Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Rogstanley]

28 minutes ago, breadandcheese said:

 

Our European neighbours rely heavily on GCHQ.  It is one of the foremost intelligence services in the world and is comfortably the best in Europe.  We share a lot with our allies across the Channel.

 

If we share sensitive information with them, it is only fair and correct that we are able to use the Galileo programme alongside the EU, especially as we contribute to it.  For me, this is a non-Brexit issue that shouldn't be part of any negotiations, in the same way that sharing intelligence from GCHQ shouldn't be either.  It is a very dangerous negotiating road to go down by the EU, if they start putting security measures on the table.

The decision to go down a dangerous road was made by us when we decided to leave the EU. Short term some mutual security arrangement might be made but long term we will no longer be in the union and will essentially be competitors. I think it's naive to think they will be open to doing us any favours at all. You can't expect all the benefits of being in a union without being part of it. Brexiters gave those benefits away.

[Guest]

 

Also, can anybody think of anything that happened in the middle of 2016 that might have affected consumer confidence?

 

 

[Rogstanley]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

 

Also, can anybody think of anything that happened in the middle of 2016 that might have affected consumer confidence?

 

 

Jesus, edging close to recession already then. Must admit it doesn't come as a surprise as things have had the feel of a slowdown for a while, at least in my line of work.

 

What's happened to all those high growth estimates brexit puppets were waving about only a few weeks ago?

[Livid]

Honestly do you trust the opinion of any UK Economist ? For years they seem to not have a clue how things are going in this country.

 

Days ago they were all banging on about a definite interest rate ride in May, now with the latest GDP figures there’s zero chance apparently. 

 

Is is our economy that unstable or do they just not have a clue?

[Innovindil]

People did look out a window during the snow... Surely? 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Innovindil said:

People did look out a window during the snow... Surely? 

 

[breadandcheese]

1 hour ago, Rogstanley said:

The decision to go down a dangerous road was made by us when we decided to leave the EU. Short term some mutual security arrangement might be made but long term we will no longer be in the union and will essentially be competitors. I think it's naive to think they will be open to doing us any favours at all. You can't expect all the benefits of being in a union without being part of it. Brexiters gave those benefits away.

I disagree.  There is a world of difference between negotiating trade deals and issues of security.  So in my mind it is not about the EU doing us any favours to share security information or Europol information relating to security and crime.  If that's seen as a favour, then these negotiations really are in a dangerous and irreparable place.

 

It would sit ill with me if GCHQ stopped sharing information with our European allies, especially if there was terrorism related activities that we could have stopped had we shared intelligence.  I wonder why it would not sit so ill that the EU will not let us share a common security platform like Galileo.  Maybe it's negotiating tactics, but there are some things that should be off limits, such as security, defence and scientific research.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, breadandcheese said:

I disagree.  There is a world of difference between negotiating trade deals and issues of security.  So in my mind it is not about the EU doing us any favours to share security information or Europol information relating to security and crime.  If that's seen as a favour, then these negotiations really are in a dangerous and irreparable place.

 

It would sit ill with me if GCHQ stopped sharing information with our European allies, especially if there was terrorism related activities that we could have stopped had we shared intelligence.  I wonder why it would not sit so ill that the EU will not let us share a common security platform like Galileo.  Maybe it's negotiating tactics, but there are some things that should be off limits, such as security, defence and scientific research.

It's also going to affect jobs - Airbus are having to move at least 100 jobs from Portsmouth into the EU because of their work on gemini. Any other uk companies working on the project will also have to base themselves in the EU. 

[Innovindil]

42 minutes ago, toddybad said:

 

So how much is a limited effect? Construction was utterly battered by it. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

So how much is a limited effect? Construction was utterly battered by it. 

One week of snow.

 

Britain grew by only 1.2% in the whole of the last year. Despite the fact fox and strokes will be along in a moment to tell us that any growth is fantastic, it is pitiful.

 

Jeremy Cook, the chief economist at WorldFirst, said: “It’s not just UK voters who could call themselves the Jams (Just About Managing), it now seems that the wider UK economy is in that predicament too.

“At the beginning of last week, the expected probability of a base rate hike at May’s Bank of England meeting was around 86%; it now sits at 34% and sterling is sliding as investors price in a delay to increases in the base rate until December.”

In another sign of the pressures on household budgets, figures from the Insolvency Service showed the number of people unable to pay their debts in England and Wales reached its highest level in more than five years in the first three months of 2018. There were 27,388 personal insolvencies in the first quarter of 2018 – the highest quarterly figure since the third quarter of 2012.

[breadandcheese]

25 minutes ago, toddybad said:

It's also going to affect jobs - Airbus are having to move at least 100 jobs from Portsmouth into the EU because of their work on gemini. Any other uk companies working on the project will also have to base themselves in the EU. 

It is, but shouldn't. N

 

For example, we share platforms with the US (like our nuclear deterrant). Our companies sell and work together with American companies all the time. BAE, for example, https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-f-35/  So there is no automatic position of this, unless the EU are seeking to cripple us as much as possible, which is becoming close to crossing a line of hostility.

 

Yes, I get that the EU is looking to negotiate hard, just as we are, but there is a difference between negotiating hard and discussions that should be off-limits, where the status quo is completely adequate.

[Webbo]

11 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

So how much is a limited effect? Construction was utterly battered by it. 

Transport was affected, people didn't want to go out. 

 

they've been preying for some bad news for 18 months now and this is almost bad news.  Let's not spoil it for them .

[Guest MattP]

Bloody hell I actually thought something important or significant had happened by all the replies on here.

[leicsmac]

44 minutes ago, breadandcheese said:

I disagree.  There is a world of difference between negotiating trade deals and issues of security.  So in my mind it is not about the EU doing us any favours to share security information or Europol information relating to security and crime.  If that's seen as a favour, then these negotiations really are in a dangerous and irreparable place.

 

It would sit ill with me if GCHQ stopped sharing information with our European allies, especially if there was terrorism related activities that we could have stopped had we shared intelligence.  I wonder why it would not sit so ill that the EU will not let us share a common security platform like Galileo.  Maybe it's negotiating tactics, but there are some things that should be off limits, such as security, defence and scientific research.

4

Bingo. If only those running the Brexit show might have considered this before now, perhaps?

[Guest MattP]

15 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

Kopf has largely answered for me. I'd have preferred to stay in the EU, never mind the SM, but the vote was to leave the EU - and free movement was a significant factor in that. Maybe it'd have been worth trying to stay in the SM and to get concessions on free movement, but it's unlikely that would have been successful. So, unless there's a major shift in the public mood, it is democratically correct and electorally necessary to accept that we're leaving the EU & SM. Sharpe's Fox is right, too, that it could be a stance that brings down the Tory govt and puts Labour in power to enact its policies - the party's purpose. I reckon Starmer has played a strategic blinder in tricky circumstances (split Lab electorate, split parliamentary party).

 

Staying in the CU is a good idea, anyway.I don't see how you could have 2 different customs regimes and avoid a hard border. The Irish border is 300+ miles long with hundreds of crossings and a lot of cross-border trade, 90% of it by small traders/farmers. How could you police that with high-tech and approved trader status? Also, how could either nation tell that goods in the back of a truck crossing the border met their own standards? If customs controls are unnecessary with 2 different customs regimes, would you eliminate all customs controls vis-à-vis France, Holland & Germany, too?

 

The case for leaving the CU also relies on confidence that Davis will be able to negotiate a good trade deal with the EU despite leaving the CU - and that Fox will be able to negotiate trade deals to replace 70+ existing external deals and make others that the EU hasn't managed to negotiate - and that the UK as a nation of 65m will be able to negotiate better deals (from a position of desperation) than the EU can as the world's richest trading bloc, with 500m people and a much wider range/weight of trade. I simply don't believe that.

 

You might be right, but I wouldn't be so sure.

 

Doesn't your prediction assume 1 of 3 scenarios: (1) that the EU cave in and agree a fudge on the Irish border; or (2) that May insists on leaving the CU, very few Tory Remainers rebel and Parliament votes it through; or (3) May caves in, agrees to a CU of some kind, and the Hard Brexiteers accept this?

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression there's little chance of scenario (1). I think you're relying on scenario (2), but there might be more Tory Remainers prepared to rebel than you think - and fewer Labour Brexiteers ready to forego the chance to bring down the govt and get their party the chance of power at an election. Maybe scenario (3) could happen, if someone like Gove persuades the Brexiteers to accept a Soft Brexit to get the Exit over the line, with the aim of hardening it up in future years - but I wouldn't bank on the Hard Brexit crew being prepared to go along with that....and the final vote will have to effectively be a confidence vote, won't it?

 

Btw, I'm not assuming that Labour would then win any early election - indeed some on the Tory side might fancy their chances of a better result than 2017, particularly if they can agree on a quick party coup to get rid of May.

I just think you're over-estimating the likelihood of the May govt lasting until 2022.

 

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

Some strange assumptions appearing here, notably that a free trade agreement allowing US firms to obtain NHS contracts is more likely via a customs union with the EU than via a Tory govt ideologically committed to privatisation and outsourcing - and desperate for new trade agreements after Brexit. TTIP has been parked on a very slow back-burner, if not in the freezer. Whereas, after a Hard Brexit, the Tory Govt will be keen to sign new trade agreements, with the US an obvious candidate. Given our newfound trade isolation and much smaller economy, the US - particularly under an "America First" President like Trump - will be better positioned to pressurise the UK into unwanted compromises, than to pressurise the EU. Anyway, Trump would probably be pushing at an open door with the Tories as they favour introducing such "private sector efficiency improvements", outsourcing etc.

 

It's true that leaving the SM but staying in the/a CU wouldn't necessarily eliminate all need for border controls, but it would reduce them - and reduce economic disruption, lost trade, lost jobs etc. If controls were limited to product standards to satisfy SM regs, it would be worth exploring whether that could be done away from the border....though this article casts doubt on that:  http://theconversation.com/would-staying-in-a-customs-union-after-brexit-avoid-a-hard-border-with-ireland-92485

 

Certainly, I'd prefer to stay in the SM. I just recognise that any govt has to pay attention to how immigration concerns influenced the referendum result. OK, you're persuading me - maybe it would be better for Labour to commit to staying in the SM soon, but to do that in tandem with a range of strong policies to prevent abuse of cheap labour: strong legal action against employers who only recruit abroad, beefed-up labour inspections to prevent low pay/conditions, legislation to force employers to advertise jobs locally, measures to make unskilled work more attractive to Brits (better pay/conditions/hours, investment in public transport to rural areas and at unsociable hours, where there would be demand etc.).

 

Neither of you suggest alternative ways of avoiding a hard border and the risk of a return to violence. So, I assume that you just think it a risk worth taking for the holy grail of your ideologically-driven neo-liberal project? Webbo, you at least remember what "the Troubles" were like - almost nightly news reports of bombs and shootings in Ulster; bloody outrages in GB; 3500 dead, 47,500+ injured. Maybe a hard border wouldn't cause violence again, and blame would still attach to those who got involved. But it's easy to see how violence by a tiny minority could spiral into something much bigger, given continued mistrust between communities in N. Ireland. Accepting a hard border would be like throwing a lit match into a roomful of inflammable furniture and crossing your fingers, hoping that you didn't cause an inferno. Is your political experiment really worth such a risk?

 

Also, why the insistence on zero compromise from the Brexit side? You have a mandate to leave the EU and arguably some mandate for action on immigration, but no mandate for anything else. Yet there's so much insistence on the most extreme Brexit possible. Imagine if Remain had won 52%-48% and the response had been: "right, we're going for more and more federalism, joining the Euro....we won the referendum and you Brexitmoaners have to shut up with your moaning"?

 

No, Kopf, I genuinely don't want Brexit to fail. After all, unless I emigrate I have to carry on living here - and the success/failure of Brexit is set to play a big part in what sort of life my daughter has. I've accepted that, barring a miraculous shift in public mood, it will happen. I just believe that staying close to the EU will minimise what could be very severe damage to the economy, society and life in the country I come from and live in.

 

Must work now....we'll all find out soon enough, as I reckon the shit's going to hit the fan within months, one way or another.

First of all appreciate the effort that goes into these posts, well worth a read as always.

 

Certainly agree Starmer has played a blinder, he's managed to keep it together (even though his six tests argument has been undermined) so far when I thought they couldn't, although that could be as much down to the fact they aren;t the ones negotiating it.

 

Regarding the scenarios.

 

1) This looks more possible than it did now thanks to the leak we had this week from inside the EU saying that their own plan was flawed, although I think it's unlikely.

2) The most likely scenario for me, I still think the overall end game of this Labour shadow cabinet taking control of the nation will make every Tory MP apart from Soubry and Clarke really take stock of what they are doing and probably decide to vote with their party, risky though and to have such a huge decision hanging in the balance is not the sign of a government in any sort of control.

3) Possible again, but the Eurosceptics already believe they have made more of enough of a compromise with the length of transition, they may even accept this but then make the move to replace May with a stronger PM from the ERG.

 

There is another possible scenario as well, the Tories put the border on the Irish Sea through and dare the DUP to withdraw the confidence and supply arrangement, possibly forcing a General Election and an supporter of Irish Republicanism into number 10.

 

The other big difference now is that it's becoming clear Corbyn isn't going to win a majority, he might get enough to scramble himself over the line as PM in a coalition but if he can't make inroads at this point in time then it can't really get much worse for the Conservative party.

 

I still don't know where the idea comes from that the Irish will all start killing each other again even if a border does go up, I'd even argue there is some subliminal middle class racism towards the Irish on that point of view, (not from yourself obviously ) this is a far different country from what it used to be - I don't know if you watched the interview with Bertie Ahern but it was very good and I'm sure he's right that even if the EU or UK gov erected one it would be torn down the people.

 

On the bottom part, I don't think the argument of "right, we're going for more and more federalism, joining the Euro....we won the referendum" stands up in comparison as no one stated that during the campaign if the vote was to remain, what was made clear by the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Johnson and Gove was that a vote to leave meant we left the single market.

 

Like you I have work to do, have a lovely weekend.

[Webbo]

12 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Bingo. If only those running the Brexit show might have considered this before now, perhaps?

It's the EU that's being a ****.

[Rogstanley]

17 minutes ago, MattP said:

Bloody hell I actually thought something important or significant had happened by all the replies on here.

For those who you living off inherited wealth a failing economy probably doesn't matter. For the rest if us it's deeply troubling.

[Guest MattP]

13 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Bingo. If only those running the Brexit show might have considered this before now, perhaps?

Why not security and defence?

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Transport was affected, people didn't want to go out. 

 

they've been preying for some bad news for 18 months now and this is almost bad news.  Let's not spoil it for them .

 

18 minutes ago, MattP said:

Bloody hell I actually thought something important or significant had happened by all the replies on here.

Lmao. As if people don't spend money if they can't leave the house anymore. I rather trust the ons view than the webbo view.

 

Funny how Matty gets all excited when predicted growth rises 0.1% but when it falls to 0.1% nothing has happened.

 

And let's not forget, Brexit hasn't even happened yet. 

 

If things tip into recession the final domino of the tory government will fall.

[Rogstanley]

37 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

So how much is a limited effect? Construction was utterly battered by it. 

They described the impact of the snow as "relatively small". At the end of the day it's a winter quarter, there's always snow and bad weather. 

 

We are teetering on the brink of recession. I don't think now is the time for weak excuses

 

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

 

Lmao. As if people don't spend money if they can't leave the house anymore. I rather trust the ons view than the webbo view.

 

Funny how Matty gets all excited when predicted growth rises 0.1% but when it falls to 0.1% nothing has happened.

 

And let's not forget, Brexit hasn't even happened yet. 

 

If things tip into recession the final domino of the tory government will fall.

If people don't go to the pub or restaurant then those pubs and restaurants won't make so much money. If some roads are closed the suppliers can't get there goods to the shops and the shops can't sell them. This was all predicted while the snow was still falling. Still if a slight down turn in the economy makes you happy I'm pleased for you.

[Guest MattP]

Before I go, a (long) but interesting read from Standpoint in the May edition. Just how ridiculous Project Fear was.

 

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/7149
 

Quote

Project Fear was £100bn out

 

Two years will soon have passed since the British people voted to leave the European Union. Since then the EU has itself changed radically enough to make renewed UK membership more unattractive and less likely. Most obviously, active steps have been taken to form a European army and President Macron has advocated greater fiscal integration, with the possibility of EU-wide taxes. Opinion surveys have shown that the key issue in the referendum debate was “who governs Britain?”. If there are to be a European army and European taxes, an application to rejoin the EU would — undoubtedly, and with much greater clarity than before — be an attempt to end the UK’s existence as an independent, self-governing nation.

Nevertheless, Tony Blair and others are plotting a campaign to hold a second referendum and reverse the tide of history. They aim to operate on a cross-party basis, with George Osborne a natural ally. Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016, has become editor of the London Evening Standard and uses it to spin a pro-EU line. Blair once told the Andrew Marr show that Osborne was “a highly capable guy”. Famously or notoriously, one product of Osborne’s capability was Project Fear in the run-up to the referendum. It pushed alarmist forecasts about how the economy would behave outside the EU, capturing many headlines and provoking much comment.  Osborne cited detailed and allegedly rigorous research from the Treasury (in a White Paper, Cm. 9292, no less) on what would happen in the first two years after a vote to leave.

Time is now almost up for the predictions. We must ask, “How did Project Fear perform?”. Two cases were explored in Cm. 9292: a so-called “cautious” scenario in which a trade agreement with the EU would be negotiated, and a “severe shock” alternative where the UK would quit the single market and trade with our European neighbours on the same basis as other World Trade Organisation members (that is, just as the US or China trade with the EU). Talking in these terms was actually a bit odd. Ahead of June 23, 2016, it was well-known that a two-year negotiating period under Article 50 would be the inevitable sequel to a Leave vote. By implication, the precise trading relationship between the UK and the EU might still be undefined even in early 2019. (Indeed, the precise relationship is still undefined at the time of writing.) 

Anyhow, the Treasury did analyse its two cases, and it did not beat about the bush. The two years from a Leave result in the referendum would be a major setback in the “cautious” case, with a drop of 3.6 per cent in gross domestic product, and a disaster in the WTO case, with a tumble of 6.0 per cent. (Both these figures are relative to what would otherwise have occurred.) Jobs would be lost on a massive scale. Unemployment would jump by 520,000 in the cautious projection and by 820,000 in the situation where only WTO rules applied.

Osborne had no compunction about presenting these numbers on television and other media. In a visit to B&Q’s head office on May 23, 2016, he warned that voting to leave the EU would be “a do-it-yourself recession”. Specifically, Brexit would lead to a repeat of the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, ruining all the subsequent work “to get our country back on track”. In other announcements the British public was told that the two years after a vote to leave would see falling house prices and a marked deterioration in the public finances. Indeed, the prospective deterioration was so severe that pensions might have to be cut and taxes raised.

 

In assessing the doom-mongering of Project Fear, we need to allow for the complication that the forecast of 3.6 and 6.0 per cent falls in GDP were “relative to what would otherwise have occurred”. Helpfully, we have official forecasts made in spring 2016 (by the Office for Budget Responsibility) of the quarterly profile for GDP from mid-2016 to mid-2018 on a no-change, continued-EU-membership basis. They were for GDP to rise by 0.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent in the last two quarters of 2016, by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2017, by 0.3 per cent in each of the next three quarters, and by 0.4 per cent a quarter throughoout 2018. If the Treasury and Project Fear were right in general terms, and we apply an average of its 3.6 and 6.0 per cent Brexit shock effects, we would need to scale down the no-change numbers by 0.6 per cent per quarter (that is, cumulatively in eight quarters by 4.8 per cent, which is of course in the middle of the 3.6 and 6.0 numbers). 

Let us make a comparison between the Osborne/Treasury view (“the Project Fear assessment”) and the outturn. Even provisional numbers are not yet available for the first two quarters of 2018, but again we have a recent official forecast of the
quarterly profile from the OBR. (Both quarters are to see GDP rises of 0.4 per cent.) The box below gives the outcome of the exercise.

It turns out that Project Fear was wrong by almost 5 per cent of GDP. The consequences of this giant error for the rest of the Osborne/Treasury prognosis have been drastic. Instead of employment falling by hundreds of thousands, it has risen by hundreds of thousands. Instead of house prices going down, they have gone up. Instead of the public finances lurching more heavily into deficit, they have been better than at any time since the Great Recession, making the prospect of an eventual surplus far from silly. Above all, Osborne’s scary rhetoric about a return of the Great Recession now looks preposterous. Despite all his supposed capability, he could not have been more wrong. Further, the grotesque misjudgment was not about something distant from his department’s area of responsibility. This was a subject where Osborne had direct ministerial accountability and which was perhaps the defining public-policy issue of his career.

The failure of Project Fear raises wider constitutional questions, particularly about the role of the Civil Service in modern government. In 2013 Anthony King and Trevor Crewe wrote a book, The Blunders of our Governments, which surveyed a list of cock-ups of various kinds from the poll tax to the Millennium Dome. The list included mistakes in economic policy, notably the Treasury’s complicity in the fiasco of UK membership of the European exchange rate mechanism in the early 1990s. Was Project Fear yet another cock-up? One interpretation is that civil servants operated so closely to politicians that they lost their objectivity and saw themselves as serving those politicians. This should not have happened. An obvious risk is that serving one particular set of politicians slides into favouring one or another political party. The constitutional position is that the UK Civil Service is not political and answers to the Crown, understood as “the Queen in Parliament”, where it is made effective by parliamentary questions, select committees and the like. If the Civil Service has been politicised and corrupted, Project Fear could be regarded as uninteresting. On this view it was never to be seen as high-quality, seriously-intended analysis. Rather it was the result of the hijack of the Treasury’s resources by an unscrupulous Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Osborne himself is not and never has been an economist, and — to give him his due — he does not claim to have serious economic expertise. Nevertheless, at the time Project Fear was so widely reported that some people do seem to have believed it. To the extent that it was credible, it was credible because it had the endorsement not just of the Treasury, but also of a handful of UK-based research institutes, notably the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This suggests an alternative interpretation of Project Fear: that the economists deriving and articulating its pessimistic forecasts were acting in good faith. They did believe what they were saying and managed to convince Osborne about the iniquity of Brexit.

On June 28, 2016, Paul Johnson, then and now the Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, wrote a piece for The Times in which — with less than a week of evidence in support — he said: “We economists were collectively right about the economic consequences of leaving the EU. Sadly, as events are already proving, those consequences will be bad, possibly very bad. The UK economics profession had a good referendum.” The trouble — in Johnson’s view — was that either the public was not listening or it was too dim to follow the debate properly. To quote again, “Economists’ warnings were not understood or believed by many. So we economists need to be asking ourselves why our near-unanimity did not cut through . . . We need to understand the abject failure of our profession to persuade the public about the consequences of a Leave vote.” (The minority of economists favouring Brexit was later described by Johnson as “disappearingly [sic] small”, consisting of “a few mavericks”. Dear reader, you may have guessed that I am one of them.)

The only possible verdict on Johnson’s article is that he believed the Project Fear analysis hook, line and sinker. He really did think in the days following the Brexit vote that the next few years would be followed by a deep recession, just like most Treasury mandarins and such commentators as Martin Wolf on the Financial Times (whose position I discussed in my Standpoint column last September). The truth about contemporary economics and economists cannot be escaped. So many of these people — belonging to what they term “our profession” — were parroting each other, and persuading themselves of doom and disaster ahead, that Johnson’s reference to a “near-unanimity” has to be taken at face value. By extension, Osborne may not be a Svengali who corrupted the civil servants around him, but the innocent dupe of utterly incompetent and useless advisers who were carried away by their own tosh.

Project Fear was a gross miscarriage of government. I do not know which of my two explanations is right. It may be that Osborne breached the conventions of our unwritten constitution and abused the authority of the Treasury to give substance to lies. Or it may be that the only advice Osborne (and Cameron for that matter) received came from a “near-unanimity” of official economists who had no idea what they were talking about. Perhaps there was a mixture of malice and ignorance, of wicked politics and trashy economics, and that — as usual with other policy blunders in recent decades — it was more cock-up than conspiracy. At any rate, the debate about the long-run benefits and costs of Brexit is open. Some of us, whether disappearingly [sic] few in number or not, will remain optimistic. 

 

 

[Guest MattP]

6 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Lmao. As if people don't spend money if they can't leave the house anymore. I rather trust the ons view than the webbo view.

 

Funny how Matty gets all excited when predicted growth rises 0.1% but when it falls to 0.1% nothing has happened.

 

And let's not forget, Brexit hasn't even happened yet. 

 

If things tip into recession the final domino of the tory government will fall.

FFS

 

 

[Rogstanley]

2 minutes ago, Webbo said:

If people don't go to the pub or restaurant then those pubs and restaurants won't make so much money. If some roads are closed the suppliers can't get there goods to the shops and the shops can't sell them. This was all predicted while the snow was still falling. Still if a slight down turn in the economy makes you happy I'm pleased for you.

So to be clear, you think the ONS are just lying when they say the snow had a relatively small impact? 

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Rogstanley said:

So to be clear, you think the ONS are just lying when they say the snow had a relatively small impact? 

Depends what you mean by small? What would it have been without the snow?