Posts by strum

Re: ...citing the Windrush scandal as justification.

>The potential impact on the people documented in those papers was surely very obvious. It was the wrong choice and it was clear to anyone that it was the wrong choice but they did it anyway.

Quite apart from the damage to those involved, this was also a crime against history. The loss of these historic documents will be mourned for centuries.

Re: ...citing the Windrush scandal as justification.

>an operational choice by clerk level staff

The trouble is that 'clerk-level staff' don't always need a direct order to know which way the wind is blowing (and anti-immigrant feeling isn't a new thing).

Re: ...citing the Windrush scandal as justification.

>Surely it would have just led to the earlier expulsion of lots of people?

Quite so. The issue with the Windrush victims was that they couldn't prove their elegibility, because (like the rest of us) they'd never had to do so before (and because the HO trashed the docs that might have done the job).

With an ID scheme, they'd have failed the test and been dragged off to detention.

Re: I was pro-remain, but this really is "Project Fear" at work.

>They were destroyed by the unions

Bollocks. They were ousted by the electorate, as the incompetents they were.

To quote the Private Eye cover of the time:

Ted Heath: Who governs Britain?

Electorate: Not you, matey!

>things got even worse

More bollocks. Healey took the hit for Barber's incompetence, and the Tory press clearly did a good job bamboozling you, but there's no way that Labour made things worse.

Re: Civil unrest is not a joke

>The difference is we wont need to do it as long as we did during WW2

The difference is that we won't have any preparation time. The Phoney War gave everyone months to prepare. Worst-case Brexit collapses on day one.

>Mostly in the FTSE. Which has done rather well since the Brexit vote.

Because most footsie companies benefit from a weak pound.

Re: make up your minds

>Why?

Because your asinine suggestion would leave UK as a delinquent debtor - not to be trusted with the petty cash. Our hoped-for trade partners would demand payment up-front, for every shipment, in the knowledge that we have a history of welshing on our debts.

Re: "Where is the evidence to suggest that would happen?"

>I really hope they can't be arsed to get started up again if "no deal" brings a return to a hard border and a breach to the agreement.

We can hope. But the GFA didn't remove all the arseholes from the territory. And isolated customs posts are such a juicy target...

Re: I'm surprised it hasn't already happened.

>Oh yes, a few yobs causing trouble for a day or so, 30 years ago. I'd almost forgotten that.

The government hadn't. The Poll Tax was abolished, because of those 'yobs'.

Re: I was pro-remain, but this really is "Project Fear" at work.

>Because we know the the alternative of Labour would let the unions destroy the economy like they did in the early 70s?

A fine attempt at historical comment. Except that the Tories were in power in the early 70s (Ted Heath & Tony Barber - he of the inflation-fuelling 'Barber Boom').

Re: Vogon

> representative democracy cannot survive if it is not delivered

You don't seem to understand what 'representative democracy' means. It means you elect politicians to represent your interests (as they see fit). You do not elect delegates.

Re: Vogon

>Giving the losers what they want at the expense of the winners isn't a compromise, and it isn't democracy. Sorry, it just isn't.

Without compromise, democracy is doomed. Instead, you have a tyranny of the (temporary) majority, which requires violence to resolve.

Re: eh?

>Have not we already had promises of economic collapse next day after the referendum if the results were “wrong”?

No. Next lie, please.

Re: @John Brown ... Vogon

> You held an election and the majority of the UK want to leave the EU.

FFS! It wasn't an election!

Re: @Wellyboot eh?

>They don't just google to find some revisionist's version of history, but remember it because they lived it.

Yes - I remember the basket case that was the UK in the 70s. I remember the first referendum (I voted 'No'). I remember how our pols fought tooth and nail to broaden the EU's vision, to include the service we had come to rely on. I remember every time some grandstanding pol blamed the EU for his own party's failings. I remember how the ECHR & ECJ gave us rights and protections our own parliament and courts wouldn't.

And, yes, I will remember the treachery of those who lied their way into a narrow 'Leave' vote (which did not contain any comments on CU, SM, EEA or EFTA).

Yes. We remember.

Re: eh?

Me too. (on all counts)

Re: eh?

>1/ Hard Brexit: Civil unrest as food and gas become scarce

>You really haven't a clue how world trade and WTO rules work, do you? Why on earth should any of that happen?

You really haven't a clue how trade works, do you? Given a 'No deal' exit, there would no trading terms available - for anything. No mechanism for resolving disputes, no customs-clearing offices, no nothing.

The WTO isn't going to deliver any of that - not for months, maybe years (and it will be our self-destructive government which has to do that work).

No society is further than three meals away from revolution. Assuming that everything will just work itself out is one of the most dangerous responses possible.

Re: Please can someone remind me...

>has any branch of US government officially declared that it has supplied such evidence

Just the FBI, the CIA and the NSA.

Re: Don't get sheep herded by the fake news media

>Yalta

You are seriously in need of a history education.

Re: "Thats how these games are played."

>Hillary Clinton was I the limelight for decades, you can bet that countless hours of research went into finding any possible dirt on her in the run-up to the elections

Not just in the run-up to the elections. Kenneth Starr spent $40M and lots of time and energy, investigating HC's involvement in Whitewater - and found absolutely nothing (the blue dress was an accidental bonus. The GOP had it in for Hillary, far more than for Bill.)

Re: anonymous coward

>NATO is a treaty, and part of that treaty says you will spend at least 2% on defence.

No it doesn't. End of story.

Re: Society Seems To Be Fragmeting or Declining in Standards

> it's like a sprinter getting caught taking steroids but insisting it had no effect on the end result,

Excellent analogy.

Re: Shooting the messengers much?

>So everyone else is to blame except those who wrote those e-mails, used the public channels for it and were basically caught off guard.

It's really very simple. If an American politician conspired with a foreign power to subvert an election, that is treason (or some variety thereof). Blaming the victim is never a defence.

Re: @ wolfetone

>Then it cannot possibly survive.

What can? The NHS is the cheapest possible health system. Any other would cost more - just in administration. And that's before you start treating people.

Those who attack the NHS must imagine that they will always be able to afford any health costs that might hit them, as they begin to fall apart, with age.

>are actually AGREEING with the current spending plans of the shower of piss that pass for a government,

I despise Theresa May and all her works, but, yes, I would rather she made these decisions than you.

Our Foreign Aid amounts to 0.7% of our GDP. For a rich country like ours, that's just decent behaviour.

I'm not a fan of HS2 (I'd rather it was significantly faster), but rail capacity is sorely needed.

I'm not a fan of Heathrow's interminable blackmail - but that's not govt money (Heathrow will soak the passengers, not govt).

F35? Well, can't argue with you on that.

> Get over it.

>If you can't conduct yourself in a grown up manner

*yawn*

Re: Brexit Schmexit

It takes a special kind of twat to blame the opposition for the gut-wrenching incompetence/maliciousness of the government.