Brexit #2

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 12:25 PM

Then give us better forecasts, Nigel. Or at least alternative ones.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 12:40 PM

Perhaps it is also necessary to remind people that every business of any size has forecasting as a fundamental part of its business plan, despite the inherent uncertainty in any forecast. The alternative, in business terms, is a shop ordering a pile of clothes to be produced without making any attempt to estimate how many they will sell. You may be wrong, but you make the estimate. Every business does it, even if it a local café deciding how many loaves to order.


We know what forecasting is, and its uncertainities. These uncertainties are no justification for walking blindly by refusing to make any estimate at all. You make a your forecast and state what assumptions you are making and where you think the risk of errors is greatest. It is a well trodden path.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Iains
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 01:49 PM

The reality is that positive or negative, the forecast cannot escape being a political statement. It's negativity not only puts the BOE firmly in the remainer camp but is having a negative impact on exchange rates as well.
What is done as an inhouse study should stay inhouse given the previous track record of the man's accuracy.
It is inescapeable that putting such a study in the public domain is a political stance, not economic.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 01:53 PM

I'm scratching my head here as to why anyone not shit-scared of brexit, as several here purport to not be so not shit-scared*, should be campaigning to get Mark Carney to shut up, etc. The same people who want that have nothing to say about nincompoops such as Rees-Mogg and Irritable Dowel Syndrome, who, compared to Carney, know bugger all about economics. Personally, I'd like to hear a bit more of the measured voice of Carney and a LOT less from those two ideologues, thank you. But let none of them actually shut up.

(*though I actually think they're just as shit-scared as everyone else deep down).

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 01:55 PM

"What is done as an inhouse study should stay inhouse given the previous track record of the man's accuracy.
It is inescapeable that putting such a study in the public domain is a political stance, not economic."

So you're against free speech...

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 01:57 PM

"Does anyone else see a fatal flaw in this blatant attempt at blackmail?"
SIMPLISTIC NONSENSE AS REPORTED BY THE SUN
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 02:35 PM

Of course we are shit scared. We lose our right of freedom of movement. We lose tariff free access to QUALITY EU produce, rather than the polluted shit that the USA would force feed to our children. We lose EURATOM. Horizon2020, Erasmus, EHIC, and visa free travel to 23 countries. Its a complete disaster. And thats before you factor in the economic downsides.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 02:45 PM

Sadly, this it where it all comes apart. Again.

Anything negative predicted by qualified economists and business leaders is dismissed as project fear. Any optimistic forecast put forward by the unqualified and ill-informed is believed and embraced. People who want to remain are remoaners while those wishing to leave see themselves as patriots. There is no point in even discussing this in such a hostile environment.

It was a good try, Raggy, but while most people are happy to stick to your requests, there are those who will always want to deride others, nitpick and try to win trivial points.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 02:56 PM

Our economy is based entirely on forecasts - from buying shares to producing budgets
The predictions of the economists on the likelihood of Brexit damaging our economy has so fa proved to be spot-on
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 03:24 PM

Carney can't be 'repatriated' to the land of Trump. He's a Canadian, born in Fort Smith, NT.

You know I'm right! :-)

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/repatriate

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 03:58 PM

I have long campaigned for Ireland to be moved to the corner between France and Spain…

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Iains
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 04:48 PM

The words of Carney's chief economist Andy Haldane, explaining why the experts had got their economic forecasts so wrong during the referendum:

    “Fair cop. If you look at how the consumer performed during the course of the last year it’s almost as though the referendum had not taken place. In terms of the real things like pay and jobs not very much happened during the course of last year. It’s pretty much business as usual. The spending power in people’s pockets was not materially dented… Maybe some of the scarier stories politically will be seen to be just that – scare stories.”

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 05:11 PM

Deleted? Really? I'm surprised. I wouldn't expect civil and thoughtful posts to be deleted.

I think the English - won't say British on this one - went a bit nuts with the 'leave' vote, but I think in a lot of cases it was a protest vote, by people who didn't expect 'leave' to mean leave.

But this is my own view; I'm quite willing and eager to hear other views and consider them.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 05:51 PM

I don't find it in the least bit surprising that the estimates and economic forecasts have proved over-pessimistic. It's standard practice in the financial world to take a 'prudent' view when forecasting - which means that you generally present a near-worst-case-scenario. This is on the basis, of course, that if things turn out better than forecast, your pessimism will be readily forgiven whereas, if you're over-optimistic and things go tits-up, you're up for a slaughtering from the critics.

Regarding the forecasts for the social and economic future of the U.K. after Brexit, only time will tell how accurate they are/have been.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Stanron
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 06:07 PM

Hi Thompson. Just for the record I voted leave and I meant leave. I would be very happy if we 'crash out' with 'No Deal'. It's important to point out that 'No Deal' is not 'No Deal for ever'. No Deal means we start from a point where we are not a part of the EU. We don't owe them any money and they can't fish in our waters.

If the EU wants to do a deal on the Germans selling their cars to us, ie evading World Trade tariffs, then we can do a deal on that, assuming reciprocal stuff for cars produced in the UK. If the French, Spanish and Germans wish to sell us their wine and food produce on better terms than the WTO rules, we can do a deal on that as well. Mrs May lacks courage and conviction. Most remainiacs appear similarly doubtful.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 08:11 PM

"They can't fish in our waters."

Well yes. The thing is that our coastline is pretty close to the coastlines of several EU countries, and fish stocks are notoriously migratory, so, er, who do they actually belong to? The Icelandic cod wars were far simpler in a way. They have an island hundreds of miles from everyone else. Then there's those Russian super ships hoovering up our fish... if the EU was simply about agriculture and fisheries, not only would I have voted brexit but I'd have fish-bombed and cabbage-bombed Brussels years ago. Those sectors are disastrous, but are still just a very small part of EU business. Whilst I'm not a fisherman meself, here in Bude I'm mates with several of them. The situation is disastrous. Thousands of tons of fish are thrown back dead every week. Over-quota or undersized. Sand eels, a crucial part of the marine ecosystem, are being removed wholesale to be rendered into fertiliser. What a world. Animosity between our lads and the lads from EU countries runs high. There's hardly any mackerel left to fish and nearly all lobsters have to be thrown back undersized. I can't help feeling that it'll be a bloody long time before we get reasonable deals on fishing, by which time we'll be feasting just on Pacific tuna.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 08:27 PM

Well Steve, I don't think you've given any consideration at all to the point of view expressed by Stanron.

To be honest, I don't think you give any consideration to the bare facts.

In 1974, both Morris and Renault were producing crap cars - the Renault 4, the apalling Renault Dauphin and the Marina.

Renault is still there - still producing shit cars. All our industries have gone because they said we were illegally subsidising our industries, which was just the way we did things.

The last smack in the kisser was the Skoda story- an entire 3rd world economy, we are asked to believe restored to health without subsidy, without unprecedented tax breaks.

The point is they don't adhere to the rules, We are stupid,   and we do.

We simply can't go on like this - running the economy on Russian gangsters buying football clubs and real estate. We have to get the wealth of the country back to work - reviving our industry.

We will never do it inside the EU. What ever the cost we have to get out, and sort ourselves out. No one else will do this for us.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 09:21 PM

Stanron, like yerself, is a leaver by ideology. I have to make that my starting position when it comes to thinking about what you're saying. Until ten or twelve years ago I was an avid leaver. I know all the arguments about foreigners taking our jobs, overwhelming the NHS and filling our streets with foreign tongues (and fixing our electrics and plumbing and teeth and bad backs when we didn't have enough of our own...). But I've changed my mind. Not about fisheries, agriculture and the euro. Disasters all, but, for the UK, very little disasters. Fisheries are a basket case largely, but not entirely, of our own making, agriculture represents less than one percent of our GDP, and we very wisely stayed out of the euro. Nothing at all professed by the leave campaign was actually true, that's the problem. It was all hopeful noise, devoid of reality, peppered with xenophobia. No-one, from Cameron down, knew what leave meant. And when you're in that position you either play safe and opt for the status quo until something better comes up or you're basically insane. Not you personally. But there was an insane mode afoot in the country the day of the vote. Euphoric nonsense. You can bollock me all you like for saying that. But in nine months' time or less you'll see the light. Actually, the darkness. Guaranteed. And I think you know it, deep down. Nothing in this thread proposed by leavers is anything other than threadbare hope-mongering. You'll see.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: j0_77
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 11:10 PM

Not in Europe so I am sitting on the fence. Yet having read a lot of yall's thoughts on this I find myself logging in to say I best like Steve Shaw's summary and conclusions.

For my part I was in the UK when the 1st referendum happened, and yes most of us at the time said 'yes' to the EEC.

But as I see on Quora some now call it "BrokesIt" because this horrid mess is ruining Britain by breaking it into bits. Sad!

Reminds me of the 70's when us young Engineering types tried to save the great British Bike makers by renovating and showing off our AJS, BSA, Matchless, Velocette motorcycles.

As if there was much hope. We later had Maggie blankety blank Thatcher closing down the Black Country mills and mines. While long lines filled the Post Office for passports for those lucky enough to be able to emigrate to Australia, Maggie was busy filling their empty little houses with Pakis she brought in by the boat load. Please don't take offense but I was so mad at the time I near lost my peace.

Yet today we see DJT here saving our Mills for the very same reason in revere that the old crow did. Personal gain.

Please let not this 'BrokesIt' drive out yet another entire community of native British people.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 12:10 AM

Well the thing is I grew up in the town of Boston. The kids I went to school were - many of their parents were fishermen. And I have tell you - there was nothing of the basket case about the fishing industry or (like the mining industry) there was an chandelry industry servicing the British trawlers and shrimping boats. As for it being a mini disater - look at England. The industry stretched the entire fucking coast line. I was in Looe one half term, and the bank had foreclosed on every single fishing boat in the harbour. This nonsense is what the EU does to our banking system.

To be honest its you Steve who is counselling do nothing and everything will be all right.

The wealth and stable society that we have and we share with immigrants is predicated on wealth creation and the industry of our population.

Just leave it to speculators and they will asset strip us, and the stable society will go.

I see the road to darkness as one we embarked on back in 1974, and we're a fair way down it.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:01 AM

I must say I thought the last few posts were excellent. People from both sides presenting why they voted as they did with reasons and no personal insults - and no assumption the future will all be wonderful either. Both looking at the problems of the past and seeking for ways it could better. I think they set a standard for the thread we could aim at.

In my view peteaberdeen is right in suggesting we need to keep looking at how all this affects the ordinary person in the street. The 1% will make money any way this falls out: all that changes is the amount they make and what restrictions they have on future deals. The rest of us will just have to cope with whatever happens.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:20 AM

Having said that, I suppose I need to set out my own position a bit more. At the time of the vote I was 'Remain', but by no means as strongly for remain as I am now. In fact, if you could be bothered to search for it, you would see that I have posted that the way the EU treated Greece made me consider voting Leave. Greece had major problems, no doubt, but the EU solution was basically the asset stripping that Al referred to, and in a way that overrode the earlier democratic votes. That's a dangerous attitude, and one I wanted no part of it. So were that the extent of the issues, I would have voted leave. But it isn't. The EU is basically two projects interwoven - a financial one and a social one, and there were enough risks when you considered both to put me on the "Remain" side.

What has put me much further on the "Remain" side is that, by striving, I believe it would have been possible to agree with the EU a good working relationship. What has hardened my view is the totally unpreparedness of the UK position, and an unwillingness to consider options and consequences adequately. I remember the photo from the very first negotiation, where everyone from the EU side had several folders in front of them, and our side didn't have a side of A4 between them. That has typified our stance ever since.

I do not, by the way, think leaving will be as disastrous as the more extreme shroud waving of some remainers in the press. Nor will it be the sunny uplands. But on that spectrum, I think we will be much closer to the disaster end.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 03:32 AM

I don't think that you can hanker after jobs or a lifestyle which has gone. My grandfather was a coal miner. The coal mines in his area were closing long, long before Thatcher. So he crossed the country looking for work, and found it first as a market gardener, then as an electrician. My father maybe could have had a university education but for poverty and later the war. He was a fairly senior local government officer in the end. But both my father and my grandfather emphasised to me that I should take up any educational opportunities on offer, and forge my own future, and not hanker after their past. Which is why the EU has been a fabulous benefit for people of the UK, particularly young, ambitious people, who have had opportunities that they never would have had without it.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:11 AM

Countries have to be self sufficent energy wise,and less wasteful. Most Empires in the past have invaded other countries to steal energy resources. Every empire[ including the european empire] only has a limited time span. in the short to medium term western europe will [i think] have more poverty
The european empire IS A CURATES EGG.
it seems to be benefit principally The International Banks, then its foremost adminstrators GERMANY AND FRANCE,
GREECE has been punished too severely, likewise Ireland.
Meanwhile we are ignoring, China a country that bans winnie the pooh, and is intent on controlling everyone by CCTV,
We are all going to have a hard time over the next few years, but maybe nothing like Greece has suffered

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:13 AM

My first contracting position was in Belgium over 20 years ago and I have worked in Europe a couple of times since. It would have been a lot more difficult to work there as an independent consultant had it not been for EU employment legislation. Luckily for me my working days are nearly through but I am sad that my children and grandchildren will not have the same opportunities.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:16 AM

Dick, is it going to affect you or are you now an Irish citizen?

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:17 AM

Nonsense Dick, the EU benefits its people, and the people including in Greece would be far worse off without the EU. Without the Eurozone bailout they would not be able to heat their homes, as Greece most definitely is not self sufficient in energy. What you say is in part true, and is the reason for countries amalgamating in blocs which are large enough to be self sufficient in energy and food. The UK on its own clearly isn't quite self sufficient in either, as demands and expectations have increased. We are no longer content with a diet of gruel and turnips. We want, indeed now need, mangetout, Jamon Serrano and fine wines.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:32 AM

Bollocks David, I can grow mange tout anytime i like, we do not need Jason or fine wines, the consumer society tells us we need jason and mcdonalds and other shit including wine with added chemicals ,but we do not NEED them.
Greece would be worse off?
how do you know this , of course you do not, neither do I.
EVERY COUNTRY NEED TO THINK ABOUT BEING MORE SELF SUFFICENT ENERGY WISE.
Why did GERMANY invade Poland at the start of the second world war ..COAL

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:41 AM

Generally speaking Colonisation wars and invasion of other countries has been about stealing raw materials, we need to stop wasting our resources and start atempting to be more self sufficent energy wise.
Creating a European bloc does not solve the problem, neither does the UK leaving, solve that problem, the whole business is a red herring, there are more important issues.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:57 AM

David, you can not compare fishing to coalmining.
Deep mining is in trouble everywhere because there is much cheaper coal readily available.
There is still a huge demand for fish and our fishing industry has been all but destroyed by nothing other than the EU.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 05:01 AM

This is what I don't get.

People worked and travelled in Europe before 1974.

People seem to think they will be forbidden from travelling. You could get a tourist passport for 7/6d from the post office - for an entire family.

Working in Europe is still very dodgy. When I was gigging there a few years back. the situation was far from straightforward. All sorts of protectionism were common. To this day - you'll find Spanish acts keep the front for themselves - the English work the cafes in the back streets.

Record royalties and download fees and performance right fees are just as fucked up as everywhere else. The dual tax agreements are administered by somnolent offices - you get the feeling most people just ignore them.. They seem to resent being reminded that they exist.

To be honest the Remain scare stories - they seem weird . Like the millennium ones.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 06:06 AM

There is still a huge demand for fish and our fishing industry has been all but destroyed by nothing other than the EU.
Correct.
The EU could have spent money more wisely in Ireland, in my opinion instead of building a few new roads[ and in one case destroying a natural heritage site] they should have spent money repairing the water mains infrastructure, an infra structure that leaks badly and is a hangover from the Victorian British Empire,.
Water is one of Irelands assets, something that possibly could contribute to future energy demands, without water there is no life.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 06:18 AM

"To be honest its you Steve who is counselling do nothing and everything will be all right."

Nowhere in any post have I ever counselled "doing nothing." Don't assume that remain voters think that all will be well if we just stay in and do nothing. In this thread I've criticised EU fishery and agricultural policies as disasters and said that the euro was a big, big mistake, and I also agree with what's been said about Greece. The EU needs root and branch reform. But that doesn't mean I think it's bad enough to abandon. We live in a world increasingly dominated by huge, fiercely protectionist trading blocs. If we leave our bloc we will be a little country in big trouble. We are not the manufacturing powerhouse we once were. No-one is queueing up to give us amazing deals and the world can manage quite well without our stuff. We have a good deal of influence in the EU but we have forgotten how to be a constructive partner, a deficiency started by Thatcher. Harking back to a past mythical golden age (mythical? We were the sick man of Europe when we joined. We seem to have done OK since...) is useless. Better to stay in the community and be a friendly but firmly-argumentative partner fighting for reform. That does not mean doing nothing.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 06:26 AM

I don't think we were sicker than anywhere else.

My Renault Kangoo was as shit as any Austin Maestro.

It was written off after going through a deep puddle.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 07:33 AM

I borrowed a Maestro for a year and could sit there on a quiet afternoon and watch it rust from underneath in a cancerous fashion. Remember Maggie getting in one outside Number Ten, lauding it as the best of British? Heheh. My next-door neighbour got a brand-new Marina as a firm's car (!). We found rust in the seams on the day it was delivered. After eighteen months it was incredibly shabby, on its way out.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 07:47 AM

I had a Montego 7 seater estate that was full of rust after 12 months. Shame really as it was a lovely car otherwise.

As one who has worked in both Europe and elsewhere I can assure you that going to work in the EU is far easier and cheaper than having to get a work permit as you need to in many other places. Unless we come up with some sort of deal, Al, anyone going to get paid work in the EU will find it more difficult than it is now. No scare story, just a comparison between areas that you need a work permit for and ones that you don't.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 08:03 AM

Well the usual thing the agent told me was if the customs people stop you with a PA in the back - they will send you back. So tell them you're playing at a friend's wedding, a private do. That sometimes works apparently.

That's an agent who's putting gigging acts all over the EU. So they aren't that bloody wonderful.

The subject has been a lead story in The Stage several times.

The reality gap between actuality, and the wide open spaces of the EU as described by Remainers is a constant source of puzzlement to me.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 09:03 AM

Better to stay in the community and be a friendly but firmly-argumentative partner fighting for reform
but it seems to have achieved nothing as regards the fishing community.
I agree the UK was privileged to kaep its own currency.
LIKE MOST BUREAUCRATIC EMPIRES SUCH AS THE SOVIET UNION IT IS DOOMED TO EVENTUAL FAILURE ,WHAT IS SAD IS THAT IN THE MEANTIME PEOPLE IN GREECE HAVE EXPERIENCED EXTREME HARDSHIP.
I think that in the next two years people in the uk and ireland will suffer which is sad and not something that I am happy about.
However relentless consumerism and the idea we NEED fine wine or mcdonalds shit needs to be adressed seriously

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 09:10 AM

I had three BL-built company cars in the '80s - an Allegro (a.k.a. 'All-aggro'), an Ital (successor of the Marina) and a Rover 200. I had each for three years and, by the end of the three years they were rust-buckets - wings, sills, bonnet-edges, boot-lids, all rotting to a greater or lesser degree.

It wasn't the EU that destroyed our motor industry, it was our own industry's poor designs, cheapskate materials, and shoddy workmanship. Utter rubbish that got what it deserved. And saying otherwise, blaming the EU, is typical of the 'everything is somebody else's fault' attitude so rife in society nowadays.

And it makes me smile to hear people bewailing the fate of our fishing industry, and complaining about 'Spanish fishermen plundering our waters'. I didn't hear them speaking out in support of Iceland when our own large fleet was plundering Icelandic waters. Funny how, when the boot's on the other foot, it's somehow 'different'.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 09:24 AM

Our fleet was not plundering, it was fishing sustainably in international waters which Iceland suddenly claimed as its own.

A two hundred mile limit is now an accepted institution for a sovreign state such as we hope to be soon, and other fleets will have to respect that just as we accept Iceland's 200 mile limit.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 09:38 AM

The maestro...Steve, wasn't that the one that talked. I often wondered what it found to say....

I had a 2nd hand marina. but the handles were very attractive to thieves. Someone nicked our tent from the car , smashing off the handles - outside Stirling University, it was.

Afterwards my father in law who was a fitter at the pit, did a 'pit job' and stuck some homemade handles on with pop rivets.

As they say in Worksop, John, it really looked a bugger.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Stanron
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 09:46 AM

I think you are getting it all out of proportion, kind of rewriting history. Don't forget that in those days the modus operandi was ' built in obsolescence'. We did that really well.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 10:12 AM

"Our fleet was not plundering, it was fishing sustainably in international waters which Iceland suddenly claimed as its own"

That's not how the Icelandic government saw it. Nor, eventually, the way Nato and the UN saw it, who both backed Iceland's position on their declared fishing limits (as did, for reasons of national security, the US). I remember very well how we all cheered when the Icelandic gunboats tried to ram our trawlers and our crews' superb seamanship won the day - "That'll teach those rotten foreigners a lesson!". But the U.K. eventually had to accept the 50-nm, and subsequently 200-nm, limits.

Iceland was acting to preserve its own fishing industry, which played a far, far larger part in their economy than ours has done in the UK economy, and the UK was the interloper and, as far as Iceland was concerned, the aggressor. As I said earlier, it's very amusing to see how different people's reactions are when the boot's on the other foot.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: MikeL2
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 10:42 AM

hi Al

" I don't think we were sicker than anywhere else."

I agree entirely

I had a Fiat 124 from new. Became a "rust bucket" in no time at all.

At the time I was working on an important project and for my sins I was I was seen as the best man for the job. it meant commuting from Manchester to London 5 days every week.

I have to say that the hard working engine was fantastic as I flogged it severely.

Mind you I made a lot of money out of it as I negotiated a great deal on traveling expenses. I sold it and bought a Ford 1600 E. Fantastic motor.

Some of the european cars were crap. And then there was the Lada !!!

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 12:45 PM

The UK fishing industry has been all but destroyed by overfishing by British fishermen. The EU has attempted to conserve stocks. If the British fishermen are let loose again there will be no fish left in the North Sea within 10 years.

And Dick, what the hell is Jason. I wrote Jamon Serrano, and if you don't know what it is don't pontificate on whether we need it or not. As for mangetout, there are about 2 months of the year when you can grow it in Britain, and even then it isn't the same quality as imported. As for Macdonalds, what has that to do with anything, I wouldn't touch Macdonalds with a bargepole. We need quality food, and that means European producers.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 01:10 PM

DAVID, you understood my point jamon or jason,
I can grow mange tout for five months and with cloches or polytunnels all the year round, and the quality is better than imported ,free of any chemicals.
" As for Macdonalds, what has that to do with anything," it has much to do with it my point was about Consumerism
" We want, indeed now need, mangetout, Jamon Serrano and fine wines."
we do not all want or need any of that.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: Raggytash
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 01:18 PM

I think the point David is trying to make is that at the moment we can, if we wish, buy these items freely. Post Brexit this may change due to delays at customs, costs, etc etc.

The fact that you do not want or need such things is basically irrelevant to Davids point. For instance in the UK access to plots for growing is difficult, my garden is tiny, two/three inches of soil then solid clay. I waited 9 years to get an allotment.

If you have the land to grow on, good luck to you, next time I'm down your way I'll come and have a look if I may.

Cheers

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:05 PM

Dick, if I understand it, you live in Ireland. So you are actually insulated from the problems that brexit will cause for us poor brits. So actually Raggy, Dick will still be able to buy these things freely.

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:55 PM

Of course I am not insulated , we will all be affected, not quite sure how badly, but both countries will be poorer with the exception of people like REES MOGG

Subject: RE: Brexit #2
From: peteglasgow
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 03:05 PM

jeez, i just tried to read 'the animals' by john berger. it's difficult, innit? however john berger is one of the things i love about my country - although his 'country' was indefinable, he didn't care much for borders and lived much of his life in rural eastern france/switzerland. i'd love to hear him talk about the little englanders and their precious brexit - or come to that the tommy robinson's of our times. by the way, i feel a list coming on.