"Make Britain Great Again!"

[Tranquillus in Exile]

You [would] have screamed loudly enough if the Labour Party, the last time it won, had declared it was the People's Will to continue forever.

Indeed I would, Penderyn! But not for the reason you suppose. I voted Labour in 2005 and 2010.

There will be a general election in the next few months and the voters can decide what they want in the normal way. If there is a clear mandate for Remain, and Britain has left the EU by then, the new government could always apply to re-join. What do you think of that?

It is other people's children and grandchildren that your (very much minority) version of what the voters said are condemning to poverty and ruin.

Do you remember what Cameron's government said would happen in 2016-2017 if people voted the wrong way in the referendum?

A vote to leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy. That shock would push our economy into a recession and lead to an increase in unemployment of around 500,000, GDP would be 3.6% smaller, average real wages would be lower, inflation higher, sterling weaker, house prices would be hit and public borrowing would rise compared with a vote to remain.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...the_eu_web.pdf

Did you believe that?

[Iolo/Penderyn]

Indeed I would, Penderyn! But not for the reason you suppose. I voted Labour in 2005 and 2010.

There will be a general election in the next few months and the voters can decide what they want in the normal way. If there is a clear mandate for Remain, and Britain has left the EU by then, the new government could always apply to re-join. What do you think of that?

I think the chances of the EU touching us with a bargepole would be zero. They'd be nuts to have anything to do with us after this ludicrous kerfuffle.

Do you remember what Cameron's government said woul happen in 2016-2017 if people voted the wrong way in the referendum?

A vote to leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy. That shock would push our economy into a recession and lead to an increase in unemployment of around 500,000, GDP would be 3.6% smaller, average real wages would be lower, inflation higher, sterling weaker, house prices would be hit and public borrowing would rise compared with a vote to remain.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...the_eu_web.pdf

Did you believe that?

They were a bit previous perhaps. I think a no-deal Brexit would be a total disaster, and I certainly never believed Cameron about anything, any more than I'd trust a Brexiteer with an old farthing

[moon]

Brexit: 'Election in October' if MPs block no deal

The government is expected to table a motion to hold a general election on 14 October if it is defeated by MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit on Tuesday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49558596

The slimy bastard is banking on his MPs putting their jobs before their country- just like him. Haw, haw................................haw.

[gemini104104]

Great Britain's wartime efforts against barbaric savagery and Hitler's Germany:

After the surrender of France to Germany in 1940, Britain was the Third Reich's next target. But was invasion imminent or was this part of a strategy? Dan Cruickshank describes the British effort to defend her shores during World War Two.

No surrender
When France fell with such rapid speed in June 1940 ten months after the outbreak of World War Two and six weeks after German invasion, Germany believed it had achieved an unprecedented triumph in the most extraordinary conditions.
To a large degree, of course, it had. Traditional enemies and apparently strong opponents had fallen with ease and dramatic speed - not only France, but Poland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Luxembourg had been over run and Britain's army had been outflanked and ejected in late May from Europe with the loss of most of its heavy weapons and equipment.
But to Germany's surprise, Britain, although apparently defeated and certainly painfully exposed and isolated, did not surrender. It did not even seek to come to terms with Germany.

I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England...

This was a puzzling state of affairs for the Germans who now had two options: to lay siege to Britain and to wear it down physically and psychologically through limited military action and through political and propaganda warfare, which would include the threat or bluff of invasion; or to actually invade. "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwa...n_ww2_01.shtml

[tsuke]

[cancel2 2022]

I have huge respect for Alex Brummer, he used to write for the Guardian before they lost the plot!!

Labour's economic madness would make even the hardest Brexit look like a walk in the park, writes ALEX BRUMMER

When John McDonnell met the chief executive of one of Britain's biggest insurers recently, the City boss was impressed by the Shadow Chancellor's bank manager-like demeanour and soothing tones. At the conclusion of the meeting, the CEO told me that he sat down to write a note of the meeting and suddenly realised that 'I'd been mugged'. McDonnell had managed — almost — to persuade him that as his firm was working for the public good, it would be safe under Labour tutelage.

The reality was that Labour's plans for nationalisation and raids on the ownership of companies — in which the insurer was invested — would have a devastating impact on tens of millions of pounds the firm holds for ordinary savers. The memory of this conversation came back to me this week when the Financial Times published an investigation into the mysteries of Corbynomics and the influence of Marxists, such as McDonnell, on Labour's economic policies.

Alongside a new analysis about Labour's planned 'land grab' on our largest companies, the prospect is truly horrifying for all those who believe in free market capitalism, private property rights and sound public finances. British capitalism is far from flawless, as the collapse of the construction and outsourcing empire Carillion demonstrated early last year. Meanwhile, continuing greed at the top, most notoriously at disgraced housebuilder Persimmon, where chief executive Jeff Fairburn reaped a £75 million bonus, continues to fuel public outrage.

The proposals include confiscating shares in 7,000 large companies (with more than 250 staff) and handing them to employees. Such a move would fundamentally undermine the savings and pensions of every person in the country.

In the battle to attack perceived poverty — in a nation that has the lowest unemployment since 1974 — Labour has been exploring a universal basic income, plundering public finances to give a similar average pay for everyone, whether in work or out. Such a move is regarded by the International Monetary Fund as utterly foolhardy because of the enormous strains it would impose on the public finances.

Wholesale nationalisation is, as you would expect, part of the plan. It would see great chunks of the economy, from water to the National Grid, run by Whitehall. Most disgracefully of all, perhaps, is McDonnell & Co's plan to overturn Britain's age- old property-owning democracy and replace it with one of its own creation. Among the more notorious policies would be the blatant robbery from 'Buy to Let' landlords. Some 2.6 million second-home investors, many of whom put their pension savings into property, would be forced to disgorge ownership to tenants at below-market prices.

This is just one of a series of property reforms, including a Zimbabwe-style raid on big farms to create smaller community units, which would plunder the sanctity of land and property ownership. Corbyn, McDonnell and their coterie of Marxist advisers in Momentum have, until now, been lucky with these economic plans. Their abhorrent policies have, until now, escaped proper scrutiny because the attention of the Tories, Whitehall, and the media, has been on Brexit.

Nationalisation, of course, has been a feature of public policy since the reforming government of Clement Attlee in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Industries such as steel and the railways have been political footballs and kicked in and out of the public sector several times. It was only under Mrs Thatcher in the Eighties that Britain became a global pioneer for privatisation and the issue looked to be settled.

When the Blair-Brown government foolishly sought to reclaim ownership of Railtrack (now Network Rail) on the cheap in 2005, the measure was challenged in the courts by big battalion investors representing insurers and pension funds. The courts found that property rights had been infringed and Labour was forced into paying substantial compensation.

This experience ought to be a salutary lesson for Corbyn's Labour. However, this is now a party so driven by ideological fervour and hatred of wealth creators that no form of private ownership is sacrosanct.

Nothing, though, could be more deluded and dangerous than the plan to grab 10 per cent of the shares in Britain's largest firms and hand them over to workers.

John McDonnell describes this plan as creating 'inclusive ownership funds'. But by intervening in the market on this scale, a Corbyn government would trigger enormous capital flight — the rush for the door by investors. This would be followed by a further collapse in sterling on the foreign exchange markets and send share prices in the world's second most important capital market plummeting.

The biggest losers would be ordinary citizens who could see the value of their savings nest eggs, such as Individual Savings Accounts and pensions, all but vanish overnight. So the very workers, who Labour seeks to benefit, would become the victims of McDonnell's crackpot redistribution plan.

In the past month, Boris Johnson's government has found itself under attack from Left and Right as it has made a series of substantial public spending promises. Chancellor Sajid Javid has been accused of finding a 'money tree', stretching the limits of the public purse. But the costing of Tory spending proposals is as of nothing compared to plans outlined by McDonnell and his acolytes. The independent scrutineer of the public finances, the Office for Budget Responsibility, told the FT that an extra £25 billion of public borrowing required for Labour's plans would mean national debt increasing as a percentage of GDP in breach of another McDonnell pledge.

The only way that Labour could close the borrowing gap is by enormous tax rises of up to £26 billion. McDonnell has already indicated that he would plan to do this by targeting better-off taxpayers — by which he means householders earning more than £85,000 a year — and raising corporation taxes.

Both policies would have disastrous consequences. When France's last socialist president Francois Hollande imposed a 75 per cent super-tax on the very wealthy, it triggered a huge exit of the country's entrepreneurs and financiers to London and produced virtually no extra income. The measure was quietly dropped in 2014.

Former Conservative Chancellor George Osborne's decision to lower Labour's top rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent actually led to increased returns. Indeed, a recent study found that the richest 1 per cent of people in Britain already pays 28 pc of the nation's income tax. That would be put hugely at risk if Labour taxed this group even further.

Similarly, the Tory cuts in company taxes to a competitive 19 pc has attracted businesses to the UK and produced a bonanza in tax receipts as firms have decided to comply rather than seek sophisticated avoidance strategies. Fervent Remain supporters claim a 'No Deal' Brexit is an act of self-harm which will do irreparable damage to Britain's economy. Doubtless there will be disruption, and growth could be temporarily interrupted.

But as most leading executives tell me privately, even if the very worst predictions for a No Deal Brexit were to materialise, the peril will never match that of Corbyn-led revolution hell-bent on destroying the free markets which have delivered record levels of employment and allowed Britain to hold on to its status as the fifth wealthiest country in the world. All of that could be obliterated if the Corbyn and McDonnell agenda of laying waste to capitalism was ever able to gain traction.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...X-BRUMMER.html

[moon]

It appears that the Anglophiles want to ' make Britain great again ' by looking backwards. Haw, haw..........................haw.

[Tranquillus in Exile]

outside looking in

down under looking up ...


Australia-UK trade deal 'could happen within weeks of Brexit'

A trade deal between Australia and the UK could be struck within weeks after Brexit, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has said, after talking to his new British counterpart Liz Truss. That could be as early as November this year, amid growing signs new Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pursuing a No Deal Brexit on October 31.

A week after being named as Trade Secretary, Truss phoned her Australian counterpart for their first official discussion. Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said the discussion had gone well and both were keen to secure a deal that would reflect the closeness of Australia and the UK's tied history as soon as possible, which could be before the end of the year.

Following his first call with Boris Johnson last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would be "one of the first cabs off the rank" to strike a trade agreement with the UK.

- The Sydney Morning Herald
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...01-p52cpm.html


Botching Brexit would be an epic defeat

Deciding to leave the EU, but failing to carry it through, wouldn’t just be a normal political failure like failing to extend Heathrow. It would be an epic defeat, hardly matched since the Norman invasion; a national humiliation to echo down the ages, shattering to all who look to this country for inspiration.

Let me reassure anyone in Britain anxious about the prospect of no-deal that Australia does one hundred billion dollars’ worth of trade with the EU every single year on this very basis.

A full economic partnership between Britain and Australia – restoring the almost completely unrestricted commerce that we enjoyed for 150 years – would be about the best 2019 Christmas present either of us could have. Frankly, had our negotiators not been so timidly respectful of EU rules, it could have been ready to sign and commence from October 31.

- Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...britain-fails/

[Tranquillus in Exile]

It appears that the Anglophiles want to ' make Britain great again ' by looking backwards.

Lol, Corbyn and McDonnell look back to 1848

[Iolo/Penderyn]

Great Britain's wartime efforts against barbaric savagery and Hitler's Germany:

After the surrender of France to Germany in 1940, Britain was the Third Reich's next target. But was invasion imminent or was this part of a strategy? Dan Cruickshank describes the British effort to defend her shores during World War Two.

No surrender
When France fell with such rapid speed in June 1940 ten months after the outbreak of World War Two and six weeks after German invasion, Germany believed it had achieved an unprecedented triumph in the most extraordinary conditions.
To a large degree, of course, it had. Traditional enemies and apparently strong opponents had fallen with ease and dramatic speed - not only France, but Poland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Luxembourg had been over run and Britain's army had been outflanked and ejected in late May from Europe with the loss of most of its heavy weapons and equipment.
But to Germany's surprise, Britain, although apparently defeated and certainly painfully exposed and isolated, did not surrender. It did not even seek to come to terms with Germany.

I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England...

This was a puzzling state of affairs for the Germans who now had two options: to lay siege to Britain and to wear it down physically and psychologically through limited military action and through political and propaganda warfare, which would include the threat or bluff of invasion; or to actually invade. "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwa...n_ww2_01.shtml

But the Brexiteers are destroying the UK from within - they don't have to invade! They want to complete Hitler's and Thatcher's work.

[Iolo/Penderyn]

Lol, Corbyn and McDonnell look back to 1848

Well, that's the year that began to turn Europe towards democracy. Bloody good plan here too!

[Iolo/Penderyn]

If we stop trading with the EU we're dead.

[Tranquillus in Exile]

that's the year that began to turn Europe towards democracy. Bloody good plan here too!

There used to be an actual communist posting at amazon.com politics. Well, he thought he was; but when I mentioned the state "withering away" with the advent of true communism, he'd never heard of it.

"Joseph Stalin's government mentioned it occasionally, but did not believe the world was yet in the advanced stage of development where the state could wither away."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wither...y_of_the_state

LOL

[Iolo/Penderyn]

There used to be an actual communist posting at amazon.com politics. Well, he thought he was; but when I mentioned the state "withering away" with the advent of true communism, he'd never heard of it.

"Joseph Stalin's government mentioned it occasionally, but did not believe the world was yet in the advanced stage of development where the state could wither away."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wither...y_of_the_state


LOL

I was arguing with members of the CP before, probably, you were born, and I certainly had, when I was about fourteen, as I recall.