OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Trickytreesreds]

Oops...wow, someone’s not a happy bunny today. Is this what happens when you can’t turn to YouTube for an answer?

‘Narcissist’? Really? Half of one sentence in my post refers to me/my view...and which one of the two of us has posted over 19,000 times on a rival forum?

I’m sorry for commenting on your post...there’s me thinking this is a ‘forum’...you know...a place to exchange views (plural).

Anyway...if you don’t want to debate that’s fine by me.
I appreciate you completely lost the plot and chucked your toys out of the pram earlier this afternoon, while ironically still accusing me of ‘blubbing like a baby’ and ‘treating with contempt any reply that doesn’t conform’ to my own.
That second comment is actually astonishing given the contempt your post shows for ‘wet fish’ Starmer, ‘race baiter’ Butler, ‘loony’ Lucas and ‘narcissistic’ old me but there you go...you clearly can’t answer the original question, no longer want to continue, and probably have some tidying up to do...I think the dummy may be under that arm chair in the corner.

But it isn't debating is it?
You only want to discuss trashing Johnson and the Tories. I have no problem with that, but its monotonos as you refuse to acknowledge how the hell such a bunch can in power?
If they are the devil incarnate as you portray, then give me an alternative. Persuade me and the other millions who were forced into voting for them to get something done.
I'm all ears I really am.
But I suspect you have no answers really, you're just another I'll vote for a plant pot, if it stands against the conservatives pundit.

Crying/wailing/moaning/belittling solves nothing to change the status quo.
You're an educated man. You was in a position of trust to open up minds. So open mine up if you can. I'm not going to sit here like a pupil gorping that what you say is gospel.
You give no answers, nor do you give an inch to the fact that some of us( alright millions), wanted to vote for someone else.
But our choices were ****e.

The floors yours..................................

[ramAnag]

But it isn't debating is it?
You only want to discuss trashing Johnson and the Tories. I have no problem with that, but its monotonos as you refuse to acknowledge how the hell such a bunch can in power?
If they are the devil incarnate as you portray, then give me an alternative. Persuade me and the other millions who were forced into voting for them to get something done.
I'm all ears I really am.
But I suspect you have no answers really, you're just another I'll vote for a plant pot, if it stands against the conservatives pundit.

Crying/wailing/moaning/belittling solves nothing to change the status quo.
You're an educated man. You was in a position of trust to open up minds. So open mine up if you can. I'm not going to sit here like a pupil gorping that what you say is gospel.
You give no answers, nor do you give an inch to the fact that some of us( alright millions), wanted to vote for someone else.
But our choices were ****e.

The floors yours..................................

You sure? I can speak?

1. There is a difference between ‘trashing’ Johnson and ‘trashing’ Tories. I have repeatedly said there are decent Tories and you have said that Johnson is a liar who probably doesn’t deserve to be PM. I honestly wouldn’t believe Johnson if he told me that water was wet. By the same token I have little time for his team of admirers but that isn’t what I think of all Tories and never has been.

2. I don’t ‘give an inch to the fact that some of us wanted to vote for someone else’. I’m not sure whether that means Johnson or Farage (Brexit). Either way...that’s not true. I recognise the outcome of the Referendum...but I continue to believe it to be bad for our country.
What’s wrong with that. When the topic arises I give my opinion. You’ve accepted, when answering MA, that Johnson is a liar and a ‘****’ and yet you expect those, just under 50% of the electorate, who said that all along to just accept everything.

3. ‘Crying/wailing/moaning/belittling solves nothing’. You keep saying this but only recognise it as such when it is being critical of something you believe in. Your ‘crying/wailing/moaning/belittling’ of Corbyn, Starmer, Butler, BLM, Lucas, Abbot and Lammy...all of whom we’ve all heard you being enormously critical and scathing of on this forum is all okay is it? I long for an answer to that one, must be the third time I’ve asked.

4. My answer? Sadly remains very similar to the one I gave on the first page of this thread over five years ago. I’d like a coalition of sensible Labour, one nation Tories, decent Lib Dems/Welsh/Scots and Greens. Decent politicians and people of integrity which is a million miles from what we’ve got. How do we get there? No idea but an end to the tribalism and the lies can only be an improvement.

P.S. Just hypothetically...should a situation arise where a new Government is elected on a mandate of renegotiating Brexit, rejoining the EU, supporting BLM and concentrating on Green issues to combat global warming it will be guaranteed to receive your full uncomplaining support will it?

[ramAnag]

Perhaps a trifle harsh Tricky, but one line resonates with me, that being:

"FFS MOVE ON and make the situation work for you."

There is a wise adage that goes "if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem"

It is, as I think Andy said some posts back, a good job rA is retired and not having to deal with trade related issues from brexit on a daily basis and having to try to make it work. I've had quite a bit of that in the past months and it is a pain to reinvent how one has to do things.........but once reinvented, then it works each time more and more easily as you get used to it.

The solutions are there if you look hard enough, work arounds, new loopholes and so on. But if you sit in your armchair puffing on your pipe and saying "thats not how I used to do it", you are part of the problem. Change has to be embraced no matter how much you hate it.

Did I stop supporting Derby when Clough sr quit: no, did I stop when Tommy Docherty was appointed - no. Its happened, learn to make the best of what you consider to be a bad job. Nothing is solved by bemoaning your fate and wringing your hands in anguish - apart from getting a smug sense of "I told you so" which is an utterly valueless feeling.

GP...why do we have to have a ‘solution’ if Brexit was such a good idea? Good ideas tend not to require solutions...that’s what they’re meant to be in the first place.

Your Derby County analogy really doesn’t work...but let’s run with it. Clough left and eventually Docherty arrived. Both were catastrophic for the well being of Derby County. The fact that you continued your long distance support of Derby mattered not one jot, but the fact is that Clough’s departure and Docherty’s appointment were both hugely damaging to Derby.
How we now must have wished that someone could have pointed this out at the time or that those who did had been listened to...and there is the true similarity with Brexit.

Your ill informed portrait of me as some grey haired, slipper wearing, pipe smoking retiree does amuse me. Fact is I’m less than a year older than you and it’s your choice to continue to work...I won’t comment further on why that may be...but as for solutions. Let’s consider briefly how I’m directly impacted by Brexit...which is difficult because it is obviously interlinked with the pandemic.

So how has my life been changed since Brexit/Covid?

1. The value of my house has risen astronomically. Arguably good for me...terrible for those trying to find affordable housing.
2. It has become more difficult and less comfortable to travel abroad, including seeing some of my loved ones. Complicated enormously by Covid I know, but there can be little doubt that many aspects of travel will, when the restrictions end, have been made much more difficult and expensive as a result of Brexit.
3. There is a shortage of certain goods coming into the country from Europe and a shortage of certain goods that would previously have been picked and transported around the country by foreign workers.
4. The refuse collection service has collapsed into something unrecognisably sub standard. My own council and the body which represents local government have attributed this to a 100,000 shortage of HGV drivers as a result of Brexit. I’m not arguing about the accuracy of that statement but that is what they said.

Now...how do you suggest I go about resolving those things? Change only has to be ‘embraced’ when it is beneficial. Solving the problems of Brexit may be beneficial to you because you are possibly paid to do so...for the rest of us there are problems that Leavers never ever suggested would happen and drawing attention to such things is one of the few things we can do.

[swaledale]

Red Tory, Blue Tory. Is there really much of a difference? My post was about the Tories, BJ in particular. However, Labour needs a purge and a return to its roots of being the voice of the working man, the disadvantaged, human rights, common decency etc. It isn't there, not by a long shot, today.

Some changes I'd like to see implemented which never will be:

1. Ban MPs from 2nd "jobs" and dummy directorships and consultancy roles. If they can't survive on about £80K plus some very generous perks (subsidised food and drink, expenses for offices, staff, travel accomodation in London [this should only be available to those living more than an hour or so away from Westminster] etc) then they shouldn't take the job.

2. Permit lobbying but ban lobbyists from greasing MPs palms

3. Fund elections from the public purse. That will (or ought to) get rid of the Unions controlling Labour policy and companies/rich individuals backing the Tories in order to gain an advantage on government contracts or getting a seat in the Lords.

Exactly who is this "common working man"? or woman for that matter? Its a myth, the problem Labour has is quite simple - the so called "working class" haven't existed as a homogenous group since about the late 60's.

Most claiming to be working class may ahve come from there but are now middle class in incomes, attitudes and lifestyle - the story is familiar wherever people get educated and thus increase earnings, they aspire to rise amongst the social strata.

Once they start the social climbing, funnily enough they forget what the Unions and the Labour party did in terms of the welfare state, the NHS, reducing working hours, improving working conditions, improving health and safety and become convinced that they got where they are today by their own efforts.

Thicky decries those educated with good jobs who do actually care about a more equal society as "champagne socialists" rather sad that as he being one of the "left behind" he decries the efforts of those who would actually improve his lot, but then there is a reason why he and his ilk are in the position they are in, one only has to look around the world to see politicians like Trump, Bolsanaro et al, who pander to those who feel the world has passed them by ( it has technological and social change has done for them) and sell this vision where it could return to the "good ole days" whilst actually having no intention of doing anything to improve their lives.

The fact is he and many of his fellow travellers don't understand what's required, thinks there are simple answers to complicated questions and frankly nobody is going to help them, they aren't a big enough voting block to worry about!

This fallacy that Brexit was these people "turning" is just that - Brexit drew together an unholy alliance between older well off voters who would be hardly affected by it, some of the left behind and an older small c conservative demographic who distrust anything foreign, think the 50's and 60's were a golden age - rarely would the interests of these people align but on this occasion they did, BUT even then they only narrowly won the vote and then only because Remain voters, particularly younger ones, didn't see the danger.

Labour won't win an election if it reverts to being purely a working class party, that way lays only failure

[MadAmster]

HGV driver situation. According to Road Haulier's Association this morning, the shortage of HGV drivers is 60,000.

[Andy_Faber]

HGV driver situation. According to Road Haulier's Association this morning, the shortage of HGV drivers is 60,000.

Just for clarification were 100,000 of them entirely due to Brexit as claimed last week?

[ramAnag]

Just for clarification were 100,000 of them entirely due to Brexit as claimed last week?

Just for clarification...I don’t know, how could I? I simply quoted the emailed ‘circular’ that went out to Derbyshire Dales’ residents last week from my Tory council. You know that’s true...I forwarded you the evidence last week and it blamed the shortage situation, not the whole situation, squarely on Brexit.

Since then they have taken certain steps to resolve the problem...i.e. dramatically increasing HGV drivers’ wages which they are sharing with Serco, investing in another vehicle, although how the latter helps if they are short of drivers remains a mystery, ceasing to treat food waste separately and abandoning any attempt to collect garden waste for the foreseeable.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Perhaps we should all applaud pro Brexiteers for finding 40,000 of the missing drivers?

[Trickytreesreds]

P.S. Just hypothetically...should a situation arise where a new Government is elected on a mandate of renegotiating Brexit, rejoining the EU, supporting BLM and concentrating on Green issues to combat global warming it will be guaranteed to receive your full uncomplaining support will it?

Yes as I would have to go along with what the electorate wants.
If that was their elected policies, then I would be in the minority.
I certainly wouldn't be crying about it 5 years later.

[Trickytreesreds]

Thicky decries those educated with good jobs who do actually care about a more equal society as "champagne socialists" rather sad that as he being one of the "left behind" he decries the efforts of those who would actually improve his lot, but then there is a reason why he and his ilk are in the position they are in,


You don't know anything about me and my "lot" in life tampax. My life is actually quite comfortable thank you very much.
COVID is my current bane, not even cancer stopped me.
My holiday pad is awaiting my return, come Xmas. So when I'm laying on that Hua Hin beach, I'll remember your words of "if only"