Be Excellent To Each Other

The middle class are all at Glastonbury, which might cause an upset.

I shall be postal voting.

It'd be really interesting to see what happens if the Brexit does happen. How it would all unravel.

Fucking. Nightmare.

Zombies eating children on the streets. That sort of thing

I'd rather not find out quite how interesting that is.

:/

ToyST

I will cut you.

ToyST.

It'd massively fuck over Lloyd's (of London) where I do all my work. So I am against it.

Though obviously we get, like, two years to sort out all the shit. It'd just be an annoying two years.

Not sure that 'Vote Remain or the bankers get it' is going to be a winning slogan. But then, neither is a campaign fronted by Messers Farage and Galloway.



I'm not certain the other EU countries will be generous with their terms , but an aggressive deal might end up hurting everyone.

Heh. The eloquent Kate Hoey (who should be leading the leave camp) just noted on the Marr Show that the vote falls after the group stages of Euro 2016.

It'd be awful. Yes. But interesting to see how it would all pan out.

We were talking about this last night. Jokingly, could England be disqualified if we're no longer in the EU, but also will it swing some voters if they've been knocked out (or are still in).

I really hope we get plenty of pity points at Eurovision this year.

And I've just realised I'll be in Berlin that night so will be able to do my bit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... t-campaign

Sterling down 1.1%, sharpest drop in a year. The economic benefits of Brexit are shaping up nicely!

Also Zac Goldsmith will campaign for Brexit. I moved to London to work in an office staffed predominantly by the best and brightest recruited from across Europe, taking advantage of visaless migration [0]. I look forward to heckling his supporters with this next time I see them handing out leaflets.

[0] Along my row of desks: Greek, me, French, Irish, Italian. Behind me: Polish, Czech, Romanian, and American. 7/9 working here under EU citizenship.

I understand Boris going against the EU as a nakedly political move.

Goldsmith is just fucking bonkers. The City is overwhelmingly in favour of EU integration.

I agree with this.

I Imagine Goldsmith thinks the stance will help him win the Mayoral Election, so his is presumably a political move too?

Don't see the difference, Goldsmith is trying to get elected as mayor isn't he? i.e what Malc just said.

Sure, but Boris isn't. Boris is trying to become the next leader of the Conservative Party. It doesn't matter what the London elecotrate thinks of him now; now he has to court the party and the UK-wide electorate.

This is the reason I'm hesitant to plump for out. There's a lot I don't like about the EU, but visaless migration is not one of them. Heck, it should be extended to US, Canadians, Kiwis, Ozzies, Indians etc (and not worry about reciprocity either).

I know but I was replying to Curiosity's point that he could understand Johnson's position as politically motivated but that Goldsmith was "just fucking bonkers" because The City are in favour of integration. Perhaps mistakenly I took The City to mean all the financial fucknuggets rather the general population of London.

What I mean is:

Boris doesn't really care about London any more, so can lose popularity there if it gains him popularity around the country. I don't think he's too bothered either way about the EU thing, but is playing the longer game of trying to become Prime Minister.

Goldsmith is trying to become Mayor of London, which represents The City amongst other things. The City is strongly pro-EU on the whole, so Goldsmith's stance would appear to set him against the electorate he is trying to court. I would also expect Londoners, being a more metropolitan and diverse bunch, to be more likely to vote IN. Which means if Goldsmith is voting OUT as a political move, it seems to be a stupid one.

Though I may have misread the mood/polling of Londoners as a whole.

Yeah, I was just assuming that this must mean that he's been advised that it'll be a vote winner.

[quote="Curiosity"Goldsmith is trying to become Mayor of London, which represents The City amongst other things. The City is strongly pro-EU on the whole, so Goldsmith's stance would appear to set him against the electorate he is trying to court. I would also expect Londoners, being a more metropolitan and diverse bunch, to be more likely to vote IN. Which means if Goldsmith is voting OUT as a political move, it seems to be a stupid one.[/quote]Not just the financial meaning of City, either. Tech is in that bucket too.

I wonder if he'll blame ridiculous house prices on immigrants.

It's incredible that the American is probably more secure that the Irish.

No, because our relationship to Ireland is very different to that with other EU countries. Any Irish citizen resident here has full citizenship rights, up to and including voting in general elections.

True, I'd forgotten that. I weaken my stance to 6/9 (dude.)

It's called the Common Travel Area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area

The Ireland Act 1949 states that Ireland is "not a foreign country".

Gah, Boris is just so transparent. He'll probably think he felt the hand of history on his shoulder - but it was probably just Simon Cowells' casting agent for the 2021 season of "I'm an X-Factor Brother Get Me Out of Here".

People scoffed when I said June 2016 for the Brexit Ref months ago but hey, what can I say.
It's all good; the "nasty" elements of the Tories are peeling away and we're going to be left with the Centrists and Patricians in power. (Plus, we have meaningful and useful changes in the EU, which again people said couldn't happen etc. etc.)

It'll go more or less the same way as the Scottish Ref, 56/44-ish. At the end of the day, too many people with too much to lose (just like then, also), and when push comes to shove, eh?

Stop telling us, start telling Ladbrooks.

Heh. Sadly I don't put my money where my mouth is.
It's free consultancy, man.

Interestingly (eh?) that's not representative of the most recent year's immigration, though it may be over time - the business section of the Sunday Times (hide it away from where the real debate happens) quoted a net increase of 360,000 over the last year, 201,000 of that was from outside the EU. I doubt that proportion will get the coverage it deserves.

I genuinely hope you're right about that, Cavey - seeing the right wing of the Tories (which includes Johnson based on his history) marginalised would be quite a positive development for British politics generally. I'll openly admit that I don't like Tory governments, but we're going to have them in a two-party system as a matter of course, so when they do occur I'd rather they weren't switched to nasty mode.

(As for the changes, I'll admit again that I don't like them, and they are not what I'd prefer to see done, but am relieved that they are significantly less unpleasant than some of the ideas floating round last June.)

Hunt and Osborne are still both in the 'IN' camp, so I won't be celebrating too wildly.

I think it might be closer than Cavey predicts, but then again his prediction skills have been far better than mine on political matters!

My mother made the mistake of saying she was in the out camp on the phone the other day. I hope she's happy with a couple of treatises on macroeconomics and sovereignty and the rule of law for Mothers' Day

LLOL

Do you find it very difficult fitting into that environment?

Sick burn, yo.

I'm beginning to think you're employed by Google simply to source amusing images...

Google Image Search is just a frantic Gaywood and a load of scanners.

I won't believe it until he provides images...

Is there another kind?

BOOM!

I could never aspire to be one of the Nine Erics.