Decline and Fall

Jeremy Warner paints the high level picture of Blighty outside the EU thus far ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/10/02/cover-covid-bigger-shift-taking-place/

Throughout the pandemic, we have also seen another alarming plunge in business investment, far worse than anything witnessed on the Continent or in America. This may be related to Britain’s pending departure from the EU single market, but again it is something of an ongoing failing which has seen poor levels of investment in the UK economy over decades. The precise reasons for this deficiency are many and complex, but it is hard to resist the conclusion that at least some part of the immediate problem is the Government’s failure to articulate any kind of a plausible economic narrative for the UK’s post-Brexit future.

So all that Brexiteer talk: "It's far worse on the continent than here in Blighty" and "They're far more likely to go down than us", is BS.

After even 4 years of Brexit, Blighty still doesn't know what it wants to be: Entrepreneurial Economy and Liberty Society or Big State? ...

Amid today’s extreme levels of economic uncertainty, there are nevertheless at least two things we know for sure: one is that we are leaving the single market at the end of this year and the other is that in a year or two’s time the pandemic will be over. Both these certainties demand a response. Yet ministers – and firms – are still flailing around in a fog of unknowing. Are we to be a low-tax, lightly regulated, entrepreneurially led economy, or a big-state construct where much of the heavy lifting of economic growth is done via Keynesian-style public spending?

... And that's why investment is avoiding Blighty like the plague, according to Warner.

I think he's too generous.  I think capital knows exactly which way Blighty is going already before any formal announcements are made Jan 1st 2021 or after any "deal" that's done with the EU.

Exactly as I predicted Blighty has returned to type: that regressive blend of Captain Mainwaring and VI Lenin: Back to the 1970's.

Rishi Sunak is an implausible hope now, there's no light at the end of the tunnel.  The bumbling decline party of Captain Mainwarings will hand over to the BLM / Antifa party of VI Lenin's for the final fall.  My exact prophecy is near complete.

And the Brit peeps know it.  They've known it since Theresa May was elected and they've voted Remain in every poll bar one ever since - just look at the stats in those tables ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_the_United_Kingdom%27s_membership_of_the_European_Union_(2016%E2%80%932020)

Since then [Theresa May's election], opinion polls tended to show a plurality of support for remaining in the EU or for the view that Brexit was a mistake, with the estimated margin increasing until a small decrease in 2019 (to 53% Remain : 47% Leave, as of October 2019).

In the future history of the decline and fall of Blighty you, the Brexiteers, will be fingered as the cause.  The ones on the wrong side of Blighty's history.

SoD

Comments

[David Duff]

Just to set the record straight for anyone deluded by SoD's witterings, this was the result of a free and fair and open referendum on whether we should remain or leave the EU.

But - heh! - who cares about truth when you are a besotted 'Remainer'?

Votes %
Leave 17,410,742 51.89%
Remain 16,141,241 48.11%
Valid votes 33,551,983 99.92%

Invalid or blank votes 25,359 0.08%
Total votes 33,577,342 100.00%
Registered voters/turnout 46,500,001 72.21%

[Backofanenvelope]

What % think we should just get on with it?

[Loz]

Less than the % who think we should Remain.

The more I read about Rishi Sunak the more my hopes sink. His Freeport's are not really Freeport's but rather diminished versions thereof, like Foreign Trade Zones in the US ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/01/rishi-sunak-free-ports-thatcherism

Nothing but a full-on, all of Blighty, Freeport - a true Singapore-on-Thames - will compensate for loss of the single market, four freedoms, and state aid rules.

And he's happy to kill the gig economy with his IR35 legislation, apparently both he and BoJo directly bribed MP's by appealing to their own self-interest and against the will of their constituents ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.contractoruk.com/news/0014637boris_johnson_and_rishi_sunak_personally_intervened_stop_private_sector_ir35_reform_amendments.html%3famp

“And given what he [Mr Johnson] said [to me],” added the Conservative MP for Reigate without detailing what was said, “I decided to respect his personal appeal for support."

Astonishingly, Mr Blunt then confesses: “The prime minister’s favour is not something to be cast aside, and I can tell you in confidence that this will put me in a better position in future”.

Another piece of human refuse to add to all the others.

SoD

[Timbo]

It seems like it’s out of fashion to accept the results of a referendum and move on to take advantage of the “new reality”.

[AussieD]

Get a grip of yourself SoD.

[Glesga]

The EU Remain Erselickers have crawled to an unimaginable extent that is breathtaking in British history. It has certainly been an experience listening to scumbags who wished to sell our Country down the river. In saying this no one will miss them if they take the honourable route the Romans did.

[Mark Dobed]

And where exactly is the EU heading? I voted to leave because toytown Austria-Hungary is so manifestly circling the drain. Thank you remainiacs. It was your arrogance and hubris that gave us the chance.

The Euro, target 2 balances etc. How long can they go on kicking that can down the street? Do you seriously want to be at "the heart" of that when it goes off? (yes, yes I know. We aren't in the Euro but you have to be seriously, I mean SERIOUSLY deluded, to think we wouldn't have been bled white in the futile attempts to keep it together)

A 70s Britain, if that's what we become, lets concede your point for the sake of argument is immeasurably preferable to what they've got coming.

[FrankH]

"...voted Remain in every poll bar one ever since..."

Would that be the General Election last year? You know, the only poll that really matters?

[Loz]

"immeasurably preferable to what they've got coming."

The Euros have always "got something coming", that's the Ambrose "Cry Wolf" Evans-Pritchard decade and a half mantra.

Yet they're still standing. Each national problem (and they're all national problems, not problems of the EU's making - if you don't agree then give me an example of a problem that was of the EU's making?) batted into touch, the confederacy that "just works".

Even the Euro, that supposedly imbalanced multi-state currency system, works for one of the very reasons you give as a problem: Target2. Target2 means the Jerries are on the hook for the debt which keeps the markets happy, and keeps the Jerries holding the PIGS (remember them, don't hear so much about them now do we?) feet to the austerity fire.

When a bankrupt Blighty presents itself to the EU for the second time, as a whole or either broken in pieces, I hope the terms force us into the Euro from the get go, not just Maggie's single market, four freedoms and state aid rules, for Blighty alone is ungovernable without an empire to suck the pols out of the homeland. That's the sad truth.

The missing part of Blighty's constitution is that part which stops the relentless expansion of the state that degrades and destroys everything in its path, and empire was the stopgap that flattered to deceive that Blighty had a constitution that constrained its pols. So Blighty was left vulnerable to their incompetence, criminal negligence and abuse when they all came back 1945-75.

It's not something that should be left to party politics, party politics will always expand the state: blue, yellow and red socialists will always dominate their respective parties and outbid each other in a race to the bottom with your money.

We had the second stopgap, the missing part of Blighty's constitution, with Maggie's single market, four freedoms and state aid rules: the straitjacket on statism, collectivism and socialism.

And you threw that straitjacket away 23rd June 2016, and now the lunatics are quite literally running the asylum.

Why did you think it would be any different from the 1970's? What magical change to the British psyche has happened since that means Maggie's reforms and righting of Blighty would survive and thrive without the EU treaty?

Was it Tony Blair's sending a generation of young people to "university" to sit infront of a Marxist for 3 years, "studying" greats like "social science" and "media studies"?

Was it the BBC and state school teachers brainwashing the entire population into leaning out of the window on a Thursday night and applauding the institution that just massacred 60,000 of them in one hit, after routinely starving and dehydrating to death 10,000 elderly and vulnerable people to death for years, like Auschwitz Jews voluntarily applauding the camp commandant on a roll call?

Was it the state social services that handed 1300 vulnerable girls over to paedophile rape gangs and increased the rate of paedophile reoffending by 8% using cognitive behavioural therapy as a "treatment" (graduates of "social science", no doubt), with none of them jailed, all forgotten and swept under the carpet, and the public offered no change, no alternative, in the fake democracy we operate?

Tell me which of those things that were left to the nation state to run in Blighty over the years we were in the EU that have improved and developed the nation to understand what made us fail 1945-75, namely, the unfettered expansion of the state?

If you can find even one example that this island hasn't degraded in the national responsibilities that were left to it in the EU treaty you might have a leg to stand on in arguing that Blighty will make a go of it and fare better than 1945-75.

And as said, give me one example of a challenge the EU solved that wasn't the result of a nation state problem, in fact, the result of some deficiency in the constraint of the state by an EU member's constitution just like Blighty, that needed the confederacy to remedy?

Over to you.

SoD

[Loz]

FrankH, in the last election the electorate voted anti-Corbyn as a priority, and that drowned out the issue of Brexit.

And don't get your hopes up that this was some Thatcherite revival, BoJo made it plain: I'm a "Brexity Hezza" and "F*ck business". The peeps voted blue socialism against red socialism, that was the priority.

The poll that was "bar one" in favour of Brexit was March this year when the Brit peeps thought the EU had dropped a bollock in decentralising the Covid response to the nation-states.

The Brit peeps were soon to find out that a centralised response was the absolutely wrong thing to do as Blighty massacred 60,000 of its own people with that exact strategy.

Meanwhile the EU's decentralised strategy performed much better across the EU states on average, and Brits quickly returned to voting Remain in all the polls since that one aberration.

The Brits so want to believe that they can make it alone, it's like the English with their hopeless football team, we raise our hopes at each new competition only to see them dashed as we are outplayed by Johnny Foreigner.

Blighty's constitution is broken by design, and until the missing piece of state restraint is in place then only tricks and stopgaps will prevent us becoming the Venezuela of Europe - again.

With the psyche of Britain as it is there is no hope of such a change to complete the missing piece of Blighty's constitution. We have to rely on tricks and stopgaps - exactly what Maggie did when she threw the torch of the single market, four freedoms and state aid to Brussels and gave Blighty's peeps the most prosperous and free 30 years in her 2500 island history.

SoD

[Mark Dobed]

@SoD

Dearie me, hit a a nerve there!

So what actually is the EU and what is it for then?

[Loz]

I'll answer that if you or anyone else on D&N can answer my two questions posited above first, again ...

1. Give an example of a problem the EU has faced that wasn't a nation state problem, but rather was of the EU's own making?

2. Give an example of any nation state responsibility that was left in the hands of Blighty while a member of the EU that hasn't degraded or, if new, been a failure?

SoD

[Mark Dobed]

@SoD

1. The Euro

2. How about setting our own interest rates?

I've answered. Please return the courtesy and answer the question you were asked. Don't comment on 1 or 2 above as an excuse not to.

[Loz]

A Confederate treaty that fills the blanks and deficiencies in its member states' constitutions and offers another weapon in the armoury of the individual against state power.

SoD

[Loz]

Now ...

1. The Euro is not a problem it's a solution. The fiscally incontinent PIGS were the problem and the Euro the solution.

2. All privatisations and hivings-off to independence are excluded. That's the point. I'm talking about the ones that were left under the control of the nation state of Blighty.

SoD

[FrankH]

"The Brits so want to believe that they can make it alone, it's like the English with their hopeless football team, we raise our hopes at each new competition only to see them dashed as we are outplayed by Johnny Foreigner."

A poor analogy. The England football team is 5th in the current world rankings and is fairly consistently in the top 10. Every four years there is a competition which is usually won by one of the teams in the top 10. By its nature, only one team can win.

Britain "making it alone" in the world is nothing like that. For one thing, many countries can win, although if your defeatist attitude is reflected in the rest of the population and our government, you might be right.

[Mark Dobed]

"A Confederate treaty that fills the blanks and deficiencies in its member states' constitutions and offers another weapon in the armoury of the individual against state power".

Well that's me told then!

"The Euro is the solution, not the problem"

Yes of course it is!!

[Loz]

The slaughter of Brits continues, and I'm not talking Covid, I'm talking "Protect the NHS and f*ck the people" ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/04/everypatient-nhs-hospital-waiting-lists-reassessed-lockdown/

"Every patient on NHS hospital waiting lists will be reassessed, under a national review, with many who have already endured long waits sent to the back of the queue, The Daily Telegraph can reveal."

Meanwhile Norway with its independently operated and competitive health service causes the state to have to bailout funeral directors because not enough people are dying this year ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8525679/amp/Norways-coronavirus-success-leaves-funeral-homes-struggling.html

If you aren't utterly gobsmacked at the mini-Auschwitz operating in plain view in Blighty and the populace who lean out of their windows and applaud it, then you're bandage short of a first aid kit.

SoD

[Loz]

Amnesty International demands a public enquiry into the criminally negligent massacre instigated by Blighty's state releasing elderly patients infected with Covid from hospitals and back into care homes ...

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/10/uk-older-people-in-care-homes-abandoned-to-die-amid-government-failures-during-covid-19-pandemic/

Presumably Brexiteers will be telling Amnesty to mind their own business, another external governance and oversight body the "take back control" mob want off the case while they torture my country to death?

SoD

[Loz]

The omni-shambles continues, so glad we "took back control" ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/05/boris-johnson-margaret-ferrier-jobseekers-scheme-brexit-latest/

Matt Hancock is being hauled in front of MPs to give a statement this afternoon, after a technical "glitch" led to almost 16,000 Covid-19 cases going unreported.

The Government was this morning unable to say how many contacts of people infected with coronavirus have not been asked to self-isolate, as a minister pointed the finger of blame at Public Health England.

Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the problem was being rectified "so we can get those contacts potentially into the system" and contacted "as is appropriate".

But the Cabinet minister was unable to say how many potential close contacts have not been traced, telling BBC Breakfast: "I'm afraid I just don't have that information."

Asked if they have now been contacted, she said: "I know that people who had the initial results have all been contacted, I don't know the answer to that question."

Ms Coffey added: "We can't change the recent history, PHE will make sure that this sort of error doesn't happen again but they did pick up this error and I think they've acted quickly to rectify it."

The Health Secretary is expected in the Commons from around 3:30pm, after Labour branded this latest crisis "shambolic".

SoD

[Mark Dobed]

@SoD

This has got nothing to to with "brexiteers", Boris, the EU or anything else.

You clearly have some sort of personal issue!

[Jack the dog]

SoD - I think you're taking the "NONSENSE" part of the blog's title rather too seriously.

You might want to lie down in a darkened room for a bit.

[Loz]

So it was an Excel copy/paste error ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/10/05/excel-error-led-16000-missing-coronavirus-cases/

A technical error with an Excel spreadsheet is believed to have caused 16,000 cases of coronavirus to be missed from national tallies, causing a "shambolic" delay to tracing efforts.

The entire country's Covid test and trace is being run by a civil servant with an Excel spreadsheet.

Say the R rate is 1.3 ...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk

... and the Infection Fatality Ratio is 0.3% ...

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/estimating-the-infection-fatality-ratio-in-england/

... then the consequent deaths from just the first "hop" of people infected due to this error is 16000 x 1.3 x 0.003 = 62.4.

Another 62 dead due to John "Butterfingers" Smith in the NHS Test and Trace admin department.

If you can't see the connection between this relentless institutionalised criminal negligence and a manic desire not to hand the criminally negligent ones any more "take back control", then you're cell short of a workbook.

SoD

[Andrew Rainsford]

Timbo - I agree with you which is why I respect the result of the first referendum - you know, the one that caused 40 years of civil war in the Tory party, allied with Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner, because they would not accept the result.