Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

First Up

prawnsambo wrote:

I read somewhere that he didn't anticipate winning the election outright and having to form another coalition with the LibDems. So in what he's pleased to call his mind, he was making a promise that he thought he would never have to keep. But events dear boy, events...

And the reason he won was because the Labour membership elected the hapless Ed instead of David Miliband. A mistake with far reaching consequences.

ThePanjandrum

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Or 10th according to the OECD

https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm

China 25 256 694.6
US 20 494 100.0
India 9 460 761.4
Japan 5 414 680.0
Germany 4 456 151.2
Russia 3 531 999.0
Indonesia 3 494 750.2
Brazil 3 237 511.6
France 3 037 360.3
United Kingdom 3 024 525.0
Italy 2 515 781.2
Mexico 2 509 672.6
Turkey 2 296 104.7
Korea 2 071 181.7

Total, Million US dollars, 2018 or latest available

I have no idea what you are quoting there because your link takes me to GDP per Capita but by the look of your figures it's probably GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) whereas the figure that is generally used is nominal GDP.

GDP does have its shortcomings though which is why the EU uses GNI to calculate countries' contributions. This reduces hugely the amount that would be paid by such countries as Ireland and Luxembourg although strangely enough the United Kingdom is heavily disadvantaged by it.

prawnsambo

First Up wrote: »

And the reason he won was because the Labour membership elected the hapless Ed instead of David Miliband. A mistake with far reaching consequences.

That seems to be a particular facility of the Labour Party membership these days. How they came up with Tony Blair is still a mystery to me.

ThePanjandrum

prawnsambo wrote: »

I think those have been superceded by the ones I looked at that said sixth. France had moved past the UK was the headline. It was quite a while ago, so I suspect you're giving a very old ranking.

No, I'm not. The usual figures are UK, France, India. For India to move above France the figures have to be recent. I'll see if I can find them, I think that they were referenced by Reuters.

Sam Russell

prawnsambo wrote: »

That seems to be a particular facility of the Labour Party membership these days. How they came up with Tony Blair is still a mystery to me.

Simple - John Smith died.

prawnsambo

Sam Russell wrote: »

Simple - John Smith died.

How could I have forgotten him.

prawnsambo

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

No, I'm not. The usual figures are UK, France, India. For India to move above France the figures have to be recent. I'll see if I can find them, I think that they were referenced by Reuters.

The latest from the IMF in 4/2019 are here. India jumped past France and UK.

joe40

As someone paid in sterling, but living in the south, can anyone give me some hope. Lie if you have too.
Every time Boris Johnson opens his mouth it anothe 100 euro pm of my income.

prawnsambo

joe40 wrote: »

As someone paid in sterling, but living in the south, can anyone give me some hope. Lie if you have too.
Every time Boris Johnson opens his mouth it anothe 100 euro pm of my income.

I think you need to talk to your employer. If they go hard brexit on the 31st October, the BoE worst case scenario says sterling takes a 25% hit.

storker

Leroy42 wrote: »

And it used to be the greatest empire. And Rome used to rule the world.

Things change.

Reminds me of a quote from that old movie "The Fall of the Roman Empire"

Narrator: "This was the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire. A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within."

Yup.

ThePanjandrum

Looks as though I was going on the World Bank 2017 figures. Interestingly, in 2018 the World Bank has France ahead of India again which means that France would have to grow more quickly than India. I'm a little sceptical there.

joe40

prawnsambo wrote: »

I think you need to talk to your employer. If they go hard brexit on the 31st October, the BoE worst case scenario says sterling takes a 25% hit.

My employer is the dept of education, so no joy talking there. Teaching council here are a pain in terms of recognising qualifications but that is a whole different conversation.

BonnieSituation

prawnsambo wrote: »

That seems to be a particular facility of the Labour Party membership these days. How they came up with Tony Blair is still a mystery to me.

Because John Smith died and it created a vacuum.

beggars_bush

joe40 wrote: »

My employer is the dept of education, so no joy talking there. Teaching council here are a pain in terms of recognising qualifications but that is a whole different conversation.

They are just slow
Get the stuff in and get a job in the south asap

Lucy8080

"The Union of England,Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland is sleepwalking into oblivion" - Gordon Brown in the Sunday Newspapers and on the B.B.C. website.

Infini

joe40 wrote: »

My employer is the dept of education, so no joy talking there. Teaching council here are a pain in terms of recognising qualifications but that is a whole different conversation.

With the possibility of Sterling taking a crash converting your savings to Euros would be a good start if you havent opened a bank account down south now would be a good time to do so.

Sad thing is the stupidity of Boris and friends is going to screw over decent people like yourself as time progresses. If there's a border poll down the line pointing out how your savings and income were slashed by half their value over 3 years should be at the top of the list of reasons why reunification would be better for all.

Kermit.de.frog

Johnson has accepted invitation to talks with Varadkar according to the Sunday Telegraph. No location or date.

Stop moaning ffs

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Johnson has accepted invitation to talks with Varadkar according to the Sunday Telegraph. No location or date.

He has to come here. One of his team said he’d be doing all the main European capitals. Leo cannot go to London. Optics n all that.

Sam Russell

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

He has to come here. One of his team said he’d be doing all the main European capitals. Leo cannot go to London. Optics n all that.

The silence from European capitals is deafening.

J Mysterio

Just thinking this morning - and I don't think it's hyperbole - but it's often asked 'how could Hitler come to power when people knew what he was like?'. Well, I guess we are seeing exactly how this can happen, in real time.

Hitler was divisive on his run to power and people opposed him, causing him several hiccups along the way, but he proceeded, banging the nationalist drum and decrying those who did not believe in Germany, and its right to lead in Europe.

At some point, people of influence had a choice of whether to throw their lot in with him or to fight him. Many of course choosing to support him, seeing that their personal circumstances might be better served and allowing themselves to be taken away with false ideology. Brexit is a bit like that.

There is opposition to the No Deal madness, but so many people of influence are going along with it, even people who know it's a bloody stupid idea, just to maintain their little sphere of influence/ power in the machine. Consider the top Tories who 'changed their mind' for a cabinet seat. So, even those who should know better, go along with it for their own sake, but in doing so, bring many ignorants with them.

Now, I'm not saying Johnson is Hitler, and I'm not saying the Tories are Nazi's, but I think the point is illustrative in so far as top politicians and leaders in society can be swept along in supporting a bad idea, and they can bring (a significant) part of the population with them, aided and abetted by lies, ignorance and propoganda

There is no reason to believe Brexit is a good idea in any way, and a No Deal Brexit is clearly the worst outcome imaginable. Yet the UK PM and his full cabinet of hard right Brexiteers are banging the Brexit drum and they have so many believing in them. Their big hook? Nationalism, immigration, 'tyranny of EU', and... Nothing else whatsoever? Facts are cast aside for jingoism.

Cummings is actually akin to Goebbels. He is scheming and ensuring everyone is on message ('undemocratic backstop'). He is ensuring that people who don't believe in Brexit have no influence on government. He is demanding that 'remainer' civil servants be identified and removed from the civil service, keeping the internal ideology of the machine 'pure' and consistent and removing obfuscation and opposition. Of course any UK cabinet members had to agree to No Deal as the price of admission to the top table. Tories are openly talking about the benefits of 'proroguing Parliament' and Johnson is apparently considering ignoring a no confidence motion (a 'night of the long knives' might be a stretch to implement).

Hitler spoke in stark, radical terms on his rise to power also, banging the nationalist drum. I hear it often told that people in the UK dont like to talk about Brexit on the street or at dinner parties, I'm quite certain the same was often true of the Nazi's on their ascent. When the political establishment paint your glorious nation as a victim of an international cabal, people become fervent in their support.

Plan might yet be for No Deal to be framed as the 'UK Versailles Treaty' (when world powers conspired to keep post Nazi Germany down - actually the case in that instance). For sure the UK will be devastated in No Deal and the country will be quite flexible in how it can be reconfigured. Boris just needs a 25 point plan.

I will stop here before I meander too far. I realise these thoughts will prove highly objectionable to some and so I reiterate I am drawing a comparison between Brexit and the ascent of Nazism for illustrative purposes only: how can a nation take such a wayward path with such significant support? It strikes me there are many similarities.

I am also reminded of a quote from Merkel (I think). Paraphrasing, but when asked 'has the world learned from Nazism and WWII?', she replied that we will know once that generation had passed on. They are almost all dead.

It is a fair point to say that when large sectors of the population see themselves as neglected by the leadership that they will gravitate towards a charismatic leader, that is true of Trump and other world leaders who havve played the nationalistic card, it is not true of Johnson though as he was selected by members of the conservative party and not the general population as a whole, he was not elected.

If you want to use a historical reference, Mussolini's ascent to power is a closer analogy as he was also selected as leader without a popular vote.

J Mysterio

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It is a fair point to say that when large sectors of the population see themselves as neglected by the leadership that they will gravitate towards a charismatic leader, that is true of Trump and other world leaders who havve played the nationalistic card, it is not true of Johnson though as he was selected by members of the conservative party and not the general population as a whole, he was not elected.

If you want to use a historical reference, Mussolini's ascent to power is a closer analogy as he was also selected as leader without a popular vote.

It really doesnt matter if he was elected or not tbh, thats incidental to the thrust of the argument. He is born of Brexit.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

It is a fair point to say that when large sectors of the population see themselves as neglected by the leadership that they will gravitate towards a charismatic leader, that is true of Trump and other world leaders who havve played the nationalistic card, it is not true of Johnson though as he was selected by members of the conservative party and not the general population as a whole, he was not elected.

If you want to use a historical reference, Mussolini's ascent to power is a closer analogy as he was also selected as leader without a popular vote.

Well, actually he was. He was elected by popular vote as Mayor of London - not once but twice.

J Mysterio

I have a conception that many in the UK might feel that 'the Germans', were predisposed to a Fascist regime. The reality is that - under the right conditions, and with a society in shock - a population can be misled, and coerced into following the wrong path. That is the fundamental point, I think.

Capt'n Midnight

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

Hint "Projected" means that the figures are estmated amd not actual, they are IMF ones too.

The last actul figures I saw had the UK fifth, India sixth and France seventh. The figures tend to be produced periodically to minimise short term currency fluctuations.

Sterling has had some long term currency fluctuations with more on the horizon. The 0.2% drop in the economy would have been much worse had it been measured in Euro's or Dollars.

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

I have no idea what you are quoting there because your link takes me to GDP per Capita but by the look of your figures it's probably GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) whereas the figure that is generally used is nominal GDP.

The button to change from per capita is just below the graph.

nevermind - https://data.oecd.org/chart/5DOu and click on right hand column to sort.

GDP does have its shortcomings though which is why the EU uses GNI to calculate countries' contributions. This reduces hugely the amount that would be paid by such countries as Ireland and Luxembourg although strangely enough the United Kingdom is heavily disadvantaged by it.

Here's the GNI data https://data.oecd.org/chart/5DOv - click on latest to sort.
NB. India and Indonesia are not listed.

China 23 056 802.9
United States 19 872 232.0
Japan 5 514 385.5
Germany 4 437 045.1
Russia 3 438 404.6
Brazil 3 090 659.8
France 3 028 055.6
United Kingdom 2 910 875.9
Italy 2 491 348.5
Mexico 2 367 563.4
Turkey 2 062 716.7

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, actually he was. He was elected by popular vote as Mayor of London - not once but twice.

Being elected Mayor of London is not the same as being elected leader of the country.

J Mysterio

J Mysterio wrote: »

It really doesnt matter if he was elected or not tbh, thats incidental to the thrust of the argument. He is born of Brexit.

He was elected Mayor of London before Brexit was a major issue, so he was already a well known figure but don't forget that he was a remainer three years ago.

Professor Moriarty

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, actually he was. He was elected by popular vote as Mayor of London - not once but twice.

I'd fancy my chances against Ken Livingstone.

trellheim

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

He has to come here. One of his team said he’d be doing all the main European capitals. Leo cannot go to London. Optics n all that.

For extreme humour value the next British-Irish council meeting sounds like the ideal meeting place. We are due to host the next one and you cant deny its the right type of forum

Heres the minutes of the last meeting https://www.britishirishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/communiqu%C3%A9s/Thirty%20Second%20Summit%20-%20UK%20-%2028%2006%2019.pdf

fash

J Mysterio wrote: »

I will stop here before I meander too far. I realise these thoughts will prove highly objectionable to some and so I reiterate I am drawing a comparison between Brexit and the ascent of Nazism for illustrative purposes only: how can a nation take such a wayward path with such significant support? It strikes me there are many similarities.

Of concern is that brexit does not solve the drivers that led to brexit - it makes things (economically and socially) worse. The situation will only get worse when brexit happens and they need to look for traitors to explain why the glorious revolution has failed.