UKMT May 2017: Weak and Wobbly vs. Old and Knobbly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT May 2017: Weak and Wobbly vs. Old and Knobbly

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonDrizzle posted:

The German newspaper FAZ has an account of the midweek dinner meeting between May/Davis and Juncker, which is really not complimentary at all of the PM; the Economist's Berlin bureau chief did a translation of the highlights on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/858810953353367552

Maybe if we're deluded enough about what's going to happen the final deal (or lack of one) will be so terrible that we'll chicken out of Brexit when the time comes?

Zephro fucked around with this message at 08:57 on May 1, 2017

# ¿ May 1, 2017 08:52

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 01:27

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

jBrereton posted:

I'm loving glad that this thing is being done with the best intentions by both sides, with the reasonable concerns hundreds of millions of EU + UK citizens taken into account, not the ego of a guy who let the EU collapse and some smug prick and his schoolteacher mistress taking charge.

Well, one of the reasonable concerns of hundreds of millions of EU citizens is presumably "don't let Britain do a runner without settling its bills because otherwise we'll have to pick up the tab" and another is "don't let British firms compete with our firms in the single market if we're not allowed to go and work for them".

# ¿ May 1, 2017 08:57

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonyTang posted:

In the actual spirit of International Worker's Day

In Praise of Idleness, 1932

This has always been a much better essay than the Keynes one and it makes pretty much the same point

# ¿ May 1, 2017 16:54

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

MikeCrotch posted:

I know people who pretty much think that anything outside of the M25 is savage undifferentiated wilderness, so this doesn't surprise me in the least

Also my great-grandpa was from Plymouth and considered Bristol to be the start of the North.

Let's have the argument about whether Bristol is part of the West Country again

spoiler: it isn't

# ¿ May 2, 2017 11:10

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

OwlFancier posted:

Does she live in a park in a shed?

Britain has the smallest houses of any rich nation, so probably

# ¿ May 3, 2017 09:16

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

jabby posted:

The Express has revealed some details of the Tories first campaign poster:

Not sure about it myself. The 'tax bombshell' bit is standard, but from what I recall most people don't want our army bombing people overseas anymore.

Also from the same article the Tories are planning a 'dossier' on Labour's spending commitments and revenue raisers to demonstrate that they aren't fully costed. A couple of weeks prior to the manifesto coming out with costings. At least it will be easy for Labour to stay on message in refuting it I guess.

EDIT: Here it is in all it's glory.

The army doesn't use bombs. That's the air force's job. How can we rely on the Theresa May Party to give are boys the STRONG AND STABLE leadership they need if they're so ignorant of basic facts

# ¿ May 3, 2017 11:49

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Guavanaut posted:

They should have said troops instead to remove the ambiguity.

Now it's over to every talking head in the country for hours of wall to wall discussion of this serious gaffe

# ¿ May 3, 2017 12:02

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

The payments are a mix of things like our share of pensions for Commission workers (some of whom are Brits) as well as money we've agreed to spend as part of the 5-year budgeting process but which hasn't actually been spent yet. This gives a good summary:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/brexit-explained/eu-divorce-bill

We should get a small share of assets too, but not nearly enough to cancel out the bill.

We could unilaterally refuse to pay, but because Europe has the upper hand in the Brexit negotiations they could impose a whole bunch of consequences that would be more unpleasant for us than them. Juncker already said there'd be no free trade deal if we didn't pay, for instance.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 13:32 on May 3, 2017

# ¿ May 3, 2017 13:30

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

bessantj posted:

Being unemployed I find that I am doing more gardening and I don't think the belt is helping so this sounds great. Where do you get your from and do they have sizes or is it more of a one size fits all type thing?

Just do your gardening in salopettes?

# ¿ May 3, 2017 14:54

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Guavanaut posted:

Were they equally outraged about half of Boston moving here because some number of Irish people there would be entitled to a passport?

The secret of Boston is that there are no actually-Irish people there

# ¿ May 3, 2017 20:45

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

awesome-express posted:

So um, after 1.9 years of legal back and forths, one appeal, and countless thousands of pounds spent, I have apparently just been granted UK citizenship. Just got off the phone with my lawyer. This dirty EU person is now allowed to legally moan about the weather and complain about everything.

Omfg I'll be able to vote in the upcoming general election.

Bad luck mate. Condolences.

# ¿ May 4, 2017 17:59

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

spectralent posted:

Said woman provided the answer here, too: "You watch all these programs like benefit street..."

In short, yeah, these cases are astonishingly rare, but they're always the example cases that're showcased in national media and TV programs, so they're the cases everyone thinks of as "the typical benefits case".

I'd fully agree but I was doing the admin stuff for my runner.

It's all nonsense anyway. Under the Tories anyone with kids faces a ~70% marginal tax rate on all their income between £50 and £60k due to the way the child-benefit taper works. And because it's done per person rather than per household, a family made up of two people earning £50k each gets to keep child benefit while a good old nuclear family of strivers, in which pater is pulling down 100k while mother stays at home looking after the kids doesn't.

It's a classic tax trap and although most people don't earn that much it still applies to more people than the benefits nonsense does. But none of the temporarily-embarrassed rich people who vote Theresa May Party give a poo poo

# ¿ May 5, 2017 08:12

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

serious gaylord posted:

The GE is going to be a massacre.

We knew this, though. The Theresa May Party will crush all saboteurs. All hail the Great Brexit Helmswoman

# ¿ May 5, 2017 08:13

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

TACD posted:

The Graun had an article with basically the same conclusion; pointing out that while people are starting to reject global capitalism, only the far right is claiming to offer an alternative. The left (other than Corbyn who of course is just a silly jam man) are now just promising to sustain the status quo instead of seizing on the rare opportunity to offer positive change.

I'm not totally convinced by this. The status quo that the left is defending* is Britain's membership of a big trading bloc that imposes tariffs on those outside the bloc and has strong protections for workers inside it. The right, in its penetrating critique of global capitalism, wants to blow all that up and turn Britain into a rainier Somalia, because this will make us all rich.

*Except it isn't because even Labour is pro-Brexit now

# ¿ May 5, 2017 08:28

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Namtab posted:

Hope is real, like anime

But, also like anime, it's a terrible idea

# ¿ May 5, 2017 08:38

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

spectralent posted:

Brian Cox, Prime Minister would be something to see. I have no idea what his policies are but it'd be nice to have someone not completely scientifically illiterate running things for a change.

He'd replace PMQs with everyone sitting round a campfire in some remote desert staring wistfully into space

# ¿ May 5, 2017 11:18

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Ewan posted:

I don't quite understand the leap to saying it makes end-to-end encryption by messaging apps (and e.g. VPNs) illegal.

The document says that it applies to telecommunications operators (i.e. ISPs and the phone network providers), and obliges them to provide the means to:
to remove any electronic protection applied by or on behalf of the telecommunications operator to the data.

I'm not clear whether the encryption provided by e.g. WhatsApp falls under this category - WhatsApp (which I presume doesn't count as a "telecoms operator") doesn't have a relation with the telecoms operator, and its encryption is not provided "on their behalf". Further, even if it does fall within the "on behalf of" category, I can't see how the telecoms operators could even implement the obligation unless they end up obliged to install spyware on the phones themselves that read the messages before they are encrypted? Similarly, the encryption provided by a commercial VPN company is not done "on behalf of the telecoms operator", and how do you oblige e.g. a foreign company?

It says " including" ISPs and telcos, not just them. Later on it talks about communications "platforms", which would include WhatsApp etc.

It also says:

quote:

"provide and maintain the capability to disclose, where practicable, the content of communications or secondary data in an intelligible form and to remove electronic protection applied by or on behalf of the telecommunications operator to the communications or data."

" where practicable " seems like a possible get-out clause...

# ¿ May 5, 2017 11:23

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

quote:

The number of people hit by the benefit cap has trebled in three months, according to government figures published today.

The statistics are the first to show the impact of the lowering of the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 a year in London and £20,000 a year elsewhere. The cap limits welfare payments to households that are not working regularly

The lowering of the cap has spread its impact well beyond the capital, with the numbers having their benefits payment restricted shooting up from 20,000 households in November - just before the reduced cap took effect - to 66,000 in February.

The number affected is lower than forecast in the impact assessment of the changes, which was published last year. However, those affected are being hit hard - with around half losing at least £2,500 a year.

The benefit cap is supposed to act as an incentive to find employment. Those who find at least 16 hours of work per week are allowed to receive their full level of benefit, including housing benefit and child benefit.

Earlier this week the Department for Work and Pensions select committee published evidence that the reduced cap was leading to sharp rises in the number of people affected outside London, with increased workloads for Citizens Advice and homelessness charities as people struggled to cope with the sudden loss of income.

Poverty charity Turn2Us told the committee that their helpline was fielding calls from pregnant women asking what benefits they would receive if they continued with the pregnancy, "citing that the outcome will help them to decide whether they continue with the pregnancy or terminate it".

Fewer than one in six people hit by the benefit cap are receiving benefits that actually require them to try and find work - suggesting that the cap is hitting thousands of people who have little chance of getting a job.

The figures show that just 16% of those affected by the cap are receiving Jobseekers Allowance - whose recipients are expected to try and find work.

This is barely higher than the 15% who are receiving the ESA "work related activity" disability benefit, which requires claimants to prepare for a return to the workplace, but not to actually find a job.

More than half of claimants affected by the cap receive Income Support, which is mostly paid to single parents, and fully 91% are in receipt of child tax credit - neither of which requires claimants to try and find work.

This reflects the huge impact the benefit cap has on single parents. Forty-eight thousand households - 72% of those hit by the cap - are single parent families. Fifty-five thousand are households with between one and four children, while a further 6,800 have five or more children. The lowering of the cap has had a particular impact on households with three children.

Halton Housing Trust told the DWP Select Committee that the initial response from tenants affected by the reduced cap was to apply for emergency funding or for those disability benefits that are exempt from the cap. The Trust said in its evidence to the committee: "Where there are concerns about the lower benefit cap, it does not initially act as an incentive to find work."

The lower benefit cap is expected to put pressure on tenants. London Councils, which represents local authorities in the capital, warned the committee: "It will be increasingly unviable for households to avoid the cap by moving to lower value areas (including areas outside of London) given that housing costs will be more widely unaffordable."

The think tank Policy in Practice told the committee that the benefit cap more than doubles the average gap between housing benefit and rent for families in temporary housing, leaving councils to plug the gap. Croydon alone could face extra costs of £1.1m as a result.

As some goon put it the other day: It is a basic tenet of Conservatism that poor people only work harder if they are given less money, but rich people only work harder if they are given more money

# ¿ May 5, 2017 17:28

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Darth Walrus posted:

I'm not disputing that. I'm just wondering why the specific order of negotiations matters, because I'm legit unsure.

This was helpful:

They matter because of the two-year countdown. Negotiating a trade deal with the EU in two years is probably impossible anyway, but Britain wants trade talks to run in parallel with the divorce settlement talks because two years is better than nothing. The EU's position is that no, the divorce settlement comes first, then we can talk about trade once that's finished. Which would give Britain even less time to negotiate and in practice could well mean we either crash out with no trade deal at all or some last-minute transitional arrangement is put in place that probably just maintains the status quo (free movement, ECJ jurisdiction, budget contributions etc) until the trade talks are done (in 2028 or whenever.)

The Brexiteers were adamant that we could conduct negotiations in parallel despite the EU saying they didn't want to. They were wrong and people said so at the time, now reality is just confirming it.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 14:38 on May 6, 2017

# ¿ May 6, 2017 14:33

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Regarde Aduck posted:

I think, and therefore might be terribly wrong, that most remainers have given up on the issue and just aren't voting. Which is a pity because they're playing into the self-fulfilling prophecy that remainers don't exist and the country is united.

Yeah. I think a fair number of people have accepted the argument that if we've voted as a nation to ritually disembowel ourselves the best thing to do is not, you know, think again, but to start sharpening the sword and popping down to Paperchase to buy some nice paper for the death haiku

# ¿ May 7, 2017 09:21

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Party Boat posted:

Anyone who is a Brexit supporter should be absolutely livid with the way the government is conducting itself at the moment. David Allen Green had a good piece in the FT lately arguing that current government policy seems to be to sabotage Brexit without appearing to do so:

I read that piece. It doesn't explicitly state the government is playing 14-dimensional chess and secretly sabotaging the talks in the hope of having to Remain, but it skates amusingly close

# ¿ May 7, 2017 11:21

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Darth Walrus posted:

Blame it on the Europeans while the May government uses emergency powers to blunt the democratic backlash, presumably.

Yeah. You can already see this happening with that paranoid speech about how the evil Eurocrats are trying to fiddle the Great Patriotic Election*. Anything bad will be used as evidence that the EU is evil and we were right to leave.

*Presumably by putting Labour in power so that Brexit can, err, happen anyway? Even by the standards of delusional bollocks it makes no sense

# ¿ May 7, 2017 11:21

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Party Boat posted:

I prefer the interpretation that the government knows Brexit is going to be too difficult to make successful, so isn't even trying and is looking to shore up their voter base instead.

Yeah, this is probably right. Maybe they can get a good deal on more German water cannons before the tariffs kick in.

# ¿ May 7, 2017 11:27

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonDrizzle posted:

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/861167745559392256

I'm sure there are many complex reasons for this, none of them to do with lack of money

# ¿ May 7, 2017 12:41

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Mega off-topic, but just wondered if anyone here has experience with inguinal hernia repair? I'm getting the op done next week. I do bouldering and rock climbing and am basically wondering how quickly I can get back to it. The docs say six weeks, but I'm dubious - climbing often involves a lot of intense core exercise and I don't want to go back too early and make things worse. If anyone's into weightlifting or gymnastics or bodyweight exercises and has had anything similar I'd love to hear what happened and how long it took you to get back to normal.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 22:30 on May 7, 2017

# ¿ May 7, 2017 22:27

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

jabby posted:

At 6 weeks the strength of the repair will have reached about 80% of maximum. The usual advice is that if you need to lift more than 10kg (which presumably climbing involves) you should wait 6-8 weeks after the surgery, and proceed slowly. The benefit of waiting longer than 8 weeks is going to be dubious because by that point the repair will be almost as strong as it's going to get.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 00:48 on May 8, 2017

# ¿ May 8, 2017 00:43

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Oberleutnant posted:

christ what a wanker

I mean presumably this was the reason for the poster, yes.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 13:33

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonDrizzle posted:

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/theresa-may/news/85751/theresa-may-give-me-mandate-big

That is quite some chutzpah.

I reckon it will play quite well with the average dolt who has no idea that Macron won't actually be taking part in the Brexit negotiations because they don't know the first thing about how Europe works.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 13:36

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Wales voted for Brexit. People aren't voting for the Conservative party. They're voting for the Theresa May Brexit Government.

You have to wonder if this is a gateway drug, though, the way UKIP seems to have been a gateway drug to Toryism for a bunch of former Labour voters.

The combination of Brexit and the thousand year Tory reich is going to suck so bad. Tempted to pick a sunny EU country and move there.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 21:53

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

icantfindaname posted:

I have a question about UK labour law. I'm reading wikipedia and from what I can tell, the UK basically has the equivalent of nationwide right-to-work, in American terms, IE employees cannot be forced to join a union that is recognized as representing a particular workplace? Is that accurate?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Union_and_Labour_Relations_(Consolidation)_Act_1992#Part_III.2C_Union_activity_rights

I'm not 100% sure what right-to-work is but closed shops (where all workers must be union members) are pretty much illegal in the UK.

# ¿ May 9, 2017 07:16

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

edit: nm, been covered already

Zephro fucked around with this message at 10:24 on May 9, 2017

# ¿ May 9, 2017 10:20

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

dispatch_async posted:

YouGov have tried to break down some of the flows:

I'm struggling to think what kind of Lib Dem voter would go UKIP. People are weird.

# ¿ May 9, 2017 10:23

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonDrizzle posted:

The kind that voted for them in 2010 as a protest against Labour and Cameron's Tories?

Maybe, but why wouldnt' they just have voted UKIP at the time? The Lib Dems are pretty much the direct opposite of UKIP - liberal economics and liberal socially, pro-EU and in favour of immigration. There's literally zero crossover. At least you can make sense of some Labour voters going UKIP (social conservatives; people who swallow the pro-NHS pro-welfare state rhetoric they occasionally come out with; racists).

# ¿ May 9, 2017 10:51

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

LemonyTang posted:

This is a disgrace. Absolute stupidity.

Especially since, as a resident of Surrey South West, I can confirm that Labour had absolutely no chance of winning the seat in any case.

# ¿ May 9, 2017 12:45

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Also this is good and Brexit-related and you should watch it and post it on your Face Books and Chat Snaps or whatever you young people use to talk to each other these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TZjJMBImsY

# ¿ May 9, 2017 12:48

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Zephro posted:

Also this is good and Brexit-related and you should watch it and post it on your Face Books and Chat Snaps or whatever you young people use to talk to each other these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TZjJMBImsY

One reason it's good is it turns the standard Brexiteer boo-words (bureaucracy, regulation etc) against Brexit by pointing out just how much paperwork is going to rain down on British manufacturing in 22 months' time

# ¿ May 9, 2017 12:51

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

forkboy84 posted:

I'd say that the Lib Dems are closer to the US Democrats. There's some libertarians in the Lib Dems but generally they have a lot of members who are more social liberals. Thank god but for the time being libertarianism just isn't a massive thing here. UKIP are probably the natural party for libertarians, though they have to pretend to not be to appeal to working class voters who actually like things like the NHS. But their leader Paul Nuttall is a libertarian, & so was Farage.

Yeah, pretty much. If any forrins are interested in our vicious, petty little election, the Lib Dems are a strange welding of social democrats and classical liberals. They're the old Liberal party fused with the Social Democratic Party, a short-lived splinter from Labour that was active briefly in the 1980s.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 14:31 on May 9, 2017

# ¿ May 9, 2017 14:29

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Jose posted:

the guy who tried to scam ladbrokes on twitter is a sov cit with a series of him getting arrested lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx74EYZ06Es

He seems to basically be a nutter with a bunch of unpaid bills and a massive chip on his shoulder who blathers on about THE RESISTANCE and hassles random British Gas people going about their jobs?

# ¿ May 9, 2017 14:46

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

So Corbyn was asked half a dozen times by Laura Kuenssberg whether Brexit would still happen if Labour won and he dodged the question every time. I get the impression Labour are trying to be clever by being all things to all people on Brexit and creating what they imagine is useful ambiguity so that both Remainers and Leavers will feel they can vote for them. But it isn't working - they just look like idiots and/or crypto-Leavers who don't have the courage to say so out loud.

# ¿ May 9, 2017 15:55

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 01:27

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Also this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2017/may/09/cuts-anger-frustration-and-labour-still-cant-break-through-video

The whole thing is interesting, (and depressing, especially the closed childrens' centres) but the Tory councillor running on an anti-cuts message is the weirdest, even if he just burbles on about waste and efficiency savings and so on.

edit: also the bit where Harris talks to someone who says "well, Labour say they'll reverse the cuts, but they won't win, so I'm going to vote Tory". And Harris says "so wait you're saying you want the cuts reversed, but you don't think Labour will win, so you'll vote for a party that's promised even more spending cuts?" and the guy just goes "Yup, that's it." :psyduck:

# ¿ May 9, 2017 16:03

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