Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I don't think Gove's reforms improved education and nor do many people in Education. He wanted to take things back to some Eutopian 50s like world. It was disruptive for pupils to have to manage the exam changes. My son was affected but he still did well, but some were hung out to dry by him.
One of the biggest arguments is the same as it has always been. Business leaders complaining about the standards of school leavers. The problem is again the same as it has always been - a 17 year old doesn't go to bed on the eve of his/her 18th birthday and wake up an adult. They are still learning. Oldies have forgotten that and bemoan education standards. The important thing is consistency so you can gauge abilities, which is an argument not to change exams.
No, the important thing is to change and adapt to the needs of further education and employers.
By your reasoning - that one year group was affected - no change would ever be possible as it would always affect one year group.
Universities and employers realised a decade ago that 'the system' was churning out rote learners and requested that, as this skill has been superseded by the internet, collators of information would be more useful. Young school leavers with the ability to bring a variety of information together fand work out trends/solutions/implications etc.
Every A level exam board has changed in accordance with DfE and OFQUAL requirements. Despite meaning a bit of extra work for teachers, many who would prefer to still be teaching the exact same lessons they produced in the 1990's, it has also meant changing skill sets are emerging from our 16+ school leavers.
Not at all - I am saying the changes will make no difference at all for employers. And it isn't just one year affected. For my son, the changes only affected Maths and English, for the next year it affected all subjects.
Well that's your opinion, but the changes were requested by employers, make sense and so are very likely to make a difference. Instead of producing children who have simply learnt facts future leavers will be better equipped to know what to do with them.
BTW The 'subsequent subjects' would not have affected your son or indeed any students as they were implemented at the start of the new two year GCSE cohort, not one year into a 2 year course.
My point is they have always been requesting it. And they will never be satisfied because 18 year olds are not 25 year olds. Do you think Gove's changes moved away from children learning facts? Yes it is my opinion - yours is your opinion!
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
If it wasn't for The DUP, the border problem may have been sorted by now, to be fair.
The DUP stance is they don't want to be treated differently than the rest of the UK, accepting an Irish Sea border. . But the deal on offer is that they get the positive of staying in the CU but still able to negotiate the Unicorn new Trade Agreements. Best of both worlds. Doubt they would enter an election rejecting that deal. Can't see the Tories accepting their demands despite the £1bn payoff, if it jeapordises a yes deal.
The issue seems to be the UK saying that there will be the same border as now in Ireland in the future because of the anticipated trade deal. The EU are saying what if there is no trade deal? In preparing for no deal, which we hear is going on left right and centre what with 'technical notices' and so on the UK government has no credible idea regarding that border. I mean what is the 'technical notice' regarding the Irish border in a no deal scenario? If one existed we would certainly know about it. The pound might as well fall (or rise) for whatever that matters, the finances are a minor part of brexit anyway, the more fundamental issue is that without a border there is no brexit at all because the UK will not have 'taken back control of it's borders'. Mind you those who voted for brexit knew they were voting for no brexit anyway.
Well I blindly thought that there would be some sort of border between the 2, like all the other countries that have internal borders......but silly me, I forgot we cant do that because it will upset a few people who dont respect democracy ot the rule of law.
Next time by neighbour wants to put a new fence up between us I'll just lob a few petrol bombs into his garden & put a bomb under his car....that will teach him.
Or upset a few people who respect an international treaty freely entered into by the UK? Does the Good Friday Agreement trump Brexit, or does Brexit trump the Good Friday Agreement? If it does, then the detailed practical day to day solutions for the new hard border needs to be wheeled out. Any suggestions?
A Referendum put down by HM Government asking its citizens what they want trumps anything in my book. By chance, if you remainders got your "people vote" and one of the questions was "by leaving the EU we would have to put a border between the UK & the EU....do you vote Yes or No" what would say the outcome should be if the majority agreed ? Just say, sorry can't do it because 2 Governments signed an agreement 20 years ago that to stop people killing each other we'd just leave an open border for ever & if we ever decide to change the terms of that agreement then someone could put a bomb in a pub & kill hundreds of people.
As I said a few weeks ago that the IRA have won......yes, it was a flippant remark, and I back tracked and said that the terrorists have won. Care to disagree ?? because all I'm hearing is that a border can not be put up because of the GFA. Times change & situations change.......otherwise we'd still have an Empire.
I'd care to disagree.
Really quite a lot.
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what the Peace Process and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are all about, and have little or no understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland.
The Peace Process is the only method by which the terrorists (on both sides) could, genuinely, be outflanked by civil society.
It allowed everyone to believe that they had won (especially those relatives of people who would otherwise have been killed or maimed, whether policemen, soldiers or "collateral damage" of either sides' set of bastards stupidity), and provide hope that, definitely not quickly nor comprehensively enough, Northern Ireland could become a place of political, economic and social normality.
Anyone here can be British, Irish, Irish and British, or Northern Irish, and everyone could read into the agreement an interpretation that suited their own particular perspective. There were no losers.
The terrorists, especially the Dissidents, like the shits behind the Omagh bomb of August 1998,or the killing of PC Ronan Kerr, also in Omagh, in 2011, don't give a flying fuck about the hardening of the border in Ireland to any great extent. If anything, they welcome it, which is precisely why Dissident Republican political leaders argued in favour of a pro-Leave vote in the referendum (look at the numbers of votes cast for Brexit in Derry/Londonderry, it was not just Loyalists) It will just provide them with a greater range of "legitimate targets" to attack, and increase the potential for statements drenched in crocodile tears explaining how upset they will be with those caught up in the collateral damage.
In fact, if we manage to find a solution that prevents additional barriers on the border, to the extent that they protect the Good Friday Agreement, it will be because Civil Society (minus the DUP admittedly), and the security services, will have won out, not the IRA, or any other terrorist grouping.
The terrorists will have won, will have what they want, if the border is changed. On this issue, no doubt for reasons of the loftiest idealism, those who support change to the current border set-up in Ireland, whether Jacob Rees Mogg, the rest of ERG, David Davis, or anyone arguing (in the absence of any evidence on the ballot papers used) that it's what "we" voted for in 2016, are on precisely the same side of this argument as the terrorists. Doubtless that will bring a warm glow to their hearts....
Obviously you see it from a NI / Ireland perspective & I will admit I haven't read up about The Troubles, potato famine & the whole British occupation of Ireland.
One thing I take from what you said " there were no losers" ......sounds like a fudge to me.....or at best a compromise as there were losers in it all, just ask Eileen Foster. She lost her father to an IRA bomb I believe, the perpetrator of which was convicted & then walked free a few years later due to the GFA.
F, if Portugal was to leave the EU, what do you think they would do about the border between them & Spain ??
So on the back of admitting you know nothing about the Irish question you have formulated you view of what has happened and what’s likely to happen going forward.
By the way the Good Friday Agreement “fudge” has kept the peace ever since it was signed.
Yes, by bowing down to the terrorists, letting murderers on life sentances out scot free & letting the paramilitaries "dispose" of their weapons. If it all starts up again they wont be needing to get their arms from sympathetic Americans, all they need to do is dig up Farmer Paddy's field & find their stash of weapons again.
The issue seems to be the UK saying that there will be the same border as now in Ireland in the future because of the anticipated trade deal. The EU are saying what if there is no trade deal? In preparing for no deal, which we hear is going on left right and centre what with 'technical notices' and so on the UK government has no credible idea regarding that border. I mean what is the 'technical notice' regarding the Irish border in a no deal scenario? If one existed we would certainly know about it. The pound might as well fall (or rise) for whatever that matters, the finances are a minor part of brexit anyway, the more fundamental issue is that without a border there is no brexit at all because the UK will not have 'taken back control of it's borders'. Mind you those who voted for brexit knew they were voting for no brexit anyway.
Well I blindly thought that there would be some sort of border between the 2, like all the other countries that have internal borders......but silly me, I forgot we cant do that because it will upset a few people who dont respect democracy ot the rule of law.
Next time by neighbour wants to put a new fence up between us I'll just lob a few petrol bombs into his garden & put a bomb under his car....that will teach him.
Or upset a few people who respect an international treaty freely entered into by the UK? Does the Good Friday Agreement trump Brexit, or does Brexit trump the Good Friday Agreement? If it does, then the detailed practical day to day solutions for the new hard border needs to be wheeled out. Any suggestions?
A Referendum put down by HM Government asking its citizens what they want trumps anything in my book. By chance, if you remainders got your "people vote" and one of the questions was "by leaving the EU we would have to put a border between the UK & the EU....do you vote Yes or No" what would say the outcome should be if the majority agreed ? Just say, sorry can't do it because 2 Governments signed an agreement 20 years ago that to stop people killing each other we'd just leave an open border for ever & if we ever decide to change the terms of that agreement then someone could put a bomb in a pub & kill hundreds of people.
As I said a few weeks ago that the IRA have won......yes, it was a flippant remark, and I back tracked and said that the terrorists have won. Care to disagree ?? because all I'm hearing is that a border can not be put up because of the GFA. Times change & situations change.......otherwise we'd still have an Empire.
I'd care to disagree.
Really quite a lot.
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what the Peace Process and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are all about, and have little or no understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland.
The Peace Process is the only method by which the terrorists (on both sides) could, genuinely, be outflanked by civil society.
It allowed everyone to believe that they had won (especially those relatives of people who would otherwise have been killed or maimed, whether policemen, soldiers or "collateral damage" of either sides' set of bastards stupidity), and provide hope that, definitely not quickly nor comprehensively enough, Northern Ireland could become a place of political, economic and social normality.
Anyone here can be British, Irish, Irish and British, or Northern Irish, and everyone could read into the agreement an interpretation that suited their own particular perspective. There were no losers.
The terrorists, especially the Dissidents, like the shits behind the Omagh bomb of August 1998,or the killing of PC Ronan Kerr, also in Omagh, in 2011, don't give a flying fuck about the hardening of the border in Ireland to any great extent. If anything, they welcome it, which is precisely why Dissident Republican political leaders argued in favour of a pro-Leave vote in the referendum (look at the numbers of votes cast for Brexit in Derry/Londonderry, it was not just Loyalists) It will just provide them with a greater range of "legitimate targets" to attack, and increase the potential for statements drenched in crocodile tears explaining how upset they will be with those caught up in the collateral damage.
In fact, if we manage to find a solution that prevents additional barriers on the border, to the extent that they protect the Good Friday Agreement, it will be because Civil Society (minus the DUP admittedly), and the security services, will have won out, not the IRA, or any other terrorist grouping.
The terrorists will have won, will have what they want, if the border is changed. On this issue, no doubt for reasons of the loftiest idealism, those who support change to the current border set-up in Ireland, whether Jacob Rees Mogg, the rest of ERG, David Davis, or anyone arguing (in the absence of any evidence on the ballot papers used) that it's what "we" voted for in 2016, are on precisely the same side of this argument as the terrorists. Doubtless that will bring a warm glow to their hearts....
Obviously you see it from a NI / Ireland perspective & I will admit I haven't read up about The Troubles, potato famine & the whole British occupation of Ireland.
One thing I take from what you said " there were no losers" ......sounds like a fudge to me.....or at best a compromise as there were losers in it all, just ask Eileen Foster. She lost her father to an IRA bomb I believe, the perpetrator of which was convicted & then walked free a few years later due to the GFA.
F, if Portugal was to leave the EU, what do you think they would do about the border between them & Spain ??
So on the back of admitting you know nothing about the Irish question you have formulated you view of what has happened and what’s likely to happen going forward.
By the way the Good Friday Agreement “fudge” has kept the peace ever since it was signed.
Yes, by bowing down to the terrorists, letting murderers on life sentances out scot free & letting the paramilitaries "dispose" of their weapons. If it all starts up again they wont be needing to get their arms from sympathetic Americans, all they need to do is dig up Farmer Paddy's field & find their stash of weapons again.
I advise you to alert the authorities to the field of this Farmer Paddy you know, so as to get the cache of weapons.
The issue seems to be the UK saying that there will be the same border as now in Ireland in the future because of the anticipated trade deal. The EU are saying what if there is no trade deal? In preparing for no deal, which we hear is going on left right and centre what with 'technical notices' and so on the UK government has no credible idea regarding that border. I mean what is the 'technical notice' regarding the Irish border in a no deal scenario? If one existed we would certainly know about it. The pound might as well fall (or rise) for whatever that matters, the finances are a minor part of brexit anyway, the more fundamental issue is that without a border there is no brexit at all because the UK will not have 'taken back control of it's borders'. Mind you those who voted for brexit knew they were voting for no brexit anyway.
Well I blindly thought that there would be some sort of border between the 2, like all the other countries that have internal borders......but silly me, I forgot we cant do that because it will upset a few people who dont respect democracy ot the rule of law.
Next time by neighbour wants to put a new fence up between us I'll just lob a few petrol bombs into his garden & put a bomb under his car....that will teach him.
Or upset a few people who respect an international treaty freely entered into by the UK? Does the Good Friday Agreement trump Brexit, or does Brexit trump the Good Friday Agreement? If it does, then the detailed practical day to day solutions for the new hard border needs to be wheeled out. Any suggestions?
A Referendum put down by HM Government asking its citizens what they want trumps anything in my book. By chance, if you remainders got your "people vote" and one of the questions was "by leaving the EU we would have to put a border between the UK & the EU....do you vote Yes or No" what would say the outcome should be if the majority agreed ? Just say, sorry can't do it because 2 Governments signed an agreement 20 years ago that to stop people killing each other we'd just leave an open border for ever & if we ever decide to change the terms of that agreement then someone could put a bomb in a pub & kill hundreds of people.
As I said a few weeks ago that the IRA have won......yes, it was a flippant remark, and I back tracked and said that the terrorists have won. Care to disagree ?? because all I'm hearing is that a border can not be put up because of the GFA. Times change & situations change.......otherwise we'd still have an Empire.
I'd care to disagree.
Really quite a lot.
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what the Peace Process and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are all about, and have little or no understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland.
The Peace Process is the only method by which the terrorists (on both sides) could, genuinely, be outflanked by civil society.
It allowed everyone to believe that they had won (especially those relatives of people who would otherwise have been killed or maimed, whether policemen, soldiers or "collateral damage" of either sides' set of bastards stupidity), and provide hope that, definitely not quickly nor comprehensively enough, Northern Ireland could become a place of political, economic and social normality.
Anyone here can be British, Irish, Irish and British, or Northern Irish, and everyone could read into the agreement an interpretation that suited their own particular perspective. There were no losers.
The terrorists, especially the Dissidents, like the shits behind the Omagh bomb of August 1998,or the killing of PC Ronan Kerr, also in Omagh, in 2011, don't give a flying fuck about the hardening of the border in Ireland to any great extent. If anything, they welcome it, which is precisely why Dissident Republican political leaders argued in favour of a pro-Leave vote in the referendum (look at the numbers of votes cast for Brexit in Derry/Londonderry, it was not just Loyalists) It will just provide them with a greater range of "legitimate targets" to attack, and increase the potential for statements drenched in crocodile tears explaining how upset they will be with those caught up in the collateral damage.
In fact, if we manage to find a solution that prevents additional barriers on the border, to the extent that they protect the Good Friday Agreement, it will be because Civil Society (minus the DUP admittedly), and the security services, will have won out, not the IRA, or any other terrorist grouping.
The terrorists will have won, will have what they want, if the border is changed. On this issue, no doubt for reasons of the loftiest idealism, those who support change to the current border set-up in Ireland, whether Jacob Rees Mogg, the rest of ERG, David Davis, or anyone arguing (in the absence of any evidence on the ballot papers used) that it's what "we" voted for in 2016, are on precisely the same side of this argument as the terrorists. Doubtless that will bring a warm glow to their hearts....
I always love your posts NornIrishAddick, thoughtful, insightful, factual and extremely well written.
I just feel that on this occasion you are wasting your time casting such wonderful pearls amongst the most awful swines - these people don't want to learn, they want to be right.
I was at an event last night put on by wealth management firm St James' Place. Some great speeches on the financial outlook for 2019, particularly post Brexit.
Some of you are certainly more rose-tinted in your outlook than people who study markets professionally, model every possible outcome and do it every day for a FTSE 100 company.
Britain is already well behind most of the world in the recovery since the market crash. Now a third of businesseses say they will be hit, and people think that's good news!
This morning the R4 Today programme has interviewed Carole Cadwalladr, the Guardian journalist who has led the investigations into Banks, LeaveEU funding, and Cambridge Analytica. On her own. So what?
Ms Cadwalladr has been working on the stories for a couple of years. As we have discussed, the BBC was very reluctant to pick it up. When she was finally invited on to the Marr Show, he allowed her to be "cross-examined" about her story by that screeching cow Isobel Oakeshott, as opposed to reviewing the papers. I, among many others complained to the BBC about that ( Iwent through three stages of their unsatisfactory system), but still some elements in the BBC did their best to try to discredit her. She revealed that R4T had invited her on a few months later, but she withdrew when she learnt that Oakeshott would be there too "for balance". Meanwhile Banks continuously abused her on Twitter in very personal terms (this is why I do the same to him, on Twitter as well as on here). He published photos of her on Twitter with a pet cat, and (continuously) tries to portray her as a mad woman alone in her flat with her cat (subtext: not getting laid). In the meantime, the Met Police were, until this week refusing to consider the evidence against Leave EU; Cressida Dick had apparently described it as "too politically sensitive"- an interesting reason for not investigating an alleged crime.
All that changed this week, and clearly as part of that R4T had to change its attitude to Carole C. That was the significance of giving her a "free hit" this morning. All is not entirely transparent, that said; in the otherwise good interview later with Cressida Dick, Humphreys asked her to confirm that she was now investigating Banks, but when she replied that it was at an early stage, he failed to put to her Carole C's claim minutes earlier that while they had the allegations since May, they didn't start looking at it until September - a crucial delay for those of us who might think any criminality should be established before Brexit happens.
Overall I post this to assert the opposite of what @Southbank claims (without offering any real-life examples) - that "The Establishment" is trying to stop Brexit. On the contrary, the Establishment has been using the tools at its disposal to lean on Scotland Yard and the BBC to ignore the mounting evidence of criminality in the referendum. Fortunately Britain is still a country where the government does not have such tools to so easily lean on the likes of the Guardian, Channel 4, James O'Brien, etc. The truth will out in Britain, but as we know as Charlton fans, sometimes we all have to do our bit to help get it out there.
I have never used the term 'Establishment' for the following reason. While I do believe that a majority of those in the intellectual, political and business elites oppose Brexit, 95% of academics apparently for example, these people no longer represent a coherent world view in the way that the old establishment did in the days of Empire, or even up until the end of the Cold War, when nation religion and family bound them together ideologically.
What binds them together now is essentially fear of change, the Remain campaign was small c conservative and driven primarily by loss aversion , or 'Project Fear' as it is known. They want to hold on to the EU for fear of something worse. Yet they were and still are incapable of providing a positive vision of life in the EU, despite having their hands on nearly all the tools of public persuasion. I voted Leave in part because I saw it as one way of disrupting the stagnant political system and helping to trigger more radical change.
Suddenly decided to start using the word "Establishment" a sentence later though?
"...these people no longer represent a coherent world view in the way that the old establishment did in the days of Empire, or even up until the end of the Cold War, when nation religion and family bound them together ideologically."
You mean, they no longer reflect your narrow view of the world, so they are wrong.
Just be honest about it, eh?
Definitely not my view of the world or many others these days. Suggest you might read what I said more carefully
I have read it again, and now see the point you are kind of making. I think. You claim to believe that by voting to leave the EU, the establishment will crumble - the new one that is out of touch rather than the old one that was in touch - and there will be a new dawn in politics, something like PR, for example? Though that was foolishly (IMHO) rejected "democratically" in this very decade? If not, then please spell out your vision in simple terms for me, that's a genuine request - not flippancy.
This sentence is a bit more of your tabloid style bluff, by the way. "Yet they were and still are incapable of providing a positive vision of life in the EU, despite having their hands on nearly all the tools of public persuasion." Almost all the tabloids were frothing Brexiters, lying and exaggerating over and over, the TV news was pretty neutral, the Russians backed an anti-EU social media campaign, the "Leave campaign" made claims that grabbed headlines which were patently unachievable, even if they had an ounce of power to actually carry them out (they were a lobby organisation, seemingly able to make outrageous claims with impunity - anyone contradicting them, in the eyes of Brexiters, was practising "loss aversion", apparently). Some of those lies literally "writ large" on the side of a bus. When the government did provide a positive vision of life in the EU, you "deeply resented the Government using my taxes to put out a leaflet saying stay in the EU." Even though we live in a parliamentary democracy, a democracy so many quitters claim is the only way democracy should work. You were never interested in anything positive about the EU, you and millions of others drip-fed anti-EU propaganda for decades (by the establishment 4th estate) had made your minds up long before that leaflet dropped on your doormat.
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Not you as well P!
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
This is almost unbelievable, but the BBC have "proudly" announced that they are putting Aaron Banks on the Marr Show tomorrow. Stop and let that sink in for a moment...
A person is invited on to the Marr Show, because he faces criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings have even started, they give him the opportunity on an allegedly top current affairs show to explain why he is innocent.
If, like me you think that is beyond disgraceful you could do what loads of people on Twitter have done, nd complain. However as I have found out, it is difficult to get anything sensible out of the BBC complaints machine.
It would b wrong of me to put this contact on Twitter, but if any of you feel as strongly as I do that it is wrong to give that steaming pile of turd a platform, you could email directly Colin Tregear who is the Complaints Director of the Executive Complaints Unit: colin.tregear.01@bbc.co.uk
Some good inspiration for the wording of complaints on
How anyone can suggest that the BBC is somehow pro-Remain, as @Southbank does is beyond my comprehension. As indeed is the current state of BBC news coverage.
This is almost unbelievable, but the BBC have "proudly" announced that they are putting Aaron Banks on the Marr Show tomorrow. Stop and let that sink in for a moment...
A person is invited on to the Marr Show, because he faces criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings have even started, they give him the opportunity on an allegedly top current affairs show to explain why he is innocent.
If, like me you think that is beyond disgraceful you could do what loads of people on Twitter have done, nd complain. However as I have found out, it is difficult to get anything sensible out of the BBC complaints machine.
It would b wrong of me to put this contact on Twitter, but if any of you feel as strongly as I do that it is wrong to give that steaming pile of turd a platform, you could email directly Colin Tregear who is the Complaints Director of the Executive Complaints Unit: colin.tregear.01@bbc.co.uk
Some good inspiration for the wording of complaints on
How anyone can suggest that the BBC is somehow pro-Remain, as @Southbank does is beyond my comprehension. As indeed is the current state of BBC news coverage.
Let's see how Marr introduces him. If it's "welcome to a lying, scheming, anti-democratic scum bag" then the BBC's pro-Remain credentials will be intact.
This is almost unbelievable, but the BBC have "proudly" announced that they are putting Aaron Banks on the Marr Show tomorrow. Stop and let that sink in for a moment...
A person is invited on to the Marr Show, because he faces criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings have even started, they give him the opportunity on an allegedly top current affairs show to explain why he is innocent.
If, like me you think that is beyond disgraceful you could do what loads of people on Twitter have done, nd complain. However as I have found out, it is difficult to get anything sensible out of the BBC complaints machine.
It would b wrong of me to put this contact on Twitter, but if any of you feel as strongly as I do that it is wrong to give that steaming pile of turd a platform, you could email directly Colin Tregear who is the Complaints Director of the Executive Complaints Unit: colin.tregear.01@bbc.co.uk
Some good inspiration for the wording of complaints on
How anyone can suggest that the BBC is somehow pro-Remain, as @Southbank does is beyond my comprehension. As indeed is the current state of BBC news coverage.
I'm sure the lawyers have looked at this but my concern is that the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation is being given a platform to speak publically about that investigation which, if things are said in that act, might give rise to later defence objections should the matter proceed to trial.
If Marr has to conduct any "interview" being mindful that, at a later stage, objections might be raised over the fairness of any trial then the "interview" becomes worthless beyond allowing Banks a platform to promote his conspiracy theories and his (unchallenged) defence.
Or Marr might tear him a new one...but I've seen precious little appetite for that recently from the BBC.
This is almost unbelievable, but the BBC have "proudly" announced that they are putting Aaron Banks on the Marr Show tomorrow. Stop and let that sink in for a moment...
A person is invited on to the Marr Show, because he faces criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings have even started, they give him the opportunity on an allegedly top current affairs show to explain why he is innocent.
If, like me you think that is beyond disgraceful you could do what loads of people on Twitter have done, nd complain. However as I have found out, it is difficult to get anything sensible out of the BBC complaints machine.
It would b wrong of me to put this contact on Twitter, but if any of you feel as strongly as I do that it is wrong to give that steaming pile of turd a platform, you could email directly Colin Tregear who is the Complaints Director of the Executive Complaints Unit: colin.tregear.01@bbc.co.uk
Some good inspiration for the wording of complaints on
How anyone can suggest that the BBC is somehow pro-Remain, as @Southbank does is beyond my comprehension. As indeed is the current state of BBC news coverage.
I don't suspect he will be admitting his guilt. It is a poor decision and I wouldn't be surprised if they change it before tomorrow given the circumstances.
The issue seems to be the UK saying that there will be the same border as now in Ireland in the future because of the anticipated trade deal. The EU are saying what if there is no trade deal? In preparing for no deal, which we hear is going on left right and centre what with 'technical notices' and so on the UK government has no credible idea regarding that border. I mean what is the 'technical notice' regarding the Irish border in a no deal scenario? If one existed we would certainly know about it. The pound might as well fall (or rise) for whatever that matters, the finances are a minor part of brexit anyway, the more fundamental issue is that without a border there is no brexit at all because the UK will not have 'taken back control of it's borders'. Mind you those who voted for brexit knew they were voting for no brexit anyway.
Well I blindly thought that there would be some sort of border between the 2, like all the other countries that have internal borders......but silly me, I forgot we cant do that because it will upset a few people who dont respect democracy ot the rule of law.
Next time by neighbour wants to put a new fence up between us I'll just lob a few petrol bombs into his garden & put a bomb under his car....that will teach him.
Or upset a few people who respect an international treaty freely entered into by the UK? Does the Good Friday Agreement trump Brexit, or does Brexit trump the Good Friday Agreement? If it does, then the detailed practical day to day solutions for the new hard border needs to be wheeled out. Any suggestions?
A Referendum put down by HM Government asking its citizens what they want trumps anything in my book. By chance, if you remainders got your "people vote" and one of the questions was "by leaving the EU we would have to put a border between the UK & the EU....do you vote Yes or No" what would say the outcome should be if the majority agreed ? Just say, sorry can't do it because 2 Governments signed an agreement 20 years ago that to stop people killing each other we'd just leave an open border for ever & if we ever decide to change the terms of that agreement then someone could put a bomb in a pub & kill hundreds of people.
As I said a few weeks ago that the IRA have won......yes, it was a flippant remark, and I back tracked and said that the terrorists have won. Care to disagree ?? because all I'm hearing is that a border can not be put up because of the GFA. Times change & situations change.......otherwise we'd still have an Empire.
I'd care to disagree.
Really quite a lot.
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what the Peace Process and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are all about, and have little or no understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland.
The Peace Process is the only method by which the terrorists (on both sides) could, genuinely, be outflanked by civil society.
It allowed everyone to believe that they had won (especially those relatives of people who would otherwise have been killed or maimed, whether policemen, soldiers or "collateral damage" of either sides' set of bastards stupidity), and provide hope that, definitely not quickly nor comprehensively enough, Northern Ireland could become a place of political, economic and social normality.
Anyone here can be British, Irish, Irish and British, or Northern Irish, and everyone could read into the agreement an interpretation that suited their own particular perspective. There were no losers.
The terrorists, especially the Dissidents, like the shits behind the Omagh bomb of August 1998,or the killing of PC Ronan Kerr, also in Omagh, in 2011, don't give a flying fuck about the hardening of the border in Ireland to any great extent. If anything, they welcome it, which is precisely why Dissident Republican political leaders argued in favour of a pro-Leave vote in the referendum (look at the numbers of votes cast for Brexit in Derry/Londonderry, it was not just Loyalists) It will just provide them with a greater range of "legitimate targets" to attack, and increase the potential for statements drenched in crocodile tears explaining how upset they will be with those caught up in the collateral damage.
In fact, if we manage to find a solution that prevents additional barriers on the border, to the extent that they protect the Good Friday Agreement, it will be because Civil Society (minus the DUP admittedly), and the security services, will have won out, not the IRA, or any other terrorist grouping.
The terrorists will have won, will have what they want, if the border is changed. On this issue, no doubt for reasons of the loftiest idealism, those who support change to the current border set-up in Ireland, whether Jacob Rees Mogg, the rest of ERG, David Davis, or anyone arguing (in the absence of any evidence on the ballot papers used) that it's what "we" voted for in 2016, are on precisely the same side of this argument as the terrorists. Doubtless that will bring a warm glow to their hearts....
Obviously you see it from a NI / Ireland perspective & I will admit I haven't read up about The Troubles, potato famine & the whole British occupation of Ireland.
One thing I take from what you said " there were no losers" ......sounds like a fudge to me.....or at best a compromise as there were losers in it all, just ask Eileen Foster. She lost her father to an IRA bomb I believe, the perpetrator of which was convicted & then walked free a few years later due to the GFA.
F, if Portugal was to leave the EU, what do you think they would do about the border between them & Spain ??
So on the back of admitting you know nothing about the Irish question you have formulated you view of what has happened and what’s likely to happen going forward.
By the way the Good Friday Agreement “fudge” has kept the peace ever since it was signed.
Yes, by bowing down to the terrorists, letting murderers on life sentances out scot free & letting the paramilitaries "dispose" of their weapons. If it all starts up again they wont be needing to get their arms from sympathetic Americans, all they need to do is dig up Farmer Paddy's field & find their stash of weapons again.
You’re arguing against yourself ?
It’s exactly that scenario you portray that has been kept at bay by the GFA. Any tinkering with the nuances of that agreement might give the men of violence the excuse and opportunity to resume their evil work.
So on the back of admitting you know nothing about the Irish question you have formulated you view of what has happened and what’s likely to happen going forward.
By the way the Good Friday Agreement “fudge” has kept the peace ever since it was signed.
Yes, by bowing down to the terrorists, letting murderers on life sentances out scot free & letting the paramilitaries "dispose" of their weapons. If it all starts up again they wont be needing to get their arms from sympathetic Americans, all they need to do is dig up Farmer Paddy's field & find their stash of weapons again.
Oh my giddy aunt.
I really do hope you were just back from the pub when you wrote this.
Yes, terrorists/murderers were released, provided that they had signed up to the agreement, those objecting weren't (this is, dare I say it, not exactly unique in conflict resolutions around the World, other examples, notably South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, have gone further down the same road).
It's not something that any reasonable person considers to be anything other than a necessary evil (and, as I have suggested before, it is better to release people who have been convicted and jailed for an offence than to decide that a certain group, as is often raised at PMQs, should be given an amnesty from any prosecution, purely because of the organisations to which they belonged).
The PSNI have not stopped investigating outstanding cases and, in the context of the GFA, they should not do so, even if that includes uncovering collusion and murder on the part of the security services.
And, in passing, the destruction of the Provisional IRA's capacity to use the weapons it had stockpiled, by having them being verifiably put beyond use (believed to have involved things like, in the presence of members of the de Chastelain Commission, pouring concrete into bunkers that they had inspected).
So, it might be a bit difficult for them to access weapons stashed in Farmer Paddy's field.
Farmer Paddy, oh how I laughed at the stereotypical description.....
Mind you, as your arguments about Northern Ireland and Brexit seem to be driving towards returning us all to the 1970s, I've no doubt more comedy gold awaits.
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Not you as well P!
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
You have not answered the question. You have just restated your original argument from 2 1/2 years ago which is based on a misunderstanding of the EU and WTO in the first place. The EU is a single market and customs union which means it is more than just a Free Trade area and therefore provides many more benefits to its members.
We will never agree on the benefits of the EU single market and customs union.
The question was how can the businesses in the survey you quoted be positive about post Brexit trading conditions in their export markets with countries in the EU. In terms of costs and regulatory overheads there will be negative impacts. That is fact. The only thing we don’t know until a Trade Deal is done is the scale of those impacts. Maybe a majority of the companies in the survey are service companies? Were they all ‘exporting’ businesses? I don’t expect you to provide me a detailed breakdown of the companies in the survey. It was more of a rhetorical question because I simply don’t understand how UK export businesses can be positive, in the sense of things will be better, post Brexit.
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Not you as well P!
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
So do you think we lose out, negotiating with the purchasing power of 508 million people behind us as opposed to 60 million? That said, I take your point, but where is the benefit of Portugal, for example, being part of the bloc when Germany can do directly to Canada and say "deal with us - don't worry about the rest of my gang"? Isn't a union about helping each other?
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Not you as well P!
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
You have not answered the question. You have just restated your original argument from 2 1/2 years ago which is based on a misunderstanding of the EU and WTO in the first place. The EU is a single market and customs union which means it is more than just a Free Trade area and therefore provides many more benefits to its members.
We will never agree on the benefits of the EU single market and customs union.
The question was how can the businesses in the survey you quoted be positive about post Brexit trading conditions in their export markets with countries in the EU. In terms of costs and regulatory overheads there will be negative impacts. That is fact. The only thing we don’t know until a Trade Deal is done is the scale of those impacts. Maybe a majority of the companies in the survey are service companies? Were they all ‘exporting’ businesses? I don’t expect you to provide me a detailed breakdown of the companies in the survey. It was more of a rhetorical question because I simply don’t understand how UK export businesses can be positive, in the sense of things will be better, post Brexit.
I can’t possibly provide a breakdown - it’s not my survey.
And as with all these types of survey, it’s all prediction and forecast based upon trends and activities ... it can’t be fact until it happens.
My argument, incidentally, is most certainly not a misunderstanding of the process. It is how I believe FTA’s should operate and how most do operate.
Unfortunately the report you quote is from the Scotsman, and I really can't be arsed to turn off my ad blocker for them. But I would be curious to know in order to consider calmly @Red_in_SE8 valid point, what the sample was, which research company did the work and whether there were any external partners funding the research. Just, like, part of my usual diligence arising from professional market research training.
I did Google to see whether any other news outlet carries the report. None that I found. Curiously, I did find that HSBC did another survey which was terribly Brexit-positive in April, carried with some fanfare by the Express.
It is then quite difficult to square with the other eye-catching stories that jump out from page 1 of my Google research...that HSBC itself, as a business, is not very positive about Brexit at all. It is "preparing for Brexit" by jumping ship...
Oh well, we will soon find out, won't we. Only 148 days to go. Tick, tock, tick, tock.....
Of the companies that say they have a positive outlook, 27% put this down to global economic growth, 24% due to consumer confidence and 24% to "buyer/seller relationships". None (so far as the article explains) put their positive outlook down to Brexit.
Of the companies that say they have a negative outlook, the biggest reason given was Brexit, followed by exchange rates and tariffs.
It's an interesting piece of research. It involved 8,500 companies, of whom 500 are UK based. Of those 500, just two-thirds are international exporters.
What's most interesting - and horribly disappointing and predictable - to me is that a higher percentage of French companies see Brexit as positive than British companies.
Well done Britain - we've voted for a policy that's going to be more beneficial to our competitors than to ourselves.
One can read positives or negatives into anything ... I find it more interesting that only 31% of the UK companies surveyed expect a negative impact, combined with the statement that UK businesses are most prepared for Brexit (83%).
It's correct that the survey highlights that those with a negative outlook (17%) identified Brexit as their main concern followed by exchange rates and tariffs. This is only to be expected as, due to the culpable shambolic handling by our government, it is still an unknown.
An interesting extract from the full report:
"Just over half (51%) of firms think that free-trade agreements will have a positive impact on their business over the next three years, suggesting some confidence that the UK will able to maintain a degree of free trade with the EU and perhaps achieve free-trade agreements further field after exiting the EU."
How can the future FTA with the EU be better, in any way, than the one they currently trade under? Why do they think the FTAs with countries further away be better than the FTAs they currently have with those countries by virtue of being members of the EU?
Chlorinated chickens and blue passports - an irresistible combination. I haven't even mentioned the new commemorative 50p coin. D'oh - have now.
I expect that sort of response from @Red_in_SE8 ... however, it is well beneath your normal reasoned and well thought out standard.
And it's given you the opportunity to swerve Red_in_SE8's excellent point, mate...
Not you as well P!
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
So do you think we lose out, negotiating with the purchasing power of 508 million people behind us as opposed to 60 million? That said, I take your point, but where is the benefit of Portugal, for example, being part of the bloc when Germany can do directly to Canada and say "deal with us - don't worry about the rest of my gang"? Isn't a union about helping each other?
Without being boringly repetitive again, I have frequently stated that the EU would be a good thing if we could put in place the ‘concentric circle’ model.
Unfortunately, despite support from the likes of Merkel and Macron, this is still not on the agenda.
Regarding the ‘Portugal’ issue, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for the smaller countries in other FTA’s
Maybe, rather than leave it, we should be trying to change it for the better. It is a great time to do so, with the political changes going on all over the region. I can't see how locking ourselves in a crate is going to do anything but harm us!
Maybe, rather than leave it, we should be trying to change it for the better.
Foolishly, I believed that is exactly what would happen during the negotiations.
A lot could have been done over the last couple of years to achieve this. The paucity of talent in our government has produced a diametrically opposite result.
Maybe, rather than leave it, we should be trying to change it for the better.
Foolishly, I believed that is exactly what would happen during the negotiations.
A lot could have been done over the last couple of years to achieve this. The paucity of talent in our government has produced a diametrically opposite result.
The negotiations were about us leaving the EU not about reforming it to our liking.
I could give a glib golf club analogy but quite frankly if you don’t still understand what Article 50 actually is for then there’s no point.
Sorry if this sounds awful but your post shows a complete and utter failure to recognise the facts in front of you.
Maybe, rather than leave it, we should be trying to change it for the better.
Foolishly, I believed that is exactly what would happen during the negotiations.
A lot could have been done over the last couple of years to achieve this. The paucity of talent in our government has produced a diametrically opposite result.
The negotiations were about us leaving the EU not about reforming it to our liking.
I could give a glib golf club analogy but quite frankly if you don’t still understand what Article 50 actually is for then there’s no point.
Sorry if this sounds awful but your post shows a complete and utter failure to recognise the facts in front of you.
I think you are deliberately misrepresenting me here.
I know exactly what article 50 means. The fact is that May called it too soon. There was absolutely no hurry and we could have entered into productive negotiations with the EU, and worked together to develop benefits for all, eg the concentric circle model.
If that had occurred, there might have been no need to even go as far as Article 50.
Comments
I just feel that on this occasion you are wasting your time casting such wonderful pearls amongst the most awful swines - these people don't want to learn, they want to be right.
Some of you are certainly more rose-tinted in your outlook than people who study markets professionally, model every possible outcome and do it every day for a FTSE 100 company.
Britain is already well behind most of the world in the recovery since the market crash. Now a third of businesseses say they will be hit, and people think that's good news!
This sentence is a bit more of your tabloid style bluff, by the way. "Yet they were and still are incapable of providing a positive vision of life in the EU, despite having their hands on nearly all the tools of public persuasion." Almost all the tabloids were frothing Brexiters, lying and exaggerating over and over, the TV news was pretty neutral, the Russians backed an anti-EU social media campaign, the "Leave campaign" made claims that grabbed headlines which were patently unachievable, even if they had an ounce of power to actually carry them out (they were a lobby organisation, seemingly able to make outrageous claims with impunity - anyone contradicting them, in the eyes of Brexiters, was practising "loss aversion", apparently). Some of those lies literally "writ large" on the side of a bus. When the government did provide a positive vision of life in the EU, you "deeply resented the Government using my taxes to put out a leaflet saying stay in the EU." Even though we live in a parliamentary democracy, a democracy so many quitters claim is the only way democracy should work. You were never interested in anything positive about the EU, you and millions of others drip-fed anti-EU propaganda for decades (by the establishment 4th estate) had made your minds up long before that leaflet dropped on your doormat.
I’ve answered so many times, most recently on 9 October. Let’s try again:
“My vision of the EU has always been about trade. I have previously provided my thoughts in some detail as to why I do not support the EU ‘trade’ approach. It should be reconciled with the aims of global free trade as upheld by the WTO (in particular, implementing legally binding commitments not to raise tariffs). I intensely dislike trade tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
I am aware others have argued with me on this point, but I do not accept that the EU is a free trade area in the real sense. If it were, I would be much more supportive. In fact, the EU is alone in its particular concept of a Free Trade Area. EFTA, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, all allow free movement of goods and services but differentiate in that they do not force members’ tariffs or other trade barriers to be the same. Just as importantly, they allow members to independently negotiate trade agreements with countries outside their own trade zone. In other words, all other Free Trade Areas outside the EU do not prevent members from making Free Trade Agreements with other countries.”
A person is invited on to the Marr Show, because he faces criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings have even started, they give him the opportunity on an allegedly top current affairs show to explain why he is innocent.
If, like me you think that is beyond disgraceful you could do what loads of people on Twitter have done, nd complain. However as I have found out, it is difficult to get anything sensible out of the BBC complaints machine.
It would b wrong of me to put this contact on Twitter, but if any of you feel as strongly as I do that it is wrong to give that steaming pile of turd a platform, you could email directly Colin Tregear who is the Complaints Director of the Executive Complaints Unit: colin.tregear.01@bbc.co.uk
Some good inspiration for the wording of complaints on
How anyone can suggest that the BBC is somehow pro-Remain, as @Southbank does is beyond my comprehension. As indeed is the current state of BBC news coverage.
If Marr has to conduct any "interview" being mindful that, at a later stage, objections might be raised over the fairness of any trial then the "interview" becomes worthless beyond allowing Banks a platform to promote his conspiracy theories and his (unchallenged) defence.
Or Marr might tear him a new one...but I've seen precious little appetite for that recently from the BBC.
It’s exactly that scenario you portray that has been kept at bay by the GFA. Any tinkering with the nuances of that agreement might give the men of violence the excuse and opportunity to resume their evil work.
I really do hope you were just back from the pub when you wrote this.
Yes, terrorists/murderers were released, provided that they had signed up to the agreement, those objecting weren't (this is, dare I say it, not exactly unique in conflict resolutions around the World, other examples, notably South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, have gone further down the same road).
It's not something that any reasonable person considers to be anything other than a necessary evil (and, as I have suggested before, it is better to release people who have been convicted and jailed for an offence than to decide that a certain group, as is often raised at PMQs, should be given an amnesty from any prosecution, purely because of the organisations to which they belonged).
The PSNI have not stopped investigating outstanding cases and, in the context of the GFA, they should not do so, even if that includes uncovering collusion and murder on the part of the security services.
And, in passing, the destruction of the Provisional IRA's capacity to use the weapons it had stockpiled, by having them being verifiably put beyond use (believed to have involved things like, in the presence of members of the de Chastelain Commission, pouring concrete into bunkers that they had inspected).
So, it might be a bit difficult for them to access weapons stashed in Farmer Paddy's field.
Farmer Paddy, oh how I laughed at the stereotypical description.....
Mind you, as your arguments about Northern Ireland and Brexit seem to be driving towards returning us all to the 1970s, I've no doubt more comedy gold awaits.
We will never agree on the benefits of the EU single market and customs union.
The question was how can the businesses in the survey you quoted be positive about post Brexit trading conditions in their export markets with countries in the EU. In terms of costs and regulatory overheads there will be negative impacts. That is fact. The only thing we don’t know until a Trade Deal is done is the scale of those impacts. Maybe a majority of the companies in the survey are service companies? Were they all ‘exporting’ businesses? I don’t expect you to provide me a detailed breakdown of the companies in the survey. It was more of a rhetorical question because I simply don’t understand how UK export businesses can be positive, in the sense of things will be better, post Brexit.
And as with all these types of survey, it’s all prediction and forecast based upon trends and activities ... it can’t be fact until it happens.
My argument, incidentally, is most certainly not a misunderstanding of the process. It is how I believe FTA’s should operate and how most do operate.
Without being boringly repetitive again, I have frequently stated that the EU would be a good thing if we could put in place the ‘concentric circle’ model.
Unfortunately, despite support from the likes of Merkel and Macron, this is still not on the agenda.
Regarding the ‘Portugal’ issue, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for the smaller countries in other FTA’s
A lot could have been done over the last couple of years to achieve this. The paucity of talent in our government has produced a diametrically opposite result.
I could give a glib golf club analogy but quite frankly if you don’t still understand what Article 50 actually is for then there’s no point.
Sorry if this sounds awful but your post shows a complete and utter failure to recognise the facts in front of you.
I know exactly what article 50 means. The fact is that May called it too soon. There was absolutely no hurry and we could have entered into productive negotiations with the EU, and worked together to develop benefits for all, eg the concentric circle model.
If that had occurred, there might have been no need to even go as far as Article 50.