Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%
  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%

  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
If I, as a Christian, was living in Pakistan, at a time when Christian extremists were deliberately blowing up Muslim children, stabbing passers by, driving into crowds, cutting the heads off off-duty squaddies etc, I would not just shrug and say it has nothing to do with me. I'd do whatever I could to help the authorities track these people down and stop the killings. So how is it that so many Muslims refuse to work with Prevent, which is UK government designed to stop Muslim kids getting into terrorism, claiming that it's racist?

The impression I get is that a large section of Muslims tacitly sympathise with the cause of the Islamic extremists.
If you were living in Pakistan and Christians were committing those acts you would probally be hacked to death the first time you went out.
 
NHS medics prevent epidemic among Rohingya
The team of 40 NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics triaged more than 3,000 people, many of them children.

With the NHS in such a poor state with doctors and nurses leaving should the NHS allow teams to go abroad and help others when British people put up with **** service??
 
NHS medics prevent epidemic among Rohingya
The team of 40 NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics triaged more than 3,000 people, many of them children.

With the NHS in such a poor state with doctors and nurses leaving should the NHS allow teams to go abroad and help others when British people put up with **** service??

Yes - the issues we have here are an absolute drop in the ocean compared to what's happening there.once you withdraw humanitarian aid like this there really is no future
 
NHS medics prevent epidemic among Rohingya
The team of 40 NHS doctors, nurses and paramedics triaged more than 3,000 people, many of them children.

With the NHS in such a poor state with doctors and nurses leaving should the NHS allow teams to go abroad and help others when British people put up with **** service??
the nhs is closest of course
 
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Yeah, cos economists are well known for predicting accurately eh?

Honestly, you may as well ask the milkman........oh we did. We're leaving and the sooner I have to stop listening to Barnier and his mates threatening us the better.

There's a political debate on BBC News 24 called Dateline London. It's a debate with four political, mostly-foreign journalists and an interviewer.

There's one female Italian journalist who has been incredibly patronising and scathing about Brexit over the last year - the UK must be mad, a laughing stock etc...

Last Saturday, she came on and had completely changed her tune. Italy sells a lot of stuff to the UK, and the fact that the UK has visited China, is getting a thumbs up from Trump on trade and is generally looking out beyond the EU is worrying the **** of the Italians, because they can see the loss of trade down the line if Brussels holds firm to its manufactured principles and makes it difficult to trade with the UK after the transition period. The UK has to leave the Customs Union in order to gain freedom to trade outside the EU. So it is up to the EU to say how difficult they want to make things. But if Brussels sits on its high horse, I could see a rebellion from EU states like Italy, Spain, the Low Countries etc, and indeed German industry, that need the exports to the EU.

All this propaganda about the EU being of one voice on Brexit will disappear in a puff of smoke if the EU insists on tariffs between the UK and the EU. Something like panic will set in and the Commission in Brussels will be called to heel. That's my prediction.
 
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Stock markets having another wonderful day....
Obviously ‘investors’ struggle with the idea of high employment, lower taxes and rising wages for ordinary people, who will then presumably spend more money which you would think would benefit the companies that they ‘invest’ in. They fear that this will lead to slightly higher interest rates making it more expensive for the companies to borrow cash, despite them having benefited from 10 years of historically cheap borrowing, and even with a rise it will remain cheap (though banks have been quite reluctant to lend money), which might mean their share price doesn’t go up exponentially.

But they are not really ‘investors’ are they? Most share trades are between institutions and individuals, the companies they are investing in don’t benefit at all, in fact they lose by paying dividends to people who have never contributed to them. It’s only when they first come to market or when they issue new shares that companies raise capital to invest, and the owners get rich (which is fair enough). High share prices, it seems to me, only benefit workers who own shares in the company they work in, and its the top management who own a lot of shares and are given lots more as part of their renumeration. High prices also put off takeover bids I suppose, but sometimes takeovers are good. So the top management of companies strive to maintain and increase share prices and build dividends, which they benefit from directly but the companies they are meant to be working for do not, as they are giving away a load of their profit in dividends for nothing in return.

It’s perverse, and brainless.

Of course I am highly pissed off that the value of shares that I own in the company I work for (not many, but a handy amount) have fallen in value not only because of the fall in the price (about 10% in a week) but also because the £ has risen (they are US shares). But hypocrisy is my calling card, so you needn’t concern yourself about that.
 
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Markets...
This is one for Sb and Co. At least we cant blame Brexit... (someone probably will).
 
Markets...
This is one for Sb and Co. At least we cant blame Brexit... (someone probably will).
Learn about them Ellers. The inventions of the limited company, stock trading and above all credit have had a far greater and more permanent impact on our lives than politics, religion, military strength etc. In my opinion. And often for the good.
 
Learn about them Ellers. The inventions of the limited company, stock trading and above all credit have had a far greater and more permanent impact on our lives than politics, religion, military strength etc. In my opinion. And often for the good.
Years ago I did a short course on 'commerce' and I know how important markets are for jobs/growth.
Recently I mentioned Bitcoin which I was going to purchase at £300 some time ago, I didn't and it went up to £11K at Christmas. I didn't invest (which was probably a good thing) as it's £4k now. I see Ripple is very cheap?