Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[TheHowieLama]

The yolk of oppression -- heh heh

 

One for the Breakfast thread Shirley.

[sir roger]

Reckoned that up to 30k Bluekip entrants could have joined the Tories since the referendum , hence the ridiculous comments from the two tossers regarding unicorn policies with the EU.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

The Brexit Company rally (in Nuremberg?).

 

Remember that advert with the little cartoon kid talking about his bread preferences: "I know what I like and it's white white white".

 

 

 

[Jairzinho]

Gammonfest.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Average age of about 65. 

[Jairzinho]

Average age, weight in stone, and IQ.

[Bobby Hundreds]

On 30/06/2019 at 13:47, skend04 said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/30/jeremy-hunt-i-would-tell-bust-businesses-no-deal-brexit-was-worth-it

 

Wowsers! Like I said, there is no least worst option. 

 A real living wage would damage small business they constantly whined but now they don't give a fuck because it's a price worth paying. You know Hunt will be hoovering up shares in American health insurance. He's the most convincing evidence for reptilians. The cunt can lick his own eyeballs.

[Duff Man]

 

Anyone fancy a WW2 themed rave? No, me either.

[cloggypop]

Always knew Loaded was a load of wank. 

[Gnasher]

No deal. Big deal? Anything that brings the end game closer is ok with me.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

11 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

No deal. Big deal? Anything that brings the end game closer is ok with me.

Exactly the kind of stupidity the racists, Fascists, disaster capitalists and Tories depend on.

 

Good for you. 

[Pureblood]

2 hours ago, Duff Man said:

 

Anyone fancy a WW2 themed rave? No, me either.

Make it stop.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

47 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

No deal. Big deal? Anything that brings the end game closer is ok with me.

And here's what you won!

 

[Bjornebye]

They all turned their backs in European Parliament today when they played the eu anthem. Horrible cunts 

[Guest Pistonbroke]

1 minute ago, Bjornebye said:

They all turned their backs in European Parliament today when they played the eu anthem. Horrible cunts 

 

Their arrogance and hypocrisy is stunning, small minded imbeciles. 

[sir roger]

I am assuming they are refusing to take their salary from such a disgusting organisation or might that be a step too far for these heroes.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

2 minutes ago, sir roger said:

I am assuming they are refusing to take their salary from such a disgusting organisation or might that be a step too far for these heroes.

 

That there is the hypocrisy, but many Little Englander's will see it as a stance against the enemy. 

[sir roger]

To be fair , even if I share their views I'm not sure bright yellow ' Bollocks to Brexit ' t-shirts are particularly classy on the Lib-Dem mep's in the chamber either.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

UK politics is in a shit state mate. People abroad you to say 'English Gentleman, or the fine English art.' They just shake their heads nowadays. Embarrassing. 

[Anubis]

Brexit MEPs turned their backs on the EU anthem when it was played as part of the opening session of the EU Parliament. Imagine if anyone did that to our national anthem and how outraged they'd be. Incapable of common courtesy.

[sir roger]

Britain is run by a self-serving clique. That’s why it’s in crisis

 

Last week Boris Johnson delivered a speech to a Royal Horticultural Society audience in Wisley, Surrey, before heading to the affluent village of Oxshott to buy some fennel and tarragon sausages and have a cup of tea in the Munch and Wiggles cafe. In a series of interviews later that day, he was unwilling to reveal the provenance of the staged photograph of him and his partner, Carrie Symonds. He was, however, able to insist that Britain would leave the European Union, “do or die”, by the end of October.

 

On the same day, the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission issued a report into elitism in Britain that “paints a picture of a country whose power structures are dominated by a narrow section of the population [where] social mobility is low and not improving”. Those who went to private school comprise 7% of the country’s population but 39% of the elite; those who went to Oxford or Cambridge university comprise less than 1% of the population but 24% of the elite. Senior judges, junior ministers, permanent secretaries and diplomats are among the least representative professions. But the media, and particularly newspaper columnists, are right up there, too.

 

There is a clear and undeniable link between the entrenched and calcifying class stratification in British society and the inept chaos in which we currently find ourselves. The gene puddle from which the elite siphons its ranks has become shallow and fetid. Those who make the laws in government, oversee the civil service that will implement them, adjudicate on them in court or assess them in newspapers, are drawn from such a narrow social layer that they might as well be the same person. Even when they do not form a majority, their critical mass is such that they set the tone, define the culture and shape the parameters for what is institutionally permissible.

 

This was never healthy and always absurd. But recently it has become untenable. The prime minister who got us into this Brexit mess a few years back went to the same school and joined the same supper club at the same university as the person who will most likely be prime minister in a few weeks’ time. Nobody thinks that is an uncanny coincidence. It’s how Britain works. It’s also why it’s not working.

 

“The country’s model of leadership is disintegrating,” wrote the Economist, not known for its Marxist tendencies, in December. “Britain is governed by a self-involved clique that rewards group membership above competence and self-confidence above expertise.” The overwhelming failure of integration in this country has nothing to do with Muslims or race – it’s that those who are running it, governing it and commenting on it have such a limited experience of living in it the way that most do. The consequences of that dislocation are proving devastating.

 

A brief caveat here to confront predictable straw men. Nobody should be blamed for being born rich or the school they go to – they had no say in it. Meanwhile, the handful of working-class people who make it to Oxbridge should be applauded for their achievement. At issue here is not individuals but a system that rewards privilege and privileges the rich – giving more opportunities, wealth and power to those who did not earn them, or have otherwise acquired them, while excluding others of access to resources.

Class privilege is not new. Between 1955 and 1964 all three British prime ministers went to Eton and Oxford. But several things have changed since then that make this persistent dominance of a tiny stratum particularly problematic. First of all, levels of income inequality have grown massively. According to the Equality Trust thinktank, between 1938 and 1979 the share of income going to the top 10% fell by 40%, while that going to the bottom grew a little. After 1979 that trend reversed sharply and has now effectively stalled. Real wages have yet to catch up with pre-crisis levels.

 

So the oligarchic tendencies in our economy are being reinforced and amplified in our polity and broader culture. The people who have everything also run everything. The Tory frontrunner, Johnson, is not just a product of that system but an advocate for it. When we see him call for a massive tax cut for the rich, we see a candidate who has had much and wants more. When we see him guessing the minimum wage “at or around £10” when it is in fact £8.21 we see a candidate who knows nothing about those who have little and has no interest in learning. (Imagine what would have happened to Diane Abbott had she made a mistake like that.)

 

Second, their increasingly desperate efforts to preserve their grip on power are having increasingly extreme consequences. We are in a period of extended crisis and division, largely brought about by financial elites whose reckless behaviour was first enabled and indulged, and then forgiven and written off, by political elites. It is highly unlikely that the imaginative and radical responses we need to turn this around are going to come from those same elites.

Brexit is simply the clearest manifestation of these crises. The race for Tory leader is the clearest illustration of how ill-equipped we are to deal with them. This party has won an outright majority just once in the last six elections and is about to elect its third leader in three years. The runaway favourite is an unrepentant race-baiter, liar, philanderer and opportunist, liked least by those who know him best. His opponent is just hopeless. The question of how long either will last in the top job is debatable.

 

Throughout this time media elites, drawn from the same class as their financial and political counterparts, have mostly been obsessed by the crisis in leadership in an ostensibly “unelectable” Labour party, which has had the same leader for four years – and gained seats and vote share in the last general election. Those media elites have called pretty much every major political event, from Brexit to the last two elections, incorrectly.

 

The point here is not about Jeremy Corbyn or partisanship – though it could be – but perspective and proportionality. One of the reasons why British politics is so difficult to understand at present is that most of those critiquing it are so deeply embedded and implicated in the world they are critiquing, they just can’t see straight. Which leads to the final point. Since the war Britain has come to think of itself as far more meritocratic. The current situation gives the lie to that illusion. If you think Johnson is the best person for the top job then you either know nothing about the job or you know nothing about him.

 

At Eton, notes James Wood in the London Review of Books, they were taught to impose themselves on the world with “effortless superiority”. But these people fall short too often. The trouble is they keep failing upwards – constantly given the benefit of the doubt, leaving them with the benefits and the rest of us with the doubts.

 

• Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist

 

[Guest Pistonbroke]

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2019/07/as-bad-as-it-gets-grocery-giants-warn-on-brexit-no-deal/?fbclid=IwAR1NdssSzDu5G3AFbupX-sP75gKFR17saFS7wT6NZ3ChaBHOUrwMKyUbSsw

“As bad as it gets” – Grocery giants warn on Brexit no-deal

// UK’s 3 biggest grocers warn that an October no-deal Brexit would be “as bad as it gets” as it could disrupt Christmas trading

// Sainsbury’s CEO Mike Coupe says toys & electrical goods could be affected by disruption at UK ports

// Asda CEO Roger Burnley highlighted the risk of “fresh food sitting in ports rotting”

// Tesco CEO Dave Lewis says it’d be more difficult to stockpile as warehouses would already be full for Christmas anyway

---

The UK’s three biggest grocers have issued a warning to the next Prime Minister that a no-deal Brexit would be “as bad as it gets” and could disrupt people’s Christmases.

The bosses at Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda – which account for more than half of all food sales in the country – said the timing of the delayed October 31 deadline is problematic because that is the same time they start increasing deliveries of extra festive products.

The grocery giants had already commenced stockpiling in preparation of Brexit when its original deadline was set for March, but because supermarkets usually build up stock ahead of Christmas anyway, they may be short of much-needed extra warehouse space if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe said toys and electrical goods could be affected by disruption at UK ports, and that the October deadline is “about as bad as it gets”.

“A no-deal scenario would be very disruptive to us, and I think the timing of it means it would be potentially disruptive to people’s Christmases,” he said.

Asda chief executive Roger Burnley highlighted the risk of “fresh food sitting in ports rotting” in the event of border checks.

“Whatever the outcome, we need a friction-free border to get our food in quickly and our fresh food can get through to our customers as quickly as it does today,” he told PA.

“If you’re choosing a time for a dramatic change [to the rules], you wouldn’t be choosing October, for sure.

“We’re all heavily into stock building at that time. Nonetheless we’ll do our best for customers to make it as seamless as possible whatever the outcome at that time.”

Meanwhile, Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said it would be more difficult to stockpile ahead of a no-deal in October as warehouses would already be full for Christmas anyway.

“In March, for long life things we did take some stock so that, depending on what the outcome was, we could help our customers through that time of turbulence,” he told the BBC.

“It will be more difficult to do that in October, that’s for sure, because all the network will be full of things getting ready for Christmas so there will be less capacity.”

The warnings come as Tory leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt keep open the possibility of a no-deal Brexit scenario, although both say they would prefer to leave with a deal.

Johnson has said the UK will leave the EU by October 31, regardless of whether a deal has been signed, while Hunt said he would make a decision in September.

The BRC has also weighed in, saying on Wednesday that an October 31 deadline would come at the “worst possible time for retail”.

Chief executive Helen Dickinson said the new deadline coincides with the “height of preparations for Christmas and Black Friday, which are peak trading periods, threatening to cause disruption for consumers and businesses, and making further stockpiling of goods almost impossible”.

“It is vital that the next Prime Minister reaches a deal with the EU and avoids the cliff edge,” she said.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

[Jairzinho]

They're some of the biggest cunts on the planet. 

 

Racist, destroying every single public service, putting children in poverty, sending nurses to food banks, and systematically killing people through their policies. 

 

Never has it been clearer that there really are only two reasons to vote Tory. You're a well off sociopath, or you're an absolute cretin.

[Duff Man]

They don't even try to hide it anymore, either. Probably because they've realised they don't actually have to. Ministers can openly admit welfare policies have contributed to the homelessness crisis, or that universal credit led to an increase in food bank use, and half the country doesn't even bat an eyelid. It's utterly depressing.