Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:23 pm  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

But the whole point of the EU is that it means mutual prosperity (relative to where we would be outside it). The contributions are immaterial in the context of the UK government budget but also are massively outweighed by the economic benefits being members brings - it's a cheap price to pay for access to the world's largest single market. And the contributions, FWIW, don't just go into the pockets of the so-called unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, they are reinvested, like the money which comes back to the UK, in other parts of the EU to help make them more prosperous and so better able to buy our goods and services - it's the whole idea of the mutual benefits of membership. That new road in Greece helps get your goods to market faster, the Motorway of the Sea opens up new export markets which weren't feasible before.

The most frustrating thing about the EU debate was the simplistic zero-sum game being put forward - take the money out of there, invest it here. It takes only a tiny reduction in the UK's prosperity for the contributions to be overcome by reduced tax take and almost no-one is putting forward the argument that we won't see a reduction in economic activity and prosperity following Brexit (we've already very clearly seen it as the UK fell from the front to the back of the growth tables).

One silver lining of Johnson getting a decent sized majority is that he will no longer be in thrall to the hard right of his party so should be able to get a more centrist arrangement through the House of Commons than he would have before - it will still be a pretty hard Brexit with no Single Market or Customs Union but probably not one the nutter wing of his party will have much time for.

The EU maybe the world's biggest trade market but looking at individual Countries Germany us France and Italy are in the top 10 take us out of the EU it maybe a different picture.

Being in the EU has dismantled our manufacturing from start to finish businesses to just in time supply.

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:24 pm  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

But the whole point of the EU is that it means mutual prosperity (relative to where we would be outside it). The contributions are immaterial in the context of the UK government budget but also are massively outweighed by the economic benefits being members brings - it's a cheap price to pay for access to the world's largest single market. And the contributions, FWIW, don't just go into the pockets of the so-called unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, they are reinvested, like the money which comes back to the UK, in other parts of the EU to help make them more prosperous and so better able to buy our goods and services - it's the whole idea of the mutual benefits of membership. That new road in Greece helps get your goods to market faster, the Motorway of the Sea opens up new export markets which weren't feasible before.

The most frustrating thing about the EU debate was the simplistic zero-sum game being put forward - take the money out of there, invest it here. It takes only a tiny reduction in the UK's prosperity for the contributions to be overcome by reduced tax take and almost no-one is putting forward the argument that we won't see a reduction in economic activity and prosperity following Brexit (we've already very clearly seen it as the UK fell from the front to the back of the growth tables).

One silver lining of Johnson getting a decent sized majority is that he will no longer be in thrall to the hard right of his party so should be able to get a more centrist arrangement through the House of Commons than he would have before - it will still be a pretty hard Brexit with no Single Market or Customs Union but probably not one the nutter wing of his party will have much time for.

That road in Greece should be up to them to sort their infrastructure out not us

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:29 pm  

Big lads mate wrote:

I think this is Pop Tarts way of saying it’s getting boring now and I agree, at the end of the day what’s happened as happened and I very much doubt the hard working people will feel much difference.

Spot on BLM.

Lets move on, there are far more important things to moan about, like, Broughy's past it, Jowitt can't defend, the players are not fit, Clawson needs to go, Lyne will never be a centre in this wide world plus all the other moans that we usually see through a season.
Plus the important selection of next years scapegoat has to be done.

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:45 pm  

snowie wrote:

That road in Greece should be up to them to sort their infrastructure out not us

Fair enough, that's a rational reason for voting leave. The alternative view is that mutual prosperity is good for us both economically and in securing the ongoing European peace (the EU's biggest achievement) so helping the poorer countries become less poor immeasurably helps us too.

But the idea that leaving leaves our economy untouched and that our tax take will be unchanged so the money can just be spent on the NHS or whatever is a bit of a fallacy.

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:34 pm  

REDWHITEANDBLUE wrote:

The EU maybe the world's biggest trade market but looking at individual Countries Germany us France and Italy are in the top 10 take us out of the EU it maybe a different picture.

Being in the EU has dismantled our manufacturing from start to finish businesses to just in time supply.

The ridiculously low cost of manufacturing in India, China and Indonesia has decimated our manufacturing, something which many of the EU nations have to come to grips with as well and just drifting the thread slightly, the loss of much of our heavy manufacturing to the "eastern" countries in the ONLY reason that the UK can contemplate hitting any "green" targets, we have exported the bulk of our country's carbon emissions.

Anyway, onwards and upwards - we have the government that "we" wanted so "we" have to make the best of it.

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:51 pm  

LyndsayGill wrote:

Spot on BLM.

Lets move on, there are far more important things to moan about, like, Broughy's past it, Jowitt can't defend, the players are not fit, Clawson needs to go, Lyne will never be a centre in this wide world plus all the other moans that we usually see through a season.
Plus the important selection of next years scapegoat has to be done.

But apart from that Lyndsay

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:25 pm  

The irony about this is that, had it not been for EU funding, the North would be in a worse state than it is now. Cos the tories haven't given a damn for the north while in power for the last 10 years. Why do people think that will change in the next 5 years?

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:45 pm  

Reading some of the posts on here it seems like the Tories have capitalised on creating a myth that the local MP is the equivalent of a Governor in the US, where they make decisions over spending and local policies.

So people are saying look at how much our area has declined over how many years, we've had a Labour MP over this time, so it must be down to them.

The reason those areas have declined is because they have been ignored by central government, which for the last 9 years has been led by Conservatives. By electing a Conservative MP, you've not voted for change, you've given them an endorsement that what they are doing is popular. Why would they need to change anything in the north and midlands now as they have already locked up the support.

The Boris/Cummings Tories are ruthlessly centralised and on-message with their MPs, and unfortunately what a lot of the northern/midlands constituents who have newly elected a Conservative MP will find is that those MPs will just be sent out to deliver 'lines to take' to you. If you go to see one of them to raise issues about the state of your hospital, you'll hear the central lines to take about how we've invested X into the NHS this year, getting 30,000 new nurses. If you go to say you're concerned about crime, you'll get told about how X amount of new police are going to be recruited (not withstanding the fact that police numbers will be well below what they were a decade ago due to so many being laid off when Theresa May was Home Sec). You'll also be told 'positive messages' about how the government is getting Brexit done and can 'unlock the potential of this great country'. Those MPs are there to vote through Boris' policies and will be disciplined very carefully not to rock the boat, so don't expect much in the way of them standing up and fighting for their communities against their own government. They will be used as PR mouthpieces to tell voters in their areas the propaganda messages that they want you to hear.

Look at Boris and his inner circle: Raab, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Hancock. Do you really think they are sitting round thinking 'how do we improve things in the north'? They are the 'Britannia Unchained' group who a few years back were authoring 'policy documents' saying how British workers were lazy and should have their working rights stripped down, so we're more like America where people only have 1 week annual leave per year. A good number of them were calling for the NHS to be privatised, although they are all careful not to say that on the record now. Their policy priorities will be to appease the high-value donors and lobby groups that fund them and have niche requests about stripping down environmental regulations, reducing consumer protections, safety standards, so that big businesses can cut their costs and make bigger profits at the expense of lower protections to the public.

Boris doesn't care about backtracking on his promises shamelessly when he needs to. He went to the DUP conference when he was on the outer after having resigned as Foreign secretary, and told them that no British PM could ever sign a deal that split the UK down the middle by creating a trade border between mainland GB and NI. That border between GB/NI was the EU's opening offer which Theresa May rejected and ended up with the all-UK 'backstop'. A year later, Boris was PM, he got his deal with the EU by literally going back and accepting the EU's opening offer which Theresa May had fought against, and he didn't care about selling out the DUP and backtracking on his previous comments, because he could sell that politically as 'getting the deal that nobody thought possible' and 'getting rid of the backstop'. He has blatantly lied during the election campaign by saying that border will not lead to checks for businesses sending goods between GB and NI, of course it will. But by the time people find that out and are angry, he will have his majority and it won't matter.

He is going to have a similar situation too over fishing rights where the EU are looking to drive a hard bargain over the level of access to British fish stocks for EU fishing boats. Boris wants to have a quick trade deal to sell as a success to the public, so the odds are he is going to just accept what the EU wants and sell out the fishing communities that have just voted for Conservative candidates. No doubt there will be outrage in those communities, but Boris won't care and the local Conservative MPs will be given lines to take to pacify them. If they want a champion for their anger it is more likely to be Farage than their local Tory MP.

I wasn't a fan of Corbyn and I couldn't stomach voting for Labour but....if you've voted for the Conservatives out of anger at the way your community has been neglected I fear you are going to be totally disillusioned with the way they will bulldoze on with their own agenda and just throw you 'lines to take' to try and keep you quiet.

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:25 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

Reading some of the posts on here it seems like the Tories have capitalised on creating a myth that the local MP is the equivalent of a Governor in the US, where they make decisions over spending and local policies.

So people are saying look at how much our area has declined over how many years, we've had a Labour MP over this time, so it must be down to them.

The reason those areas have declined is because they have been ignored by central government, which for the last 9 years has been led by Conservatives. By electing a Conservative MP, you've not voted for change, you've given them an endorsement that what they are doing is popular. Why would they need to change anything in the north and midlands now as they have already locked up the support.

The Boris/Cummings Tories are ruthlessly centralised and on-message with their MPs, and unfortunately what a lot of the northern/midlands constituents who have newly elected a Conservative MP will find is that those MPs will just be sent out to deliver 'lines to take' to you. If you go to see one of them to raise issues about the state of your hospital, you'll hear the central lines to take about how we've invested X into the NHS this year, getting 30,000 new nurses. If you go to say you're concerned about crime, you'll get told about how X amount of new police are going to be recruited (not withstanding the fact that police numbers will be well below what they were a decade ago due to so many being laid off when Theresa May was Home Sec). You'll also be told 'positive messages' about how the government is getting Brexit done and can 'unlock the potential of this great country'. Those MPs are there to vote through Boris' policies and will be disciplined very carefully not to rock the boat, so don't expect much in the way of them standing up and fighting for their communities against their own government. They will be used as PR mouthpieces to tell voters in their areas the propaganda messages that they want you to hear.

Look at Boris and his inner circle: Raab, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Hancock. Do you really think they are sitting round thinking 'how do we improve things in the north'? They are the 'Britannia Unchained' group who a few years back were authoring 'policy documents' saying how British workers were lazy and should have their working rights stripped down, so we're more like America where people only have 1 week annual leave per year. A good number of them were calling for the NHS to be privatised, although they are all careful not to say that on the record now. Their policy priorities will be to appease the high-value donors and lobby groups that fund them and have niche requests about stripping down environmental regulations, reducing consumer protections, safety standards, so that big businesses can cut their costs and make bigger profits at the expense of lower protections to the public.

Boris doesn't care about backtracking on his promises shamelessly when he needs to. He went to the DUP conference when he was on the outer after having resigned as Foreign secretary, and told them that no British PM could ever sign a deal that split the UK down the middle by creating a trade border between mainland GB and NI. That border between GB/NI was the EU's opening offer which Theresa May rejected and ended up with the all-UK 'backstop'. A year later, Boris was PM, he got his deal with the EU by literally going back and accepting the EU's opening offer which Theresa May had fought against, and he didn't care about selling out the DUP and backtracking on his previous comments, because he could sell that politically as 'getting the deal that nobody thought possible' and 'getting rid of the backstop'. He has blatantly lied during the election campaign by saying that border will not lead to checks for businesses sending goods between GB and NI, of course it will. But by the time people find that out and are angry, he will have his majority and it won't matter.

He is going to have a similar situation too over fishing rights where the EU are looking to drive a hard bargain over the level of access to British fish stocks for EU fishing boats. Boris wants to have a quick trade deal to sell as a success to the public, so the odds are he is going to just accept what the EU wants and sell out the fishing communities that have just voted for Conservative candidates. No doubt there will be outrage in those communities, but Boris won't care and the local Conservative MPs will be given lines to take to pacify them. If they want a champion for their anger it is more likely to be Farage than their local Tory MP.

I wasn't a fan of Corbyn and I couldn't stomach voting for Labour but....if you've voted for the Conservatives out of anger at the way your community has been neglected I fear you are going to be totally disillusioned with the way they will bulldoze on with their own agenda and just throw you 'lines to take' to try and keep you quiet.

99% supposition and your own opinion, of course

Re: OT wakefield to go blue : Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:40 pm  

99% supposition, you do know it is the same conservative government that were in charge for the last 9 years but run by Dominic Cummings. I would say it is more based on experience of their recent history. I have no idea who our new MP is because the literature I received was somewhat generic and basically just said get Brexit done.
I admit Johnson was well coached because who would answer what would you get for his current lady friend, “I would get Brexit done”.