Brexit View

[keano77]

Of the 59% in favour you quote Rendel, how many owned and drove cars and were likely to be affected by the charge? Please tell.

[Sue]

keano77 Wrote:

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> I don?t know. You keep quoting dodgy statistics

> from dodgy polls. I?ve never met anyone who has

> answered pollsters questions (or admitted to it)

> so it begs the question as to who answers such

> questions and the reliability of the answers.

Well I quite often answer political polls, for one.

[diable rouge]

keano77 Wrote:

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> diable rouge Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Dubai, built from modern day

> slavery/exploitation

> > of immigrants.

> > Happy New Year serfs...

> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7985361.stm

>

> How do you think Britain was built historically?

Modern day slavery. I know Brextremists want to transport us back to bartering and rickets, but most of us have learnt from history and don't want to see the bad parts of it repeated...

[diable rouge]

Sue Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> keano77 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I don?t know. You keep quoting dodgy statistics

> > from dodgy polls. I?ve never met anyone who has

> > answered pollsters questions (or admitted to

> it)

> > so it begs the question as to who answers such

> > questions and the reliability of the answers.

>

>

> Well I quite often answer political polls, for

> one.

I used to get stopped by pollsters when I worked in Borough/Elephant, Mori are (were?) based in that area...

[rendelharris]

keano77 Wrote:

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> Of the 59% in favour you quote Rendel, how many

> owned and drove cars and were likely to be

> affected by the charge? Please tell.

Ah, do you believe only affected drivers should be consulted on measures aimed at improving air quality? Presumably only those earning over ?100k should be consulted on the top rate of tax? Perhaps only burglars should be consulted about sentencing guidelines?

[keano77]

I didn?t expect you to know the answer Rendel, it was an unfair question. My point still stands with these polls/surveys. We don?t know who answers the questions or why so they should be treated with caution.

If the 59% in favour all rode bicycles, used public transport or commuted into London by train you?d have to question the result in favour of yet another money making racket using vehicle drivers as cash cows.

[rendelharris]

keano77 Wrote:

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> I didn?t expect you to know the answer Rendel, it

> was an unfair question. My point still stands with

> these polls/surveys. We don?t know who answers the

> questions or why so they should be treated with

> caution.

>

> If the 59% in favour all rode bicycles, used

> public transport or commuted into London by train

> you?d have to question the result in favour of yet

> another money making racket using vehicle drivers

> as cash cows.

They'd still breathe the same air and so have as much right to influence measures related to improving air quality as anyone else.

Reputable polling companies (Gallup, MORI etc) use a raft of sophisticated scientific sampling techniques to ensure that their polls are representative of the population as a whole, weighted for a wide range of variables (and give their margins for error with them). You can't simply dismiss all polling on a "I don't know who answered the questions" basis just because the results don't concur with your particular worldview. I'm fairly sure that if a poll showed, for example, that 75% of Londoners thought Sadiq Khan was doing a bad job and should resign immediately you'd be quoting it with glee.

[keano77]

?They'd still breathe the same air and so have as much right to influence measures related to improving air quality as anyone else.?

True. How many of them have ordered items online and have couriers in vans delivering them to work? How many companies are using couriers to send and receive documents. Most of the traffic in the CC is there to meet demand and supply services. They are not Sunday drivers.

I wonder how many of that 59% would agree with a proposal to pay, say, a ?5 tax for every home delivery ordered online, from clothes to pizzas etc. And even if they did it probably wouldn?t make the slightest difference to air quality. Until all cars are fuelled by hydrogen things probably won?t improve.

[rendelharris]

We're getting a bit away from Brexit here, aren't we? However, to answer your point, yes most of the traffic in the CC is supply services, and the ULEZ is a measure to restrict the pollution they cause by the not exactly stringent means of making sure all vehicles adhere to the standards mandated thirteen years ago.

So your last sentence implies that making vehicles cut emissions won't, um, reduce emissions pollution?

[JohnL]

keano77 Wrote:

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> Further you always quote figures to support your

> arguments that purport to show a majority in

> favour. Yet one of the main things the Brexit

> referendum showed is just under half the

> population do not understand, or refuse to accept,

> what a majority vote means in a democracy.

That's why I want to wait until the guilt for corruption of the 2016 vote is proved beyond reasonable doubt. I think it'll move fast now - rumours something big is about to happen over the Atlantic too.

[malumbu]

In deed getting off thread but to introduce some balance the concept of the ULEZ was introduced by Boris, with the intention of tightening it/extending it in future. Poor Sadiq must have struggled - damn that was a good idea of Boris, what can I do to diss it? Ah, I'll say it is not ambitious enough and bring it forward.

Why a Tory Mayor came up with such an interventionist anti-car policy, that alienated some of his key supporters particularly those in the outer boroughs, in an interesting question.

We could also look to some of our 'friends' in Europe who have much more progressive environmental policies but also worryingly seeing the populist backlash for a President who dares to put up fuel duty. Of course it is not just fuel duty that they are protesting about, but a good sign of how we may dilute action to tackle climate change once we have returned to narrow minded little England at the end of March. Although it was our own courts not Brussels that ordered us to clean up our air.

[rendelharris]

By the way, back to Brexit:

keano77 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Further you always quote figures to support your

> arguments that purport to show a majority in

> favour. Yet one of the main things the Brexit

> referendum showed is just under half the

> population do not understand, or refuse to accept,

> what a majority vote means in a democracy.

Another thing it's shown is that just over half the population don't understand, or refuse to accept, that the result of a non-binding, non-mandatory, advisory referendum is non-binding, non-mandatory, and only advisory.

[keano77]

Now let me think ... if Remainers were to win* a so-called ?people?s vote? you would expect the decision to be honoured and implemented?

* translation for Remainers: ?win? here means a majority decision, ie, a least one more than the losing vote tally

[rendelharris]

keano77 Wrote:

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> Now let me think ... if Remainers were to win* a

> so-called ?people?s vote? you would expect the

> decision to be honoured and implemented?

>

> * translation for Remainers: ?win? here means a

> majority decision, ie, a least one more than the

> losing vote tally

That would depend if it was constitutionally set up as a binding referendum, by the result of which the UKGov was legally obliged to abide - which the last one, as you well know, wasn't.

[JohnL]

Steve Bray has a new boat outside the commons - He's called it SS Disaster and you could see it bobbling around behind the presenters this morning on Sky - They actually mentioned it too.

[diable rouge]

Currently in a traffic jam waiting to get in to the fake traffic jam.

The. State. Of. This. Country...https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1082173234643120129

[Innocence]

Hi all,

I'm an East Dulwich resident, and I've been working in the international development sector for several years and thought this forum would be a good place to share my thoughts on Brexit.

Just this week, I've published a paper relating to the impact of Brexit on UK development policy. It is available on Amazon, with the title 'DfID 2.0: UK development policy post Brexit'.

Link here: https://www.amazon.com/DfID-2-0-development-policy-post-brexit-ebook/dp/B07MPT6WKD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546887410&sr=8-1&keywords=DFID+2.0

Summary here:

The UK?s departure from the European Union (EU) is by far the biggest change to the UK?s foreign relations since World War II. It sees the repatriation of many powers relating to foreign affairs, trade and international development.

An underexplored subject in all the Brexit commentary both before and since the referendum is the impact Brexit could or will have on UK development policy, particularly the role of the Department for International Development (DfID). With the repatriation of trade policy, and the removal of the UK from the common agricultural policy, there is significant scope for the UK to develop it's own tailored trade and development approach to developing countries.

The UK is a generous aid donor, being one of the few rich economies to devote 0.7% of Gross National Income to development, a percentage of GNI which far exceeds that of the USA, France or Germany to name a few. It also has an open economy, and a desire to reduce many of the tariffs and non-tariff barriers which it has imposed as part of the EU.

Thus, this creates an exciting opportunity for UK policy makers to develop creative and tailored trade and development partnership with developing countries, which are also emerging markets which will play a growing role in world trade in the decades to come.

This book, written by a consultant with experience in many developing countries and for many international organisations, including DfID and the World Bank, sets out some thoughts for how UK development policy can adapt to this new world and can integrate closer trade relationships with developing countries into it's development policy.

Foremost amongst the reforms are that DfID should remain a stand-alone department but should renamed the Department for International Partnerships. This reform will refocus the department on establishing partnerships between the UK and developing countries which will include deep trade agreements alongside UK provided development.

The paper additionally argues that the UK's primary advantage in the development sector is its provision of high quality technical assistance, understandable given the UK strengths in the services industry. UK consulting expertise in government and economic reform should play a growing role in UK development policy as part of a strategic initiative to combine UK's development agenda with its trade agenda.

Hope you enjoy reading,

Steve

[JoeLeg]

TL:DR - Please give me money to read my theories on how a post-Brexit UK can try and rip off developing nations when we can?t get good trade deals with the big kids.

Jog on...

[Blah Blah]

So Steve32 is now 'Innocence'. Good to know.

[Trinnydad]

Steve,

Sorry to put the mockers on your DFID2 paper but Brexit will have a negative effect on the UK economy and this could be mitigated by cutting back on foreign aid and spending the money here. Our foreign aid expenditure is running at around ?14bn per annum. That is over one billion a month!

It was Gordon Brown that committed the UK to spend 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid, in perpetuity, at a time when the government was was running a massive fiscal deficit. It's simply madness for the UK to borrow money from overesas creditors just to give it away on foreign aid. The UK national debt is in excess of ?1 trillion and it's increasing every day.

Much of this aid is spent without us having any control over it because we give it to multilateral agencies. On a unilateral basis we give millions in aid to India whilst India spends millions on a spece research programme.

DFID have have been given so much money to hand out that they have run out of decent projects to fund and have resorted to handing out currency (cash handouts) in countries like Zambia.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/19/zambia-aid-payments-suspended-over-corruption-allegations

A sad and inescapable fact is that a high percentage of foreign aid is wasted and/or diverted through corruption. The intended recipients ultimately receive very little benefit in many cases.

When it comes to Brexit, there will be a pressing need to spend the aid here to off-set the downside(s).

[Innocence]

Hi Trinnydad,

The impact of Brexit on the economy is beyond the scope of the paper although it's a valid point you make.

0.7% is in law so it's very hard to change (especially for a government with no majority).

So, the question is hand to effectively spend it.

I'm also v.sceptical about multilateral agencies, especially UN ones sadly.

i think the amount wasted via corruption etc is v.much exaggerated. It's been a huge problem in the past but at least with DfID there are generally v.strong controls in place. Also lots of the aid goes through UK and other providers and is not provided to government directly as many believe.

[natty01295]

I hope we will Not be worst off,

But i hope we are better off cheaper everything

[alex_b]

With the fall in the value of the pound we're already worse off. With the addition of tariffs on EU goods things will get even more expensive. I don't see how Brexit can lead to cheaper anything without a) massive reduction of standards, b) total destruction of domestic production (particularly for food) or c) both.

[JohnL]

natty01295 Wrote:

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> I hope we will Not be worst off,

>

> But i hope we are better off cheaper everything

Can't believe much will be cheaper even if wages are driven down and standards broken (chlorinated chicken).

I expect food to increase by a bit.

[diable rouge]

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