

We did the march on Saturday as we'd planned to. Can't see Mrs P and myself in the footage, but then attendance was anywhere between 50,000 (police estimate) and 100,000 (organisers' estimate), so we were somewhat lost in the crowds! What it achieves, or rather what it doesn't achieve, politically, is of course open to debate. Of course we know how things are panning out! Nevertheless, it was good to be, even if only for a few hours, amongst folks with whom one could have a mild chat about politics without degenerating into slanging each other.

I wish that were so in other places! Such as this forum :evil: . But that's the world nowadays....

My parting words are - we're a big minority. 100,000 who bothered to turn up in London, is a drop in the ocean compared with the 16,000,000 or so naysayers, but it's significant enough. We aren't about to shut up.

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Ben@Forest
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Ben@Forest »

bovlomov wrote:Isn't this about people rather than regions? London gets tons of infrastructure projects, and a disproportionate amount of spending that could be described as "national" (e.g. museums). On the other hand, it has some of the poorest people with the highest living costs...


The following is from an article written by a Sunderland MP in February:

While we have much to be proud of, it remains the case that investment in the North-East pales in comparison to that handed to other regions. The 2013 Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital report confirmed what we have known for years – arts spending is heavily skewed towards London, with Londoners benefiting from £69 spending per head, compared to a meagre £4.50 in regions like the North-East.

This North-South divide is not the only disparity. People in my region also receive notably less funding per head than their counterparts in the North-West. Last month, former Chancellor George Osborne outlined his vision for the Northern Powerhouse at an event in Leeds, claiming that the North will benefit from £100billion and 850,000 jobs over the next 30 years, but what this will mean for the North-East remained unclear.

Crossrail skews the figures for investment in public transport but even before that the disparity was big - Londoners' transport is considerably subsidised compared to Newcastle or Middlesbrough. And of course the NE has big areas of nothing where public transport is very poor - but Scotland, just over the border, has more money to run costly services.
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bovlomov
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by bovlomov »

Ben@Forest wrote:The following is from an article written by a Sunderland MP in February:

[i]While we have much to be proud of, it remains the case that investment in the North-East pales in comparison to that handed to other regions. The 2013 Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital report confirmed what we have known for years – arts spending is heavily skewed towards London, with Londoners benefiting from £69 spending per head, compared to a meagre £4.50 in regions like the North-East.

I don't dispute any of that. What I'm getting at is that London benefits but many Londoners do not. If anything, all that investment in rail, airports and culture makes life even harder for the native Londoner, as it brings in competition for jobs, housing, road space, services, and seats on the bus.

Also, it's no fun to see your city being bought up, block by block, by foreign crooks who are pushing up our land prices with money stolen from their compatriots.

As a Londoner, I'm asking you to take all the money promised for the Heathrow expansion, the garden bridge, the new concert hall, and for the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (you can take the members too). I would have given you the 12 billion for the Olympics, but it's already been spent. Can't say fairer than that! All I ask is that you spend it more wisely than we are going to.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Could start to get nasty now, negotiations should be finished inside two years

27 of them against one of *us*
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Tangled Metal
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Tangled Metal »

Starting to get nasty? Not been too friendly at times already.

Listened to an interesting analysis last night. UK is the second biggest donor of money to the EU, second only to Germany. That's a very big shortfall in 2 years time. France has financial issues so can't contribute to that shortfall and is in fact a big net winner in the money stakes since they receive more than they put in due to the CAP.

Basically there is potentially a huge bluff being played by rEU and UK. The rEU is worried about this shortfall in income. Part of the reason they're going in hard with a big payoff is because they actually need it to soften the blow to the loss of UK money. BTW this is after the UK's rebate is taken into account too.


I can't remember who said that or where but i remember it wasn't a politician but a financial type such as an academic specializing in European structures.

Wonder how true? Like with everything to do with Brexit there is no way for us mere mortals to get at the truth through all the spin. Does anyone else think there are no longer any truths being put out there about Brexit?

Read guardian articles online for example and others. You get arguments masquerading as news that you could tear apart using just logic without any knowledge of the facts. It's getting depressing how polar and divided things are becoming. Brexit, indyref2, Trump, etc. You're on my side completely or you're against me. That's politics. It's also become the news media. Papers don't just report news but they contribute to making it with their choosing sides.

Now they've been choosing sides for so long but it feels different lately to me. It's like they've dropped any pretense to impartiality and simple news reporting. Everything is now about the side you support. It's that polarity effect again! What's wrong with accepting things impartially. Why can't Brexit be good and bad? It is you know, no matter what spin is being put on it.
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Mick F
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Mick F »

Tangled Metal wrote:Well 29th March is over. Did you do what you said you would?
Yep.
I drove the community bus.
Mick F. Cornwall
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meic
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by meic »

UK is the second biggest donor of money to the EU,

Is that based on the £350 million a week figure or the actual amount that is really paid? :mrgreen:
Yma o Hyd
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Mick F
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Mick F »

meic wrote:
UK is the second biggest donor of money to the EU,

Is that based on the £350 million a week figure or the actual amount that is really paid? :mrgreen:
According to Wiki, we are the fourth ............... behind Italy, France, and Germany.
Mick F. Cornwall
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meic
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by meic »

It would be entirely reasonable for us to be the second largest donor (after Germany) because we are the second largest population (after Germany).
Third and fourth largest populations are, no surprise from looking at the contributions, France and Italy.
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Tangled Metal
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Tangled Metal »

meic wrote:
UK is the second biggest donor of money to the EU,

Is that based on the £350 million a week figure or the actual amount that is really paid? :mrgreen:


How do i know? There's so much BS around you could pick any figure off the top of your head and stand a chance of being closer than those being bandied around.

That "fact" like I said was from an academic/expert brought onto that show to offer a supposedly balanced view on the matter of money and the EU. It's not my figure and as I also said there's no facts just biased opinions on the news media and politics. At least that's the politician's job but it shouldn't be the media's job quite so blatantly IMHO.

BTW there's no simple figure on eu funding. UK is second on net contribution but is behind Italy and France too on total contribution. Contribution per capita puts UK right down the list but still positive. Pick which one suits your views.

Whatever the truth is there's going to be a pot of money the EU will lose. No doubt about that because by any measure the UK is paying in more than it's taking out. The issue is where will this pot of money go?

I'll bet if you looked at where EU money was spent in the UK you'd find whole regions being a net beneficiary of EU money. By that I mean per capita money going into the EU was less than the money coming out (if you consider the UK paying into the EU on a per capita basis). Cornwall springs to mind. Plus certain projects are supported by the EU that are possibly not to the government of tree UK's liking. The extra money that the UK might save outside of the EU is unlikely to go to the same recipients. Winners and losers, but it's going to be now a case of do you trust UK establishment more than the EU establishment to do this sharing out of the pot?
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meic
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by meic »

Here is a page of analysis of the EU budget, as you say if you play around with the different ways of assessing our contribution we can be either the second largest (net contributor) or the smallest (percentage of income).
Unfortunately 10 years out of date.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe ... .stm#start
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Tangled Metal
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by Tangled Metal »

meic wrote:It would be entirely reasonable for us to be the second largest donor (after Germany) because we are the second largest population (after Germany).
Third and fourth largest populations are, no surprise from looking at the contributions, France and Italy.

If you look at the net contributions figure it's often Germany, UK, some other EU country like Netherlands then France and Italy. Minor issue but on net contributions size of economy doesn't always match EU payments. I think it should but that's just my opinion.

BTW you can pick the way you sort the list of countries how you like to make a point. Overall payments for example and it's the UK out of position of economy size. Good old rebate gets us out of paying our share! No wonder the others hated it. Well they'll possibly miss the net contribution going forwards. Although i bet we'll end up paying more than the net contribution in some way or other. Who knows? There's just BS floating around right now. In 2 years time we might have a better idea of the situation but will it come out truthfully or with spin?
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Re: What will you be doing on March 29th?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Now they've been choosing sides for so long but it feels different lately to me. It's like they've dropped any pretense to impartiality and simple news reporting. Everything is now about the side you support. It's that polarity effect again! What's wrong with accepting things impartially. Why can't Brexit be good and bad? It is you know, no matter what spin is being put on it.


It’s an interesting question why the Brexit debate has been so divisive.

The nature of the EU is part of it. Mainland Europeans saw WWII as an unmitigated disaster where everybody lost. Our island story, on the other hand is that our unique national character won the war. The EU is then seen on one hand as a triumph of promoting diplomacy over war and it’s downsides are accepted. On the other hand it’s seen by many here as imposing undemocratic supranational government from across the water.

Then there’s the changing nature of the world. We are much more interconnected than in the past, and it’s simply impossible to control our own country’s destiny separate from the rest of the world. This makes the development of bodies like the EU, the WTO and the like inevitable, and desirable, to impose control on otherwise unaccountable multinational and cross border companies and other forces.

The poisoning of the well came long before the actual vote there with a long campaign of nationalist propaganda about the EU run by a UK print media controlled by a small number of ideological individuals. The remote and abstruse nature of the EU institutions enabled this, leading to a divisive debate in a fog of ignorance and unreality.

Then we come to the campaign itself with a leave campaign dominated by xenophobia and outright lies: 72 million Turks! £350M a week!

The vote itself reflects a country where many feel entirely disenfranchised from a political establishment delivering economic growth, but no benefit from that growth to the majority of people. This lead to a lashing out through Brexit from those outside the magic bubble which will, ironically, lead to still less wealth for them. The process, driven by extreme free market deregulators will exacerbate this as wealth flows further to the better off.

We therefore end in a position where no-one will be happy. We will leave the EU, but end up with less control over our destiny than we had before, the same level of immigration and less wealth to go around. This will be blamed on the EU “punishing” us and an insufficiently rigorous Brexit by Europhobe ideologues. The better off remainers will blame Brexit, but fail to address the need for wealth redistribution to heal the divisions in the country. They won’t ever accept that Brexit is a good thing, because based on a purely factual analysis, it isn’t.

It’s very hard to see this becoming less divisive in years to come. The leave sentiment is an emotional attachment to a national story which will only become stronger as it fails to deliver in a global world. The remain position was fatally weakened by an economic model leaving the bottom half of society disenfranchised, and that will almost certainly worsen further.

We’re left perhaps with Max Planck: “Science advances one funeral at a time.” Perhaps in a generation’s time, as the older Brexit voters die, the younger outward looking generation who overwhelmingly voted Remain will bring a happier, more open, less divided society.
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