Off Topic UK / EU Future

The LD's failure at the ballot box is more of a symptom of the nasty STD they picked up from getting into bed with the tories than their stance over the EU. You're very good at sidestepping questions but repeatedly commit logical fallacies such as ad Hominem, post hoc ergo propter hoc and affirming the consequent.

 

Must admit that when I found out the result of the discussions in Brussels, I started to worry about the blood pressure of our resident Brexiteer. Would he explode to such an extent that he would have to redecorate the room in which he was ranting. Clearly he didn't as he went to his scrapbook of cuttings and wheeled out his stock answers. Like the PM you sometimes ask a question, and the reply is to something unrelated.
As I have been out all day I have only just read up on the statement made by the PM to parliament. Seems that she was asked if there could be a further extension in October, but she didn't wish to say. If you read around a bit you find that the EU are already talking about the conditions for such a happening.
Still that means that SH will only have to control his blood pressure for another 27 weeks, and 2 of those are now being spent on holidays before the next flash point.

 

The LibDems basically canvassed on being anti Brexit, they failed miserably. The pro Brexit parties polled 80% of the vote. The fact that the LibDem leader failed to honour his promise was not unusual, they are good at coming up with policies knowing they will never be in office. The public are turned off by wishy washy politics.

 

I have quite a few holidays booked and personally very relaxed about any outcome. It really doesn't make me difference to me. I'm just concerned for the democratic process in the UK.

What is the chatter from the breadshop?

 

The bread shop chatter is all about the fantastic weather, the super fast broadband that has just been installed and the influx of Brits over the last 12 months.

 

Not the high unemployment, weekly riots and the far right winning the Euro elections?

 

No, that is what you would like to believe, but never gets a mention. Stores all offering proper 35 hour jobs, the riot amounted to one incidence of some manure being dumped at the entrance to the tax office, and the far right still as popular here as at the last elections where they received 7% of the votes. Why would people want to talk politics if they don't have Brexit to worry about?

 

You obviously missed the riots in several major cities. The far right are still on course to be the largest French group in the EU parliament. I suppose the retired are not too bothered about the ongoing French scandal of continuing high unemployment. The Macron boy's attempted reforms don't seem to be working.

 

What you don't understand is that we are as far removed from turmoil as you are in your part of the world. Leading Tories say they expect to be wiped out in the up coming council elections, but not from the right, but the remain supporting parties. I doubt that it would happen in your part of the country as donkeys with blue ribbons would win. Change has taken place in France, and it is a good job that Macron helped other EU leaders to bail the UK out. How long will it take for the backward UK political system to catch up with the rest of the world?

 

Another subject to avoid in the bread queue is the ballooning French public debt. The lack of reforms and paying off the rioters has propelled France to soon be the fourth most indebted country in the world. At least the vast numbers of French unemployed can be poor in the sunshine, if they live in the South.

 

The French don't do queues, but then you have probably forgotten.

 

Agreed.

I remember from my skiing days, the French rudely push in.

 

The government has stood down an army of 6,000 civil servants who had been preparing for a no-deal Brexit, at an estimated cost of £1.5bn.

The civil servants who had been seconded from elsewhere will now return to their normal duties, but there is no clear role for an estimated 4,500 new recruits.

Senior civil servants at the departments of health, transport, environment and the Home Office are in talks with politicians on what to do with the army of new recruits who may not be needed for six months.

Good job this is a Tory Brexit and they cannot blame anyone else for this appalling waste of money.

 

They would have to waste a massive amount to rival the ballooning French debt.

 

The Department of Health and Social Care said it was considering what to do with its medicines stockpiles. The Department for Transport could also be left with a hefty no-deal bill for ferry contracts and a logistics hub in Belgium for stockpiling of medicines. Contingency operations have impacted nearly all departments in the civil service and elsewhere in the public sector including police, hospitals and schools. Highways England staff had deployed 80 officers from elsewhere in the country to patrol roads in Kent at a cost to the taxpayer of £119 per officer a night in hotels and food. Kent said it could reverse the contraflow system on a 14-mile stretch on the M20 over a weekend but it would take up to three weeks to remove the concrete barriers.

I feel sure that if the public had been asked should all this money be used to provide care for the elderly, money for schools, police, or hospitals, or some half baked scheme to leave the EU, they would not have chosen the latter.

 

Well I can tell you for nothing that one of the 6000 can cover for me so I can take a week off at some point! Joking apart as you said there's a fair few on secondment and we also have some who've not yet been given offers and will probably have to wait before getting contracts - many more still on fixed contracts. We won't have 4500 people sitting round waiting for something to happen. Apologies if this sounds overly defensive or even slightly combative but the civil service has actually tried pretty hard to be pragmatic and as cost effective as it can in all of this. The leaks in the press about us all trying to stop Brexit etc have got on my nerves hugely as those of us trying to properly deliver for no deal have done all we can. And I am sure - and certainly hope- you know that none of that is aimed at you

 

Living in France as you do you should be much more concerned with the out of control French national debt. This is much more likely to affect your lifestyle than the UK's sensible cost of preparing for a 'no deal' scenario.

 

I know many civil servants, both past and present, who do the best that they can with whatever tools and resources are made available to them. Putting aside what they think to be right or wrong, they follow the lead set out by the politicians. Those who constantly slate them do not realise that they have to provide the same service whichever party might be in power, and with a change in government be asked to completely change course.
This whole current mess is the result of a political party struggling with the dissident forces within it, and choosing to take a course of action that it thought would make it popular with the population. Instead it has created division throughout the whole of the UK, as well as costing money that it said it didn't have. One has to ask where are our decent political leaders these days? My MP was useless when she served on the district council, and today is a leading light in government. It is no wonder so many are turned off by it all.

 

What no deal scenario was this? The one that was being touted to keep the mega mouths quiet, but in reality was never a possibility. You were given a hook and line and you swallowed it. Meanwhile the school that my grandson goes to is asking for a £25 per month donation for each pupil, to buy what are basic educational needs. Starved of finance so that your government can hand out ferry contracts to companies that don't have experience of running such a service.

 

Avoiding the massive French debt again.