Brexit

Eh?

I think we have got to the “Elementary”stage of Brexit....Watching the TV series there is absolutely no point trying to guess the outcome as there are always lots of red herrings along the way. I now feel this way about Saturday in Houses of Parliament. Usually I trust Sherlock to solve the case in Elementary, for Brexit I am putting my trust in Kier Stammer, Dominic Grieve, Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn....will be very nervous.

If there was another vote to stay in the customs union, which I could stomach, that opposition only lost this by 6 votes - last year. However the parliamentary arithmetic has changed since then, with an extra Lib Dem mp in Brecon and now ex Tory government ministers that were loyal to Theresa May’s government have been brutally kicked out forum the party itself and St Theresa herself why would she want to show loyalty to the treacherous Johnson and ERG?

However Johnson’s bill may get parliamentary consent on Saturday, which I would regret, As both Labour and Conservatives won’t to put Brexit behind them and move on with other issues.

Yes, those of us who have had a result we don't want forced on us by a generation who won't be around to deal with the fall out, and we thank them very much for that. It really is the most unpalatable part of this most unpalatable of situations, and it is extremely difficult to forgive those who voted for this disaster and won't have to live with it for very long.

It is extremely telling that the younger the voter the greater the probability they voted Remain...

More like Corbyn ‘the new Ramsay MacDonald’, other than that feasibly ‘the man who killed the Labour party’.

Because they were against things like austerity.

Labour is there to protect the disadvantaged, not to shaft them because they got conned by a right wing scam.

Labour Brexiters are the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. 

I have been struck by this term "Empire of Virtue" that has been used several times in this thread. I don't think that many people regard the EU as the Empire of Virtue, even if they voted for Remain, they may just view it as a better option than being Billy NoMates.

It's rather odd, considering the love of many Brexiters for British History, that the greatest use of the term Empire of Virtue was about the Hanoverian Era and the rapid growth of the British Empire during that time. I thought many Brexiters were broadly in favour of the British Empire? Or maybe we could stop using terms with which no-one would agree? Or is someone just trolling?

(And it is worth pointing out that the Ashcroft poll which londonpostie is quoting shows a majority voting for Remain up to age 44. Not sure I know many 44-year olds who are planning their gap year.)

I do wonder if people who support the abolition of the licence fee have ever seen US network television. The best of US television that we see over here is all stuff that you have to pay for, it doesn't come free. By the time you've paid for HBO, Showtime, Netflix, AMC, which is where most of the good stuff is, you're paying more than the licence fee. Network television in the US - the free stuff - is dire.

Oh No It Isn't!

Also how many MPs have been in Panto - Giles Watling must have been, Tracy Brabin possibly, Esther McVey, Anna Soubry both had TV careers so might well have done one or two - Esther in particular. Any other nominations?

Try finding something like Poldark, Fleabag, Line of Duty, Downton Abbey, Broadchurch, Killing Eve, Night Manager on US network TV. Here is USA Today's list of the best 25 TV programmes on US TV in 2018 - two of them are available on a major US network. Interestingly, five of them were made available in the UK on free TV channels. eu.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2018/12/06/2018-year-review-25-best-tv-shows/2147517002/

And yes, some of those good programmes are on ITV, which is not supported by the licence fee, but it has to raise its game to compete with BBC given that there have the same preferred access to viewers by dint of being classified as Public Service Broadcasting. Make the BBC subscription, or - worse for ITV - get it to take advertising, and watch ITV descend to the level of Channel 5.

I'm absolutely not saying the BBC is perfect, not by a very long way, and I think it's lost its way somewhat over the last five years or so - probably since the Scottish referendum where it really managed that from a London perspective and managed to upset all varieties of Scots (hence the later sticking-plaster of the not-very-good BBC Scotland TV channel). But I have say that dumping the licence fee wholesale, rather than fixing the problems at the BBC, is the sort of destructive, one-way, irreversible act that destroys something fundamental to the UK, for the sake of vested interests. And that could never happen here, could it?

You have just done that to yourself. Think instead about the kinds of insecure work championed by Brussels under 'competition', the fact of being tied to catchments, of the social needs poor environments create, of the rapid growth of self-segregation, lack of employer health cover, huge disparity in Council Tax relative to income - a hundred factors experienced by people in particular social circs. Not too many of these people long for a life on the open seas with Admiral Nelson.