GOD BLESS THE UNITED KINGDOM DISCUSSION MEGATHREAD

[73Seahawks]

Sunday, 13 April 2025: "BBC Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg" on BBC 1.
*Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, MP.
*Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith, MP of the Conservative Party.
*Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK.
*Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andrei Kelin.

 

[Hel_Books]

In a parliamentary America, Nixon would have been gone as soon as the Watergate story broke.

In an interesting contrast to modern-day America, when Nixon saw that things weren't going his way, he resigned. The Trump Administration is engaging in far more shameless manipulation of the Justice Department than anything Nixon tried to do to hinder the Watergate investigation.

 

[Hel_Books]

Hel_Books said:
I know how you folks in the USA feel. I remember how we shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit.

Now all those farmers losing their markets for soyabeans and all those businesses having to scramble to re-source their imports (but not Apple! Oh, no, billionaires must NOT suffer in Trump World!) and all those veterans losing their care are finding out what 49.8% of voters can do to ruin a nation.

Sooner or later, the Trump Show will end on 20 January 2029.

I saw that crackpot jailbird Steve Bannon on the John Oliver show. He was claiming Donald Trump was going to start serving his third term in 2029!

 

[CambridgeBi]

I remember how we shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit.

Yeah, how I miss paying a membership fee higher than tariffs would be so we could trade without tariffs within the EU's little "Single Market"
Then on top of the membership fee the EU got to set UK's external tariff and cream off 80% of the proceeds.

Any tariffs would have been money going in to the UK treasury where it would contribute towards funding public services like the NHS, instead the membership fee was money going out of the UK treasury to fund private jets, free wine cellars and obscenely generous salaries and pensions for EU functionaries and the unelected Commissioners who made laws that had supremacy over UK law.

EU membership was the shittiest deal in history and it seems unlikely UK will ever recover from the immense damage it did to us.

 

[stxjimmy]

Yeah, how I miss paying a membership fee higher than tariffs would be so we could trade without tariffs within the EU's little "Single Market"
Then on top of the membership fee the EU got to set UK's external tariff and cream off 80% of the proceeds.

Any tariffs would have been money going in to the UK treasury where it would contribute towards funding public services like the NHS, instead the membership fee was money going out of the UK treasury to fund private jets, free wine cellars and obscenely generous salaries and pensions for EU functionaries and the unelected Commissioners who made laws that had supremacy over UK law.

EU membership was the shittiest deal in history and it seems unlikely UK will ever recover from the immense damage it did to us.

Then why do so many British people want to rejoin or foster closer links?

 

[stxjimmy]

Yeah, how I miss paying a membership fee higher than tariffs would be so we could trade without tariffs within the EU's little "Single Market"
Then on top of the membership fee the EU got to set UK's external tariff and cream off 80% of the proceeds.

Any tariffs would have been money going in to the UK treasury where it would contribute towards funding public services like the NHS, instead the membership fee was money going out of the UK treasury to fund private jets, free wine cellars and obscenely generous salaries and pensions for EU functionaries and the unelected Commissioners who made laws that had supremacy over UK law.

EU membership was the shittiest deal in history and it seems unlikely UK will ever recover from the immense damage it did to us.

 

[CambridgeBi]

The majority of people decline to participate in polls which is why they're never really representative.

 

[stxjimmy]

The majority of people decline to participate in polls which is why they're never really representative.

If you look at the red line it shows the number of people who declined to answer.
It never ever reaches 5%.

 

[CambridgeBi]

If you look at the red line it shows the number of people who declined to answer.
It never ever reaches 5%.

A response rate of 95% seems feasible to you?

If you just approach random members of the general public the response rate can be as low as 20%, this is known as Polling's Dirty Little Secret. Obviously having a refusal rate as high as 80% makes polling very time consuming, expensive and frustrating so polling companies compile lists of willing participants, some are transparent about that ( e.g. YouGov, you can go to their website and sign up to participate ), others more underhand.

Here's another article on the same subject by David Hill, director of Hill Research Consultants:

In short, we no longer have truly random samples that support claims that poll results accurately represent opinions of the electorate.

Instead, we have samples of “the willing,” what researchers call a “convenience sample” of those consenting to give us their time and opinions.

On top of that we have the statistical manipulation, a.k.a weighting. There is no industry standard formula for this, each polling company has its own algorithm and who knows which, if any, are correct? If we look at recent events - the US election, the last two UK general elections, the EU referendum, the polling companies look universally crap.

There are many, including myself, who believe modern polling is actually more an attempt to drive public opinion rather than measure it which is why polls invariably match the establishments' preferred outcome rather than the ultimate result.

In the UK we now have a government ( and almost entire public sector ) that wants to railroad us back into the EU's orbit, it's very convenient for them to able to pretend Brexiteers have all repented and they'd be doing what the majority of the public wants. Let's not forget in 2016 Starmer said he "respected the outcome of the referendum" and then spent the following years conspiring to overturn it.

 

[stxjimmy]

A response rate of 95% seems feasible to you?

If you just approach random members of the general public the response rate can be as low as 20%, this is known as Polling's Dirty Little Secret. Obviously having a refusal rate as high as 80% makes polling very time consuming, expensive and frustrating so polling companies compile lists of willing participants, some are transparent about that ( e.g. YouGov, you can go to their website and sign up to participate ), others more underhand.

Here's another article on the same subject by David Hill, director of Hill Research Consultants:


On top of that we have the statistical manipulation, a.k.a weighting. There is no industry standard formula for this, each polling company has its own algorithm and who knows which, if any, are correct? If we look at recent events - the US election, the last two UK general elections, the EU referendum, the polling companies look universally crap.

There are many, including myself, who believe modern polling is actually more an attempt to drive public opinion rather than measure it which is why polls invariably match the establishments' preferred outcome rather than the ultimate result.

In the UK we now have a government ( and almost entire public sector ) that wants to railroad us back into the EU's orbit, it's very convenient for them to able to pretend Brexiteers have all repented and they'd be doing what the majority of the public wants. Let's not forget in 2016 Starmer said he "respected the outcome of the referendum" and then spent the following years conspiring to overturn it.

Nobody is suggesting all brexiteers have repented at all.
And what’s your evidence of conspiring?

 

[HumpDayHoratio]

 

[CambridgeBi]

Nobody is suggesting all brexiteers have repented at all.

Sure they are, the same media outlets that were against Brexit are publishing articles claiming we regret it, quoting the same dodgy polling companies that predicted Remain was going to win:
Brexit regret
Brexit regret
I could link more but you get the picture...

And what’s your evidence of conspiring?

So how did Starmer go from "I accept the referendum result" to "I'm in favour of a confirmatory vote" ( somebody less charitable than myself might wonder if his change in position had something to do with the "Consultancy Fee" he received from the vociferously anti-Brexit Mishcon de Reya. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, although I'm not sure what they would have consulted him about. How to ponce all the best freebies, perhaps? )...

Despite not being in government at the time Starmer and his cohort of remoaners in Westminster ( which included the Speaker, Bercow, who is supposed to be neutral ) were having meetings with the EU's negotiating team and then coming back and doing everything they could in Parliament to kneecap HMG's negotiating position to make sure the deal was as rotten as possible as they wanted to pitch the deal they had deliberately and willfully sabotaged against Remaining in a second referendum.

Of course if there were to be a second referendum it would only have been legitimate to pitch leaving with the deal vs leaving without a deal as remaining was ruled out in referendum 1 but that was not the conspirators' plan, was it?

They were not even subtle about what they were doing, this is a video of A.C. Grayling of "The Peoples Vote" campaign, as it was euphemistically named, pitching the seed of the idea to Guy Verhofstadt:

These days Grayling has the audacity to moan and groan on Twitter how terrible the deal is as if he weren't one of the disreputable, duplicitous, democracy-hating cunts that did all they could to make it that way

 

[Hel_Books]

Yeah, how I miss paying a membership fee higher than tariffs would be so we could trade without tariffs within the EU's little "Single Market"
Then on top of the membership fee the EU got to set UK's external tariff and cream off 80% of the proceeds.

Any tariffs would have been money going in to the UK treasury where it would contribute towards funding public services like the NHS, instead the membership fee was money going out of the UK treasury to fund private jets, free wine cellars and obscenely generous salaries and pensions for EU functionaries and the unelected Commissioners who made laws that had supremacy over UK law.

EU membership was the shittiest deal in history and it seems unlikely UK will ever recover from the immense damage it did to us.

On the contrary, the hit to the economy from Brexit was really rough, not to mention all the companies moving their business headquarters to the continent and, of course, that dreadful mess about the North/South border in Ireland.

But go ahead, explain to us how the NHS now has so bloody much more money!

 

[Politruk]

In an interesting contrast to modern-day America, when Nixon saw that things weren't going his way, he resigned. The Trump Administration is engaging in far more shameless manipulation of the Justice Department than anything Nixon tried to do to hinder the Watergate investigation.

Nixon resigned when a delegation of Congressional Republicans called on him and said the evidence against him was now so overwhelming that even they would have to vote for impeachment.

Republicans don't have that integrity any more.

 

[Hel_Books]

Trump resigned when a delegation of Congressional Republicans called on him and said the evidence against him was now so overwhelming that even they would have to vote for impeachment.

Republicans don't have that integrity any more.

Someone should remind the present-day Republican party that the show of integrity with Nixon was one factor in the country trusting them enough to hand them the reins of power some years later!

Will anyone trust them again?

 

[Politruk]

Someone should remind the present-day Republican party that the show of integrity with Nixon was one factor in the country trusting them enough to hand them the reins of power some years later!

Will anyone trust them again?

They will so long as a substitute for Trump can be found -- somebody the base sees as an avatar of RW populist nationalism. That's all Trump really is to the MAGAts.

 

[Hel_Books]

They will so long as a substitute for Trump can be found -- somebody the base sees as an avatar of RW populist nationalism. That's all Trump really is to the MAGAts.

But if the economy craters and people discover that all this deportation shit is just cosplay, not reducing crime by illegal immigrants and if the Social Security pension checks get snarled and veterans die for lack of healthcare and overworked air traffic controllers make errors etc etc etc then it won't make any difference who the "someboy" is.

 

[RoperTrace]

Maybe that statement made sense back in the day. But now everyone forks over oodles of cash to watch various services (even services that have adverts!)

Here in the 'states', I'm paying less than ever for my streaming service(s). Would be minimal if the wife didn't Have to have Hallmark. Of course she's not a fan of my dropping Xfinity's full-blown stealing every month. Oops, I forgot this was supposed to be a politics board, and a UK Megathread. Admins may delete if necessary.

 

[CambridgeBi]

On the contrary, the hit to the economy from Brexit was really rough, not to mention all the companies moving their business headquarters to the continent

Remainers claims on the economy are invariably either the counterfactual ( let me compare reality with an imagined alternative reality based on my extreme prejudice ) or forecasts from economists with long and inglorious records of making wildly inaccurate forecasts.

What we do know is when the EEC morphed into the EU UK's debt to GDP ratio was around 30% and its GDP per capita was considerably higher than most of the rest of the Anglosphere ( USA excluded ). Look where we ended up.

And it wasn't just UK, it was in the Maastricht Treaty no EU member state should have a national debt exceeding 60% of annual GDP. Which EU member states are still within bounds?

Back when the EEC had 12 member states their combined economies represented > 30% of global GDP, by the time the UK left the EU its 28 members states represented < 13% of global GDP.

Remember that "Level Playing Field" Barnier liked to talk about? Well the average minimum wage in the EU27 is £6.58/hr compared to UK's £12.21/hr ( only Luxembourg's is higher ).

Most of Europe is a basket case.

The news gets even worse when you look at the birth rates and average ages across Europe, it's a dying continent.

that dreadful mess about the North/South border in Ireland.

A confected issue. Here's some background by Austen Morgan, a Barrister at Law and a remainer but somebody who recognizes the border issue for the political bullshit it really was.

But go ahead, explain to us how the NHS now has so bloody much more money!

Why? That was a claim made by the establishment's "official" leave campaign group ( Vote Leave ) which was imposed on leavers by the remainers in the electoral commission. It was undoubtedly a ploy to sideline Nigel Farage ( Leave.EU ) and exclude him from the televised debates because they thought he'd cut across party lines in a way no Tory could.

All the true Brexiteers were either in Leave.EU ( Farage, Banks, etc... ) or Grass Roots Out ( Davis, Bone, etc...).

 

[Hel_Books]

Hel_Books said:
But go ahead, explain to us how the NHS now has so bloody much more money!

Why? That was a claim made by the establishment's "official" leave campaign group ( Vote Leave ) which was imposed on leavers by the remainers in the electoral commission. It was undoubtedly a ploy to sideline Nigel Farage ( Leave.EU ) and exclude him from the televised debates because they thought he'd cut across party lines in a way no Tory could.

All the true Brexiteers were either in Leave.EU ( Farage, Banks, etc... ) or Grass Roots Out ( Davis, Bone, etc...).

But wasn't that one of the main arguments FOR Brexit? "The EU is costing us money that could have gone to the NHS!"

Now you admit that there never was any prospect of getting money out of Brexit.

People were voting their supposed pocketbooks (if it wasn't just mindless xenophobia) and look where, according to the Economist, it got them.

 

[HumpDayHoratio]

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

U.K. Supreme Court Rules Trans Women Can’t Be Defined as Women
LONDON—Britain’s top court ruled only those born female can be considered women, a landmark judgment that excludes transgender women from the legal definition and paves the way for tighter limits on female-only spaces and services.

https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/u-k-su...68e3a?st=saeVfC&reflink=article_copyURL_share

 

[RobDownSouth]

U.K. Supreme Court Rules Trans Women Can’t Be Defined as Women
LONDON—Britain’s top court ruled only those born female can be considered women, a landmark judgment that excludes transgender women from the legal definition and paves the way for tighter limits on female-only spaces and services.

https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/u-k-su...68e3a?st=saeVfC&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Trans women seen to frighten you and Rightgunt tremendously.
I'm guessing the two of you have unresolved gender identity issues from your formative years?
You two essentially break out in hives any time anything with the word "trans" is in the news.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

Trans women seen to frighten you and Rightgunt tremendously.
I'm guessing the two of you have unresolved gender identity issues from your formative years?
You two essentially break out in hives any time anything with the word "trans" is in the news.

I’m not on the UK Supreme Court but I agree with their ruling.

 

[73Seahawks]

Wednesday, 23 April 2025: UK Parliament Live-Stream of the weekly Prime Minister's Questions with British Sign Language (BSL) from the House of Commons in London, United Kingdom.