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L00b

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Posts posted by L00b


  1. 42 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

    Mardy bum. 

    ‘If you have nothing to say’, hey?

    41 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

    I think you need to read what a fascist is

     

    Heres a clue....its not someone who thinks differently from you

    What makes you think that I don’t know what a fascist is, Jack?

     


  2. 18 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

    Shes your home secretary too

    She isn’t, you know.

     

    Mine is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taina_Bofferding

    18 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

    What makes her a fascist? 

    If that needs explaining to you by now, on page 1464 of this Conservatives thread (and that’s without mentioning all topical asides about her in other political threads, e.g. boats/immigrants, civil liberty-relevant bills, Brexit and more), I’m not really interested in pursuing this aside with you further.

     

    Especially with your potential reading comprehension issues.


  3. 1 hour ago, Jack Grey said:

    Let me rephrase my question

     

    Can a Black or Asian person be a 'Gammon'?

     

    Or a 'Neo-Fascist'? 

    I don’t see why not.
     

    There is ample historical evidence supporting the notion, and your Home Secretary is all the recent evidence you need, really 🙂


  4. 31 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

    Does the term Gammon apply to everyone who votes Tory?

     

    Ive never heard a black/asian person be called a Gammon

     

    The left usually have more exotic terms for them 

     

    Are the black/asian voters also neo-fascists?

     

    Im just trying to clarify

     

    Its like ive never heard a black/asian person be called a Karen either....thats a term used for angry white women 

    Do you have issues with reading comprehension?

     

    I feel compelled to ask, given my preceding post: “Not all Tory voters are Gammons”.

     

    ’the left’ certainly has its contingent of Gammons, demonstrated by the horseshoe political theory. But then, this is the Conservatives Party thread.

    • Like 1

  5. 13 hours ago, hackey lad said:

    "Gammons " :rolleyes:

    Yep.

     

    Not all Tory voters are Gammons.

     

    But all Gammons vote Tory or Reform or some similar hard right party virtue-signalling their neofascist tendencies.

     

    ‘been over this countless times with the Leave vote already - same political arithmetic.

     

    😘


  6. 28 minutes ago, ads36 said:

    Labour don't have a choice,

     

    The tories are bobbling along at about 30% in the polls. 

     

    They only need 40% to win the next GE.

     

    If Labour want to win, they have to get votes from people who were happy to vote for tories at the last election : at that means pro Brexit.

     

    Kier Starmer *could* say something pragmatic about the EU : 'it would solve a lot of problems if we joined the customs union' - and it would guarantee a conservative win at the next GE. 

     

    not because Brexit is massively popular, but because those 'missing' 10% think it's important.

     

    I understand that ‘arithmetic’ well, ads36.

     

    It never had any merit, but politically it made sense in the 2017-2021 (-at a stretch) context.

     

    The issue is that it is so long past its sell-by-date by know, as to be firmly into ever-diminishing-returns territory: Starmer gains nothing for Labour by amping up divisive rethoric à la “EU is stealing our lunch and our dinner money” in red tops.

     

    Gammons will still vote Tory or some other fringe hard right party next year, because they are at least as susceptible to Tory “vote Labour and you’ll get poorer/meeellions of LGBTQNYZ muslamic immigrunts” dog whistles.

     

    Floating voters, many (most according to historical tracking polls) of whom understand well that the EU isn’t stealing anything, rather the UK is burning fivers by the kilo whilst giving the rods to all, will go LibDems, Greens or others, instead of voting for yet another ‘leopard will eat your face’ party, only with a different coat pattern.

     

    Kier Farage should just clam up about Brexit, like Corbyn did for so long. Now it makes sense to do so. Instead of boxing himself up into a political corner like Theresa May did throughout 2017 and 2018.


  7. 2 hours ago, Slinny said:

    What’s the betting for the next election.  Or will it be rigged,

    Conservatives will try and rig it for they’re worth, but will get purĂ©ed just the same.

     

    Labour, on their current trajectory with hard right/Brexity discourse, pushing a lot of their electorate towards LibDems, Greens and others, will not be doing anywhere near as well as they think.

     

    Hung Parliament. With any chance 😉


  8. 5 hours ago, Mister M said:

    <
>

    Sewerella has been keeping a low profile today, sending honest Bob Jenrick out to answer the difficult questions for her. She was probably too busy asking her civil servants to do inappropriate things for her.

    She was on her driver awareness course. Came back around 16:00.

     

     

     

     

    • Haha 2

  9. The EU27 can easily mitigate that £800m wedge of British taxpayers’ incentive (they also got a £300m wedge for steel, in case anyone missed that), through rules of origin.

     

    Tata are obviously gambling -with British taxpayers money- on the UK eventually reaching that Singapore-on-Thames status, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the factories (should it all actually go through) set up on freeports (micro-legislated and -governed by their owners, not the UK).

     

    Great deal for shareholders.

     

    But for the average Brit worker
seen how those Apple factories are run in China?


  10. 10 minutes ago, Magilla said:

    The problem, as I understand it, is whether that is what really happened.

     

    It seems it would be unusual for this query to have initiated the seeking of "advice" higher up... if that were the case.

    The problem, is that this mountain built on that speeding fine molehill, advantageously distracted the wider public from the other problem, and this time averred, of Braverman taking a fiduciary interest in a charity training lawyers in Rwanda for the last 5 years.

     

    Otherwise known as a conflict of interests.

     

    
then again, not that we’re still counting them, like. Because what’s the point: apparently nobody gives a monkey anyway 🙄


  11. It looks like Russian defense-probing by deniable assets.

     

    Ukraine needs to find the softest Russian underbelly along the entire frontline (hundreds of kms), at which to concentrate its counterattack. 

     

    Now whether Ukraine controls these Russian units actively, or passively, or even not at all,  their doing that probing is very useful, both tactically and strategically.

     

    Other, similar probes started today in other areas along the border with the Belgorod oblast.

     

    I’d expect still more to occur, up and down the front in the coming days and weeks.

     

    (EDIT: and far from Russia having ‘eradicated’ them, they are pushing further into Belgorod right now)


  12. 37 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

    Would France let us open two application centres ?

    France has suggested exactly that (plus, you have a large embassy in Paris, so there’s one already), several times.

     

    At least twice in recent years, as I recall, and certainly once in late 2021. And has been turned down each time.

     

    Now ask yourself why 😏


  13. 3 hours ago, cressida said:

    The Tories cannot implement any procedure for stopping the illegal immigrants,  take Albania,  why so many,  I've not read that it's an unsafe country,  they Tories have failed and are supposedly offering a last ditch effort - at the end of the year,  why not now,  this will cost them thousands of votes imo.

    ‘Stopping illegal immigrants’ (well, most of it) could be as easy as opening two application centres in France, one in Paris, the other in the vicinity of Calais, let immigrants -both asylum seekers and genuine (as in, non-trafficked) economic migrants- apply there, and process the claims (there and/or in the U.K.)

     

    That would reduce the total volume of dinghy-boarding migrants very significantly,

    (I) because the majority of claims by asylum seekers are assessed as genuine and granted (>70%, IIRC) [they don’t need to travel in a dinghy, once granted asylum]

    (II) because economic migrants can be ready-matched with workforce requirements from open visa slots [they don’t need to travel in a dinghy, once granted a working visa]

    (III) because removing (I) & (II) above from the volume of trafficable migrants would severely hurt the profitability of people smuggling for the criminals that practice it


    The procedural evidence to date is that successive Tory governments have instead-

     

    (A) effectively closed just about every immigration route available to asylum seekers and undeclared economic migrants (undeclared = both those trafficked (mostly Albanians, shipped in as slavework for clandestine cannabis farms and suchlike, and those not applying for a work visa in advance who know they’d get chucked at airport customs); and

     

    (B) effectively ceased processing immigration cases to make the problem ever worse (which is why you have so many immigrants in temporary accommodation)

     

    -whereby any migrant willing and wanting to enter the UK must use the smugglers and dinghies.

     

    In 2-3 words as in the whole essay above: politicians (yes, even Labour ones) see an electoral benefit in keeping you all excited (read: divided) over immigration, and those with the power to do something about it good or bad (the Tories in government) choose to keep doing something about it bad (as in, make it ever more dysfunctional, so the problem never gets solved), because it keeps you all excited - and round and round she goes.

     

    😐


  14. Talks about the allocation of the third central seat of the Unified Patent Court just concluded, it is going to Milan, Italy.

     

    https://www.esteri.it/en/sala_stampa/archivionotizie/comunicati/2023/05/tribunale-unico-dei-brevetti-italia-otterra-sezione-distaccata-per-milano/


    For reference, London was originally slated to get one of the two central seats.

     

    https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2017/06/to-upc-or-not-to-upc-that-is-question.html

     

    Then Brexit happened, the hard one wherein the UK must escape the jurisdiction of the CJEU in any way, shape or form. 
     

    So the UK, one of the main builders and most influential backers of the UPC Agreement back in the day, and first out of the block with kitting out an actual UPC seat with an office and everything


     

    
got nothing.
     

    As clear a direct and unambiguous a consequence of Brexit, as I’ve seen. And a most spectacular own goal, in this very niche area wherein the UK could have become as global a player in IP disputes, as the City got to be as a financial center.


  15. 47 minutes ago, harvey19 said:

    <
>

    We thought Luxembourg  was a lovely country and the people friendly when we visited.

    It is that. The Mrs calls it ‘Oz’, of Hollywood fame. That goes in the ‘plus’ side, in respect of my earlier reply.

     

    And the people are friendly. The fact that around half (48%) of the population is not Luxembourgish, but comes from literally all 4 corners of the earth, very probably has something to do with it; likewise Luxembourgers’ long memories of being a poor country (pre mid/late 80s) and knocked about by their larger neighbours last century and a bit.

     

    They remind of Yorkshire folk, in some respects. ‘Before’, that is.

    • Like 1

  16. Just now, harvey19 said:

    It could have been done better and you give an example to prove it.

    harvey, the example I gave you is not an example of how it “could have been done better”, it’s an example of how it did not matter how hard or soft Brexit got done, the UK profession was always going to lose those rights of access once Brexit happened, no matter what.

    4 minutes ago, harvey19 said:

    On a personal note has Brexit improved your life by you moving to Luxembourg ?

    In some respects yes, in other respects no, but on balance yes.
     

    That work which UK colleagues lost the right to do? I’ve doing a lot more of it since 😉

    • Like 1

  17. 3 hours ago, harvey19 said:

    In essence you now realise why I gave the examples that I did and that you agree the sea border will be changed <
>

    No, the exact contrary.
     

    But then, where we appear to differ -quite fundamentally- is that I see and take the world as it is, and that I understand what can and cannot happen within that context.

     

    Which is exactly how and why I could predict before the referendum that, come actual Brexit, my profession in the U.K. would lose their right of access to national and European IP offices, and consequently stop being capable of rendering direct professional services to their clients there from the U.K. (as they had been able to do since the early 90s), whereby the work -and turnover- would be either passed to their EU-based subsidiaries (existing for few large players, or yet to be created -complete with EU27 employees- for mitigating Brexit) or to their EU27 competitors (mostly French and German)


     

    
and which exactly what happened on actual Brexit day-

     

    https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/-/news/uk-representatives-brexit?TSPD_101_R0=089375ec4aab200007545f471e8859d7d0d3889fcf62f2d282ce1066968da962b5f091dbd8fcdcd70833fbd7e8143000031277b41d1feb1ffc9a7a1ccab7e130d46a7823784bb1060d03cb340a422ab246cd3ca1424c4459c96c6e3e2ced3fbe

     

    -the entire lot of UK-based trademark attorneys were turfed out of the list of professional representatives at the EUIPO on the day, likewise at national IP offices across the EU27, and the work had to be redistributed into the EU27.

     

    One actual, real-life, long-predicted and duly-come-about consequence of Brexit, which cannot be undone, arranged, renegotiated or otherwise ‘made better’ in the short or medium term, because to be able to do the work directly, you need to have the rights of audience, and to have those, you need to be in the EU (for the specific example I gave, triple condition actually: EU national, EU qualification, working in/from the EU. Brits had been all of that until Brexit day, then they ceased to be any of that on Brexit day).
     

    One actual, real-life, long-predicted and duly-come-about consequence of Brexit, and there have been thousands more like it, and thousands still occurring now, as the thing continues to ripple on.

     

    You just want to pray for best and then grin and bear it all, without trying to understand why your prayers have nil chances of being realised. Hey-Ho.


  18. 1 minute ago, harvey19 said:

    Mister Ms question was a general one and he did not specify Brexit links.

    I do realise this is a Brexit thread but thought he was widening the debate.

    I think the border in the sea issue will be changed.

    Not until and unless the UK moves towards a loser relationship with the EU
so long as NI remains UK territory, that is.

     

    This was discussed over pages and pages back in the day (pre-referendum and pre-actual Brexit): if the UK exits the EU, there *must* be a border between the UK and the EU *somewhere*.

     

    It was known as the Brexit Border Conundrum, and crystallised when Theresa May came up with her ‘red lines’.

     

     

    No FOM = No SM = Hard Brexit

    Hard Brexit = NI Hard Border

    NI Hard Border = End of GFA

    End of GFA ruled out by EU & UK

     

    EU said: (NI + SM) + (GB - SM) = GFA OK.

    But May said: GB = NI = No SM (GFA not OK).

     

    We know how that one ended up. NI leaving the Union and reunifying with Ireland would make all this moot (because NI would de facto (re)join the EU, in substantially the same way that the GDR joined the EEC when it reunited with Germany in 1990). But that notion is at least a good few years’ away, yet.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  19. 53 minutes ago, harvey19 said:

    The border they set up in the sea between the mainland and N. Ireland.

    Not finding a system sort out the problem with illegal immigrants arriving in the small boats.

    Not sorting out the care system and the N.H.S.
     We should train more doctors and nurses and other skills where there is a shortage. Do not charge them university fees but contract them to work a period of time in this country after qualifying.

    Not stopping the unfair disparity between who pays and who doesn’t pay for old age care.

    Not sorting out the illegal drug trade .

    Not dealing with protest groups who cause disruption after already using the same tactics to emphasise their point.

    Affordable housing which could be in the form of prefabs should have been increased.

     

    just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

     

    With the exception of the UK/NI sea border (which only arose because of Brexit, and which was unavoidable because of the GFA and the fact the Ireland was and remains an EU member state)


     

    
literally nothing out of your list has anything to do with EU membership, and all of it, has at all times been entirely within the scope of the government’s powers (edit: including before 2016).

     

    People can move on constructively from a bad mistake, but first they need to realise, and accept, that it was bad mistake, and choose to learn from it. The alternative is simply throwing ever more shovel-fulls of glitter on the turd: the story of Brexit over the last 7 years.

    • Thanks 1

  20. 13 hours ago, m williamson said:

    They'd definitely have been different but perhaps not in the way you imagine.

     

     

    Farage is an appalling shyster who helped to cause serious damage to this country for his own financial benefit and is now considering leaving. He'll have no problem settling anywhere in the EU as he has a German passport.

    https://skwawkbox.org/2019/04/23/farage-applied-for-german-passport-on-day-after-2016-referendum-and-did-not-deny-having-one/

     

    <
>

    He doesn’t, his application was turned down 😉
     

     

     

     

     


  21. 3 hours ago, harvey19 said:

    You fail to mention the NATO alliance which kept peace in Europe.

    We are an island not part of mainland Europe.

    I believe there was more to Brexit than simply economics.

    Our country's citizens allegiance is to our King and it is our politicians that should set our laws and regulations.

    Maybe simplistic in many peoples opinions but it is my opinion.

    I did not ‘fail’ to mention NATO, I chose to leave it out because I was writing a post, not a novel 😉

     

    I grew up with bi-annual wide scale exercises (with tanks and APCs laagering opposite our primary school) and low-flying after-burning jets passing every day, complete with sonic bangs (usually French mirages and German F4s and Alfajets), smack in the middle of the Cold War, so don’t think I’m unaware of the thing. But a defensive military alliance doesn’t do much to keep the peace long term, if there is not also good social-economic conditions about.

     

    You are an island indeed and so were lucky to never experience occupation or annexation. That experience is missing from your collective memory, to tone down your exceptionalism and foster internationalism. Ireland is also an island, and even further from the continent than the U.K., yet look at them in contrast.

     

    I don’t begrudge you a simplistic ‘black and white’ outlook on things: I’m just hoping to let you see some (more) shades of grey 😉


  22. 13 hours ago, m williamson said:

    Although I'm in the demographic age group that apparently voted Leave more than other and despite not being a fan of politicians in general of any nationality or persuasion I voted Remain. I did so for purely pragmatic reasons. It's the way the world works these days,  also I appreciated the fact that European trade blocs were the main reason for the longest period of peace between member states since Pax Romana, which ended over one thousand eight hundred years ago.

    My father served through WW2 his elder brother through WW1 and their first cousin has lain in his grave in Luke Copse War Cemetery in Serre France since 1916. He was 19 and neither my father or I ever had the chance to meet him. 

    I take a passing interest in politics because whether we like it or not it effects all our lives. I want a peacefull and happy life for my family and their offspring and everybody else.

    As a man I once saw at Sheffield City Hall said " I'm a dreamer, aren't we all ".

    I'm not in that demographic, I'm in the following generation.

     

    But born and grown up in that particular region of north eastern France, that was fought over by France and Germany thrice over a century , I have relatives (great grandparents, great uncles, great cousins, grandparents etc.) who were, over that period, forced into becoming German (1870 annexation), conscripted into the Kaiser's Army (WW1, they fled for the US, never to come back nor see their families again), dispossessed and force-evicted by Germans (1940 2nd annexation, becoming refugees in their own country until 1945), force-conscripted into the Wehrmacht (WW2...lucky not to be force-conscripted into the SS).

     

    My grandfather was a reservist lieutenant in 1940, recalled and posted to the Maginot line near the Alsace-Germany border. Abandoned by Army Command and as the French army was fighting a retreat along the Moselle-Alsace border going south, he walked his troops (all conscripts from the Paris area) back to their homes (180 miles as the crow flies), then walked back home himself (150 miles). He never talked about his war days, nor did his cousin about his Wehrmacht days. Well, we know why all too well these days.

     

    I know that he did some resistance stuff in LozÚre (where he was force-evicted to in late 1940, with my great grandmother and my great aunt, and  a single suitcase allowed between them 3), from research with Le Souvenir Francais (Resistance archives) over the years, but not in any details. Not surprised at that, he was quiet, soft-spoken and self-effacing like an accountant...but he ran the local gun club pre-war all the same ;) 

     

    Well, anyways...yes, to the surprise of absolutely noone on here, I'm a europhile. The above goes a good way to explain why, likewise my strong opinions on the topic, on Russia's aggression of Ukraine, on populists and similar snake oil peddlers, and on the hardening hard right that passes for the Conservatives these days.

     

    I don't resent Germans. At all. Today's Germans are no more responsible for all that happened in the late 19th and throughout the first half of the 20th century, than today's Brits, French, Spanyards, Portuguese <etc.> are responsible for yesteryear's empire-building, pillaging, slavery <etc.>. But I keep a good memory of what happened and how it happened, and so do most people my parent's age, my age and younger, born of the area (incl.cross-border). One of my most treasured possessions, is my great grandfather's English schoolbook (1899), intended for German kids instead of French kids (his family  was 'made' German at the 1870 annexation). 


  23. Quote

    Mr Adams added he believes the behaviour of those following the Sussexes was "reckless and irresponsible".

    Quote

    Harry, Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland were reportedly followed by half a dozen blacked-out vehicles which were being driven by unidentified people.

    The vehicles are said to have driven on pavements, jumped red lights and reversed down a one-way street.

    It has also been said at least one driver was using their phone behind the wheel.

    At least one other is reported to have been photographing while driving.

    One of the cars is said to have illegally blocked a moving vehicle.

    Those pursuing the Sussexes are said to have been confronted by uniformed police multiple times but continued their pursuit.

    But yeah, the Sussexes are ‘attention seeking’ and cause ‘drama wherever they go’ 🙄

    • Like 2
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