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Politics, politics, politics

r-u-s-x said:
Britain championed expansion, the EU expanded, we got it to change plenty.
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The principle was sound - create a broader shallower Europe. Personally I'd have got Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Russia (under Yeltsin) in too and diluted the fudge out of it.

The problem was the Commission are so fundamentalist that they went broader and deeper.
 
Gutter Boy said:
The principle was sound - create a broader shallower Europe. Personally I'd have got Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Russia (under Yeltsin) in too and diluted the fudge out of it.

The problem was the Commission are so fundamentalist that they went broader and deeper.
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Argentina is a basket case of a country. Apart from that I agree with everything you say.
 
It's a pathetic - and obvious - attempt at creating a negotiating position. Assertion that EU settlement cash is contingent on a deal, and that EU peoples rights are not guaranteed etc is just Raab trying to create a position to horse trade from. The reason it is pathetic is it won't create leverage and is not the appropriate way to negotiate at this juncture. That the people in charge are trying this shows them up to be ill equipped. The EU will laugh in their face. It's like kids trying to negotiate with grown ups, and makes the UK look stupid.

If we wanted a deal (maybe they actually don't) it would be far more effective to say look we have to deliver this - will of the UK people - lets get something in quick working together with you. We have these things to trade with you, and this is what we want back. The problem is Brexiteers have unrealistic aspirations about what the EU can give us as an ex-member. Brexiteers always have.

It would be nice to see one person say, yep, okay I was wrong negotiating with the EU isn't as simple and straightforward as I said it would be pre-vote. It would show humility and decency and do a lot to believe in the people trying to deliver Brexit. Instead we hear all the guff about the EU not playing nice, and Brexiteets desperately digging deeper into a hole. If the implications weren't so serious it would be quite funny to watch.
 
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But the EU stifles free trade! :rolleyes:

How anyone can make a case for better trade by leaving the worlds largest customs union, on our door step, is a mystery to me, and why others then believe it, more so.
 
Or if they said, look money isn't everything. Yes we may lose out on some trade, and lose some jobs into the EU at least short to medium term, but we want a less populated more agile country.

The thing is Brexit is a backward step whichever way you cut it. Jacob Greese Smog was saying Brexit should be judged in 50 years time! When he's long gone. Him and his ilk have so much cash stashed in off shore accounts (in dollars), a faltering economy is not a concern to them. In fact many of them have probably shorted the pound and stand to make millions in seeing our currency decline further. From here, these wealthy individuals position will be enhanced as the UK economy declines around them - making them Lords of the Manor as they used to be in Victorian times. That is the true motivation of Grees Smog: to return himself to a Victorian splendour with plucky tradesman looking after him, as his 'caste' lord it up.
 
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SpurMeUp said:
It's really a pathetic - and obvious - attempt at creating a negotiating position. Asertion that EU settlement cash is contengent on a deal, and that EU peoples rights are not guaranteed etc is just Rabb trying to create a position to horse trade from. The reason it is pathetic is it won't create leverage and is not the appropraite way to negotiate at this juncture. That the people in charge are trying this shows them up to be small minded idiots. The EU will laugh in their face. It's like kids trying to negotiate with grown ups. It makes the UK look stupid.

If we wanted a deal, it would be far more effective to say look we have to deliver this - will of the people - lets get something in quick working together with you. We have these things to trade with you, and this is what we want back. The problem is Brexiteers have unrealistic aspirations about what the EU can give us as an ex-member. Brexiteers always have.

It would be nice to see one person say, yep, okay I was wrong negotiating with the EU isn't as simple and straight forward as I said it would be pre-vote. That would show humility and decency and do a lot to believe in the people trying to deliver Brexit. Instead it's all the guff about the EU not playing nice. With Brexiteers desperatly digging deeper into a hole. If the implications weren't so serious it would be quite funny to watch.
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I came across this yesterday.

https://medium.com/@alanbell_libsol/notices-to-stakeholders-865e68bcbe33
 
The best thing to do is not stress about it and take a step back from this nonsense. Brexit is not deliverable. Thus, May is letting it play out, and once everyone has got their knickers in a twist, and found a way to untwist them, we'll have an election and/or referendum. In the meantime try to sit back and giggle at it all.

Football transfers, research into something meaningful, learning Hungarian (just in case!) are all more valueable. Brexit has been interesting - learning about international trade agreements and the EU - but now all there will be are recriminations...then touch wood a solution with the cancellation of article 50. I hope it is done in conjunction with a National Plan for the UK - something viable that people can believe in.

Ultimatly positive changes to the UK have to come from the UK. It's not the EU that controls us, we control us. All too easy to blame some outside other for the UKs problems.
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/society...stem-broken-service-centre-whistleblowers-say

Universal credit is so riddled with design flaws and process faults that it is practically guaranteed to generate mistakes and delays that would push vulnerable benefit claimants into hardship, according to whistleblowers.

Service centre workers have told the Guardian that glitches and errors in the “cobbled-together” system have commonly led to claimants’ benefit payments being delayed for weeks or wrongly reduced by hundreds of pounds.

One said: “The IT system on which universal credit is built is so fundamentally broken and poorly designed that it guarantees severe problems with claims.”

He said the system was overcomplex and prone to errors that affected payments and often proved slow to correct. “In practical terms, it is not working the way it was intended and it is having an actively harmful effect on a huge number of claimants.”

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At the very least this thing should be paused until they fix the issues, however long that takes. IMO, they'd be better off scrapping it because I think it's fundamentally flawed when compared to the existing benefits system. So-called simplification of 6 benefits into 1 is a load of cobblers for a start, at least from the claimants point of view; nobody claims all of those benefits, you don't get job-seekers allowance and working tax credits at the same time, the clue is in the name. Separation of benefits is also desirable imo. That's because if a mistake is made with one, at least there is the other to fall back on. For example, if someone messed the tax credit claim, the housing benefit claim could still be ok and would actually increase due to getting lower tax credits. Then, when the mistakes are corrected, everything re-aligns. For people on low wages, that could be the difference between having to use a food bank, going into rent arrears etc.

Universal Credit is actively hurting a lot of people, there is a mountain of evidence to show it. And yet the government just ploughs on regardless. In the case of McVey, they even lie to Parliament about how things are going (this is fine now, apparently). Even if they think Universal Credit is the answer, at least just pause it until the issues are fixed. People being punished by it is totally unnecessary.
 
The principle is actually very sound - a simplified system that makes sure any amount of work pays (in contrast to partial return to work leading to outweighed cuts to benefits). It's been the implementation that has been a massive balls up.

Like most big projects like this, I imagine it is the army of consultants who have been brought in who have ground everything into such a mess.
 
Gutter Boy said:
The principle is actually very sound - a simplified system that makes sure any amount of work pays (in contrast to partial return to work leading to outweighed cuts to benefits). It's been the implementation that has been a massive balls up.

Like most big projects like this, I imagine it is the army of consultants who have been brought in who have ground everything into such a mess.
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You can't build anything without consultants. They may be coders on day rates or they may be shopped in by a systems integrator, but without consultants there aren't any IT projects. Not in Whitehall, anyway. There's no such thing as turnkey COTS for national benefits administration.

UC as a concept failed because it started off with the sensible aim of making work pay, and was then recast as a means of aggressively reducing the overall benefits bill. Tougher scrutiny, complex hurdles and slower payment are features rather than bugs.

UC as a software project failed because a) the scope and mission of the project veered crazily over time, as above, b) it was cast as an agile project for reasons of political IT fashion, but the customer wasn't agile and some fundamental architecture questions were simply ignored - two years into coding, there still wasn't clarity on whether an enterprise service bus would be deployed - and c) again for reasons of political fashion, the procurement was multi-supplier, which has meant that it has never been obvious which arse to kick, and who is ultimately responsible for making the system work.

And the constant change of both political and Whitehall masters has screwed things, as well.

If there's a good side to this, it's absolute, solid proof that a replacement customs declaration system or a magic NI border solution will take ten times as long and ten times as much money as originally planned, to achieve a tenth of the required functionality. The UC debacle is an irrefutable knock-down to Legatum technology hand-waving.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
UC as a concept failed because it started off with the sensible aim of making work pay, and was then recast as a means of aggressively reducing the overall benefits bill. Tougher scrutiny, complex hurdles and slower payment are features rather than bugs.
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That's a very good point. Starts with the aim of "making work pay" and ends up making vulnerable people pay.

It's typical of how things are seen in this country. The working class must suffer to work harder. The rich must be coddled, mustn't raise their taxes too much or they will go and live on Mars. The wealthy must be incentivised with more money, the Average Joe must be flogged to within an inch of his life or he'll just lay in bed all day.

Better that we have more homeless people than someone, somewhere, working 16 hours a week instead of 30. Same with the disabled, we are far better off with a totally unnecessary increase in their deaths, just so long as there's a few less scammers getting away with it.
 
So, what does the hive mind think about Sajid Javid sending the Yanks a friendly note green-lighting execution for home-grown jihadists?

A drone attack when the wretches were in the field would have been a perfect solution. Changing the UK death penalty policy on the fly, not so much. And it's disconcerting when the way for the Home Secretary to position himself against his two predecessors is to try and look tough, as if he was running for police chief in a rust-belt Trumpsville.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
So, what does the hive mind think about Sajid Javid sending the Yanks a friendly note green-lighting execution for home-grown jihadists?

A drone attack when the wretches were in the field would have been a perfect solution. Changing the UK death penalty policy on the fly, not so much. And it's disconcerting when the way for the Home Secretary to position himself against his two predecessors is to try and look tough, as if he was running for police chief in a rust-belt Trumpsville.
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Some interesting philisophical questions around this and Drone strikes.

Ultimatly, does it come down to the question, is it a death penalty if its within a conflict setting? Every solidier's pulling of a trigger or MI5 agents assination could be called a 'death penality' as its sanctioned by someone in governemnt. Is this different?
 
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ShipOfGoldblum said:
So, what does the hive mind think about Sajid Javid sending the Yanks a friendly note green-lighting execution for home-grown jihadists?

A drone attack when the wretches were in the field would have been a perfect solution. Changing the UK death penalty policy on the fly, not so much. And it's disconcerting when the way for the Home Secretary to position himself against his two predecessors is to try and look tough, as if he was running for police chief in a rust-belt Trumpsville.
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In some ways, I'm not against these qunts getting what they deserve -- same goes for those people who sprayed acid at a 3 year old boy, kill them and do it slowly.

Overall though, it's right that we don't have the death penalty, to both protect the wrongly convicted and to keep that ultimate power of life and death out of the hands of the state. So Javid is wrong if he accepts the death penalty for these terrorists and should be calling for them to be tried and jailed, not executed.

Targetted assassinations/kill lists is another area where I think politicians should err on the side of restraint. I'm wary of slippery slopes when it comes to green-lighting the state killing their citizens. Start off with a terrorist in a foreign land, now classed as an enemy combatant and drone them. Before you know it, they have gone all Putin.
 
I saw the news about Diane Abbott wanting us to help the Daesh killers in risk of the death penalty in the US. This womans on crack
 
Gilzeantoscore said:
Just cannot believe that the 'powers that be' did not have the sense to work out a model, before they put Brexit to a vote. Bonkers!
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The problem was all the " powers that be" and all the know all's never thought Brexit would get the result it did ( same "powers that be" and know all's thought the same about Corbyn winning and Trump doing the same.)
 
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