What are the people of Europe saying? Anecdotaly.

What are the people of Europe saying? Anecdotaly.

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Discussion

s3fella

10,524 posts

187 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
If we're being literal and absolute about the wording on a bus, the wording on that bus doesn't say 350m will go to the NHS.
And it doesn't say they will get that every week, Either!

mattmurdock

2,204 posts

233 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
If we're being literal and absolute about the wording on a bus, the wording on that bus doesn't say 350m will go to the NHS.
On one had we have people accusing the remainers of being bad losers and incapable of arithmetic.

On the other hand, we have leavers still determined to say that the message on that bus did not in any way imply that we actually send £350 million to the EU, nor that any of that money could then be used on the NHS.

confused

don4l

10,058 posts

176 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
mattmurdock said:
Yes, the membership fee (at least for the last year) was around £350 million.

The lie is the first half of their sentence, as we have NEVER EVER actually 'sent' £350 million to the EU.

I'm not sure why Pan Pan Pan thinks that people pointing out this is a lie means that a) they can't do arithmetic and b) that they think the UK receives funding FROM the EU.

I have not met, or discussed online, with a single person who thinks that the UK gets net funding from the EU, so I think his obsession with stating it over and over seems a little unhinged.
What do you think about the BSE claim that the EU invests £66 million a day in the UK?

This was also a gross figure. It was also an outright lie, as it wasn't the EU making the investment. It was EU based companies.

Are you happy with the claims that 3.3 million jobs would be lost if we left the EU?

Are you happy with Osborne's claim that he would need an emergency budget?

I must say that I am totally stunned by the hypocrisy of Remainers complaining about the £350m figure when they were oblivious to the multitude of lies that they themselves were happy to peddle.



minimoog

6,893 posts

219 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.
Fair comment. Apologies.

skahigh

2,023 posts

131 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.

skahigh

2,023 posts

131 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.

skahigh

2,023 posts

131 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.

mattmurdock

2,204 posts

233 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
don4l said:
What do you think about the BSE claim that the EU invests £66 million a day in the UK?

This was also a gross figure. It was also an outright lie, as it wasn't the EU making the investment. It was EU based companies.

Are you happy with the claims that 3.3 million jobs would be lost if we left the EU?

Are you happy with Osborne's claim that he would need an emergency budget?

I must say that I am totally stunned by the hypocrisy of Remainers complaining about the £350m figure when they were oblivious to the multitude of lies that they themselves were happy to peddle.
Don, if you bothered to read my other posts you'll see I've called both sides up on their ridiculous claims, including the £66 million, the emergency budget et al. This whole thing was fought on emotion, not reason or actual complex statistics. This is mainly because the whole electorate is not capable of understanding the nuance of the economic argument, so soundbite figures were chosen for maximum emotive impact (cue accusations of elitism/calling leavers stupid etc. etc.).

However, I do firmly believe the £350 million one was a more egregious lie, given it was front and centre of the whole Vote Leave campaign.

ATG

20,575 posts

272 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Pan Pan Pan said:
And yet even now, the remainians are still peddling the lie, that the UK receives funding from the EU. It does not, and never has since the UK joined the EEC in 1975.
Eh? I never heard anyone say that. Everyone knows we're a net contributor. The confusion is about how much money we contribute and how it gets spent. Some regions of the UK are clear net recipients, of course.

The overridingly important thing for people to understand is the size of our net contributions compared to the rest of government spending and the size of the UK economy. If you don't have that context you have no way of gauging whether it is a reasonable figure or not.

skahigh

2,023 posts

131 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
mattmurdock said:
Don, if you bothered to read my other posts you'll see I've called both sides up on their ridiculous claims, including the £66 million, the emergency budget et al. This whole thing was fought on emotion, not reason or actual complex statistics. This is mainly because the whole electorate is not capable of understanding the nuance of the economic argument, so soundbite figures were chosen for maximum emotive impact (cue accusations of elitism/calling leavers stupid etc. etc.).

However, I do firmly believe the £350 million one was a more egregious lie, given it was front and centre of the whole Vote Leave campaign.
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.

skahigh

2,023 posts

131 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
ATG said:
Eh? I never heard anyone say that. Everyone knows we're a net contributor. The confusion is about how much money we contribute and how it gets spent. Some regions of the UK are clear net recipients, of course.

The overridingly important thing for people to understand is the size of our net contributions compared to the rest of government spending and the size of the UK economy. If you don't have that context you have no way of gauging whether it is a reasonable figure or not.
Axionknight said:
This thread was an interesting read until you dingleberries decided to argue the toss in here rather than in one of the other six hundred EU related threads.

Nice one.

rscott

14,754 posts

191 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
mattmurdock said:
...
The lie is the first half of their sentence, as we have NEVER EVER actually 'sent' £350 million to the EU.
...
I have not met, or discussed online, with a single person who thinks that the UK gets net funding from the EU, so I think his obsession with stating it over and over seems a little unhinged.
I guess "We are billed..." wouldn't fit in the space available that "We send..." took up and they didn't want a longer bus smile

As for people noting receipt of funding, I think PPP is referring to comments like "Cornwall gets x from the EU, farmers get y, Wales gets z, Scotland gets 2z" etc. You haven't said that, but some people do.

rscott said:
...It was very obvious then that there would be less than £350m a week available to give to the NHS, no matter what the official Leave billboards said.
If we're being literal and absolute about the wording on a bus, the wording on that bus doesn't say 350m will go to the NHS.
The bus didn't say it, but one of the campaign posters used by Boris did

s3fella

10,524 posts

187 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
But was it meant to imply that they want to give £350M to the NHS every week, because it could be interpreted that way, or perhaps they meet the promise just giving the NHS £350M "once".

It's not a great statement because it is not as clear as it could be.

Murph7355

37,711 posts

256 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
mattmurdock said:
On one had we have people accusing the remainers of being bad losers and incapable of arithmetic.

On the other hand, we have leavers still determined to say that the message on that bus did not in any way imply that we actually send £350 million to the EU, nor that any of that money could then be used on the NHS.

confused
That's not what I'm saying. Nor have I ever said it. You'll note that I've said in the past it was a mistake to use it, and wholly unnecessary as even the most optimistic net figures were still huge. But if we must talk literally about a dozen words on a bus or a poster, then my point stands.

The whole campaign on both sides might have been much, much better served if every statement were backed up with 15 pages of small print explaining where the numbers came from, what was and was not included etc etc etc. But soundbites like "every household will be £4,300 worse off if we leave" and "your holiday to Tenerife will cost £230 more" wouldn't have been anywhere near as catchy. Would they.... wink


Ken Figenus

5,706 posts

117 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Pan Pan Pan said:
Ken Figenus said:
mattmurdock said:
I have not met, or discussed online, with a single person who thinks that the UK gets net funding from the EU, so I think his obsession with stating it over and over seems a little unhinged.
Most people know we are a net contributor. Most people also know that the EU funding received refreshes the parts Westminster governments can not reach or can not be arsed about.

Just heard that Cornwall receives £85m from EU pa. That is half a day's UK EU sub...

Imagine I am Mr EU, walking down the street, and you are Mr UK coming the other way, and we both know we would like to do some trade with eachother. but I charge you ten billion pounds, BEFORE I will even let you talk about trade with you, let alone DO any trade.
I then give you three billion pounds of your OWN money back. and I walk off with 7 billion pounds of YOUR money in my pockets which you will never see again, and you walk off with three billion pounds of YOUR money in your pockets. Out of the two of us which one has immediately done best out of that great little `deal'?
If we then add the FACT that when we do start trading. I sell you more of my toot, than you sell me of yours (and I manage to do that for almost every year out of 40), Which one of us do you think has won that little trade `deal' as well?
Yes fair point mate, but the money was for a pot with a hopefully common purpose rather than hoping for it all back somehow. And I have pulled up my fellow remainers on 'free trade' - free as in £180 million a week free!

Pan Pan Pan

9,902 posts

111 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
rscott said:
Pan Pan Pan said:
Not unhinged, just disturbed by people who cannot do basic arithmetic when it comes to the matter of what the UK sends to the EU every year, and what it gets back. Bearing in mind that all the billions the UK sends to the EU every year is just for the `privilege' of being `allowed' to trade with the EU. Once we get to the question of trade,The FACT is that the EU then sells more INTO the UK, than the UK sells into the EU also seem to escape many people.
Consequently the UK is paying the EU, ten plus billion pounds a year, for added `bonus of losing the trade situation with the EU, which it has done for almost the entire 40 years since the UK 'joined the EEC. (and yet the EU is STILL failing economically) but some still believe that's a `great deal' for the UK. How?
Most of us who voted to remain can do basic arithmetic - we knew that we paid more into the EU than we got back. I've not seen any claims anywhere of the opposite.

We could also do the basic arithmetic when the Leave campaign said they'd continue to fund the various EU funded projects, scientific research and payments to farmers,etc . It was very obvious then that there would be less than £350m a week available to give to the NHS, no matter what the official Leave billboards said.
Why then do remainians keep peddling the lie that the UK gets funding FROM the EU. It has never received a net positive penny of EU funding since it joined the EEC in 1975.

ATG

20,575 posts

272 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Friends from the rest of the EU and those bits of their social circle that I can see via social media have all expressed a unanimously negative opinion; shock, incredulity and annoyance. Same with colleagues past and present. Those samples cover Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Poland, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, plus a few others, and a broad range of political perspectives, a broad range of careers and a very broad range of salaries. The thing they have in common would be their age range, 30s and 40s, that they've all travelled and lived and worked abroad, and that they're all well educated.

mattmurdock

2,204 posts

233 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
That's not what I'm saying. Nor have I ever said it. You'll note that I've said in the past it was a mistake to use it, and wholly unnecessary as even the most optimistic net figures were still huge. But if we must talk literally about a dozen words on a bus or a poster, then my point stands.

The whole campaign on both sides might have been much, much better served if every statement were backed up with 15 pages of small print explaining where the numbers came from, what was and was not included etc etc etc. But soundbites like "every household will be £4,300 worse off if we leave" and "your holiday to Tenerife will cost £230 more" wouldn't have been anywhere near as catchy. Would they.... wink
I understand that, hence my general frustration with 'soundbite' and 'emotional' campaigning, rather than presenting actual facts. If the bus had said 'We send £230 million a week to the EU' then I would not be complaining.

If the poster shown above had said, 'Let's use the £230 million a week we pay to the EU to help pay for the NHS' then I would still have been a little annoyed (as there is absolutely no way that money was, or is actually going to be spent solely on the NHS budget) but I would have appreciated the attempt to be factual.

My annoyance now is bred by people who are insisting that the £350 million was 'factually true' simply because they can't seem to criticise anything to do with the Leave campaign.

SeeFive

8,280 posts

233 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
mattmurdock said:
I understand that, hence my general frustration with 'soundbite' and 'emotional' campaigning, rather than presenting actual facts. If the bus had said 'We send £230 million a week to the EU' then I would not be complaining.

If the poster shown above had said, 'Let's use the £230 million a week we pay to the EU to help pay for the NHS' then I would still have been a little annoyed (as there is absolutely no way that money was, or is actually going to be spent solely on the NHS budget) but I would have appreciated the attempt to be factual.

My annoyance now is bred by people who are insisting that the £350 million was 'factually true' simply because they can't seem to criticise anything to do with the Leave campaign.
Ok then. Where is the emergency budget talk now?

pim

2,344 posts

124 months

Monday 27th June 2016
quotequote all
ATG said:
Friends from the rest of the EU and those bits of their social circle that I can see via social media have all expressed a unanimously negative opinion; shock, incredulity and annoyance. Same with colleagues past and present. Those samples cover Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Poland, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, plus a few others, and a broad range of political perspectives, a broad range of careers and a very broad range of salaries. The thing they have in common would be their age range, 30s and 40s, that they've all travelled and lived and worked abroad, and that they're all well educated.
That is all very well being educated.The people who are also annoyed who have been S on by successive governments exspecially in the North of the UK.

This vote has been brewing for a long time.Housing shortage distoreded wealth and a divided society.The political classes have to carry the blame for this.And if the continentals don't understand that I am afraid it is there lookout