Is you in or is you ain't?

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Neil Wheadon — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 06:36:59 GMT

[quote user="Chris Milligan"]stop driving them abroad then![/quote]

Experienced locum and that includes Robin as well, it's in our interest to brexet isn't it? After all there will be a bigger shortage. Need to look at the bigger picture

Neil

PS Sorry you meant Bradley, ha ho, but my point remains

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Chris Milligan — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 00:16:25 GMT

[quote user="Robin Grimmer"]

And now Turkey's membership application is being speeded up!

European?

[/quote]

one assumes it's being sped up for defense purposes - an attempt to manage the immigration crisis and to counter Putin's aggression.

also:

[quote user="Neal Wheadon"]

Bradley Viner / RCVS no comment, however are concerned about the potential lack of experienced vets available

[/quote]

stop driving them abroad then!

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:42:57 GMT

Oh dearie me. The Stay In camp getting a little twitchy? I had, myself, been tempted very briefly to copy out for this forum some of the excellent articles I have read, making a case to Leave so much more eloquently and with more fluent well-organised reasoning than I ever can – but after some 500 milliseconds of thought had of course rejected the idea as foolish.

The gentleman known professionally as A.A.Gill certainly has a way with the pen, and he can be most entertaining when that pen is employed in savaging the quality of the quenelles of oyster in pomegranate sauce on a bed of mummified celeriac at some new lousy overpriced restaurant in a back street off the West End, but his entire rant is no more than a colourful embroidery upon one assertion, which is in any case false: "We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia"

For sure, Mr. Gill is a UK citizen and has his one vote just as each of the rest of us do, but beyond that who cares what he has to say? I lack his style and his encyclopaedic palate, but I know tarted-up tripe when I see it.

A decision as to how to vote involves engagement of an organ which lies an inch or two dorsal to the palate – assuming it is present.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:00:03 GMT

It was from Facebook and it's circulating along with an awful lot of pro-European stuff. A place where pollsters don't have a handle on.

Combine this with the theory that telephone polls show a truer representation of voters intentions;

'The most important question for pollsters, of course, is whether the phone or online polls lie nearer to the current truth on this issue. Taking all the evidence into account, our view is that the true state of public opinion on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union is likely to be rather closer to what telephone polls are showing – a clear Remain lead – than the narrower contest suggested by online polling'

Maybe the thought of leaving will get the voters out, because that will be the one factor that will gift those living in a golden era of strikes, fuel shortages and little England what they crave.

Neil

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 22:48:52 GMT

It's far too long for a forum, where things should be short and snappy, but if you have the time read this. To be fair there was a counter argument published in the Sunday Times (all right and proper) but for me this sums up so much of what I've read by Brexit lovers in this thread, aside from Evelyn who I've found entertaining.

Neil

"Brexit: AA Gill argues for ‘In’

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of that most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia

It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”

It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”

Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.

We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.

The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.

And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.

All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.

There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.

The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories. Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.

Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty

We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.

Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”

When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us. The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.

Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’

You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom.

Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.

The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.

There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.

The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.

Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?

I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in."

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Francisco Gomez — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 20:07:38 GMT

[quote user="Robin Grimmer"]

Turkey have been trying to get in to the EU since 1987. So far they have only met 1 out of 35 criteria to get in to the EU. Also every EU member including us has a veto.

[/quote]

Nooo... listen to Wynne! 'Call me Dave' will have a chat with Merkel and they both will held the rest of the EU at gunpoint. Next they will proclaim Erdogan president of the world USE and every single Turk will come to the UK to join NHS queues!

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Robin Grimmer — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 18:51:59 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

And now Turkey's membership application is being speeded up!

European?

What are their animal welfare regulations like?

Theresa May is backing Remain, but wants more controls on European immigrants................even though that will be illegal if we remain.

What a totally illogical stance!

Wynne

[/quote]

Turkey have been trying to get in to the EU since 1987. So far they have only met 1 out of 35 criteria to get in to the EU. Also every EU member including us has a veto.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:02:14 GMT

And now Turkey's membership application is being speeded up!

European?

What are their animal welfare regulations like?

Theresa May is backing Remain, but wants more controls on European immigrants................even though that will be illegal if we remain.

What a totally illogical stance!

Wynne

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:49:13 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"] The universities are coining it from fees paid by foreign students![/quote]

Actually I believe if they're within the EU it's not as much as American students. They'd charge more if we left the EU.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:48:03 GMT

The universities are coining it from fees paid by foreign students!

Disinterested?

Wynne

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Gerry Henry — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:34:22 GMT

And if those professional bodies are quite as useless as our own you'll forgive me if I ignore them. Remember the ERM and the Euro and the 'expert' Cassandras who predicted doom and disaster if we didn't join.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:31:50 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Dennison"]

Really useful double page spread in this weeks Vet Times on various professional bodies' views on the EU referendum...

[/quote]

Which doesn't say a lot I'm afraid

NFU won't comment

RVC want to stay as do other universities

BVA signpost to it's website

Pet Food Manufacturers, various opinions of individuals

NOAH , no comment

Bradley Viner / RCVS no comment, however are concerned about the potential lack of experienced vets available, and the standard of some of the EU vet schools, a point made by Evelyn earlier in this thread.

Neil

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:02:04 GMT

Really useful double page spread in this weeks Vet Times on various professional bodies' views on the EU referendum...

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Iain Richards — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:42:24 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

Iain It's the lefties who smashed looms

Wynne

[/quote]

Well as just about no-one could vote back then....

More likely to be the ignorant who regularly look for blame, whipped up by those seeking an opportunity for their own purposes. Are we talking past or present - it's all merged suddenly.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:09:59 GMT

Iain It's the lefties who smashed looms

Wynne

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Bob Russell — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:51:46 GMT

A big drop in the Pound will make exports more competitive! The Euro will probably fall as well so trade with Europe will change little. Buying stuff from the US or China may become a bit more expensive.

Every cloud .......

Just adding:

"The reason for that is is if the pound leaves the euro, its more of a crisis for the euro than it is for the UK argues the NAB analyst."

https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/eur/4973-pound-to-euro-exchange-rate

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Robin Grimmer — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:35:56 GMT

Bank of England predicts a big drop in the value of the pound if we leave the EU . Vote Remain.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 11:30:15 GMT

[quote user="Francisco Gomez"]With lowest unemployment rate in the last 10 years while the country has been in the EU [/quote]

Post hoc non propter hoc

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Iain Richards — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 09:24:40 GMT

The examples of failed companies in the 1970s is interesting, for the same blinkered attitude displayed by the unions also applied to those involved in the management of the companies concerned. It is interesting that the vote leave campaign seems to be composed of people whose mind set hasn't changed since then.

Presumably their ancestors were partial to a bit of loom smashing...

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Malcolm Ness — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 08:07:15 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]It continued to rise in the early Thatcher years,[/quote]

I think it almost doubled, and then never again dropped to the "Labour isn't working" levels during Thatcher's watch.

The reasons are complex but the relevance to the present debate is clear - a headline "issue" that led to many voting for Mrs Thatcher, was never dealt with and in fact got very, very much worse. Don't hold out too much hope that the currently confident predictions of either Brexit or Remain will ever come to pass.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 23:17:22 GMT

That was in 1979 after 5 years of an utterly disasterous Labour government - inflation in double figures.

We joined the Common Market in 1973

One of the reasons unemployment climbed under Labour was that the unions and socialist legislation wouldn't allow management to sack poor workers and also insisted on petty job demarcation, so many industries were hopelessly badly/overmanned. This would continue until the firm went into recievership - so a hundred jobs were lost, when shedding 10 might have saved the other 90.

It continued to rise in the early Thatcher years, for, by then, many of our former markets had been lost, and, in those industries that still had a future, job reductions were necessary to restore international competitiveness.

Wynne

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Malcolm Ness — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 21:42:32 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

That could be zero unemployment if we had control of our borders!

Look back to see what our unemployment rate was before we joined the EU

Wynne

[/quote]

Nice argument but unfortunately, the facts get in the way.

When the conservatives swept to power, one of their advertising slogans was "Labour isn't working" presented as a caption under a snaking dole queue of people (in fact, two dozen members of the ?? Hendon Conservative Association manually "photoshopped to make up the numbers). More facts: at that time, unemployment was hitting one million or approximately 6%. Subsequently and throughout the Thatcher years, unemployment rose considerably and stayed devastatingly high (devastating if you lived in the less-favoured industrial areas but comfortably distant for the metropolitan elite).

The recent unemployment figures that are being presented as a success or a concern today by various factions remain as bad those that led to the infamous poster - it is amazing how quickly stuff like that gets forgotten and how easily we were persuaded that 6% unemployment is something that you can just learn to live with.

Not sure what any of that has got to do with next week's election though I do think that Wyn's Thatcherite analysis needs some re-examination/development.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 19:02:43 GMT

Richard That happened after we joined the Common Market, although it wasn't the fault oj joining. It was the fault of a Labour government which over-indulged the unions. The 3 day week was when the miners were striking, and (unlike in 1984) there weren't enough stockpiles to call their bluff. The appalling and therefore unsaleable quality of over-priced goods was because unions called strikes whenever one of their darlings was reprimanded for shoddy work. Then Margaret Thatcher saved the country. It's the memory of those dreadful times that's given me my abiding hatred of the left.

Wynne

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Gerry Henry — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:56:46 GMT

But we learned that lesson, the French haven't yet and I for one don't want to pay for it.

RE: Is you in or is you ain't?

Richard Carter — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:32:17 GMT

was that the unemployment rate when UK went down to a 3 day week and the quality of UK goods were the laughing stock of the world?