Theresa May (Vol.2)

[PurpleMoonlight]

wc98 said:

aiui the paragraph that stated the backstop would only be activated in good faith and not with the intention of keeping the uk subject to it in perpetuity.

Where was that in the Withdrawal Agreement?

[bitchstewie]

olimain said:

bhstewie said:

I'm sure most people would have thought "What if the things I need to buy to live cost more?" when weighing up how to vote.

You did say "If it's horrendous we then campaign to rejoin" which suggests you acknowledge there could be an impact.

Belief doesn't pay bills

Sure, and I defined what I thought horrendous would be - however I didn’t buy in to those forecasts then and I don’t buy in to them now (and currently I’m 1-0 up ). I ultimately think the long term cost of living will remain broadly the same or come down compared to wages though of course we are at a time of unprecedented lows in interest rates so will expect them to rise over the next 5 few years whether we remain or leave.

You seem to want me to put a figure on it though so 20% for 5 years. No I don’t think it’s likely. No I don’t want it to happen. No I don’t think everyone has the same figure yes I think the country would be in very bad shape if costs went up that amount. It is meaningless. Just as meaningless as if I said to you “Have you been happy that you’ve been paying x% more for clothes and food due to tariffs and productivity is y% lower than it should be as we’ve relied on cheap labour to boost GDP”. It’s pointless leave vs remain rhetoric and surely we can agree we’ve all had enough of that!

All these numbers can be argued either way with scraps of evidence to support either position. Really for me it comes down to not supporting the vision and clearly defined aims of the EU. Some people want more government, some people want less. Some think the Eurozone has a big problem looming, some think it will be swept under the carpet. I’m not one of these people who thinks Remainers are thick snowflakes who believe everything the govt tells them nor do I get on board with the “Leave at all costs and let’s declare war on France to celebrate” crowd (I’d certainly remain over May’s deal for example). I just don’t buy in to the EU being that great a deal for the UK and certainly not the predictions of doom - especially as we have a predominantly service-based industry and there isn’t really a single market for that.

I get that people want to remain, totally understand it. I’m in my mid 30s, went to a good university and live in London - virtually everyone I know voted to remain! What I don’t get is all this stuff about us being so much better informed so we should vote again. Why do people try and dress it up - just say you want to overturn the result! Everyone knows it’s the case - it’s been the same for two years. I have a lot more respect for people who say “I still think it’s a st idea and too much of a risk for me, I want it undone”.

Thank you

20% over 5 years is the first number I've ever heard anyone personally put down as a monetary value of Brexit.

Honestly I couldn't even start to comprehend losing 20% of my next 5 years income over the EU for how little impact it has on my life.

Still I have a healthy respect for the fact that you have at least put a number on it which seems to be more than most do.

Personally, to borrow a phrase I still think it’s a st idea and too much of a risk for me, I want it undone!

Good read BTW (lifted off another Brexit thread) http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/ninelessons....

[Nickgnome]

ash73 said:

Yes I'm familiar with it. There is an algorithm, for example our liabilities are calculated from the UK's proportion of the total investment in previous years, and various other factors.

The negotiation was specifically to agree the calculation, not the figure, but my point is I know from experience that's not quite how it works.

So if you have experience please explain how it works. It would be helpful for us all.

[amusingduck]

bhstewie said:

olimain said:

bhstewie said:

I'm sure most people would have thought "What if the things I need to buy to live cost more?" when weighing up how to vote.

You did say "If it's horrendous we then campaign to rejoin" which suggests you acknowledge there could be an impact.

Belief doesn't pay bills

Sure, and I defined what I thought horrendous would be - however I didn’t buy in to those forecasts then and I don’t buy in to them now (and currently I’m 1-0 up ). I ultimately think the long term cost of living will remain broadly the same or come down compared to wages though of course we are at a time of unprecedented lows in interest rates so will expect them to rise over the next 5 few years whether we remain or leave.

You seem to want me to put a figure on it though so 20% for 5 years. No I don’t think it’s likely. No I don’t want it to happen. No I don’t think everyone has the same figure yes I think the country would be in very bad shape if costs went up that amount. It is meaningless. Just as meaningless as if I said to you “Have you been happy that you’ve been paying x% more for clothes and food due to tariffs and productivity is y% lower than it should be as we’ve relied on cheap labour to boost GDP”. It’s pointless leave vs remain rhetoric and surely we can agree we’ve all had enough of that!

All these numbers can be argued either way with scraps of evidence to support either position. Really for me it comes down to not supporting the vision and clearly defined aims of the EU. Some people want more government, some people want less. Some think the Eurozone has a big problem looming, some think it will be swept under the carpet. I’m not one of these people who thinks Remainers are thick snowflakes who believe everything the govt tells them nor do I get on board with the “Leave at all costs and let’s declare war on France to celebrate” crowd (I’d certainly remain over May’s deal for example). I just don’t buy in to the EU being that great a deal for the UK and certainly not the predictions of doom - especially as we have a predominantly service-based industry and there isn’t really a single market for that.

I get that people want to remain, totally understand it. I’m in my mid 30s, went to a good university and live in London - virtually everyone I know voted to remain! What I don’t get is all this stuff about us being so much better informed so we should vote again. Why do people try and dress it up - just say you want to overturn the result! Everyone knows it’s the case - it’s been the same for two years. I have a lot more respect for people who say “I still think it’s a st idea and too much of a risk for me, I want it undone”.

Thank you

20% over 5 years is the first number I've ever heard anyone personally put down as a monetary value of Brexit.

Honestly I couldn't even start to comprehend losing 20% of my next 5 years income over the EU for how little impact it has on my life.

Still I have a healthy respect for the fact that you have at least put a number on it which seems to be more than most do.

Personally, to borrow a phrase I still think it’s a st idea and too much of a risk for me, I want it undone!

Good read BTW (lifted off another Brexit thread) http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/ninelessons....

There's a big difference between "things cost 20% more" and "I have 20% less income" IMO.

Aren't imports from the EU about 15% more expensive since the referendum because of GDP falling?

[bitchstewie]

amusingduck said:

There's a big difference between "things cost 20% more" and "I have 20% less income" IMO.

Aren't imports from the EU about 15% more expensive since the referendum because of GDP falling?

Income less, outgoings more, pound worth less, whatever - I'm pretty sure nobody voted to be poorer in whatever terms.

[MrVert]

May wanted to remain
May took on the job as PM to ‘deliver’ Brexit
May repeatedly said no deal is better than a bad deal
May has delivered a bad deal
May cancelled the vote in Parliament on her deal
May now says it’s my (bad) deal or no Brexit & run the risk of a hard left wing Corbyn led Government.

Calculated political blackmail.

She has got what she wanted, which is to remain as close as possible to the EU whilst having some of the Brexit fanfare items.

She’s been back to Brussels twice in three days and not got a single legal concession.

She has to make way now and someone else has to step up and be stronger in the negotiations.

I suspect the real shake down will be in the Trade Agreement. All sorts of punitive tricks will be played by the EU to further frustrate/delay the process and without better negotiators on our side….we could be forced into a humiliating position.

So, plan for no deal now, as the EU are.

[Crackie]

bhstewie said:

Income less, outgoings more, pound worth less, whatever - I'm pretty sure nobody voted to be poorer in whatever terms.

When you say poorer, do you mean a reduction in wage levels or poorer relative to where some disingenuous forecast says wages might have been if we had remained growing at the rate the UK was in 2014?

Several people I know who voted leave, and some of the more pragmatic posters on PH Brexit threads, were expecting leave to make them poorer in the short term.

[bitchstewie]

Crackie said:

bhstewie said:

Income less, outgoings more, pound worth less, whatever - I'm pretty sure nobody voted to be poorer in whatever terms.

When you say poorer, do you mean a reduction in wage levels or poorer relative to where some disingenuous forecast says wages might have been if we had remained growing at the rate the UK was in 2014?

Several people I know who voted leave, and some of the more pragmatic posters on PH Brexit threads, were expecting leave to make them poorer in the short term.

I mean financially poorer by any measure - I'm not an economist I'm sure someone reading this can fill in the blanks on what's a suitable measure.

The people who said they expected to be poorer "in the short term" seem reluctant to put a number on that, olimain did so and it surprised me that anyone is prepared to take a 20% hit.

[amusingduck]

bhstewie said:

amusingduck said:

There's a big difference between "things cost 20% more" and "I have 20% less income" IMO.

Aren't imports from the EU about 15% more expensive since the referendum because of GDP falling?

Income less, outgoings more, pound worth less, whatever - I'm pretty sure nobody voted to be poorer in whatever terms.

Not even the most pessimistic no deal projections predict that we'll be poorer, so you can rest easy on that front

[bitchstewie]

amusingduck said:

Not even the most pessimistic no deal projections predict that we'll be poorer, so you can rest easy on that front

Which predictions and from whom?

I haven't seen anything independent that says anything other than we'll be worse off.

[_Sorted_]

bhstewie said:

Thank you

20% over 5 years is the first number I've ever heard anyone personally put down as a monetary value of Brexit.

Honestly I couldn't even start to comprehend losing 20% of my next 5 years income over the EU for how little impact it has on my life.

Still I have a healthy respect for the fact that you have at least put a number on it which seems to be more than most do.

Personally, to borrow a phrase I still think it’s a st idea and too much of a risk for me, I want it undone!

Good read BTW (lifted off another Brexit thread) http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/ninelessons....

You don't have to start to comprehend. Has happened to a greater degree in last few years as reported in Guardian here.

Still want more of the same? Cling to nurse for... Etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/14/a...

[amusingduck]

bhstewie said:

amusingduck said:

Not even the most pessimistic no deal projections predict that we'll be poorer, so you can rest easy on that front

Which predictions and from whom?

I haven't seen anything independent that says anything other than we'll be worse off.

Any of them, AFAIK.

They all paint broadly the same picture. Better off than now, but not as good as it Would Have Been™ if we'd stayed in.

[paulrockliffe]

bhstewie said:

amusingduck said:

Not even the most pessimistic no deal projections predict that we'll be poorer, so you can rest easy on that front

Which predictions and from whom?

I haven't seen anything independent that says anything other than we'll be worse off.

See this, all those arguing that we know more than we knew two years ago so vote again.

All those models are lying to you still, they all still say you will be better off in the future. But rather than telling you that, they take an arbitrary baseline - the treasury's growth predictions that have been shown to be consistently wrong, then give you a comparison against that.

So if the Treasury (they won't give us their assumptions for some reason, so I'm having to use an example) say, we're going to do x, y and z once a b and c have bedded in, that will mean we build more cars so growth will be 0.1% higher, the baseline gets 0.1% added to it and that's then compounded over the years to get billions of pounds of made up GDP out of the end of the model.

Then you run the same model but plug in your assumptions regarding our exit from the EU and remove the 0.1% because we can't do x y and z because reasons and get a difference.

Every future promise of action, every parameter that goes into the model is up for a tweak or two to push the differences as far apart as possible and none of that is published.

But the model is still saying you'll be richer.

Going off memory, at the time of the referendum the treasury model did not account for immigration policy consistently, it used current rates of immigration to model the cost of delivering services to more people, while removing immigration-driven growth from income = big fat tax rises.

It's all bks.

[SunsetZed]

bhstewie said:

amusingduck said:

Not even the most pessimistic no deal projections predict that we'll be poorer, so you can rest easy on that front

Which predictions and from whom?

I haven't seen anything independent that says anything other than we'll be worse off.

Worse off than if we'd remained, not worse off than we are now. There's a big difference.

[Camoradi]

BBC this morning:

"The EU have refused to renegotiate Teresa May's brexit deal. For more details, over to Adam Sandler in Brussels"
Adam Sandler: "Actually she didn't ask them to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement"

repeat every half hour....

[EddieSteadyGo]

bhstewie said:

Income less, outgoings more, pound worth less, whatever - I'm pretty sure nobody voted to be poorer in whatever terms.

Not sure why people make that argument. The government forecasts were unambiguous before the vote. They said people would be poorer than they would otherwise be, if they voted Leave.

Depending upon which set of assumptions you picked, it ranged from a bit poorer to being much poorer

Whether or not the forecasts were correct is a different point. But the forecasts (often called Project Fear) were produced by experts and used to justify the government's position.

And yet 52% still voted for it. So there is no other conclusion that many people decided to put principles above money and accepted the risk their decision might make them poorer.

[EddieSteadyGo]

Tony427 said:

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

I'm not suggesting it's looking bad for Theresa May, but Paul Gascoigne has just arrived at 10 Downing Street with a fishing rod and a cooked chicken.

This did not get the recognition it deserved.

If we are talking about giving deserved recognition....

https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1062758294...

[Fermit and Sexy Sarah]

EddieSteadyGo said:

Tony427 said:

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

I'm not suggesting it's looking bad for Theresa May, but Paul Gascoigne has just arrived at 10 Downing Street with a fishing rod and a cooked chicken.

This did not get the recognition it deserved.

If we are talking about giving deserved recognition....

https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1062758294...

Well, I've no idea who that guy is, but the idea of jokes is that they're shared?

[Trophy Husband]

amusingduck said:

There's a big difference between "things cost 20% more" and "I have 20% less income" IMO.

Aren't imports from the EU about 15% more expensive since the referendum because of GDP falling?

I have a pal who has a small chain of pizzerias. His costs in real terms have gone up 27% since the leave vote.

[Blackpuddin]

Trophy Husband said:

amusingduck said:

There's a big difference between "things cost 20% more" and "I have 20% less income" IMO.

Aren't imports from the EU about 15% more expensive since the referendum because of GDP falling?

I have a pal who has a small chain of pizzerias. His costs in real terms have gone up 27% since the leave vote.

Given the huge profit margin in pizzas I imagine he's still doing OK.